*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

2 suicide bombers strike Shiite mosque and nearby police station

Two suicide bombers struck a Shiite mosque and a nearby police station near the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, and more than 25 people were killed or wounded, police said.

14 Killed at Iraqi Police Chief's House

In a dawn strike Friday, unidentified gunmen attacked the house of the police chief in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, killing his wife, two brothers and 11 guards, Diyala provincial police reported.

199 killed in June, Iraq says

Nearly 200 people were victims of Baghdad's sectarian violence in the first week of June, with 32 bodies dumped around the capital on Thursday, an Iraq Interior Ministry official said

 

[Barking_Mad]

In Diyala, U.S. aligns with tribal leaders

U.S. military officials say they are making progress in negotiating with tribal leaders in a turbulent region north of Baghdad, using a formula that helped reduce violence in western Iraq.

Policeman killed in central Diwaniya

Gunmen killed a police officer in front his house in central Diwaniya, 180 km (112 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Four bodies found in Mosul

The bodies of four people were found shot dead in different areas of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Five people killed in seperate incidents

Five people, including a policeman, were killed and nine wounded in different incidents around Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Catholic priest kidnapped

Also on June 6, another priest, Father Hani Abdel Ahad, was kidnapped along with 5 young men who were accompanying him on a visit to a Baghdad seminary.

More violent assaults on Iraqi Christians

Islamic militants stormed one Catholic church, killing security guards, and vandalized another church in Baghdad, according to a Vatican Radio report. Several guards were reportedly killed in the assault on the parish church of St. John the Baptist...

Gunmen kill female journalist in N Iraq

Gunmen on Thursday shot dead a female journalist working for an independent Iraqi news agency in Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a provincial police source said.

 

[Barking_Mad]

US 'war tsar' had doubts on surge

The general nominated to be the first US "war tsar" has said he had initial doubts about the US troop surge in Iraq but that it should be given time.
Lt Gen Douglas Lute, picked last month by President Bush to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, was speaking at his Senate confirmation hearing.

He said he had warned that pouring more troops into Iraq would only work if the Iraqi authorities also made efforts.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Other violence in Iraq

Ethnic tensions have risen in the area as Kurds seek to incorporate the city into their self-governing region in northern Iraq. They won a major concession in March when they pressured the government of Iraqi prime minister Nouri Maliki into approving plans to move thousands of Arabs out of Kirkuk and resettle them elsewhere.

In southern Iraq today, a parked minibus exploded at a bus terminal in the town of Qurnah. A hospital director said at least 16 people were killed and 32 wounded.

The continuing violence came a day after the four-year US military death toll in Iraq passed the 3,500 mark, after a soldier was reported killed in a roadside bombing in Baghdad.

 

[Barking_Mad]

hmm not sure where this so called 'temporary security zone' is, but clearly the Kurds are intent on picking a fight with Turkish troops...

Turkish soldiers killed near Iraq

Three Turkish soldiers were killed in a road side bomb near Iraq's border where Turkey's military started a campaign against Kurdish separatists. The attack on Thursday evening occurred in one of several temporary security zones ...

 

[corporate whore]

UN Chief says US surge is failing

The buildup of U.S. troops in Baghdad is failing, according to a report by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that said the heavily fortified Green Zone in the Iraqi capital has become too dangerous for his staff.

"Insurgent attacks persist and civilian casualties continue to mount,'' Ban said in a quarterly report to the UN Security Council. "While there was a brief lull in the level of sectarian violence early in the reporting period, it now appears that militia forces are resuming their activities.''

 

[corporate whore]

US arming Sunnis against Al-Qaida

On Sunday, US military commanders and Iraqi provincial officials held a meeting with 130 Sunni tribal sheikhs in Saddam Hussein's old hometown of Tikrit.
According to the US, the tribal leaders reached a "historic agreement" to play a more active role in defending their troubled province, Salahuddin, against al-Qaeda and other radical insurgent groups.
It is the latest move in what is clearly becoming one of the main thrusts of the US exit strategy here - to empower and arm Sunni Arab tribes and factions, provided they pledge to resist outside militants like al-Qaeda.

 

[Aldebaran]

Great. Now we can watch better armed Sunni militia against better armed Shia and Kurdish militia. Definitely an improvement on the previous situation.
Divide and conquer, anyone? I vote for a gruadual improvement of arming the housewives and children too.

salaam.

 

[TAE]

Blast hits key Iraq Shia shrine

The two minarets of the al-Askari shrine in Iraq, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, have been destroyed by two explosions.

 

[TAE]

double post

 

[Aldebaran]

I'm sick of it. Barbarians. Now once again all hell can break loose too.

Thank you once again, criminal arrogant US cowboys for setting all of this in motion.

salaam

 

[corporate whore]

32,000 Iraqi police dead or missing in 18 months

About one in six Iraqi policemen trained by U.S.-led forces has been killed or wounded, has deserted or just disappeared, a senior U.S. military commander says.

And continuing violence is prompting officials again to increase the size of the Iraqi army - this time by another 20,000, said Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, who until recently headed the training effort.

Speaking before a House subcommittee, Dempsey said some 32,000 Iraqi police had been lost from the newly trained force of 188,000 in the 18 months before January.

 

[corporate whore]

US calls in thousands of reservists for medicals

For the first time since the Iraq war began, the Army is notifying thousands in a special category of reservists that they must report this summer for medical screening and other administrative tasks.

The decision to issue "muster" orders for 5,000 members of the Individual Ready Reserve, including some in Southern California, is not a prelude to a new mobilization or deployment of reservists to Iraq, an Army spokesman said. Instead, it is part of an effort to fix an IRR call-up system that failed early in the Iraq war.

"They draft the white trash first, round here anyways" - Steve Earle

 

[corporate whore]

Cholera season starts early in Iraq this year

Iraq has reported five cases of cholera among children in the last three weeks, a worrying sign as summer sets in and the war leaves sewage and sanitation systems a shambles.

All of the cases were among children younger than 12 in the southern city of Najaf and were reported by medical officials on alert for signs of the potentially lethal ailment, Claire Hajaj of the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, said Tuesday.

Although the number of cases so far is low, and none has been fatal, the emergence of cholera this early in the year is ominous, Hajaj said. Cholera outbreaks usually don't arise until July, when temperatures can soar above 120 degrees.

 

[corporate whore]

70 bodies a week arrive at Iraq's Graveyard for the Unknown Victims

As the wind whistles across baked earth cratered with row upon row of man-sized pits, an army of Iraqi gravediggers goes about its grim daily task.

Occasional mourners crouch weeping before fresh piles of earth marked simply with numbers, anonymous discs that are the final tribute to the latest victims of Iraq's pitiless sectarian war.

Almost every week freezer trucks drive south from Baghdad to Karbala carrying scores of corpses, some blackened by fire, some maimed by power tools, many with their hands bound tightly behind their backs.

In May, 314 unidentified corpses were brought to Karbala to add to the 2,017 anonymous graves already lying in rows across the overflow cemetery, victims of Iraq's many overlapping civil conflicts.

Said Saleem Kadhim, a spokesman for the city health directorate, said trucks still bring up to 70 bodies a week, four months after the start of a US and Iraqi security plan aimed at restoring peace to the capital.

 

[corporate whore]

Pentagon says violence increasing in much of Iraq

Violence increased throughout much of Iraq in recent months, despite a security crackdown in Baghdad that at least temporarily reduced sectarian killings there, according to a quarterly assessment of security conditions issued Wednesday by the Pentagon.

“The aggregate level of violence in Iraq remained relatively unchanged during this reporting period,” the report said. “Violence has decreased” in Baghdad and in Anbar Province, which have long been the country’s most violent areas, “but has increased in most provinces, particularly in outlying areas around Baghdad and in Nineva and Diyala Provinces.” Attacks have also increased in Basra Province in the south, because of fighting between rival Shiite militants, some of whom fled Baghdad because of the security crackdown, it added.

Although precise data are not included in the report, attacks on civilians and Iraqi and American troops increased by 2 percent from the previous quarter, the report said. The average number of attacks has exceeded 1,000 per week since the beginning of this year through early May, the highest level since the American invasion in 2003, it said.

 

[corporate whore]

US general says "astonishing signs of normalcy" in Baghdad

When Gen. David Petraeus drives through the streets of Iraq's capital, he sees "astonishing signs of normalcy" in half, perhaps two-thirds of Baghdad.

"I'm talking about professional soccer leagues with real grass field stadiums, several amusement parks — big ones, markets that are very vibrant," says Petraeus, commander of the roughly 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. The scenes provide a sign that the new strategy in Iraq is working, although many problems remain, he told USA TODAY in an interview Wednesday.

 

[corporate whore]

If mortar attacks are your idea of normalcy, I suppose

Explosions rocked central Baghdad mid-afternoon Thursday, and smoke billowed over the American-guarded Green Zone.

A witness inside the zone, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his job, said about half a dozen mortars fell in the area. The Green Zone houses the U.S. and British embassies, as well as offices of the Iraqi government.

 

[Aldebaran]

He must be talking about this

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/baghdad-usa.htm

salaam.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Interesting read:

Where is Iraq heading? Lessons from Basra - ICG report

Middle East Report N°67 - Damascus/Amman/Brussels, 25 June 2007

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Amid the media and military focus on Baghdad, another major Iraqi city – Basra – is being overlooked. Yet Basra's experience carries important lessons for the capital and nation as a whole. Coalition forces have already implemented a security plan there, Operation Sinbad, which was in many ways similar to Baghdad's current military surge. What U.S. commanders call "clear, hold and build", their British counterparts earlier had dubbed "clear, hold and civil reconstruction". And, as in the capital, the putative goal was to pave the way for a takeover by Iraqi forces. Far from being a model to be replicated, however, Basra is an example of what to avoid. With renewed violence and instability, Basra illustrates the pitfalls of a transitional process that has led to collapse of the state apparatus and failed to build legitimate institutions. Fierce intra-Shiite fighting also disproves the simplistic view of Iraq neatly divided between three homogenous communities.

Lack of attention to Basra is understandable. Iraq's future is often believed to depend on Baghdad, and most of the spectacular bombings have taken place in the centre of the country, far from the southern city. Observers, by now accustomed to the capital's dynamics, have had difficulty making sense of Basra's and so have tended to downplay them. Finally, because U.S. forces have not been directly involved, news coverage has been both limited to Arabic and British media and forced to compete with the gruesome violence that is tearing the centre apart.

But to neglect Basra is a mistake. The nation's second largest city, it is located in its most oil-rich region. Basra governorate also is the only region enjoying maritime access, making it the country's de facto economic capital and a significant prize for local political actors. Sandwiched between Iran and the Gulf monarchies, at the intersection of the Arab and Persian worlds, the region is strategically important. Sociologically, Basra's identity essentially has been forged in opposition not only to the capital but also to other major southern cities such as Najaf and Karbala. For these reasons, it is wrong either to ignore it or lump it together with an imaginary, undifferentiated Shiite south.

On its face, Basra's security plan ranked as a qualified success. Between September 2006 and March 2007, Operation Sinbad sought to rout out militias and hand security over to newly vetted and stronger Iraqi security forces while kick-starting economic reconstruction. Criminality, political assassinations and sectarian killings, all of which were rampant in 2006, receded somewhat and – certainly as compared to elsewhere in the country – a relative calm prevailed. Yet this reality was both superficial and fleeting. By March–April 2007, renewed political tensions once more threatened to destabilise the city, and relentless attacks against British forces in effect had driven them off the streets into increasingly secluded compounds. Basra's residents and militiamen view this not as an orderly withdrawal but rather as an ignominious defeat. Today, the city is controlled by militias, seemingly more powerful and unconstrained than before.

What progress has occurred cannot conceal the most glaring failing of all: the inability to establish a legitimate and functioning provincial apparatus capable of redistributing resources, imposing respect for the rule of law and ensuring a peaceful transition at the local level. Basra's political arena remains in the hands of actors engaged in bloody competition for resources, undermining what is left of governorate institutions and coercively enforcing their rule. The local population has no choice but to seek protection from one of the dominant camps. Periods of stability do not reflect greater governing authority so much as they do a momentary – and fragile – balance of interests or of terror between rival militias. Inevitably, conflicts re-emerge and even apparently minor incidents can set off a cycle of retaliatory violence. A political process designed to pacify competition and ensure the non-violent allocation of goods and power has become a source of intense and often brutal struggle.

Basra is a case study of Iraq's multiple and multiplying forms of violence. These often have little to do with sectarianism or anti-occupation resistance. Instead, they involve the systematic misuse of official institutions, political assassinations, tribal vendettas, neighbourhood vigilantism and enforcement of social mores, together with the rise of criminal mafias that increasingly intermingle with political actors. Should other causes of strife – sectarian violence and the fight against coalition forces – recede, the concern must still be that Basra's fate will be replicated throughout the country on a larger, more chaotic and more dangerous scale. The lessons are clear. Iraq's violence is multifaceted, and sectarianism is only one of its sources. It follows that the country's division along supposedly inherent and homogenous confessional and ethnic lines is not an answer. It follows, too, that rebuilding the state, tackling militias and imposing the rule of law cannot be done without confronting the parties that currently dominate the political process and forging a new and far more inclusive political compact.

Iraq is in the midst of a civil war. But before and beyond that, Iraq has become a failed state – a country whose institutions and, with them, any semblance of national cohesion, have been obliterated. That is what has made the violence – all the violence: sectarian, anti-coalition, political, criminal and otherwise – both possible and, for many, necessary. Resolving the confrontation between Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds is one priority. But rebuilding a functioning and legitimate state is another – no less urgent, no less important and no less daunting.

 

[tangentlama]

Important article

Everyone we fight in Iraq is now "al-Qaida"
Josh Marshall publishes an e-mail from a reader who identifies what is one of the most astonishing instances of mindless, pro-government "reporting" yet:

It's a curious thing that, over the past 10 - 12 days, the news from Iraq refers to the combatants there as "al-Qaida" fighters. When did that happen?

Until a few days ago, the combatants in Iraq were "insurgents" or they were referred to as "Sunni" or "Shia'a" fighters in the Iraq Civil War. Suddenly, without evidence, without proof, without any semblance of fact, the US military command is referring to these combatants as "al-Qaida".

Welcome to the latest in Iraq propaganda.

That the Bush administration, and specifically its military commanders, decided to begin using the term "Al Qaeda" to designate "anyone and everyeone we fight against or kill in Iraq" is obvious. All of a sudden, every time one of the top military commanders describes our latest operations or quantifies how many we killed, the enemy is referred to, almost exclusively now, as "Al Qaeda."

But what is even more notable is that the establishment press has followed right along, just as enthusiastically. I don't think the New York Times has published a story about Iraq in the last two weeks without stating that we are killing "Al Qaeda fighters," capturing "Al Qaeda leaders," and every new operation is against "Al Qaeda."

The Times -- typically in the form of the gullible and always-government-trusting "reporting" of Michael Gordon, though not only -- makes this claim over and over, as prominently as possible, often without the slightest questioning, qualification, or doubt. If your only news about Iraq came from The New York Times, you would think that the war in Iraq is now indistinguishable from the initial stage of the war in Afghanistan -- that we are there fighting against the people who hijacked those planes and flew them into our buildings: "Al Qaeda."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/23/al_qaeda/index.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq : Some more numbers

Number of American troops in Iraq, June 2007: Approximately 156,000.

Number of American troops in Iraq, May 1, 2003, the day President Bush declared "major combat operations" in that country "ended": Approximately 130,000.

Number of Sunni insurgents in Iraq, May 2007: At least 100,000, according to Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar on his most recent visit to the country.

American military dead in the surge months, February 1-June 26, 2007: 481. American military dead, February-June 2006: 292.

Number of contractors killed in the first three months of 2007: At least 146, a significant surge over previous years. (Contractor deaths sometimes go unreported and so these figures are likely to be incomplete.)

Number of armed "private contractors" now in Iraq: at least 20,000-30,000, according to the Washington Post.

Number of attacks on U.S. troops and allied Iraqi forces, April 2007: 4,900.

Percentage of U.S. deaths from roadside bombs (IEDs): 70.9% in May 2007; 35% in February 2007 as the surge was beginning.

Percentage of registered U.S. supply convoys (guarded by private contractors) attacked: 14.7% in 2007 (through May 10); 9.1% in 2006; 5.4% in 2005.

Percentage of Baghdad not controlled by U.S. (and Iraqi) security forces more than four months into the surge: 60%, according to the U.S. military.

Number of attacks on the Green Zone More than 80 between March and the beginning of June, 2007, according to a UN report.

U.S. air strikes in Iraq during the surge months: Air Force planes are dropping bombs at more than twice the rate of a year ago, according to the Associated Press.

Number of Iraqi police, trained by Americans, who were not on duty as of January 2007, just before the surge plan was put into operation: Approximately 32,000 out of a force of 188,000, according to the Associated Press. About one in six Iraqi policemen has been killed, wounded, deserted, or just disappeared. About 5,000 probably have deserted; and 7,000-8,000 are simply "unaccounted for." (Recall here the President's old jingle of 2005: "As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.")

Number of Iraqis who have fled their country since 2003: Estimated to be between 2 million and 2.2 million, or nearly one in ten Iraqis. According to independent reporter Dahr Jamail, at least 50,000 more refugees are fleeing the country every month.

Number of Iraqi refugees who have been accepted by the United States: Fewer than 500, according to Bob Woodruff of ABC News; 701, according to Agence France Presse. (Under international and congressional pressure, the Bush administration has finally agreed to admit another 7,000 Iraqis by year's end.)

Number of Iraqis who are now internal refugees in Iraq, largely due to sectarian violence since 2003: At least 1.9 million, according to the UN. (A recent Red Crescent Society report, based on a survey taken in Iraq, indicates that internal refugees have quadrupled since January 2007, and are up eight-fold since June 2006.)

Percentage of refugees, internal and external, under 12: 55%, according to the President of the Red Crescent Society.

Number of Iraqi doctors who have fled the country since 2003: An estimated 12,000 of the country's 34,000 registered doctors since 2003, according to the Iraqi Medical Association. The Association reports that another 2,000 doctors have been slain in those years.

Percentage of Iraqis now living on less than $1 a day, according to the UN: 54%.

Iraq's per-capita annual income: $3,600 in 1980; $860 in 2001 (after a decade of UN sanctions); $530 at the end of 2003, according to Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar, who estimates that the number may now have fallen below $400. Unemployment in Iraq is at around 60%.

Percentage of Iraqis who do not have regular access to clean water: 70%, according to the World Health Organization. (80% "lack effective sanitation.")

Rate of chronic child malnutrition: 21%, according to the World Health Organization. (Rates of child malnutrition had already nearly doubled by 2004, only 20 months after the U.S. invasion.) According to UNICEF, "about one in 10 children under five in Iraq are underweight."

Percentage of seriously wounded who don't survive in emergency rooms and intensive-care units, due to lack of drugs, equipment, and staff: Nearly 70%, according to the World Health Organization.

The value of an Iraqi life: A maximum of $2,500 in "consolation" or "solatia" payments made by the American military to Iraqi civilians who died "as a result of U.S. and coalition forces' actions during combat," according to a U.S. Government

The value of an Iraqi car, destroyed by American forces: $2,500 would not be unusual, and conceivably the full value of the car, according to the same GAO report.

 

[laptop]

Turkey warns of plans to invade northern Iraq


Michael Howard in Sulaymaniya
Saturday June 30, 2007
The Guardian

Turkey has prepared a blueprint for the invasion of northern Iraq and will take action if US or Iraqi forces fail to dislodge the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) from their mountain strongholds across the border, Turkey's foreign minister Abdullah Gul has warned.

"The military plans have been worked out in the finest detail. The government knows these plans and agrees with them," Mr Gul told Turkey's Radikal newspaper. "If neither the Iraqi government nor the US occupying forces can do this [crush the PKK], we will take our own decision and implement it," Mr Gul said. The foreign minister's uncharacteristically hawkish remarks were seen as a response to pressure from Turkey's generals, who have deployed some 20,000-30,000 troops along the borders with Iraq, and who are itching to move against the rebels they say are slipping across the border to stage attacks inside Turkey.

All getting yet messier still, then...

 

[ZAMB]

Bush wants Iraq to be like Israel? Is he nuts!!!

Apparently Bush doesn't see peace in Iraq as desireable or even necessary. But suggesting Israel as a model ..... the mind boggles????!!!!!

He suggested Israel as a model.

There, Bush said, "Terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq."

It was likely to be controversial — and possibly even explosive — for Bush to set out Israel as a model for a Muslim Middle Eastern nation. Israel has been locked for decades in an intractable dispute with Palestinians in the neighboring occupied territories, a conflict that is viewed as a major recruiting tool for Islamic extremist groups like al-Qaida.

What America is aiming for in Iraq, Bush said, is "the rise of a government that can protect its people, deliver basic services for all its citizens and function as a democracy even amid violence."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4929061.html

 

[Aldebaran]

I'm beyond vomitting every time I even hear or see the name of that that arrogant lunatic mass murderer. I even doubt Satan likes him. He is too willfully retarded.

salaam.

 

[ZAMB]

" The abused are only Iraqis !"

Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world : Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

"From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service. And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values." - US Gen Antonio Taguba.

A senior US General in Iraq to Gen Taguba --" the abused detainees were 'only Iraqis.'"

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17948.htm

 

[corporate whore]

Everything must go!

The Iraqi government has begun preparing the groundwork for what could be one of the biggest privatisations of state-owned assets.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that officials from the government have recently held talks with banking and legal advisers in London. City sources said Iraq's minister for industry, Fawzi Hariri, was looking to appoint advisers to draw up a memorandum of understanding to sell off the country's non-oil assets, ranging from petrochemical plants to construction companies, hotels and airlines, as early as this month.

 

[laptop]

There are not enough servicemen and women to meet the demands placed on the UK armed forces by the situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, MPs have said.

The Commons public accounts committee said the overall shortfall in personnel stood at 5,850, or 3.2%, of full strength in April.

Numbers leaving early reached a 10-year peak in some areas, the report said.

BBC

Hmmm...

 

[ZAMB]

Old news with a new twist. Good 15 minute radio interview.

Antiwar Radio: Charles Goyette Interviews Seymour Hersh:

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh discusses the torture of innocents at Abu Ghraib, the persecution of general Taguba, who led the initial investigation and the cover-up of the fact that it was all ordered from the very top.
http://dissentradio.com/charles/aw061907syhersh.mp3