*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

Dozens killed in Iraq bomb blasts

A series of deadly car bomb attacks in Iraq has killed more than 50 people and wounded many more. In the latest attack in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar, two car bombs exploded, reportedly killing 30 people. Police say the attack outside a building housing a Shiite organisation appeared to target a Turkman-Shia sheikh, Hasan Bagdash.

It was the second failed assassination attempt on the sheikh in recent days. The force of the blast caused the building to collapse.

"I don't have a final number for the dead or wounded but it's between 20 and 30," said a police source in Tal Afar, adding that "some are still trapped".

The Tal Afar blasts followed a car bomb explosion outside a Shiite mosque south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Witnesses say the blast caused the building to collapse, killing seven people and wounding 23. A few hours earlier, insurgents targeted a restaurant in a Shiite district of northern Baghdad. At least eight people were killed and more than 100 injured in the blast.

Elsewhere, five people were killed when a truck driven by a suicide bomber exploded in the northern city of Kirkuk. In Samarra, insurgents attacked a US base, killing four Iraqis and wounding four US soldiers.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Insurgents shot down British C-130: report

The Sunday Times of London reported a Royal Air Force C-130 Hercules carrying 10 British Special Forces troops that crashed on Jan. 30 was shot down by a volley of missiles.

Insurgents Attacks in Samarra

In a separate attack in Samarra, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and one was wounded when insurgents fired 10 mortar bombs at a joint army-police base, Army captain Salam Hadi told AFP.

Busy Baghdad Restaurant Hit by Car Bomb

Another two people were killed and two were injured in Kirkuk itself when a mortar round landed on a house, police Capt. Farhad Talabani said.

Attacks hit vital security in Iraq

Iraq's insurgents are conducting increasingly sophisticated and lethal attacks on the private security companies that are crucial to the nation's reconstruction and the eventual departure of U.S. troops, contractors and U.S. officials say.

Four people killed in car bomb attack in northern Iraq

A suicide car bomb attack struck the government headquarters of the Iraqi town of Tuz Khurmatu, south of Kirkuk, on Monday, killing four people and wounding more than 10 others, police said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Worth the read.......

Prison camp claims revealed

LONDON - Some boast they were Taliban fighters. Others - an invalid, a chicken farmer, a nomad, a nervous name-dropper - say they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when they were plucked from Afghanistan, Pakistan or other countries and flown to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Their stories are tucked inside nearly 2,000 pages of documents the U.S. government released to The Associated Press under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Representing a fraction of 558 tribunals held since July, the testimonies capture frustration on both sides - judges wrestling with mistaken identity and scattered information from remote corners of the world, prisoners complaining there's no evidence against them.

"I've been here for three years, and the past three years, whatever I say, nobody believes me. They listen but they don't believe me," says a chicken farmer accused of torturing jailed Afghans as a high-ranking member of the Taliban.

The farmer's name is blacked out in the documents released by the government, which also redacted most other identifying information such as the names of cities, villages and countries.

There are scant references to allegations of abuse at the prison camp in the proceedings to determine solely if detainees are enemy combatants. One prisoner even calls the camp "paradise" compared to a Taliban jail where he was given little food and had medical problems.

Another prisoner, however, claims U.S. forces in Afghanistan held him underground for two weeks. "They starved me. They handcuffed me, there was no food," he says.

"I was surprised that the Americans would (do) such a thing," adds the Briton, who worked in Yemen at a cooking oil company shut down after authorities said it was a front for al-Qaida.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Minimum number of Iraqi dead this year 3,345

Minumum number of Iraqi dead this month 677

Minimum number of Iraqi dead in the last 7 days 182

 

[Barking_Mad]

Fear of civil war grows as Shia start to retaliate

They have lived side by side for generations, but the small farming communities south of Baghdad are being split apart by a vicious sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shias that many Iraqis fear could be a step on the path to civil war.
As politicians in Baghdad struggle to bring the communities back from the brink, fresh accounts are emerging from the fertile area between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers south of the capital of the latest cycle of violence.

Abu Yassin, 33, a labourer, is typical of a new class of Shia refugee. This year he fled his home in the southern Baghdad suburb of Dora after his brother was killed, and was told that he would be next if he attended the funeral. “(Sunni) gunmen announced that Dora was the new Fallujah, the terrorist headquarters,” he said from the Shia holy city of Najaf, where he has moved with his family. “Even the preachers in the mosques were encouraging people to attack the Shias. It was much too dangerous to stay on there.”

.............

As fears grow that sectarian passions could spiral out of control, leaders on both sides appear to be pulling back from the brink. On Saturday more than 1,000 Sunni religious, political and tribal figures met in Baghdad to create a new umbrella organisation that will co-operate with the Shia-led Government and negotiate over a new constitution.

“The country needs Sunnis to join politics,” Adnan al-Dulaimi, a leading Sunni figure, told the conference. “The Sunnis are ready to participate. Iraq is not sectarian.”

This is exactly the language that Washington been waiting to hear. “They have peered over the edge and they do not like what they see. Now people are pulling back,” an American official in Baghdad said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Rebuilding Fallujah http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/96cb1e0d5747c8a51412e2e3434509a6.htm

FALLUJAH, 24 May (IRIN) - Reconstruction of Fallujah, the city which was the scene of fierce battles between US forces and insurgents between November 2004 and January 2005, has been slow according to local officials. Little progress has been made despite Washington allocating US $200 million for rehabilitation efforts and compensation for families.

Nearly 80 percent of the population fled Fallujah, which is 60km west of the Iraqi capital Baghdad and so far only half of them have returned, aid officials have said. Local people complain that there are still no basic facilities such as sewage systems, adequate electricity and water supplies and there are disputes over how much compensation has been distributed so far. About 70 percent of buildings, many of them houses, were destroyed during the conflict.

The Ministry of Health (MoH) said there were 650 civilian deaths in a report issued in April. However, it has been suggested that the number could be as high as 1,300.

According to Bassel Mahmoud, director of Fallujah's reconstruction project, less than $50 million of the $200 million for reconstruction had been released so far. He said although the main hospital had been repaired, only three schools out of 40 and four government buildings out of 20 had been rebuilt.

Massive damage was caused by the conflict and repair work could take several years.

"When we entered Fallujah we didn't expect to find the city in such a terrible state. Basic services were destroyed and rubbish can be seen everywhere. We have intensified our efforts to repair essential places and we expect that by the end of this year, health care and education will be sufficient in Fallujah," Mahmoud added.

There are also reports that Tal Afar which is west of Baghdad has been seized by insurgents. Quotes come from a Turkoman 'lawmaker', who said,

"Now terrorists have deployed throughout Tal Afar and I consider that Tal Afar is a city that is under the terrorist control," Sultan said.

A Turkmen lawmaker told parliament that "street wars" were raging in Tal Afar, but Iraqi and U.S. forces had not intervened.

"I demand the assembly's intervention to stop this evil and save the innocents in that city," said Sheik Mohammed Taqi al-Maollah.

Ive lost the link, ill post it later if I can find the article.

 

[Barking_Mad]

13 US troops have died in the last 3 days, making 57 US deaths so far in May. Despite the US/media claims that the total for March (36 US dead) showed a fall off in insurgent activity the number for April went up to 52. At the current rate it looks as if around 70 troops might lose their lives this month. The current number of US dead stands at 1,644.

 

[oi2002]

Juan

It was announced, according to al-Hayat, that 295 American civilians and security personnel have been killed in Iraq so far this year.

With that figure I'd bear in mind the merc companies may not be entirely frank about casualty levels.

 

[Barking_Mad]

hmmm....

"US Withdrawing from Al Anbar Province"

Just three battalions of Marines are stationed in the western part of the province, down from four a few months ago. Marine officials in western Al Anbar say that each of those battalions is smaller by one company than last year, meaning there are approximately 2,100 Marines there now, compared with about 3,600 last year.

Some U.S. military officers in Al Anbar province say that commanders in Baghdad and the Pentagon have denied their repeated requests for more troops.

"[Commanders] can't use the word, but we're withdrawing," said one U.S. military official in Al Anbar province, who asked not to be identified because it is the Pentagon that usually speaks publicly about troop levels. "Slowly, that's what we're doing."....

.......the official said he expected it would take years to finish the job.

"If we can win this thing in six years, we're setting new land speed records," he said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi City Surrounded in U.S.-Led Hunt for Insurgents

May 25 (Bloomberg) -- About 1,000 U.S. Marines, sailors and members of Iraq's security forces encircled the western Iraqi city of Haditha today in the second offensive against insurgents in the region this month, the U.S. military said.

Six insurgents were killed and two Marines were wounded in a gun battle at 4 a.m. local time, the military said. Residents identified one of the attackers as an imam, the U.S. said.

The action is aimed at ``maintaining the pressure on insurgents that began with Operation Matador,'' in which 125 militants were killed and 39 arrested, the military said in e- mailed statements. Nine U.S. Marines died and 40 others were wounded in the May 7-14 offensive, the military said.

Today's operation, dubbed New Market or Suq Jadeed in Arabic, follows the announcement yesterday on an Islamist Web site in the name of al-Qaeda in Iraq that the group's leader, Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, was wounded. The U.S. military said May 5 that tribes in Haditha were sheltering al-Zarqawi. The U.S. is offering $25 million for information leading to his arrest.

Militants have killed almost 700 people in Iraq since the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari was announced April 28. The government says many of the insurgents are non- Iraqis who have entered western al-Anbar province from Syria, which shares a 380-mile (611-kilometer) border with Iraq.

Imam's AK-47

The attacker identified as an imam by locals in today's gun battle opened fire on the Marines and Iraqi Security Forces with an AK-47 Assault rifle, the military said. Checkpoints have been set up around Haditha to prevent insurgents from leaving the city, according to the statement.

One weapons cache consisting of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a machine gun and ammunition was discovered buried in a palm grove north of Haditha, the military said, adding that neither Marines nor Iraqi Forces have entered or damaged any mosques in the course of the operation.

The 3rd Battalion of the 25th Marines has been conducting operations in and around Haditha for three months to root out militants, the military said. Insurgent activity has recently increased in the area, the U.S. said, citing the discovery of numerous roadside bombs and indirect fire attacks launched against coalition forces assigned to protect Haditha.

Operation Matador, which focused on the town of al-Qaim, near the border with Syria and 186 miles west of Baghdad, also involved a U.S.-led force of more than 1,000. The raid was spurred by information collected from Iraqis living in the area and captured aides of al-Zarqawi, the military said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

One resident was witnessed being arrested by US marines for having too much ammunition for a licensed weapon.

The man was blindfolded and had a code number written on his forehead, as his mother and sisters pleaded with the troops and their Iraqi translator to release him.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4578755.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

US fights Iraq fire with street fighters

Asia Times Online has learned that the US, instead of training up a regular professional Iraqi army, will create what in effect will be armed militias, acting under US central command, to take the militias of the resistance on at their own game.

Recent meetings of the so-called Higher Committee for National Forces (a grouping of Iraqi resistance bodies) and the 16th Arab National Congress held in Algiers played a pivotal role in building consensus among various Iraqi communist, Islamic, Ba'athist and nationalist groups on several issues, such as the right of Iraqis to defend themselves against foreign aggression and imperialism, and the right of Iraq to demand a political process untainted by occupation and which reflects the uninhibited will of the Iraqi people for a pluralistic and democratic Iraq. The groups also condemned the continued occupation of Iraq and the establishment of any permanent US bases in the country, the privatization of the Iraqi economy and foreign corporations' unrestricted access to Iraq's resources.

On this common ground, the central command of the resistance reorganized its activities, a key to which was merging mohallah-level (street-level) Islamic groups scattered in their hundreds across Iraq to work toward a common goal - defeating the occupation. In turn, these militias would co-opt common folk into their struggle, so that, literally, the streets would be alive with resistance.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Baghdad's Polluted Water Makes Children Sick With Cholera

Cholera is spreading in Baghdad’s impoverished al-Amil quarter where overcrowding and contaminated water are leading to fears of an epidemic. City officials blame insurgent attacks on infrastructure for the outbreak in southwest Baghdad.

 

[Barking_Mad]

House Kills First Vote on Iraq Withdrawal

The House of Representatives voted down a measure, by a 128 to 300 vote, that called on President Bush to devise a plan for a withdrawal from Iraq. It came in the form of an amendment to the $491 billion budget for the Pentagon that was passed on Wednesday night. But the withdrawal amendment marks the first time that Congress has officially voted and debated legislation that deals with a withdrawal.

"No, it won't pass today, but it will give us a chance to talk about it," said Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), the sponsor of the amendment. "It's an opportunity for members of Congress who are frustrated that our troops are being killed for a war that wasn't necessary in the first place and that there is no plan in sight to bring them home."

Despite the overwhelming defeat, about two-thirds of Democrats voted for it and so did five Republicans – a dramatic shift from just a few months ago, when talk of a potential withdrawal was taboo for even the most progressive lawmakers. Of the five Republicans to vote for Woolsey's amendment, only one, Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina, spoke in favor of it on the House floor. Jones, one of the most conservative members in Congress, led the campaign in 2003 to change French fries to freedom fries.

"We've never voted one time together in my eleven years here," said Jones, referring to Representative Woolsey. "When I voted two years ago to submit the troops, I was making my decisions on facts. Since that time, I've been very disappointed on what I've learned about the justification of going into Iraq. Afghanistan, absolutely, we should be there. We should have more troops, but we can't have more troops there when they're in Iraq."

There are no practical signs the U.S. is close to a withdrawal. The defense appropriation bill that the House just passed added an additional $45 billion to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which would bring the costs of the war to over $300 billion. The House Republican leadership allowed just 30 minutes for debate on the amendment. Still, it was lively and at times emotional.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Two U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq helicopter crash

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq when their helicopter crashed after being shot at north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement on Friday.

"Two Task Force Liberty soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed near Baquba on May 26," the statement said. It said two helicopters came under small arms fire near Baquba north of Baghdad. One crashed while the other landed safely at a U.S. base, it said.

US Soldiers Opened Fire at a Bus in Baghdad

Three civilian Iraqis travelling in a minibus were killed, reportedly shot dead by US forces, AFP reported, citing officials.

"American forces opened fire on a minibus in the Dura district, in southern Baghdad, killing three people and wounding four others," said a defence ministry source. US military spokesman Lieutenant Jamie Davis confirmed the incident but could not say at what time the bus shooting occurred.
"The details are sketchy and we don't know who was involved," Davis said.
Bus driver Abbas Abbas said US troops opened fire after he pulled over to get out of their way.

Senior industry ministry official killed in Baghdad

Insurgents shot dead a senior official in Iraq's ministry of industry and minerals in an ambush in Baghdad on Thursday, police said. Thamer Ghaidan was killed in a drive-by shooting as he was shopping in a market in central Baghdad.

Three detainees escape from Iraq's Abu Ghraib

Three prisoners escaped from the notorious Abu Ghraib jail outside Baghdad on Thursday, sneaking through two holes in the perimeter fence before dawn, the U.S. military said.

Car bomb kills 3 in Baghdad; Shi'ite assassinated

In another district of southern Baghdad, professor Moussa Salum, a deputy dean at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University, was gunned down as he was going to work, police and doctors said. Three of his bodyguards were also killed.

Two car bombs rock Baghdad

One blast targeted a convoy of Iraqi police in al-Shaala neighborhood, killing three people. Another explosion caused by a booby-trapped car cut through Iraqi security forces escorted by U.S. troops. There was no immediate word on casualties.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Well at least they gave the insurgents time to know it was coming...... And incircling Baghdad with a 'concrete bracelet' - Are the insurgents locked out or the Iraqis locked in?

Iraqi govt to deploy 40,000 troops in Baghdad

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's defense minister announced a massive security operation on Thursday that will see more than 40,000 Iraqi troops deployed in the capital to hunt down insurgents and their weapons. Sadoun al-Dulaimi said the force would include troops from the interior and defense ministries. It would be by far the largest anti-insurgent operation carried out in Baghdad by Iraqi security forces.

"We will divide Baghdad into seven main areas, and the number of the forces who will take part in the operation from the interior and the defense ministry will be more than 40,000 security men," he told a news conference.

He said it would be the first phase of a security crackdown that could eventually cover the whole country.

"We will also impose a concrete blockade around Baghdad, like a bracelet around an arm, God willing, and God be with us in our crackdown on the terrorists' infrastructure. No one will be able to penetrate this blockade," Dulaimi said.

"You will witness unprecedentedly strict security measures."

Interior Minister Bayan Jabor, appearing at the same news conference, said the operation was designed to change the government's stance when it came to the two-year-old insurgency.

"These operations will aim at turning the government's role from defensive to offensive," he said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US dead this month 66

US injured this month 435

 

[Barking_Mad]

Seems that the British controlled South is becoming more dangerous.....

the rapid response of Britain’s ministry of defence (MoD) to an urgent operational requirement (UOR) from regional commanders in Iraq for higher levels of protection for British troops serving in southeast Iraq, around Basra. The additional equipment includes 3,300 sets of improved body armour, helmets and impact protection goggles. According to Defense News (16 May 2005):

“Commanders of Operation Telic, Britain’s mission in Iraq, told the MoD at the end of 2004 that drivers and troops providing top cover while travelling in vehicles are increasingly at risk of attack while on patrol in the south east sector of Iraq, and requested a package of protection improvements.”
The key phrase here is “increasingly at risk of attack”. The southeast of Iraq has been widely represented as being second only to the Kurdish northeast in terms of improving security; yet evidently, whatever has been said in public, the reality is an urgent need for increased troop security in a supposedly peaceful region.

http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict/iraqwar_2546.jsp

 

[Barking_Mad]

Filipino workers in US camps go on strike in Iraq

MANILA - Some 300 Filipinos employed at a US military camp in Iraq went on strike this week to protest poor working conditions, the foreign ministry said on Friday.


The workers, under contract from Prime Projects International and Kellog Brown and Root, are based in Camp Cooke in the province of Taji, the ministry said.

It was not specified what their complaints were, but the ministry said the Filipinos and the agencies that employed them failed to agree on certain demands prompting the strike.

The Filipinos were to have been repatriated amid the deadlock, but the Philippine charge d’affaires Ricardo Endaya managed to convince them to enter dialogue and temporarily return to their posts.

US-based Kellog manages non-combat related operations of military installations in Iraq, while Prime Projects recruits Filipino workers for them.

Despite a travel ban to Iraq, the Philippines is the biggest supplier of manpower for US-led coalition forces, with an estimated 6,000 Filipinos working in various camps.

 

[jeff_leigh]

Death penalty returns to Iraq, with a vengeance

BAGHDAD - With four death sentences handed down within the space of days, judicial executions are set to return to Iraq where the authorities are desperate for a deterrent to halt rampant insurgent attacks.

Seven convicted Iraqi criminals and insurgents are currently on death row and although the sentences have yet to be carried out, the interior ministry have vowed that the first hangings will take place next month.

more here

very clever give the resistance some martyrs

 

[Barking_Mad]

nteresting article claiming that US troops deaths from Iraq aren't counted if they die in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals. Ive gone through some of the locations of deaths and I have found some people who died at the German medical centre, but the references aren't particularly numerous - I dont know whether that's indicitive of the report or not...............

'US MILITARY DEAD IS 9,000'

U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005. The ongoing, underreporting of the dead in Iraq, is not accurate. The DoD is deliberately reducing the figures. A review of many foreign news sites show that actual deaths are far higher than the newly reduced ones. Iraqi civilian casualties are never reported but International Red Cross, Red Crescent and UN figures indicate that as of 1 January 2005, the numbers are just under 100,000.

Note: There is excellent reason to believe that the Department of Defense is deliberately not reporting a significant number of the dead in Iraq. We have received copies of manifests from the MATS that show far more bodies shipped into Dover AFP than are reported officially. The educated rumor is that the actual death toll is in excess of 7,000. Given the officially acknowledged number of over 15,000 seriously wounded, this elevated death toll is far more realistic than the current 1,400+ now being officially published. When our research is complete, and watertight, we will publish the results along with the sources In addition to the evident falsification of the death rolls, at least 5,500 American military personnel have deserted, most in Ireland but more have escaped to Canada and other European countries, none of whom are inclined to cooperate with vengeful American authorities. (See TBR News of 18 February for full coverage on the mass desertions) This means that of the 158,000 U.S. military shipped to Iraq, 26,000 either deserted, were killed or seriously wounded. The DoD lists currently being very quietly circulated indicate almost 9,000 dead, over 16,000 seriously wounded and a large number of suicides, forced hospitalization for ongoing drug usage and sales, murder of Iraqi civilians and fellow soldiers , rapes, courts martial and so on.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Risk of Civil War Spreads Fear Across Nation

BAGHDAD — Explosions rip through marketplaces, scattering blood and vegetables and leaving women wailing in the alleys. Bodies bob in rivers and are dug up from garbage dumps and parks. Kidnappers troll the streets, sirens howl through morning prayers and mortar rounds whistle against skylines of minarets.

Iraqis awake each day to the sounds of violence. With little respite, many wonder whether strange, terrible forces are arrayed against them. They fear that weeks of sectarian and clan violence, claiming the lives of all types from imams to barefoot fishermen, are a prelude to civil war.

"I'm worried 24 hours a day," said Zainab Hassan, a university student majoring in computer science. "Whenever I hear bomb or shooting, I call my mother and husband to check if they're OK. I can see a civil war coming, it's obvious. Everybody is talking about it. We have to be more careful."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Britain, US used pre-war bombing to try and provoke Saddam: report

British and the United States used their bombing attacks on Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion to try and provoke Saddam Hussein’s regime into giving them an excuse to go to war, a report said on Sunday. As early as mid-2002, then-British defence minister Geoff Hoon told a key government meeting that US forces had begun “spikes of activity” to put pressure on the regime, the Sunday Times said.

The newspaper printed minutes from a gathering of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his war cabinet in July 2002 on the build-up to a possible conflict. According to the minutes, Blair was told that in Washington, war was even then seen as “inevitable” and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”.

Blair was the United States’s staunchest ally in the later invasion of Iraq, launched in March 2003. The Sunday Times newspaper said that separate information obtained by the Liberal Democrats, a British opposition party which opposed the Iraq war, showed that British and US planes dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001.

The minutes of the 2002 meeting also show British ministers’ efforts to justify full-scale military action.

“It seemed clear that (US President George W.) Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided,” they said.

“But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD (weapon of mass destruction) capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

“We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.”

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq Minister Warns Of Fuel, Power Hikes

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The Iraqi government may decrease subsidies for fuel and electricity, despite a severe shortage of both in the country, the electricity minister said Sunday as he warned Iraqis to prepare for more blackouts this summer. Mihsen Shalash said the government was unable to generate power for everyone, and blamed the shortages on acts of sabotage and lack of fuel for power plants.

"We do have real problem and an electricity crisis and we can't supply power 100 percent this summer" Shalash said. "We can't perform miracles."

The government has continued Saddam Hussein's practice of subsidizing gasoline and electricity keeping the price at the pump for a gallon of gasoline at a paltry 6 cents. Before the U.S.-led invasion, residents of Baghdad had about 20 hours of electricity a day. Today, they get about 10, usually broken into two-hour chunks. There are also frequent fuel and drinking water shortages, and only 37 percent of the population has a working sewage system.

Shalash said the Iraqi government had agreed with neighboring Turkey to increase the electricity coming into Iraq and the amount of water flowing down the Euphrates River for a power plant at Haditha, northwest of Baghdad. Iraqi government spokesman Laith Kuba also acknowledged that Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari would lift part of the current government's subsidy on fuel and electricity.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Minimum number of Iraqis killed in May - 843

Mimimum number of Iraqis killed in 2005 - 3,463

 

[Barking_Mad]

Basra out of control, says chief of police - Families can still stroll but militia gangs hold power in port city

The chief of police in Basra admitted yesterday that he had effectively lost control of three-quarters of his officers and that sectarian militias had infiltrated the force and were using their posts to assassinate opponents. Speaking to the Guardian, General Hassan al-Sade said half of his 13,750-strong force was secretly working for political parties in Iraq's second city and that some officers were involved in ambushes.

Other officers were politically neutral but had no interest in policing and did not follow his orders, he told the Guardian.

"I trust 25% of my force, no more."

The claim jarred with Basra's reputation as an oasis of stability and security and underlined the burgeoning influence of Shia militias in southern Iraq.

"The militias are the real power in Basra and they are made up of criminals and bad people," said the general.

"To defeat them I would need to use 75% of my force, but I can rely on only a quarter."

In fact the port city, part of the British zone, is remarkably peaceful. It is largely untouched by the insurgency and crimes such as kidnapping and theft have ebbed since the chaotic months after the March 2003 invasion. In marked contrast to Baghdad, razor wire and blast walls are uncommon in Basra and instead of cowering indoors after dark families take strolls along the corniche.

But Gen Sade said the tranquillity had been bought by ceding authority to conservative Islamic parties and turning a blind eye to their militias' corruption scams and hit squads. A former officer in Saddam Hussein's marine special forces, he was chosen to lead Basra's police force by the previous government headed by Ayad Allawi and he started the job five months ago.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Long Jailings Anger Iraqis

A year after the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal erupted, Iraqi anger has flared anew over the growing numbers of detainees held without charge at the notorious detention center and another prison in the south. In the battle against the insurgency, U.S. military sweeps net many guerrillas, but also thousands of people whose offenses are nonexistent, minor or impossible to prove. They are often held for months, only to be released without explanation.

The population of long-term detainees at Abu Ghraib and the larger Camp Bucca, near Basra, has nearly doubled since August and now tops 10,000. With a large operation by Iraqi security forces underway in Baghdad, that number could rise.

The military has established a multitiered system to ensure that innocent people caught up in chaotic events are not held for extensive periods. Records provided by the military, however, show that the evidence against suspects justifies prolonged detention in only about one in four cases. Nonetheless, more than half are held three months or more before being freed.

..........

Mazin Farouq, a 35-year-old photo lab technician, was held for six months. Farouq was shot by U.S. soldiers as he and two friends drove home to Baghdad one November night last year after a vacation in Syria. He said they did not see a checkpoint but fled in panic when they heard shots hitting their car. Several soldiers drove up and searched them. Finding nothing, the soldiers immediately freed the two friends and took Farouq to nearby Abu Ghraib for treatment at its field hospital.

He said he received excellent medical care and expected to be released. Instead, he was placed in detention. Two months later, he was transferred to Bucca. After making numerous calls and visits to the ministries of interior and human rights, Farouq's parents were finally told that his case would be reviewed in early May. Farouq was released May 9.

In an interview, he said he believed his incarceration was a cover-up.

"They did not suspect me, but I think they made a mistake, and all these procedures are to protect the soldier who committed this mistake," he said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US 'losing its grip' on Baghdad's political process

Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency has reached a “kind of peak”. The Sunni now realise they erred in boycotting last January's elections “and so, as Iraqis see their interests as represented in the political process, the insurgency will lose steam”.

This sanguine view of the state of affairs in Iraq--as expressed by Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, in a recent Bloomberg interview reflects the US administration's struggle to demonstrate that it remains in control and still has an exit strategy. In the more sombre assessment of others in the administration, however, the US has long lost its grip on Iraq's political process. “We are losing control,” said one veteran Arabist in the administration who requested anonymity.

He described the US embassy in Baghdad, without an ambassador for about six months, as “out of the loop” and not involved in significant decisions taken by the new transitional government dominated by the Shia Arab majority. Geoff Porter, analyst with the Eurasia Group consultancy, said US interests had been “stymied on most fronts”, with US officials frustrated with, and ignorant of, Iraq's fractious politics. “There is an air of resignation, with people throwing up their hands that this will be a long-term process.”

 

[Barking_Mad]

Life in ‘liberated’ Iraq a disaster, UN report says

Living conditions in once prosperous Iraq have sharply deteriorated in the two years of the U.S. occupation, says a new joint Iraqi-UN report.

The Iraq Living Conditions Survey (ILCS), based on data from 22,000 households and released May 12, is the first comprehensive statistical description of living standards in the country produced in years and is expected to affect future reconstruction and development assistance, officials said.

“This survey shows a rather tragic situation of the quality of life in Iraq,” Barham Salih, Iraq’s minister of planning, said in a statement.

Household surveys were conducted last year and measured indicators ranging from health to employment, housing, status of and access to public services, education, income and war-related deaths. The report estimates the number of Iraqi civilians who have died since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003 as between 18,000 and 30,000. Other reports put civilian deaths much higher. Some 1,600 Americans have died in combat. Of the civilian deaths, 12 percent were children under 18 years of age, meaning that between 2,100 and 3,500 children have been killed in the U.S.-led war thus far, according to ILCS data.

In a country where almost half the population of 27.1 million people is less than 18 years old, some of the most startling findings relate to youth. Nearly one-fourth of Iraqi children aged between six months and five years are chronically malnourished, meaning they have stunted growth, the report says. Among all Iraqi children, more than one in 10, suffer from general malnutrition, meaning they have a low weight for their age. Another eight percent have acute malnourishment, or low weight for their height.

In some areas of the country, acute malnourishment reaches 17 percent and stunting reaches 26 percent, the report says. Both infant and child mortality rates appear to have been steadily increasing over the past 15 years. At present, 32 babies out of every 1,000 born alive die before reaching their first birthday. In addition, 37 percent of young men with secondary or higher education are unemployed and just 83 percent of boys and 79 percent of school-age girls are enrolled in primary school.

The infant mortality and malnutrition findings make clear that “the suffering of children due to war and conflict in Iraq is not limited to those directly wounded or killed by military activities,” the report says. For example, researchers found that diarrhea killed two out of every 10 children before the 1991 U.S.-led Gulf War against Saddam Hussein and four in 10 after the war.

Homes also took a major hit from the latest war, the study says. Military damage from U.S. air power or artillery fire to dwellings in the north of the country averages 25 percent of all rural households and in provinces such as Sulaimaniya, 49 percent of all rural homes were damaged.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Minimum number of Iraqis during the first 36 hours of June - 53

Number of US soldiers killed during the first 36 hours of June 3