*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

edit - article on 5 Iraqi teachers shot dead removed due to duplication

This is a registration only piece I believe

3000 people killed in Baghdad since late spring

BAGHDAD -- In the chaotic, hopeful April of 2003, Baghdad's Karrada district was one of those neighborhoods where residents showered flowers on U.S. forces entering the capital. Revelers threw water on one another and the Americans, exuding joy at the crushing of a dictatorship that had silenced, tortured and killed their people. Now, with the end of the third and in many ways hardest summer of the U.S.-led occupation, the lights of Karrada are dimmer. The collapse of Iraq's central power system has left Baghdad averaging less than eight hours of electricity a day.

The crowds on the sidewalks have thinned -- kidnapping and other forms of lawlessness since the invasion mean Baghdad's comparatively liberated women seldom leave home without a good reason. Car bombings and other insurgent attacks, as unknown in Baghdad before the invasion as suicide subway bombings were in London until this summer, have killed more than 3,000 people in the capital since late spring.

Leaving the house for work each day has become a matter of turning the key and consigning one's fate to God, said Jassim Mohammed, 41, a Karrada merchant who has lost two of his closest friends and one of his lighting shops in car bombings since the Americans came.

"Now in Iraq, no one and nothing can protect you but that. Every morning you kiss them goodbye," Mohammed said, referring to his wife and children, "because you don't know if you will be back or not. Everyone in Iraq does that now."

Mohammed's remaining shop, its chandeliers sparkling with their Czech-made crystal pendants, is one of the last bright spots at night on Karrada's grubby streets. Like the rest of Baghdad, Karrada is messier, more beat up than it was before the invasion. Merchants leave some damage from bombings unrepaired, anticipating more violence. Rubbish tends to pile up in once-tidy streets, neglected by a weak, cobbled-together government.

And more than two years after flowers and water cascaded onto the arriving Americans, what's being thrown on Karrada's streets, and who is throwing it, has changed as well. Mohammed, a courtly, gentle-mannered man, carefully chose the harshest word he could think of for urine. In Karrada this summer, Mohammed and the neighborhood watched as American soldiers on patrol grew irritated at an Iraqi who had left his car in the street to run inside a store on an errand, blocking their armored convoy. The Americans took one of the empty plastic water bottles they use to relieve themselves when on patrol, Mohammed said. When the Iraqi driver ran out to move his car, an annoyed American plunked him with the newly filled bottle and rolled on, Mohammed said.

"He started crying," Mohammed said of the Iraqi driver, humiliated in front of the neighborhood. Mohammed, who said he had been one of the happiest people in Karrada to see the Americans when they came in April 2003, retrieved the bottle and handed it to the weeping man.

 

[oi2002]

ICG contemplates the Iraqi constitution.

The U.S. has repeatedly stated that it has a strategic interest in Iraq's territorial integrity but today the situation appears to be heading toward de facto partition and full-scale civil war. Options for salvaging the situation gradually are running out. Unfortunately, it is now too late to renegotiate the current document before the 15 October constitutional referendum or to set it aside altogether, postpone the referendum and start the process afresh with a new, more representative parliament following new legislative elections. The best of bad options having evaporated, all that may be left is for the U.S. to embark on a last-ditch, determined effort to broker a true compromise between Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs that addresses core Sunni Arab concerns without crossing Shiite or Kurdish red lines.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Five wounded in Baghdad IED attack

A car bomb wounded five civilians near a restaurant in central Baghdad's Nidhal street as a convoy of foreign security contractors passed, police said.

Civilian--counter- insurgency official killed in Kirkuk

A roadside bomb on a police patrol killed an Iraqi civilian and injured two policemen in Kirkuk. Insurgents assassinated police Major Fakhir Jalal Amin in central Kirkuk. Amin worked for the city's counter- insurgency centre

Three bodies found in Latifiya

Iraqi police found the bodies of three Iraqis, bound and blindfolded, with gunshot wounds near the volatile town of Latifiya, just south of Baghdad, police said. The identity of the victims was not immediately clear.

US Troops In Iraq use 250,000 Bullets for every person killed

A US government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. The total has more than doubled in five years, largely as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as changes in military doctrine.

Policeman killed, three injured during armed attack in the Green Zone

An Iraqi policeman was killed and three others were injured Tuesday during an armed attack in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a police patrol on a highway near the green zone.

Suicide Bomber Kills Seven in Iraq

A suicide bomber attacked a group of Iraqis applying for jobs as policemen Tuesday, killing nine and wounding 21, a police officer said. The blast occurred in Baqouba, 30 miles north of Baghdad...

Insurgents seize 5 towns near Syria

A senior U.S. Marine commander said Monday that insurgents loyal to militant leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had taken over at least five key western Iraqi towns on the border with Syria and were forcing local residents to flee.

Number Two Al-Qaeda Leader Killed

The No. 2 al Qaeda leader in Iraq was killed Sunday night, U.S. officials say. Abu Azzam, reportedly the deputy to Abu Musab al Zarqawi, was shot during a house raid in Baghdad, according to Pentagon officials.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Senate panel OKs $50 billion for Iraqi, Afghan wars

The Senate would give President Bush $50 billion more for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a $440 billion defense spending measure a panel approved Monday. Reflecting a post-Hurricane Katrina debate about the role of the military in domestic affairs, the bill also will require that the National Guard provide a report on how Guard units in neighboring states can be used to assist those affected by natural disasters.

.........

Overall, Congress has given the president about $350 billion for combat and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan and fighting terrorism worldwide since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for lawmakers. That total includes $82 billion that lawmakers approved in May.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Twenty-two bodies discovered in Iraq

The bodies of 22 men, shot dead and partially eaten by dogs, were found Tuesday in open countryside in eastern Iraq near the Iranian border, an interior ministry official said.

Families flee Samara ahead of planned offensive

Hundreds of families have started to flee the Iraqi city of Samara, some 120km north of the capital, Baghdad, following a recent MOD announcement that preparations had started for an offensive by Coalition forces against insurgents holed up there.

 

[Barking_Mad]

'Five dead' in new Iraq bombing http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4289168.stm

At least five people have been killed in a bomb attack on an army recruitment centre in northern Iraq, officials say. An attacker with explosives hidden beneath clothing blew himself up among job applicants in the town of Talafar, a police spokesman said.

At least 20 people were said to have been injured in the blast. It is the fourth major assault on Iraqi security forces in the last four days. At least 10 people died in an attack on police recruits in Baquba on Tuesday. Talafar was the scene of major battles between insurgents and US-Iraqi forces earlier this month. The US military said more than 500 "terrorists or foreign fighters" were killed or captured in the campaign, after which it said the town had been brought back under control.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Al-Qaida denies aide to Zarqawi killed in Iraq

An internet statement denied on Tuesday reports that the right-hand man of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted militant in Iraq, has been killed by US forces.

US troops kill 4 civilians in western Iraq

US troops on Tuesday opened fire randomly at civilians in central Ramadi, a western city of Iraq, killing four people and wounding five others, medics said.

Twenty-two bodies discovered in Iraq

The bodies of 22 men, shot dead and partially eaten by dogs, were found Tuesday in open countryside in eastern Iraq near the Iranian border, an interior ministry official said.

Families flee Samara ahead of planned offensive

Hundreds of families have started to flee the Iraqi city of Samara, some 120km north of the capital, Baghdad, following a recent MOD announcement that preparations had started for an offensive by Coalition forces against insurgents holed up there.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Six people detained and killed in Baghdad

Men wearing commando uniforms detained six people on Tuesday in the northwestern Huriya district of the capital. They were found shot dead in Baghdad's morgue, police said.

Policeman killed in Baghdad

One policeman was killed by gunmen in northeastern Baghdad when he was heading to work, police said.

Jordanian diplomatic convoy attacked

Gunmen attacked two vehicles belonging to the Jordanian embassy on the Abu Ghraib highway, west of Baghdad when they were heading to the Jordanian hospital in Falluja. There were no casualties reported, police said.

Reuters says U.S. troops obstruct reporting of Iraq

LONDON, Sept 28 (Reuters) - The conduct of U.S. troops in Iraq, including increasing detention and accidental shootings of journalists, is preventing full coverage of the war reaching the American public, Reuters said on Wednesday.

In a letter to Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reuters said U.S. forces were limiting the ability of independent journalists to operate. The letter from Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger called on Warner to raise widespread media concerns about the conduct of U.S. troops with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee on Thursday.

Schlesinger referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by U.S. forces in Iraq."

He urged Warner to demand that Rumsfeld resolve these issues "in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the U.S. forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law".

At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in the Iraq conflict since March 2003.

U.S. forces acknowledge killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled who was shot by American soldiers on Aug. 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. But the military say the soldiers were justified in opening fire.

Reuters believes a fourth journalist working for the agency, who died in Ramadi last year, was killed by a U.S. sniper. "The worsening situation for professional journalists in Iraq directly limits journalists' abilities to do their jobs and, more importantly, creates a serious chilling effect on the media overall," Schlesinger wrote.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq Pipeline Watch: #270

Sept. 23 - attack on an oil tanker carrying fuel to the US Army.

Iraq Pipeline Watch: #269

Sept. 22 - attack on a cluster of pipelines north of Kirkuk near Dibis. The attack was followed by fire in the valves complex.

Iraq Pipeline Watch: #268

Sept. 19 - two policemen were killed when a bomb targeted a vehicle for the north oil pipeline protection forces.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Car bomber penetrates Green Zone before being thwarted at checkpoint

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A car bomber penetrated the heavily fortified Green Zone in the center of this capital city Tuesday but was stopped by U.S. Marines at an "internal checkpoint" before he was able to detonate the vehicle, the military said. U.S. troops destroyed the explosive-rigged car and detained the driver, a military spokesman said.

Although the breach did not result in any deaths or injuries, it raised alarm about how the suspect was able to enter the most heavily secured compound in Iraq. The Green Zone houses the U.S. Embassy and the transitional Iraqi government. Part of the complex was the governmental base of deposed leader Saddam Hussein. Under the regime of Saddam, the area was off-limits to ordinary Iraqi citizens, who drove or walked by quickly to avoid being harassed by his governmental security forces.

In spite of the tight security, insurgents do get into the compound. On Oct. 14, 2004, two bombs planted at a cafe and a market in the Green Zone went off, killing 10 people, including five American security contractors. The U.S. Embassy subsequently warned Americans to stay away from such "public" places in the Green Zone.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Two Iraqi policemen wounded in roadside bomb attack

Two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol on the Doura highway in southern Baghdad, police said.

Seven more bodies found in Taji

Seven bodies of people who had been shot dead were found in Taji, 20 km north of Baghdad. Police said they were bound and blindfolded.

Car bomb kills one Iraqi, wounds 15 in Baquba

An Iraqi civilian was killed, and 15 others were wounded on Wednesday when a driven car bomb blew up nearby a security checkpoint in Baquba, said Iraqi Interior Ministry.

Bomb targets bodyguard of Iraq cleric Sadr, kills 6

A bomb exploded outside the house of a bodyguard of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf on Wednesday, killing at least six people, said an aide to Sadr. The blast also wounded eight people.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Opposition to Iraqi constitution weakening

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The two strongest opponents of Iraq's proposed new constitution said this week that they wouldn't campaign against it aggressively, making it likely that voters will approve the constitution in an Oct. 15 referendum. Passage would be a victory for the Bush administration's Iraq policy, but it's unclear whether the document will produce a stable Iraqi government with broad public support or further alienate the country's Sunni Muslim Arab minority. Rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's representatives said that while he's not thrilled about the constitution, he likely wouldn't encourage his followers to oppose it.

Hazem al-Araji, a senior al-Sadr aide, said that al-Sadr has formed a committee to review the document and that once he hears from them he'll make a final decision.

"But for now, his opinion is neutral," al-Araji said.

The largest Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, said that although it has encouraged its supporters to vote down the document, its efforts are focused on the December election for a new National Assembly.

"There are powers that will make sure this bad constitution passes," said Ala'a al-Maki, a party spokesman. "We are focusing more on ensuring the Sunnis participate in the next election."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Gunmen kill 6 in Baghdad

Gunfire on an Iraqi police patrol in the al-Jihad neighborhood in western Baghdad killed two police officers and wounded three others.

Four killed in Baghdad unrest

Two people were killed in the early morning attack on the bakery, in the mixed southern Dura district. And two were killed in the drive-by shooting of the minibus which carried employees of Al Shaab stadium in the east of the city.

U.S. Forces Raid Homes of Sunni Officials

U.S. forces raided the homes of two officials from a prominent Sunni Arab organization on Thursday, arresting bodyguards and confiscating weapons, Sunni officials said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Army: Evidence lacking in corpse photo case

WASHINGTON – After an initial look at complaints about U.S. soldiers posting photos of Iraq war dead on an Internet site, Army investigators concluded they had too little evidence to pursue criminal charges.

An Islamic civil rights group called on the Defense Department to take action, while the Florida man who runs the Web site said Wednesday he has no intention of taking the photos down or stopping future postings.

The controversy centers on grisly photographs of what appear to be war dead. The Web site says they were posted by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who, in exchange, received free access to online pornography.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Sunnis say no chance for Iraq constitution deal

BAGHDAD, Sept 29 (Reuters) - With a referendum on Iraq's constitution two weeks away, Arab Sunnis remain fiercely opposed to the draft, stepping up pressure on the United States to broker a last-minute deal to ease sectarian divisions.

"The constitution issue is dead until the referendum," said Sunni negotiator Hussein al-Falluji on Thursday. "We will vote 'No' and we will not accept the American policy of aggression to get what they want. There is no way we will support it."

The draft constitution, endorsed by Shi'ite and Kurdish leaders, is central to a U.S. and Iraqi government strategy of drawing Sunnis into politics to defuse a Sunni insurgency and keep the country from sliding towards sectarian civil war. U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad met President Jalal Talabani and other Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq on Wednesday for what Kurdish sources said were discussions on Sunni Arab conditions for backing the charter to be put to a vote Oct. 15. U.S. embassy officials had no comment on the talks.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Scores killed in Iraq triple car blasts

At least 85 people have been killed in three apparently coordinated car bomb attacks in the mixed Shia and Sunni Arab town of Balad, north of Baghdad, Iraqi police said.

Balad police Lieutenant-Colonel Adel Abdallah said bombs went off about 6.45pm local time on Thursday near a busy market in a predominantly Shia district, in the town about 80km north of Baghdad, killing at least 85 and wounding more than 110. The car bombs hit a bank, a vegetable market and another location, witnesses said. Dr Khaled al-Azawi of Balad Hospital said the dead included the town's police chief, Col Kadhim Abdul Razzaq, and four other policemen.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Five U.S. Soldiers Killed in Ramadi

A roadside bomb killed five American soldiers during combat in the western town of Ramadi, a hotbed of insurgent activity, the U.S military said Thursday.

Only one Iraqi battalion fully capable

"We fully recognize that Iraqi armed forces will not have an independent capability for some time, because they don't have an institutional base to support them," he said. "And so Level One is one battalion."

U.S. convoy attacked near Kirkuk

A roadside bomb exploded near a US army patrol as it was driving on the outskirts of the town of Tawz, in the Kirkuk district. The attack resulted in a Humvy vehicle that was burned down. But there was no immediate report of any injuries.

Four policemen, twelve year old killed around Baghdad

Elsewhere in the capital, two civilians and four police officers were killed in drive-by shootings, and a 12-year-old living in a homeless shelter died when a mortar exploded nearby, police said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US hands over holy Shiite city Karbala to Iraq

BEIJING, Sept. 29 -- The U.S. Army handed over its base in Karbala, south of Baghdad on Wednesday, giving Iraqis full control of the holy Shiite city.

Karbala is the second city where security responsibilities have been transferred to the Iraqis, following a handover of another Shiite stronghold, Najaf, less than a month ago. The U.S. commander Lieutenant Colonel James Oliver, handed an Iraqi flag to the Iraqi police commander to mark the handover.

Occupying U.S. forces have relocated to another base outside the city so as to be available to assist in a major security crisis. The U.S.-led coalition plans gradually to hand over control of other cities to the Iraqis, thus reducing its security profile.

The holy city of Karbala was the scene of heavy fighting last year between the U.S. Army and the militia of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The fighting ended following a truce mediated by the city's Shiite clerical hierarchy, which wields considerable power behind the scenes in the current Shiite-dominated national government

 

[Barking_Mad]

US forces 'out of control', says Reuters chief

Reuters has told the US government that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public. The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can operate, wrote David Schlesinger, the Reuters global managing editor, in a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee. The Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq".

Mr Schlesinger urged the senator to raise the concerns with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee this Thursday. He asked Mr Warner to demand that Mr Rumsfeld resolve these issues "in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the US forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law". At least 66 journalists and media workers, most of them Iraqis, have been killed in the country since March 2003. US forces admitted killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled, who was shot by American soldiers on August 28 while on assignment in Baghdad.

Al Sadr refuses US apology

An official in the Al Sadr trend described the apology of the American forces for what has taken place in Al Sadr city, on Saturday night, as "neither sufficient nor satisfactory". He undervalued such an apology "as these forces are still murdering people." He said that the apology "is a deceiving and cunning attempt, which is not sufficient to compensate for the offense committed on behalf of the American forces against Al Sadr city and Iraq."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqis furious at England sentence

IRAQIS have expressed fury over the three-year jail sentence for Lynndie England, the US soldier notorious for holding a naked inmate by a leash in Abu Ghraib prison, saying it exposed American hypocrisy. They said the sentence would have been harsher had she been convicted of abusing Americans.

"America should be ashamed of this sentence. This is the best evidence that Americans have double standards," said Akram Abdel Amir, a retired bus driver in Baghdad.

"There are Iraqis in jail without any charge, just based on suspicion. But when it comes to Americans, the matter is totally different."

England, 22, was sentenced yesterday by a US military court after being convicted of abuse, including being photographed pointing to the genitals of a naked Iraqi prisoner. The former West Virginia chicken factory worker, who had faced a maximum sentence of nine years, was also given a dishonourable discharge. She is the last of a group of US soldiers to be convicted of abuse at Abu Ghraib, including her former boyfriend and the father of her child, Charles Graner, who is serving 10 years.

"If the abuse was committed against Americans I am sure the sentence would be much harsher. The sentence is nothing compared to what she has done," said labourer Muntasser Abdel Moneim, 30.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US dead stands at 1,933

 

[Barking_Mad]

Quick count of press reports over the last week show a bare minimum of 247 dead Iraqis. Baghdad's morgue was getting about 800 dead per month, so you can see how under reported the real total must be.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Update from Hilla bombings

Car bombs in Iraq kill more than 110

In the mainly Shi'ite town of Balad, north of Baghdad, the death toll from three huge car bombs on Thursday rose to 98 on Friday, hospital director Kassim Aboud said.

Four Iraqi policemen killed in Basra

Elsewhere, in the southern city of Basra, an Iraqi police convoy was ambushed late yesterday, killing four policemen and wounding one other.

 

[Barking_Mad]

More bad poll news for Bush - http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/9193

Few adults in the United States feel positively about the way the coalition effort is progressing, according to a poll by Rasmussen Reports. Only 27 per cent of respondents believe things in Iraq are going well.

Polling Data - How do you rate the way that things are going in Iraq these days?

Excellent
8%

Good
19%

Fair
23%

Poor
48%

Source: Rasmussen Reports
Methodology: Telephone interviews to 1,000 American adults, conducted on Sept. 26 and Sept. 27, 2005. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

 

[ska invita]

Judge orders release of more Abu Ghraib photos
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/09/29/abughraib.photos.ap/

NEW YORK (AP) -- A federal judge Thursday ordered the release of dozens more pictures of prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib, rejecting government arguments that the images would provoke terrorists and incite violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein said that terrorists "do not need pretexts for their barbarism" and that suppressing the pictures would amount to submitting to blackmail.

An appeal of Hellerstein's ruling is expected, and that could delay release of the pictures for months.

 

[oi2002]

John Robb crunches some numbers:

The net result is that we are likely facing an insurgency of 184,800 men.

 

[oi2002]

The Yank military have been describing suicide bombers as ordinance lately. You don't often see laser guided bombs interviewed; here's the Jihadi equivalent a distinctly dumb bomb.

The Religous Policeman on the shockingly harsh treatment of a failed Saudi suicide bomber:

Allah be praised indeed. Ahmad is one of "our sons", we'll get him back home. Not by Saudi Airlines, though, this guy deserves his own private jet. And then he gets a very nice hospital room, with his own telephone, a huge bunch of flowers, and his own show on TV.

As I said yesterday, the US Government tells us that "Saudi Arabia is Washington's closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism." And you can see why. We really make our home-grown terrorists regret what they did. Not only that, but if any other young man thinks of following them, it may be even worse next time - it may just be an interview for Radio Riyadh.

The interview is interesting and spins this as the tale of a noble young Saudi deceived by villanous and probably cowardly Iraqis.

I was suspicious and scared. Why did they send me? After all, they are Iraqis, and I'm not. This was my first mission. It was strange, very strange. I placed my trust in Allah, and my good intentions motivated me. So I continued by myself, and when I came close to the area, before I reached the place of the explosion – the place to which I was supposed to bring the tanker – about 100 meters away, the explosion took place. Suddenly, the tanker blew up. It was a very strange thing. I heard a very loud noise of an explosion, and then a yellow fire came from behind. I looked at the fire, I could see it coming. I screamed inside the fire. I looked around at what was happening. Then the fire went out, and I looked to see what had happened. I heard clashes and gunfire around me. I got down quickly from the tanker to protect myself from the bullets, but up to this moment I hadn't grasped what had happened. Then I got down in order to protect myself from the gunfire. I fainted and fell down. It was as if I could see but could not see. People gathered around, and there was fire from all sides. Then I was taken to an Iraqi hospital after the explosion.

He seems like such a nice well spoken young man.

Ahmad expressed regret for killing 12 innocent Iraqis, including seven members of the same family in the operation, adding that Al-Qaeda arranged the bombing in Baghdad’s Al-Mansour neighborhood without his knowledge. The young man was luckily ejected from the tanker by the force of the blast, Al-Watan Arabic daily said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

This is an interesting read....

Stuffing Iraq's ballot boxes

On election day, Cruz recalled, the US military tried to find helicopters to carry the ballot materials out to the six remaining district towns on the list, but was able get ballots before the 5pm close of voting to only one town, Bashiqa, which is almost entirely Christian, Shabak and Yezidi.

But according to Cruz, Kurdish militiamen stole the ballot boxes from the polling place, returning them later after obviously tampering with them and offering bribes to the election workers to accept them.

Meanwhile, a much more ambitious vote-fraud scheme was unfolding in Sinjar, a relatively small district town in the west known to be a predominantly Sunni Arab area.

About 12,000 ballots had been sent to Sinjar, but on election day KDP officials in Sinjar requested a number of ballots far in excess of the estimated electorate in the town and surrounding villages, according to Cruz. He recalled that the request was supported by the office of the interim president of Iraq, Sunni Arab Ghazi al-Yawer.

Cruz remembers joking about the "500% voter-participation rate" in Sinjar. Nevertheless, the Stryker Brigade Combat Team complied with the request for the ballots.

Later, the province's Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) forwarded 38 ballot boxes, 174 plastic sacks and 14 cardboard cartons of ballots that had obviously been tampered with to the national IECI. In some boxes, reams of ballot papers that had not even been folded were visible. In others, boxes had been resealed with red and green duct tape.

When Cruz asked the local IECI director how many of the fraudulent ballots had come from Sinjar, he was told, "all of them".

 

[Barking_Mad]

Splits emerge between Kurds and Shiites in Iraqi government

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sharp divisions emerged Saturday between Iraq's ruling Kurdish and Shiite Muslim factions after Iraq's Kurdish president accused the Shiite prime minister of breaking coalition promises and overly dominating the government. Kurdish officials warned they would consider pulling out of the government if their demands aren't met. That would cause the collapse of the government and add a new layer of political instability and fragmentation between Iraq's main communities.

The friction comes ahead of an Oct. 18 vote on a new constitution, which both the Kurds and Shiites support. But Iraq's Sunni Arab minority is trying to defeat the charter at the polls, fearing it will give too much power to the other two communities.

Kurdish leaders have complained to Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari that the coalition's Shiite parties, known as the United Alliance, have not upheld promises to start work on resettling Kurds in the northern city of Kirkuk or to fairly distribute government positions between the coalition parties.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Continuing on from the post above........

Iraq's president wants PM to step down

Kirkuk, Iraq — Iraq's Kurdish President called on the country's Shiite Prime Minister to step down, the spokesman for the President's party said Sunday, escalating a political split between the two factions that make up the government.

President Jalal Talabani has accused the Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance, which holds the majority in parliament, of monopolizing power in the government and refusing to move ahead on a key issue for Kurds, the resettlement of Kurds in the northern city of Kirkuk.

“The time has come for the United Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdistan coalition to study Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's stepping aside from his post,” said Azad Jundiyani, a spokesman for Mr. Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

“This is for the benefit of the political process."

Mr. Jundiyani would not say whether the Kurds would withdraw from the government if the Shiite alliance does not back them in removing Mr. al-Jaafari. Mr. Talibani has made indirect threats to withdraw from the coalition if Kurdish demands are not met.