*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

Civil servants fall every day in Iraq

They die now so often that their names, even their jobs, escape us. Judge Barwez Mohammed Mahmoud was shot dead along with his son -- so often, the sons die with their fathers -- as he left his home last week. He was a lawyer working on the special tribunal set up to try Saddam Hussein and his henchmen for crimes against humanity.

A judge, before a senior police officer in Mosul, police chiefs, government clerks, economists from the Ministry of Finance, junior civil servants -- "collaborators" in the eyes of the ruthless men who are destroying so much of the infrastructure of "new" Iraq -- fall almost every day to the insurrection.

What makes them do these jobs? They know, these men and women, they are going to be called collaborators by their enemies. They know, too, they can be betrayed by those who work with them. Repeatedly in Baghdad, I have visited the location of these ambushes, only to find that the cops and officials who were targeted were taking a new route to their offices, driving a different car, leaving from a different house. And almost always, they are killed.

One government official who survived a car bombing in northern Baghdad told me that the day his convoy was attacked, he had arranged two new routes to his office. The first was the route he took, the second an emergency road on which he would drive if he felt insecure. A suicide bomber blew himself up on the first road as the convoy approached, killing some of the official's bodyguards. His men later found a bomb hidden on the second road -- just in case he changed his mind. There could be only one reason: He was betrayed by those he worked with.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq's thin (and blurred) blue line

We make our way across town to the Ministry of Human rights, hoping to find out more. "There is torture going on, even in prisons run by the Ministry of Interior," says Saad Sultan, one of the top lawyers at the ministry. "We are not allowed to monitor the interrogations. It's the way it was before the war.

"The training courses [for police] are brief. They only train them for a few days because of the security situation," Sultan said. "They replaced human rights training with self-defense."

The US military, as well as Defense Department contractors, are responsible for much of the training. Nonetheless, Sultan shoots for a silver lining. "But at least now we have laws forbidding torture," he says. "I think it is an individual problem, and not the orders of the government."

To be fair, consider for a moment what the police are up against. The conflict has become a personal one for them — they lost at least 1300 officers to insurgent attacks in 2004 and will likely lose more this year. Rarely do I have an audience with any officer who doesn't urge me to write about "the way the terrorists are cutting the heads off police officers."

A visit to any police station finds an increasingly angry and combative force. At the Amariyah station, which deals with the most serious crimes in Baghdad, police complain that the US military takes some of their top suspects out of their custody and occasionally releases them. A MOI source told me some US military units do indeed to this in hopes release will lead them to bigger figures within the resistance. But it is an extremely disappointing practice for police.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Recent crackdown has paralyzed insurgent cell, leader admits

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The back alleys and dense apartment buildings of Baghdad's Haifa Street once were all the protection that Saad Jameel needed after he lobbed grenades at Iraqi policemen or fired machine-gun rounds at American convoys. He'd strike at will, dip into a warren of bullet-pocked storefronts and hide among neighbors he's known all his life. Confident and safe, Jameel sometimes chuckled as the troops he'd just ambushed fired blindly at an attacker who was long gone.

One day last month, however, Jameel's name turned up on a most-wanted list broadcast on al Iraqiya, Iraq's state-run television channel. He was amazed at how much the authorities knew about him: his leadership of an insurgent cell on Haifa Street, his involvement in a string of attacks on Iraqi security forces, even his aliases. Jameel's safe zone crumbled as the U.S. and Iraqi forces he'd battled went on the offensive with patrols, mass arrests and a hot line for informants. He fled his neighborhood, his cell was paralyzed and half his men were taken into custody.

For the first time, Jameel conceded in an interview earlier this week with Knight Ridder, insurgents along Baghdad's meanest street are feeling squeezed. "Four of my partners were captured, and they told the police my name during confessions," Jameel said, shaking his head. "Our cell was raided, our top guy is in American custody, and I told my men to tell people looking for me that I'm in Egypt. We're lying low, but we're still ready."

The disruption of Jameel's cell - as well as the recent arrests of suspected financiers, kidnappers and gunmen - has brought an uneasy calm to Haifa Street. This week, schoolgirls skipped home from class yards from where three Iraqi election workers were executed in morning traffic just a few weeks ago. Old graffiti that read "Long live the resistance!" was joined by freshly painted slogans such as "The Iraqi Army is the People's Army." Not a single American or Iraqi soldier was in sight.

 

[Barking_Mad]

After temporary gains, Marines leave Iraqi cities

HIT, IRAQ - Walking in from the desert before dawn, the marines entering the ancient city of Hit bristled with armaments. Flak jackets bulged with extra ammo clips. Packs were heavy with spare mortar rounds and grenades. Many of the men recalled the last time they entered the city in October, calling it a miracle that none was killed in a determined insurgent ambush.

Yet pulling out of the city five days later, every one of those mortars and grenades remained intact. The 250 marines, most from Bravo Company of the 1st Marine Division's 23rd Regiment out of Houston, had fired fewer than 100 rifle rounds. There were few signs of the fighters that made Forward Operating Base Hit one of the most mortared US positions in Iraq (news - web sites).

It was much the same story in a recent Marine offensive across Anbar Province, the center of Iraq's insurgency. As part of "River Blitz," Marines took over trouble-spots like Hit, Haditha, Baghdadi, and Ramadi with hardly any shots being fired. But from the upper ranks to the most junior boots on the ground, few believe the relative ease of this operation means the insurgency in Anbar is over. Instead, the militants are fleeing before the marines arrive, only to return when the marines withdraw. The temporary nature of the Marine takeovers is hampering US efforts to get local cooperation on security.

"They called it River Blitz, but it's been more like operation River Dance,'' says Sgt. Bob Grandfield, from Boston. "This is what insurgents are supposed to do. Run away when we come in. If they fight, they know we'll just kill them."

"They're very perceptive, not stupid at all, and they probably saw tanks were moved here. So they left,'' says Lt. Col Stephen Dinauer from Verona, Wisc, commander of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, which headed up operations in Hit. "It's frustrating, because we can't be everywhere at once." While acknowledging that most top insurgents probably fled prior to the assault, Colonel Dinauer still rates operations in Hit (pronounced Heat) a success. About 40 men were detained, and a number of weapons caches were uncovered.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US army held eight-year-old in Iraq prison

Children held by the United States army at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison included one boy who appeared to be only about eight years old, the former commander of the prison has told investigators, according to a transcript.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Number of Iraqi dead in 2005

Not having much to do at work, I went through http://www.icasualties.org/oif/ database of news stories and compiled a list of the reported deaths of Iraqis from the 1st January to the 10th March. Bearing in mind these are by no means complete, I arrived at a total of at least 1,763 dead in just 69 days.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Missed this first time around.......from the 10th March.

International group of doctors blast official toll of Iraqi civil dead

PARIS (AFP) - A group of top public-health physicians has branded the official toll of civilian dead from the Iraqi war as a serious underestimate and demanded an independent probe to establish the full casualty figures. Their statement is published this Saturday in the weekly British Medical Journal (BMJ) as the second anniversary of the war looms on March 20. It marks a fresh attempt by medical campaigners to establish the number of Iraqi civilian casualties after a rough estimate of 100,000 dead, made by epidemiologists last October, was brushed aside by the British government.

"Monitoring casualties is a humanitarian imperative," the statement said. "Understanding the causes of death is a core public-health responsibility, nationally and internationally.

"Yet neither the public, nor we as public-health professionals, are able to obtain validated, reliable information about the extent of mortality and morbidity since the invasion of Iraq (news - web sites)."

The statement is signed by 23 leading specialists from five countries (the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and Spain), led by Klim McPherson, a visiting professor of epidemiology at the University of Oxford. The doctors pour scorn on the sole official toll, compiled by the Iraqi ministry of health. This lists 3,853 civilian deaths and 15,517 injuries during the first six months of the war, the BMJ said separately in a news report. The signatories complained that the ministry is "likely seriously to underestimate" the toll, as it only includes violence-related deaths that are officially reported through the health system, nor mortality from non-violent causes.

The October 2004 estimate of around 100,000 civilian deaths, published in the British journal The Lancet, was based on interviews among people in 988 households who were asked about deaths among their families. The figures were then extrapolated nationally. The deaths were caused mainly by violence (with coalition air strikes the biggest attributed sources), as well as additional cases of fatal heart attack, stroke, neo-natal death and infectious disease inflicted by the conflict, The Lancet study said. Its authors said it was a useful, and conservatively derived, estimate but acknowledged its limitations, both in the number of interviews and the conditions in which the questions were made. The British Foreign Office described The Lancet figures as unreliable and said it had no legal responsibility under the Geneva Convention to count civilian casualties, a position also taken by its ally, the United States.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Rough Iraqi death total this year stands at 1,815

 

[nino_savatte]

Italy to pull troops out of Iraq...

...in September
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4352259.stm

 

[bigfish]

Channel 4 news: Italy to begin withdrawing troops from September - Berlisconi

 

[Barking_Mad]

US Troops shoot Deputy Commander of Iraqi Army

The deputy commander of the Iraqi army in western Al-Anbar province was shot dead by US troops at a checkpoint Tuesday night, a police officer said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq 'facing corruption threat'

Oil reserve management needs more transparency, the report says
The reconstruction of post-war Iraq is in danger of becoming "the biggest corruption scandal in history", Transparency International has warned.
The anti-corruption body said urgent steps were needed to ensure that corruption did not become endemic. Publishing its annual report, TI said there was evidence of "high levels" of corruption in post-war Iraq.

The Iraqi government, coalition forces and foreign donors must be more "aggressive" on corruption, it said.

'Strong measures'

Foreign contractors should be bound by anti-corruption laws while the management of Iraq's oil revenues needed to be much more transparent and accountable, Transparency International said in its Global Corruption Report 2005.

"Strong and immediate measures must be taken to address corruption before the real spending on reconstruction starts," it said.

Iraq has so far failed to learn the lessons of post-war reconstruction in Cambodia, Congo and Afghanistan, TI said, where a combination of weak government, thriving black markets, and a legacy of patronage allowed corruption to flourish.

Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, bribery has taken place at all levels of government while officials within the Coalition Provisional Authority, contractors and ministry staff have admitted to corruption.

According to Transparency International, the former regime's control of the economy left a legacy of corruption which survived its collapse.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Report: 108 Died In U.S. Custody

Some 65,000 prisoners have been taken during the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At least 108 people have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, most of them violently, according to government data provided to The Associated Press. Roughly a quarter of those deaths have been investigated as possible abuse by U.S. personnel. The figure, far higher than any previously disclosed, includes cases investigated by the Army, Navy, CIA and Justice Department. Some 65,000 prisoners have been taken during the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, although most have been freed.

The Pentagon has never provided comprehensive information on how many prisoners taken during the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have died, and the 108 figure is based on information supplied by Army, Navy and other government officials. It includes deaths attributed to natural causes. To human rights groups, the deaths form a clear pattern.

"Despite the military's own reports of deaths and abuses of detainees in U.S. custody, it is astonishing that our government can still pretend that what is happening is the work of a few rogue soldiers," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "No one at the highest levels of our government has yet been held accountable for the torture and abuse, and that is unacceptable."

To the Pentagon, each death is a distinct case, meriting an investigation but not attributable to any single faulty military policy. Pentagon officials point to a number of military investigations which found that no policy condoned abuse. Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. John Skinner said the military has taken steps to reduce the chance of violent uprisings at its prisons and the use of excessive force by soldiers, and also has improved the health care available to prisoners.

"The military has dramatically improved detention operations, everything from increased oversight and improved facilities to expanded training and the availability of state-of-the-art medical care," he said in a statement.

Pentagon 'hid' damning Halliburton audit

The Pentagon stood accused of sitting on a damaging report from its own auditors on a $108.4m (£56.6m) overcharge by Halliburton for its services in Iraq yesterday. In a scathing letter to George Bush, Democratic congressmen Henry Waxman of California and John Dingell of Michigan said the Defence Contract Audit Agency's audit was completes last October - before the election. They also note that 12 separate requests to the Pentagon to view the completed audits on the contractor's $2.5bn contract to supply fuel and other services in post-war Iraq had been ignored.

"We would like to know why this audit report - and audit reports on nine additional task orders - are being withheld from Congress," they wrote. "We also want to know what steps you are taking to recover these funds from Halliburton."

In a second public letter yesterday, Mr Waxman accused Bush administration officials of deliberately withholding information on overcharges by Halliburton from UN auditors - at its behest. Some $1.6bn of the $2.5bn Halliburton contract was funded from Iraqi oil revenues overseen by the UN.

"The evidence suggests that the US used Iraqi oil proceeds to overpay Halliburton and then sought to hide the evidence of these overcharges from the international auditors," the letter says. The audit, released by the congressmen on Monday, offers the most definitive glimpse so far of overbilling by Halliburton, once run by the vice president, Dick Cheney. In the most startling transaction, it charged the Pentagon $27.5m to ship $82,100 worth of cooking and heating fuel to Iraq from Kuwait - 335 times the actual cost of the liquified petroleum gas, a charge the Pentagon auditors said was "illogical".

 

[Barking_Mad]

US officials fudging Iraq army numbers

US commanders and Bush Administration officials are overstating the number of Iraqi security forces on duty, providing an inaccurate picture of the so-called training mission that is the US military's "exit strategy" in Iraq, a government audit agency has reported.

The Pentagon in its latest figures said 142,000 Iraqis had been trained as police and soldiers. But the Government Accountability Office said on Monday this figure included tens of thousands of Iraqi policemen who left their jobs with no explanation.

The office also said the State Department six months ago ceased providing auditors with information about the number of Iraqi troops issued flak vests, weapons and communications equipment.

The unreliability of the data coming from Baghdad made it difficult to provide an accurate accounting of the billions of dollars the US Government is spending to train and equip Iraq's army and police force, an official told a congressional committee.

"Without reliable information, Congress may find it difficult to judge how federal funds are achieving the goal of transferring security responsibilities to the Iraqis," Joseph Christoff, the office's director of international affairs and trade, told the House Government Reform subcommittee on international relations.


AdvertisementAlthough the Defence Department has conducted several internal evaluations of the US training mission in Iraq, the office is the first government agency to challenge as inflated the figures the Pentagon uses to chart the progress of Iraqi troops.

Specifically, the office criticised the Pentagon's decision to include in its totals of trained and equipped Iraqi troops "tens of thousands" of police officers absent without leave. The most recent Pentagon figures show nearly 82,000 Iraqis have gone through US police training.

"If you are reporting AWOLs in your numbers, I think there's some inaccuracy in your reporting," Mr Christoff said after the hearing.

 

[Barking_Mad]

For a little cash, Iraq insurgents can join police

BAGHDAD, March 10 (Reuters) - All an insurgent needs to join the Iraqi police force and plot the assassination of officers struggling to bring order is a little cash. "They just pay some money, get a uniform and a pistol and a salary then kill who they want," a police official who asked to remain anonymous told Reuters.

"Some who are suspected leave after a month and others just stay in the police force getting information on police officers' movements and sharing it with other insurgents." Hundreds of Iraqi policemen and soldiers have been killed in bombings and ambushes since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. Some of those attacks were planned by guerrillas who managed to infiltrate Iraqi forces expected to take over the battle against guerrillas when U.S. troops leave.

Some gain access to police operations. Others pose as policemen at fake checkpoints where they stop their victims then shoot them, execution-style.In a typical assassination, insurgents in police uniforms stopped the chief of a central Baghdad police station at a fake checkpoint on Thursday, asked his name and shot him along with two other policemen. An insurgent filmed the killing of the officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Obeis.

Reuters Television footage showed his weeping brother picking up a shoe from a pool of blood in the back of the pick up truck after the attack. "God what have you done?" he yelled. "God what have you done?"

The police official, a member of the force for 15 years, said widespread corruption and lax screening of job applicants had enabled insurgents to carry out numerous inside jobs.

The police force had become so murky that it was difficult to determine who was wearing police uniforms, he said.

"During Saddam's time the intelligence people would track down and prosecute any policeman who was just a few days late returning from a holiday. Now there are few controls," he said.

"Policemen sell the insurgents information on officers for five thousand dollars. Six days ago a policeman sold two officers who were shot and he is still among us. They know his name is Haidar but no one knows what he looks like."

Both foreign Muslim militants and Saddam loyalists are blamed for attacks.

"We recently caught three Syrians posing as policemen at a checkpoint. They had maps," said the police official.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US Army seeks longer enlistments as recruitment falters

WASHINGTON, District of Columbia, United States of America -- The US Army has asked Congress to allow it to extend enlistment contracts offered to future soldiers by two years in order to "stabilize the force," as top defense officials warned that key recruitment targets for the year could be missed.
The request came as the House of Representatives on Wednesday put its stamp of approval on an 81.4-billion-dollar supplemental spending bill that contains new benefits for US troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the new money notwithstanding, Army Deputy Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Franklin Hagenbeck told a House subcommittee that yearly recruitment goals for the Army reserve and the National Guard were "at risk."

"In the manning area, we need Congress to change the maximum enlistment time from six years to eight years in order to help stabilize the force for longer periods of time," Hagenbeck went on to say.

The appeal coincided with the release of a new congressional report that showed that the intensifying anti-American insurgency in Iraq and continued violence in Afghanistan were followed by a distinct drop in the number of volunteers willing to serve in the branches of the military that see the most combat. The Army reserve and Army National Guard respectively met only 87 percent and 80 percent of their overall recruiting goals in the first quarter of fiscal 2005, according to the study by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

The Air Force Reserve attained 91 percent of its target, the Air National Guard 71 percent and the Navy Reserve 77 percent. The shortfalls could potentially have a noticeable effect on units operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and surrounding areas because, according to defense officials, reservists and guardsmen make up about 46 percent of the total force deployed there. Recruitment problems are beginning to dog even active duty units that have not experienced them in a long time. The Marine Corps, whose reputation for efficiency and toughness has always helped it attract ambitious young men and women, missed its goal by 84 recruits in January and another 192 in February for the first time in 10 years, the GAO report said.

"There is no disputing the fact that the force is facing challenges," acknowledged Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Charles Abell.

..............Still, Army reserve commander Lieutenant General James Helmly warned in January that with lengthy and grueling deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, the reserve is rapidly turning into "a broken force" and may not be able to meet its operational requirements in the future.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq insurgency has worsened: US intelligence

Though US President George W Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have been giving the impression that the insurgency situation in Iraq is improving, the American Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), which monitors the situation daily, says it has worsened. "The insurgency in Iraq has grown in size and complexity over the past year. Attacks numbered approximately 25 per day one year ago," DIA Director Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby told the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington.

"Attacks on Iraq's election day reached approximately 300, almost double the previous one day high of about 160 during last year's Ramadan. Since the January 30 election, attacks have averaged around 60 per day and in the 1st two weeks dropped to approximately 50 per day," Jacoby said. The pattern of attacks, he said, remains the same as last year. Approximately 80 per cent of all attacks occur in Sunni-dominated central Iraq. The vice admiral also pointed out that multiple polls show favourable ratings for the US in the Muslim world "at all-time lows. A large majority of Jordanians oppose the War on Terrorism and believe that Iraqis will be 'worse off' in the long term."

$225 Billion and No Exit Plan

President George W. Bush has now asked Congress and the U.S. taxpayers for the fourth time in two years for more money to fight the Iraq War. This time the request is for $82 billion, the highest amount requested so far. But more striking than the dollar amount is that Mr. Bush, for the fourth time, has failed to present a strategy for success in Iraq.

Lacking such a plan, Americans and Iraqis will "stay the course" and in the process, suffer more deaths, fail to rebuild a war-torn country, and put the United States into further debt. Just as any Fortune 500 company formulates a business plan, U.S. taxpayers – or "business investors" – should expect no less from their government.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US frees Iraqi kidnappers so they can spy on insurgents

US intelligence and military police officers in Iraq are routinely freeing dangerous criminals in return for a promise to spy on insurgents, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

In one case where the IoS has seen documents, police rescued a doctor after a gun battle with his kidnappers and arrested two of the kidnap gang, who made full confessions. But US military police took over custody of the two men and let them go. The doctor had to flee to Egypt after being threatened by the gang. The police station where the men were held recorded that they had been handed over to an American military police lieutenant for transfer to the US-run Camp Cuervo detention centre. But an American military spokesman told the IoS that there was no record of the two prisoners in their database.

"The Americans are allowing the breakdown of Iraqi society because they are only interested in fighting the insurgency," said a senior Iraqi police officer. "We are dealing with an epidemic of kidnapping, extortion and violent crime, but even though we know the Americans monitor calls on mobiles and satellite phones, which are often used in ransom negotiations, they will not pass on any criminal intelligence to us. They only want to use the information against insurgents."

An Iraqi government source confirmed that criminal suspects were often released if they agreed to inform on insurgents, despite the dangers to ordinary Iraqis. The Iraqi middle class has been heavily targeted by kidnappers since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Many doctors, a favourite target, and businessmen have fled to Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The police admit that they have been unable to do anything to stop the wave of abductions.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi Commandos Seize Insurgent Base After Battle

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraqi police commandos, backed by U.S. troops, seized a suspected insurgent training camp north of Baghdad after an intense battle which left several dead, U.S. and Iraqi officials said on Wednesday.
The specialist commando unit attacked the militant camp, near a lake about 100 miles northwest of Baghdad, on Tuesday morning. After encountering heavy rebel fire, the commandos called for U.S. air and ground reinforcements.

"An early assessment of the site indicates a facility for training anti-Iraqi forces," said Major Richard Goldenberg, spokesman for the U.S. 42nd Infantry Division, using the U.S. military's term for insurgents.

"Documentation at the facility indicates that some members of the AIF were foreign fighters," he said.

Seven Iraqi police commandos were killed in the fighting and six were wounded, Goldenberg said. There were no details on how many insurgents were killed or wounded. No U.S. soldiers were wounded or killed. An Iraqi source at a U.S.-Iraqi joint command center in nearby Tikrit said 80 insurgents and 11 commandos were killed in the battle, which he said went on for more than 12 hours. There was no independent confirmation of any of those details.

Goldenberg said the battle lasted less than two hours.

Notices posted on the Internet by the Islamic Party of Tikrit, a local insurgent operation, said 11 militants had been killed, while they had killed "many more" police commandos. Specialist Iraqi police units, frequently backed by U.S. troops, have been stepping up operations against insurgents in recent weeks. In an incident earlier this week, U.S. troops killed 26 insurgents after an ambush south of Baghdad.

 

[Barking_Mad]

U.S. ponders meaning of fewer attacks

BAGHDAD - The number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq has plummeted recently and attacks on American troops have dropped significantly, prompting U.S. military officials to wonder whether to hail the drop-off as a sign of success or brace for renewed attacks later. At the same time, many Iraqis are alarmed by a rise in attacks on Iraqi civilians and security personnel. They fear that the war is turning inward, toward more intense sectarian violence that could lead to civil war.

If the trend continues, March - with 22 U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire so far - will be the least deadly month since February 2004, when the figure was 14, according to icasualties.org, a Web site that tracks coalition military deaths in Iraq. By way of contrast, 54 American soldiers were killed by hostile fire in January and 125 last November. The number of attacks on U.S. troops since Iraq's Jan. 30 elections is hovering at about 50 a week, far below that of the period around elections and about 10 fewer than what had become the norm, American officials say.

Insurgents "may have come to the realization that hitting the (U.S.) military targets isn't particularly effective. We're still here," said a top American military spokesman in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Steven Boylan, who pointed to the elections, the growing competence of Iraqi security forces and several decisive U.S. military offenses during the past year as factors.

There's also been a string of high-profile captures of insurgent leaders and a recent stretch of heavy rains, which probably kept some fighters - lacking the technological advantages of American soldiers - at home. Like other military officials in Baghdad, however, Boylan stopped short of saying the insurgency had been routed.

"It's less effective," he said. "That's my perception."

But interviews with a wide range of Iraqis - including analysts, merchants, professors, soldiers, clerics and politicians - indicated concern that the violence is shifting toward a fight between religious sects. They said many neighborhoods were being effectively divided between Shiite Muslim and Sunni Muslim enclaves, and that January's parliamentary elections, which Shiites and Kurds embraced but Sunnis generally boycotted, underscored Iraq's divisions.

.........

"This is the start of dividing the country; this is the start of a bigger civil war. The election in Iraq emphasized the sectarian divide of the Iraqi people," said Ghassan al Atiyyah, a lecturer at Baghdad University and a secular Shiite politician. "It is a time of militias."

One illegal arms dealer said he was selling more weapons to Shiites looking to protect themselves from Sunnis.

"The demand these days is very high," said Abu Mohammed, 53, who operates out of a series of Baghdad safe houses. As he spoke, two of his young sons brought out a jumble of AK-47s from a sugar bag.

"We have many political and religious groups, and each one wants to build its own security forces," said Mohammed, who spoke on condition that his full name not be used.Hours after that interview this week, Mohammed's driveway was full of cars. A sedan pulled up, and men unloaded crates of weapons from its trunk. Business looked brisk.

While U.S. officials in Baghdad once released figures showing numbers of civilians killed by insurgents, they aren't currently doing so. A senior American military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that as deaths of U.S. soldiers have dropped, there's been a post-election rise in attacks on Iraqi civilians and security forces.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fed-up Iraqis fight insurgent patrol - Shopkeeper, kin kill 3 militants prepared for battle

Baghdad -- Ordinary Iraqis rarely strike back at the insurgents who terrorize their country. But just before noon Tuesday a carpenter named Dhia saw a troop of masked gunmen with grenades coming toward his shop here and decided he had had enough. As the gunmen emerged from their cars, Dhia and his young relatives shouldered their Kalashnikov rifles and opened fire, the police and witnesses said. In the fierce gun battle that followed, three of the insurgents were killed, and the rest fled just after the police arrived. Two of Dhia's nephews and a bystander were wounded, the police said.

"We attacked them before they attacked us," said Dhia, 35, his face still contorted with rage and excitement, as he stood barefoot outside his home a few hours after the battle, a 9mm pistol in his hand. He would not give his last name.

"We killed three of those who call themselves the mujahedeen," he said. "I am waiting for the rest of them to come, and we will show them."

It was the first time that private citizens are known to have retaliated successfully against insurgents. The gunbattle erupted in full view of at least a dozen witnesses, including a Justice Ministry official who lives nearby. The battle was the latest sign that Iraqis may be willing to start standing up against the attacks that leave dozens dead here nearly every week. After a suicide bombing in Hilla last month that killed 136 people, including a number of women and children, hundreds of residents demonstrated in front of the city hall every day for almost a week, chanting slogans against terrorism. Last week, a smaller but similar rally took place in Baghdad's al-Firdos Square. Another demonstration in the capital is scheduled for today.

Like many of the attacks in Iraq, Tuesday's fight had sectarian overtones. Dhia and his family are Shiite Arabs, and they cook for religious festivals at the Shiite Husseiniya mosque across from his shop. The insurgents are largely Sunni Arabs, and they have aimed dozens of attacks at Shiite figures, celebrations and even funerals.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Death at 'immoral' picnic in the park - Students are beaten to death for playing music as Shia militiamen run amok

The students had begun to lay out their picnic in the spring sunshine when the men attacked.
“There were dozens of them, armed with guns, and they poured into the park,” Ali al-Azawi, 21, the engineering student who had organised the gathering in Basra, said.

“They started shouting at us that we were immoral, that we were meeting boys and girls together and playing music and that this was against Islam.

“They began shooting in the air and people screamed. Then, with one order, they began beating us with their sticks and rifle butts.” Two students were said to have been killed.

Standing over them as the blows rained down was the man who gave the order, dressed in dark clerical garb and wearing a black turban. Ali recognised him immediately as a follower of Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric. Ali realised then that the armed men were members of Hojatoleslam al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army, a private militia that fought American forces last year and is now enforcing its own firebrand version of Islam. The picnic had run foul of the Islamist powers that increasingly hold sway in the fly-blown southern city, where religious militias rule the streets, forcing women to don the veil and closing down shops that sell alcohol or music.

In the election in January, the battle between secular and religious forces in Basra came down to the ballot box. The main Shia alliance triumphed with 70 per cent of the province’s vote, most of the rest going to a secular rival. That victory has brought to a head the issue of whether Iraq’s new constitution will adopt Islamic law — or Sharia — as most religious Shia leaders desire. In Basra, however, Islamic militias already are beginning to apply their own version of that law, without authority from above or any challenge from the police.

Students say that there was nothing spontaneous about the attack. Police were guarding the picnic in the park, as is customary at any large public gathering, but allowed the armed men in without any resistance. One brought a video camera to record the sinful spectacle of the picnic, footage of which was later released to the public as a warning to others.

It showed images of one girl struggling as a gunman ripped her blouse off, leaving her half-naked. “We will send these pictures to your parents so they can see how you were dancing naked with men,” a gunman told her. Two students who went to her aid were shot — one in the leg, the other twice in the stomach. The latter was said to have died of his injuries. Fellow students say that the girl later committed suicide. Another girl who was severely beaten around the head lost her sight.

Far from disavowing the attack, senior al-Sadr loyalists said that they had a duty to stop the students’ “dancing, sexy dress and corruption”.

“We beat them because we are authorised by Allah to do so and that is our duty,” Sheik Ahmed al-Basri said after the attack. “It is we who should deal with such disobedience and not the police.”

After escaping with two students, Ali reached a police station and asked for help. “What do you expect me to do about it?” a uniformed officer asked.

Ali went to the British military base at al-Maakal and pleaded with the duty officer at the gate. “You’re a sovereign country now. We can’t help. You have to go to the Iraqi authorities,” the soldier replied.

When the students tried to organise demonstrations, they were broken up by the Mehdi Army. Later the university was surrounded by militiamen, who distributed leaflets threatening to mortar the campus if they did not call off the protests.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Number of dead Iraqis from reports on www.icasualties.org/ so far thsi year stands at 2,082. I've seen a report (which I can't find at present) which stated that in 2004 over 8,000 Iraqis died from shootings etc in Baghdad alone.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Photos from Iraq - some are graphic, others not so.

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050328012031209

 

[Barking_Mad]

Six Iraqis killed as insurgents battle US troops

Insurgents have opened fire on a U.S. military patrol in Mosul and six people have been killed in a subsequent exchange of gunfire, including a woman and child, Iraqi police say.

Two Iraqis killed in blast

A bomb blast killed two Iraqis including one policeman and wounding four others in the governorate of Al-Diwaniah in the south of Iraq on Wednesday, police said. The bomb blast occured at a time an Iraqi military patrol was passing on a main road.

British soldier was found dead

A British soldier was found dead in his accommodation at Basrah Air Station on 28 March 2005. An investigation is underway, and his death is not thought to have been the result of hostile action.

Car bomb in Baghdad kills one; attackers fire on Shiite pilgrims

A car bomb exploded today in western Baghdad, killing one person and injuring at least six others, and attackers opened fire on Shiite pilgrims heading to a major religious festival that draws some 1.5 million people.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq suspends wheat deal

Iraq last night suspended a contract to buy one million tonnes of Australian wheat after Australian officials made remarks that suggested overcharging, Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed al-Jibouri said.

"The contract is suspended . . . We are negotiating with the Australian Wheat Board," the minister said.

The Trade Ministry began an investigation last month into claims that Iraq had paid inflated prices for wheat from the Australian Wheat Board. The board said yesterday it had not been informed of the suspension and was continuing to ship wheat under the contract. Iraq is estimated to have paid $US240-260 a tonne for the wheat.

The exporter has strongly refuted suggestions it overcharged for past wheat supplies to Iraq. Australia is the second largest wheat exporter in the world, after the United States. The two countries compete in Asia and the Middle East, with competition particularly sharp in Iraq.

Iraq is forecast to buy up to three million tonnes of wheat in 2005. It agreed to buy one million tonnes of Australian wheat for delivery during the first three months of this year.

Mr Jibouri declined to discuss details, but shipping agents said imports of Australian wheat under the deal were still being unloaded at Iraq's Umm Qasr port.

 

[Barking_Mad]

General approved extreme interrogation methods

A memo signed by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez authorised 29 interrogation techniques, including 12 that exceeded limits in the army's own field manual and four that it admitted risked falling foul of international law, the Geneva conventions or accepted standards on the humane treatment of prisoners....
"The memo clearly establishes that Gen Sanchez authorised unlawful interrogation techniques for use in Iraq, and, in particular, these techniques violate the Geneva conventions and the army's own field manual governing interrogations," ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh said in a statement. "He and other high-ranking officials who bear responsibility for the widespread abuse of detainees must be held accountable."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi prison population doubles in 5 months - Over 100 are under 18 - and more abuse

PENTAGON (AP) - According to figures from the Pentagon, the US is holding more than 10,000 prisoners in Iraq. That's more than double the number held in October. And, there are more allegations of prisoner abuse in detention facilities in Iraq andAfghanistan.

A report issued Friday described soldiers stripping prisoners naked and making them walk home, detainees beaten and kicked and forced exercise to the point of exhaustion.

Today, the group Human Rights First is releasing its own report that warns that the larger number of detainees raises the risk of mistreatment. It also accuses the US of increasing secrecy about the detainees. It claims the International Committee of the Red Cross is being denied access to some field prisons.

The military admits about 100 prisoners are under the age of 18.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq school repairs plagued by corruption

"Haramia," or "thieves," is the new name given to local contractors who receive money to fix up schools, then allegedly do such a poor job that they can put most of the money in their pockets.... In one case, contractors actually stole light fixtures from the school instead of painting, replacing doors, or doing anything else called for in fix-up plans, said a school teacher who declined to be named. At another school, a man who would identify himself only as Mohammed said contractors threatened him and the principal with death if they did not sign a paper saying shoddy work had been done adequately....

"The [Sadr City] advisory council told the Ministry of Education to stop because there is no transparency," Haidar said. "Then they tried to suspend the authority of our council, so we withdrew...."
Those on the Sadr City board complain that they have made lists of schools that desperately need help, but contractors work on schools that have already been renovated. Open sewage lines need to be covered at schools on the advisory board list, but the ministry of education instead has painted the same building more than once, said Abbas Ali, a member of the advisory council.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq's insurgents ‘seek exit strategy'

rest of article is subscription unfortunately.

Many of Iraq's predominantly Sunni Arab insurgents would lay down their arms and join the political process in exchange for guarantees of their safety and that of their co-religionists, according to a prominent Sunni politician.

Sharif Ali Bin al-Hussein, who heads Iraq's main monarchist movement and is in contact with guerrilla leaders, said many insurgents including former officials of the ruling Ba'ath party, army officers, and Islamists have been searching for a way to end their campaign against US troops and Iraqi government forces since the January 30 election.