*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[oi2002]

Stygius links to a short interview with Ken Polllack on what DC should do in Iraq.

 

[Barking_Mad]

When Iraq death squads come calling: a family story

It didn't take long for the wcave of sectarian hatred that washed over Iraq last month to hit the Baghdad home of the Samarrai family -- just a few hours, in fact, before black-clad militiamen came calling.

U.S. spending billions to 'defeat' IEDs in Iraq

The United States is pouring billions more dollars and fresh platoons of experts into its campaign to "defeat IEDs," the roadside bombs President Bush describes as threat No. 1 to Iraq's future.

Two guards of Ahmed Chalabi killed in Baghdad

The violence continued in central Baghdad Monday afternoon when members of a security company fired on a vehicle, killing two guards for Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi.

Car bomb wounds four Iraqis in Baghdad

In the Harthiye neighborhood, a car bomb wounded four civilians. The blast apparently targeted a U.S. military convoy and missed.

Roadside bomb wounds nine in Baghdad

Nine people were wounded, including four Iraqi police officers, by a roadside bomb near an Iraqi police patrol in southern Baghdad, police said

Mortar kills child in Baghdad

A child was killed and three people wounded when a mortar round landed on a house in the Shula district of Baghdad, police said

Car bomb kills two civilians in Baghdad

Two civilians were killed and four wounded when a car bomb targeting a U.S. military convoy exploded in southern Baghdad, police said.

Danish troops attacked in Iraq, no casualties reported

Danish troops in southern Iraqwere attacked by anti-tank rockets and no casualties were reported. Anti-tank rockets, along with shots from handguns, were fired on the Danish troops who were on patrol near Al Hartha outside Basra

 

[Barking_Mad]

Dozens of bodies found in Baghdad

The bodies of 15 men have been found in an abandoned vehicle in Baghdad, Iraqi interior ministry officials say.

The men had their hands and feet tied and showed signs of torture. They were found in the Khadra district, a mainly Sunni area of west Baghdad.

About 50 corpses have been found in the capital over the past 24 hours.

Other bodies were found in both Sunni and Shia areas of the capital, including four reportedly strung up from electricity pylons in Sadr City.

Fifty people were killed and 90 injured by bomb attacks in the eastern Shia district on Sunday.

Radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr appealed for calm on Monday and said he would order his Mehdi Army militia not to respond to attacks.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Magazine editor killed in west Baghdad

Furthermore, Editor in Chief of Alif Baa Al-Iraq magazine, Mohsen Khudair was killed by gunmen in Al-Seidiya west Baghdad last night, police sources told KUNA today.

3 bodies found in Mosul

...while three bodies with gunshot wounds were found in Mosul, said Dr. Baha-Aldin al-Bakri at Mosul's Jumhouri Hospital

At least 40 more bodies found in various parts of Baghdad

At least 40 more bodies were discarded in various parts of Baghdad, including both Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, said al-Mohammedawi

Fourteen bodies found handcuffed and shot in southeast Baghdad

Fourteen bodies — handcuffed and shot and dressed only in underwear — were discovered in southeast Baghdad, police Lt. Bilal Ali said.

Roadside bomb kills civilian near Baquba

A person was killed and eight others wounded when a roadside bomb went off near a group of pilgrims on the main road between Baghdad and Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Gunmen kill intelligence police Captain

Unkownn gunmen also killed intelligence police Captain Mohammed Fadhil in Al-Amirya west Baghdad, the source said.

Gunmen kill police officer in south Baghdad

Police officer Major Abdulrahman Bader was killed last night when gunmen shot him at Al-Zaafaraniya south Baghdad wounding him seriously. He later died in hospital.

American arrested with weapons in Iraq-official

An American described as a security contractor has been arrested by police in a northern Iraqi town with weapons in his car, said a provincial official.

Baghdad Police Find 69 Bodies in 24 Hour

Iraq - Police found at least 69 bodies killed by gunfire in Baghdad in the past 24 hours — a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian reprisal attacks in some of the capital's most dangerous neighborhoods, officials said Tuesday.

Police find 15 strangled bodies in Baghdad

The bodies of 15 strangled men were found in west Baghdad on Tuesday as Iraqi leaders, under heavy pressure from Washington, began intensive talks to form a national unity government.

 

[Barking_Mad]

PDF on the role of Sistani - http://historiae.org/documents/Sistani.pdf

 

[Barking_Mad]

Update from earlier post.

80+ bodies found in Baghdad

Iraqi authorities have discovered bodies from two mass killings, taking the number of corpses found in the past 24 hours to more than 80. The bodies of 15 bound and apparently tortured men were found in an abandoned vehicle in Baghdad's Khadra district. Hours later, at least 27 bodies were found bound, blindfolded and buried in a south-eastern suburb of the capital. Analysts say the killings reflect the continuing sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia extremists.

Mass grave

The victims in Khadra - a mainly Sunni neighbourhood in western Baghdad - were found in a minibus at about 0945 (0645 GMT) on the main road between Amariya and Ghazaliya. Interior ministry spokesman Maj Falah Mohammedawi said the men had been shot in the head and chest and showed signs of torture. Fifty people were killed by bomb attacks in Sadr City on Sunday Their full identities were not immediately known although police said one victim was carrying papers identifying him as a 22-year-old Sunni student.

 

[oi2002]

PDF on the role of Sistani - http://historiae.org/documents/Sistani.pdf

Interesting:

Overlooked is the fact that the majority population
in both these countries share the ultimate goal of a society governed according to
Islamic law; it is on the finesse of the methods for reaching the goal that varying interpretations
of wilayat al-faqih come into play.118 Thus, instead of maintaining the
fictitious model of Iran and Iraq as being two worlds apart with regard to Islamic politics,
it may be useful for Western powers to prepare for cooperation with a regime in
Iraq which will share many features with its Iranian neighbour – and that without being
in conflict with its so-called “quietist” ayatollahs in Najaf.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US increase airstrikes in Iraq

U.S. military airstrikes significantly increased in IraqBy Tom LasseterKnight Ridder NewspapersBAGHDAD, Iraq - American forces have dramatically increased airstrikes in Iraq during the past five months, a change of tactics that may foreshadow how the United States plans to battle a still-strong insurgency while reducing the number of U.S. ground troops serving here.

A review of military data shows that daily bombing runs and jet-missile launches have increased by more than 50 percent in the past five months, compared with the same period last year. Knight Ridder's statistical findings were reviewed and confirmed by American Air Force officials in the region.

The numbers also show that U.S. forces dropped bombs on more cities during the last five months than they did during the same period a year ago. Air strikes a year ago struck at least nine cities, but were mostly concentrated in and around the western city of Fallujah. This year, U.S. warplanes have struck at least 18 cities.

The spike in bombings comes at a crucial time for American diplomatic efforts in Iraq. Officials in Washington have said that the situation in Iraq is improving, creating expectations that at least some American troops might be able to withdraw over the next year.

........

Osama Jadaan al Dulaimi, a tribal leader in the western town of Karabilah, a town near the Syrian border that was hit with bombs or missiles on at least 17 days between October 2005 and February 2006, said the bombings had created enemies.
"The people of Karabilah hate the foreigners who crossed the border and entered their areas and got into a fight with the Americans," al Dulaimi said. "The residents now also hate the American occupiers who demolished their houses with bombs and killed their families ... and now the people of Karabilah want to join the resistance against the Americans for what they did."

Electricity hits bottom as U.S. engineers wind down their effort in Iraq

Electricity output has dipped to its lowest point in three years in Iraq, where the desert sun is rising toward another broiling summer and U.S. engineers are winding down their rebuilding of the crippled power grid. The Iraqis, in fact, may have to turn to neighboring Iran to help bail them out of their energy crisis - if not this summer, then in years to come.

The overstressed network is producing less than half the electricity needed to meet Iraq's exploding demand. American experts are working hard to shore up the system's weaknesses as 100-degree-plus temperatures approach beginning as early as May, driving up usage of air conditioning, electric fans and refrigeration.

If the summer is unusually hot, however, ''all bets are off,'' said Lt. Col. Otto Busher, an engineer with the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division.

''We're living miserably,'' said housewife Su'ad Hassan, a mother of four and one of millions in Baghdad who have endured three years of mostly powerless days under U.S. occupation. Her family usually goes without hot water and machine washing, she said, and ''often my children have to do their homework in the dim light of oil lamps.''

Despite such hardships, Army Corps of Engineers officers regard their Restore Iraq Electricity project as one of the great feats in corps history, along with the building of the Panama Canal a century ago. Their efforts and related programs, at a three-year cost of more than $4 billion and tens of thousands of man-hours, built or rehabilitated electric-generating capacity totaling just over 2,000 megawatts - equaling the output of America's Hoover Dam.

''It's not a disappointment, not in my opinion. We've added megawatts to the grid,'' said Kathye Johnson, reconstruction chief for the joint U.S. military-civilian project office in Baghdad.

For one thing, deprived areas outside the Iraqi capital are doing better, with a nationwide average of 10 to 11 hours of electricity daily, compared with three to five hours in Baghdad. That represents a reshuffling of priorities from prewar days, when the Baathist government diverted flows from northern and southern power plants to this central metropolis.

Although the U.S. effort helped boost Iraq's potential generating capacity to more than 7,000 megawatts, available capacity has never topped 5,400, held down by plant breakdowns and shutdowns for maintenance, fuel shortages and transmission disruptions caused by insurgent attacks, inefficient production, sabotage by extortionists, and other factors.

 

[ZAMB]

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/32870/

A delegation of Iraqi women who lost family members during the invasion want to visit the U.S. The State Department says no way.

Why? Because they don't have sufficient family ties in Iraq to ensure they'll return.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Must read.

Shi'ite clerics fear cannot prevent civil war By Mariam Karouny

Iraqi Shi'ite religious leaders' restraining influence on militia groups is waning fast and senior clerics fear they are dragging Iraq into civil war, a source close to the clerical authorities said on Wednesday. Sounding the most urgent note of alarm yet from the Marja'iya, the religious establishment led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the senior source told Reuters: "People are paying less and less heed to the Marja'iya every day because of how sectarian killings are affecting Shi'ite public opinion."

In two years of attacks on their newly empowered majority community by Sunni rebels, Shi'ite militias have mostly respected calls for restraint from the holy city of Najaf but senior figures in Shi'ite armed groups speak of mounting anger. Despite insistent pleas for calm last month from Sistani hundreds were killed in days of reprisal attacks after the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, prompting fears that Shi'ite anger could plunge Iraq into all-out civil war.

"The Marja'iya is still calling for restraint but there is a great worry and fear that people are responding less because of continual pressure every day from the killing and slaughter," the source close to the Najaf religious establishment said.

A multiple car bombing in the Baghdad stronghold of Shi'ite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday was followed by the discovery of dozens of tortured bodies in the capital who police said appeared to victims of sectarian reprisals. Though Sadr, a youthful firebrand, said his Mehdi Army would not retaliate, several bodies labeled "Traitor" were hung from telegraph poles in his Sadr City bastion after the bombings.

Over the past year, pro-government Shi'ite militias, some working with the security forces, have been accused of killings. But senior sources in militias, many of them formed as the underground Shi'ite opposition to Saddam Hussein, say they face pressure from supporters to strike Sunni rebel strongholds.

"People are calling me and accusing us of being cowards," one senior Shi'ite militia commander said. "They are saying that we are not doing anything to protect them and will start defending themselves ... We are running out of soothing words."

WANING INFLUENCE

After the destruction of Samarra's Golden Mosque, the aging and reclusive Sistani backed up written statements calling for restraint by releasing television footage of him meeting fellow senior clerics, the first time he had been seen in two years. Yet Sunni counterparts mocked his inability to rein in the gunmen in the days that followed and analysts agree his influence seems to be waning fast on some Shi'ite groups.

"We take our orders from God to preserve the Shi'ite sect, not from you," a senior Shi'ite source quoted the leaders of one prominent militia group as telling Najaf clerics recently. Militia sources said that, following the attack on Sadr City on Sunday, some groups were readying plans to raid Sunni areas.

The source close to the Marja'iya said senior clerics were more worried about a generalized rage by Shi'ites in a country where virtually every household has an automatic rifle than it was about organized militias like the Mehdi Army, the Badr movement and other pro-government organized armed groups.

"The issue is not the Mehdi Army or the others. It goes beyond that now. There is huge tension among the Shi'ite public and we're worried the situation could get out of control," the source said. "We fear we're reaching this point."

Hadi al-Amery, the head of the Badr Organization loyal to the powerful, pro-Iranian SCIRI party, told Reuters he too saw a wider issue of ordinary Shi'ites forming small armed groups.

"People have begun forming popular committees to protect themselves in some villages and towns," he said. "They are defending themselves against terrorists."

"What are we supposed to tell them? 'No, don't do it. Don't carry guns?' As the Badr Organization, we are ready to help the government if it asks us and also we're telling the people to ensure their own security if the government is incompetent."

Amery said the broader Sunni population had to take responsibility for the insurgent groups operating among them, suggesting that Sunni leaders were not doing enough.

"These (insurgents) ... need local support," he said, suggesting that Shi'ites' enemies were at large in the broader population and that the government was not doing enough to prevent guerrilla attacks on the majority community.

"If you do not protect people, then people will find themselves forced to protect themselves."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Another article worth reading in full

Ordinary Iraqi families getting ready to fight - They're stockpiling weapons, food and fuel

Om Hussein, wrapped in her black abaya, lists the contents of the family's walk-in storage closet: three 175-pound cases of rice, two 33-pound cases of cooking fat, six cases of canned tomatoes, three crates of assorted legumes, a one-month supply of drinking water, frozen chicken livers in the freezer. And in the garage, jerry cans filled with fuel are piled floor to ceiling.

Om Hussein, who was reluctant to give her full name, and her Shiite family are preparing for war. They've stocked up on food. They bought a Kalashnikov rifle and a second car -- so that there is space for all 13 members of their extended family should they need to flee in a hurry.

"We are afraid of what will happen in the coming days," she says. "Maybe there will be a monthlong curfew, or maybe fighting in the streets will force my family to stay in the house for days at a time."

In the past week, President Bush has tried to assure Americans that Iraq has stepped back from the brink of civil war. "Iraqis have shown the world they want a future of freedom and peace," he told the Foundation for Defense of Democracies on Monday. Few Iraqis, however, share Bush's view that the crisis has been averted. They are readying themselves for the worst, fleeing likely flash points, stockpiling weapons and basic foodstuffs, barricading their neighborhoods, and drawing lines in the sand delineating Sunni and Shiite territory.

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


A recent AP-Ipsos Poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans think a civil war is likely in Iraq. Iraqis by and large share that assessment. The dozen Iraqis interviewed for this article, Sunnis and Shiites, have bleak expectations. Many are afraid and increasingly reluctant to see their names or their pictures in print.

"There is no security right now, and I don't expect things to get better," says Tahrir Aboud Karim, 25, an abstract painter who has laid down his brushes and taken up arms to defend his largely Sunni neighborhood against roving Shiite militias. "I'm an artist, so I have a sense of what people need. When things were peaceful in Iraq, the people were lacking beauty, so I painted. Now the people need security, so I have become a soldier."

Every evening, after sunset, Karim joins some 50 young men at checkpoints around the perimeter of the Al Jihad district in southwest Baghdad. Makeshift barricades of palm trunks, scavenged razor wire and rubble have turned this 1,500-home neighborhood into a quasi-fortress.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Another 25 bodies found in Baghdad

Extending an alarming trend of killings in Baghdad, Iraqi Emergency Police said 25 bodies were found throughout the capital Wednesday. According to police, all had been shot and stripped of identification. Since Sunday, more than 160 bodies have been recovered in Baghdad. Separately, a 24-year-old male detainee died at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison Wednesday afternoon of "apparent natural causes," a U.S. military statement said.

"Detainee was found unconscious, and the medical staff immediately began CPR in order to revive the detainee," the statement said. "He was pronounced dead at 1:30 p.m. (5:30 a.m. ET) by an attending physician." The death is under investigation.

Three Iraqis wounded in confrontations with security forces

Three Iraq civilians were wounded on Thursday in Halabja, Sulaimaniya, after confrontations broke out between protesters and local security forces.

Halliburton Failed to Protect U.S. Troops' Water

Halliburton Co. failed to protect the water supply it is paid to purify for U.S. soldiers throughout Iraq, in one instance missing contamination that could have caused "mass sickness or death,'' an internal company report concluded.

Two U.S. soldiers killed in western Iraq

Two U.S. soldiers were killed on Tuesday in Iraq's volatile western Anbar province, the U.S. military said on Wednesday. "Two soldiers, assigned to the 28th Combat Brigade Team, were killed while conducting operations in Anbar province on March 14

 

[Barking_Mad]

It shouldn't be assumed that these deaths are in addition to some of the pther articles ive posted, there may be a degree of duplication.

Fear rises in Iraq as 85 executed bodies are discovered

Police in the past 24 hours have found the bodies of at least 85 people killed by execution-style shootings - a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian reprisal slayings, officials said Tuesday. The dead included at least 27 bodies stacked in a mass grave in an eastern Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad.

The bloodshed, the second wave of mass killings in Iraq since bombers destroyed an important Shiite shrine last month, followed weekend attacks in a teeming Shiite slum in which 58 people died and more than 200 were wounded. Iraq's Interior Ministry announced a ban on driving in the capital to coincide with the first meeting of the new parliament Thursday. The ban takes effect at 8 p.m. Wednesday and lasts until 4 p.m. Thursday.

Squabbling over the composition of a new government has delayed the inaugural session since the results of Dec. 15 elections were confirmed more than a month ago. Leaders of Iraq's main ethnic and religious blocs, meanwhile, began a series of marathon meetings Tuesday to try to break the deadlock. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been shuttling between the main factions, joined the session hosted by Shiite leader Adbul-Aziz al-Hakim.

The stakes are high for Washington, which hopes a strong and inclusive central government can stabilize Iraq so U.S. forces can start drawing down in the summer. Most of the corpses were found in Baghdad, while three were found in the northern city of Mosul, police said. Acting on an anonymous tip, police found a 6-by-8-yard hole in an empty field. It contained at least 27 dead men - most of them in their underwear - in Kamaliyah, a mostly Shiite east Baghdad suburb, said Interior Ministry Lt. Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi. He estimated they had been dead for three days.

Residents offered scarves to help cover the bodies, which were laid out on the ground. Police guarded the site as members of a Shiite militia dug for more corpses. An Associated Press photographer took pictures of the grave but was warned not to publish them. An abandoned minibus containing 15 bodies was found Tuesday on the main road between two mostly Sunni neighborhoods in west Baghdad, not far from where another minibus containing 18 bodies was discovered last week, said Interior Ministry official Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi.

At least 40 more bodies were discovered in various parts of Baghdad, including both Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods, he said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Were these six young men sent by the Army into Iraqi death trap?

FAMILIES of six British Red Caps shot in a barren Iraqi police station faced the horrifying prospect yesterday that their loved ones had been systematically executed.

An inquest opened in Oxford almost two years after the death of the six Royal Military Policemen including Lance-Corporal Thomas Richard Keys, 20, from Bala, Gwynedd.

They were all shot by a large mob of Iraqi insurgents after being holed up in the police station in Al Majar Al Kabir on June 24 2003.

But reports suggest that they were not just killed in a gun battle - some were rounded up in a tiny room and systematically shot in the head by insurgents.

It was the largest loss of British life under hostile fire since the Falklands war and angry relatives have branded the town a "death trap". They are asking why the soldiers were sent into the Maysan province, where there was one deadly Kalashnikov gun for every one of the 500,000 population.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Analysis: Iraq civil war? Streets reveal what dictionary can't

At the Pentagon, they're trying to piece together a picture of an Iraqi civil war. What would it look like? Donald Rumsfeld asks.Here on the streets of Baghdad, it looks like hell. Corpses, coldly executed, are turning up by the minibus-load. Neighborhoods are terrorized. Car bombs are killing people wholesale, while assassins hunt down others one by one.

Is it civil war? "In Iraq it is no longer a matter of definition -- 'civil war' or 'war' or 'violence' or 'terrorism.' It is all of the above," said one familiar with all of the above, Beirut scholar-politician Farid Khazen, a witness to Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. Phebe Marr, a historian of Iraq, hesitates to put a name to what's happening today, a chaotic mix of anti-U.S. resistance, Sunni-Shiite communal bloodshed, Islamic extremism. "But it's civil strife," she said, "and it's getting extremely serious."

It's only a term from a dictionary, defined as a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country. But once media headlines begin calling it the "Iraq civil war," it will mark not only an escalation of vocabulary, but of international concern. Some aren't ready for the label.

"It's not a state of civil war yet, but we're on the verge of it," Baghdad political writer Jabir al-Jabari said.

"Iraq is in the first steps toward civil war," agreed Bassem al-Sheik, editor of Baghdad's Al-Dustor newspaper.

Rumsfeld said in Washington on Tuesday that he isn't convinced a civil war has begun. Intelligence analysts are "trying to look for a way to characterize what are the ingredients of a civil war, and how would you know if there was one, and what it would look like," he said. Some specialists might tell them not to waste their time: Iraq was there long ago.

"By the standard that political scientists use, there's been a civil war going on in Iraq since sovereignty was handed over to the interim government in 2004," said Stanford University's James Fearon, who has done detailed studies of modern internal conflicts.
One threshold political scientists use is a casualty toll of 1,000 dead, "and this conflict is way over that," Fearon said

From a blog.

Remember that story about Iran supplying components for IEDs in Iraq?

Remember a week ago when I reported that Bush and Rummy were claiming that the Irani government was supplying explosive components for IEDs to the Iraqi resistance? Remember how at the time I said it sounded like we might be being duped, again? Well, today the Chairmain of the Joint Chiefs of Staff just came right out and said there is no evidence whatsoever for Bush and Rummy to claim that Iran's government is behind this.

The top U.S. military officer said on Tuesday the United States does not have proof that Iran's government is responsible for Iranians smuggling weapons and military personnel into Iraq. President George W. Bush said on Monday components from Iran were being used in powerful roadside bombs used in Iraq, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel had been inside Iraq.

Asked whether the United States has proof that Iran's government was behind these developments, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon briefing, "I do not, sir."

 

[Barking_Mad]

Raid kills Iraqi civilians

BAGHDAD, Iraq (WP) -- At least four and perhaps as many as 13 people were killed in a U.S. military operation Wednesday against a house where insurgent collaborators were believed to have taken refuge.

Family members and local police officials said that at least 11 people, including five children and four women, were killed in the attack, according to wire service reports from the area. Police Capt. Hakim Azzawi said in an interview that 13 people died -- five children, six women and two men.

The U.S. military said in a statement that four people were killed in the operation.

Two separate attacks in Baghdad kill one, wound three.

A car bomb exploded in the eastern part of the capital Baghdad on Wednesday (March 14), killing one civilian and wounding two others, police sources said. They said that the car was parked on the side of the road. the real target of the attack was not known.

"At 0715 a.m. sharp a minibus, which was parked here exploded, hurting another minibus, which was driving near and injuring a female student slightly in her ear, thanks God," said Shihab al-Jibbouri, who was walking in the area when the blast happened.

Meanwhile, two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb struck their patrol while it was driving in an industrial area in the eastern part of the capital, police said.

The blast caused a small crater on the street and shattered glass windows of nearby shops.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Worth the full read

Iraq Body Count Refuses to Respond

On January 25 and 26, Media Lens published a two-part Media Alert: ‘Paved With Good Intentions - Iraq Body Count, Parts 1 and 2’. We reported how we had searched the Iraq Body Count (IBC) database for incidents involving the mass killing of Iraqi civilians by US-UK forces between January-June 2005. We found, for example, 58 incidents of a minimum of 10+ deaths. Of these, just one was attributed to ’coalition’ action - a US airstrike. By contrast, 54 incidents of 10+ deaths were clearly attributed to the insurgency.

We found that the first 18 pages of the IBC database, covering the period between July 2005 and January 2006, contained just six references to ’coalition’ helicopter attacks and airstrikes killing civilians. Our research revealed that the IBC database consistently features the same bias - massive numbers of deaths caused by insurgents as compared to a tiny number caused by the ‘coalition’.

We argued that a major reason for this bias is that IBC relies heavily on Western media with a long history of whitewashing, and apologising for, Western crimes against humanity. The media that have supplied information for its database have, unsurprisingly, lavished praise on IBC, affording it the kind of deference and respect usually reserved for official sources. In reality, IBC is not primarily an Iraq Body Count, it is not even an Iraq Media Body Count, it is an Iraq Western Media Body Count.

A poster to the Media Lens message board highlighted the irony:

“I love the fact that journalists just don't see the inherent problems with reporting the IBC figures. The journalists imbedded in Iraq spend most of the time in the Green Zone or visiting, with the military, the sites of the latest insurgent outrage. They then file reports of those deaths in their respective papers.

“The journalists then recognise that they are missing a lot of the 'action' and so use the IBC figure, presenting it as a grand total of Iraqi deaths. They seem to be able to ignore that this figure is gathered from the reports they have filed - so of course it doesn't capture the vast amount of deaths they miss.” (‘Sam’, Media Lens message board, March 8, 2006)

 

[Barking_Mad]

Helping put pay to the myth that the media are responsible for overplaying the mess inside Iraq.

The Big Lie

And no, I’m not talking about WMDs or anything like that. More in my quixotic feud with noted fiction writer Ralph Peters, who came here for a little while and declared All is Well, and “the media” are aiming to undermine the heroic mission here in Iraq with all that bad news. Why, he himself saw Iraqis cheering his patrol as he rumbled through Baghdad atop an up-armored humvee.

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment. “The media” here are fiercely competitive. Everyone of us is looking for any angle — any! — that will break news, make our stories stand out or otherwise distinguish ourselves. That’s what journalists do, and the corps here comes from the entire ideological spectrum, from the conservative to the socialist. But weirdly, this herd of cats — which is what we could be best be compared to — have all come to the same conclusion: Iraq is a mess.

I would argue that this prevailing view is the aggregate of a lot of professional reporting, mine but a small bit. If it gravitates toward a single viewpoint, well, that’s the way it is. Sorry, truth hurts. But a guy who writes exclusively for publications that supported the war before it went down comes here and says things are fine, and somehow I’m supposed to suddenly doubt my own observations and experience? Pardon me if I believe my lyin’ eyes instead of him.

But more unforgivably, Peters also continues his libel against Iraqi stringers/journalists by saying the “The Iraqi leg-men earn blood money for unbalanced, often-hysterical claims.” (emphasis added.)

Mr. Peters, you should be ashamed of yourself. Three Iraqi journalists have been killed this week alone trying to report the news, and the stringer who work for us are no less the journalists than the guys at the Iraqi networks.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Three years after Saddam, new fears haunt Iraqis

Three years after U.S. forces invaded to overthrow Saddam Hussein, Iraqis have one preoccupation -- staying alive.

"Every day I feel like I am waiting in a queue for death," said one Baghdad lawyer, too frightened to be named in print.

Ahead of the March 20 invasion anniversary, Reuters asked dozens of Iraqis if life was now better or worse. Most were gloomy, at best ambivalent, with new fears replacing old ones. The parliament that first met on Thursday has a huge task.

"In terms of security, life before was much better," said businessman Adel Hussein, 45, in Basra, the heart of southern Iraq's oil industry. "But economically, now it's much better."

In the violent northern oil city of Kirkuk, labourer Ali Salman, said: "Before the war ... torture and killing took place in secret. Now it's all in public. The meaning of freedom is different: nowadays you're free to live, and free to kill."

Three school girls slained in Baghdad

a bomb explosion in northeast Baghdad killed three school girls and seriously injured two kids...an explosive device went off shortly after noon today killing three school girls and injuring two other kids.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interesting piece on Halabjah

Kurds destroy Halabja memorial in protest

HALABJA, Iraq, March 16 (Reuters) - Hundreds of Kurdish protesters destroyed a memorial to the 1988 gas attack in the Iraqi town of Halabja on Thursday, setting the museum ablaze on the 18th anniversary of the deaths of 5,000 local people.

A hospital official said one man was shot dead in the violence, which erupted when a gathering to commemorate the attack turned into a protest over poor local services.

A local journalist working for Reuters said he saw police and Kurdish Peshmerga militiamen fire warning shots to disperse the protesters as they stormed the one-storey, circular museum that serves as a potent reminder of the 1988 attack.

"We have received one body and eight wounded people," said a doctor in Halabja's Malabar hospital. The doctor said the dead man was 19 years old.

Immediately after the riot, Kurdish security forces sealed off the town and confiscated video tapes from some journalists.

 

[Barking_Mad]

$92 billion war funding bill near House OK

The House opened an often-pointed debate Wednesday on legislation that's a trifecta of huge issues: tens of billions of dollars more for the war in Iraq, recovery from Hurricane Katrina and improving port security in the wake of the collapsed Dubai ports deal. The $92 billion appropriations bill is expected to sail through the House when a final vote is taken today, just like the five previous special-funding bills that President Bush has sought for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. With its passage, the latest installment, which includes $72 billion for the military operations, will bring the cost of the Iraq war to about $400 billion.

But with the third anniversary of the March 2003 invasion of Iraq nearing and U.S. forces caught in the middle of brutal sectarian violence, the debate is getting increasingly sharp.

"I cannot support a dime more for the war in Iraq,'' said Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass. "If Iraqis aren't willing to solve their differences by less bloody means, then why are we there?''

But Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said the war that has claimed the lives of more than 2,300 U.S. military personnel is worth it and can't be abandoned now. "The stakes are enormously high,'' he said Wednesday as debate on the bill opened. "If we leave now, our enemies would gather strength.''

The emergency-spending bill includes $19 billion for continuing to rebuild the Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Katrina. Money would pay for items such as debris removal, upgrading levees and pumping stations in New Orleans and new housing in shattered communities.

The proposal brings the hurricane and flood's costs to the federal government to about $100 billion.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Violence in Mosul

Four college students were shot dead by gunmen in Mosul 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad ... One civilian was killed and two were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. patrol in Mosul, police said.

Iraqis escape ruined country

Three years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, [emigration is] becoming increasingly common. Tens of thousands of mostly young Iraqi professionals ... have left in search of security and stability abroad.

Gunmen attack US checkpoint in Ramadi

Three civilians were killed and six wounded when gunmen attacked a checkpoint manned by U.S. and Iraqi army personnel near Ramadi 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

Translator shot dead in Baiji

A translator working for the U.S. military and his son were killed and four members of his family wounded when gunmen attacked their house in Baiji 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Sectarian violence leads to displacement in capital

Dozens of families in the capital, Baghdad, have been displaced from their neighbourhoods due to the sectarian violence that has come in the wake of the Samarra shrine bombing in February and subsequent attacks.

Bomb hits Iraqi army chief's convoy, three wounded

A roadside bomb hit a convoy of cars used by the chief of staff of the Iraqi armed forces south of Kirkuk on Thursday, but General Babakir Zebari was not present, police said. The attack ... wounded three bodyguards

Detainee dies at Abu Ghraib

A 24-year-old male security detainee died the afternoon of March 15 of apparent natural causes at Abu Ghraib. Detainee was found unconscious, and the medical staff immediately began CPR in order to revive the detainee.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US launches 'major Iraq assault'

The US military says it has launched a major air offensive against insurgents near the central Iraqi city of Samarra. More than 50 aircraft and 1,500 Iraqi and US troops have been deployed in the operation, according to a military statement. The air assault is the biggest since the 2003 invasion, the military said. A bomb attack on the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, 100km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, last month sparked widespread sectarian violence.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US-Backed Death Squads Kill Thousands In Iraq

In January 2005, Newsweek magazine reported that the “Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the US government funded or supported 'nationalist’ forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers.”

According to the Newsweek report, Pentagon chiefs were considering the recruitment of death squads from among SCIRI’s Badr militia, which had been incorporated into the US-recruited Iraqi security forces, to target Sunni resistance fighters and their sympathisers.

Negroponte would have been the man most qualified to supervise the implementation of such a death-squad program. While US ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, he supervised the recruitment by the CIA of local death squads from the Honduran army and police, and the arming of Nicaragua’s anti-government contras.

Negroponte wasn’t the only veteran of Washington’s “dirty wars” in Central America to be brought into Iraq while the “Salvador option” was being considered. The November 16 New York Newsday reported that the interior ministry’s commando units had been built up “over the past year under guidance from James Steele, a former [US] Army Special Forces officer who led US counterinsurgency efforts in El Salvador in the 1980s. Salvadoran army units trained by Steele’s team were accused of a pattern of atrocities.”

 

[Barking_Mad]

Related to a previous story here

Iraqi Kurd killed in riot on Halabja anniversary

A 14-year-old boy was killed when security guards fired into a massive crowd of Kurds protesting local corruption in Halabja on Thursday on the anniversary of Saddam Hussein's gas attack on the Kurdish town.

About 7 000 demonstrators, including relatives of the 5 000 victims of the March 17, 1988 aerial poison gas attack on Halabja, set up road blocks to prevent local officials from entering the town and then set fire to a memorial built to honour the dead.

"We've had enough of these liars and we don't want to see them in our town," said Rizin Walid, a university student.

Most of the demonstrators were students from universities around the Kurdish region home for vacation and they expressed widespread anger over the lack of services and reconstruction in the impoverished town.

After blocking the roads into town with large rocks and burning tires, the mob converged on the memorial to the tragedy where a number of local officials were speaking and clashed with security guards who opened fire on the crowd, killing 14-year-old Kurda Ahmed and wounding six.

The site was eventually overrun by the mob and the museum and meeting hall of the memorial were set on fire.

"We burned this building because the local officials are making a lot of money from international organisations due to the attack against our town and pocketing it, we don't see a penny of that money," said Cardo Hassan, one of the demonstrators.

Dissatisfaction over local government, which is widespread in Kurdish areas, is compounded in Halabja by the perception that the government's promises of compensation for the relatives of the victims of the gassing have not been honoured.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Gunmen kill 3 and wound 5 in Baghdad

In tense Baghdad, meanwhile, drive-by gunmen targeting streams of Shiite Muslim pilgrims killed three people and wounded five in Sunni areas of the city, police reported.

Marine Firefight Investigated

The military has opened a criminal investigation into a firefight between U.S. Marines and insurgents last year that left 15 Iraqi civilians dead, defense officials said Thursday.

 

[oi2002]

Brzezinski calls for Iraq pull out

UPI:

"We have to make a really cold judgement," said Brzezinski. "Would the consequence of civil war be more devastating than the consequences of staying the course?"

Iraqi Shiites and Kurds might prevail in a civil war, Brzezinski said.

"The U.S. umbrella that is designed to prevent these wars is so porous it ends up feeding them," he said.

It would take a U.S. commitment of half a million troops to make a significant difference in fighting the Iraqi insurgency, Brzezinski said. But, "We are not in a position to do this," he said.

Brzezinski also called for a new U.S. nuclear dialogue with Iran. A precedent for one already existed in the Bush administration's multi-lateral talks with North Korea on nuclear proliferation, he said.

"Surely it cannot be our deliberate intention to fuse Iranian nationalism with Iranian fundamentalism?" he said.

Brzezinski said that however long the U.S. military occupation of Iraq lasted, it was doomed to failure.

"In a war of attrition," he said, "a foreign occupier is always at a disadvantage. This is a failed occupation."

 

[laptop]

Reid denies troops hate Iraq war

Defence Secretary John Reid has denied UK troops do not want to serve in Iraq because they disagree with the war.

There was no evidence of the forces struggling to find recruits, he added.
...
"It is just not true to say everyone is in despair and nothing is getting better," he added.

I'm imagining a BBC hack thinking "fuck's sake man..." and writing the headline that makes Reid's stuidity as transparent as possible...

Watch for the headling changing.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Military Investigating Deadly Raid in Iraq

After a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine in western Iraq, American troops went into nearby houses and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old-girl, residents told The Associated Press on Monday.
The military says about 12 Marines are under investigation for possible war crimes by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service following the Nov. 19 insurgent attack in Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The allegations against the Marines were first brought forward by Time Magazine, which reported this week that it obtained a videotape two months ago taken by a Haditha journalism student that shows the dead still in their nightclothes.

The magazine report mirrored what was told independently to the AP by residents who described what happened as "a massacre.''

 

[Barking_Mad]

British guns in al-Qaeda hands: report

Thousands of weapons supplied to Iraq by British arms companies have fallen into the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists targeting British troops, the Observer newspaper here revealed on Sunday. A deal approved by British ministers to export semi-automatic pistols to Iraqi police forces has ended up arming the supporters of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is claimed to be al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, the paper said in an investigative report.

Britain's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) last year sanctioned the export of Beretta 92S guns, and there is no evidence to suggest special checks were put in place to prevent them from reaching terrorist insurgents, the report said. The two British companies involved in supplying the 20,318 weapons to Iraq said there had been a risk that some of the weapons could have ended up with the "wrong people" if preventative measures had not been introduced.

Critics said the revelations raised damaging questions over Britain's role in exporting arms to Iraq.

Anti-war activists even claimed in Saturday's demonstration in central London that the companies involved in the deals were supporting both sides of confronting military groups in Iraq to make chaos in the warring country, so that the U.S. and British governments could justify keeping their military presence in the country. The Beretta deal was instigated when the U.S. government askedits procurement arm, Taos Industries, to find weaponry to arm the Iraqi police, the Observer said.

The U.S. firm contacted London-based Super Vision International,which negotiated procurement of the semi-automatic pistols from Beretta's Brescia factory and asked Cornwall-based arms firm Helston Gunsmiths, in south-west England, to obtain an export licence from the British government. The DTI approved the licence and the Beretta 92S guns were flown from Italy to Stansted airport, Essex, where customs officials approved the paperwork before they were dispatched to the U.S. military base in Baghdad.

In February 2005 the guns were handed over to Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority for distribution to police.

However, Iraqi officers have reported that a number of the Beretta pistols have been found among the "friends of al-Zarqawi" and "in the possession of the enemy forces." A spokesman for the DTI said the deal, approved by Nigel Griffiths, the minister then responsible for arms exports, was sanctioned only after considering the "risk that the equipment will be diverted within the buyer country (Iraq)."

Both British arms companies involved in the sale admitted weapons had been found in the possession of insurgents. However, they said it was impossible to know exactly how many, although the figure is believed to be in the thousands, the report added.