*IRAQ: latest news and developments

[Barking_Mad]

BBC in censorship 'scandal'

Radio 4's Today programme was today plunged into a fresh Iraq row after BBC bosses cut a dramatic and potentially controversial section of a John Humphrys interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, in which he was asked about the morality of the conflict.
Dr Williams complained when the interview was over that he had only agreed to be questioned on the issue of gay clergy, and following tense negotiations the BBC agreed to drop the offending section.

The decision prompted a fierce row in the radio newsroom, with journalists accusing bosses of censorship.

Dr Williams recorded the interview just before 7am this morning. It was broadcast in the prominent 8.10am slot.

Listeners would have been unaware of the cut made by BBC bosses were it not for an incongruous introduction by Humphrys, who was unaware his interview had been altered.



http://media.guardian.co.uk/radio/story/0,12636,1065418,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

KARBALA, Iraq : A US soldier died in a blast in Baghdad, hours after three troops were killed in the central Iraqi city of Karbala, taking to 101 US combat losses since Washington declared an end to major hostilities five months ago.

"This morning at 7:50 am (0450 GMT) one military policeman from the 220th Military Police Brigade was killed and two others were wounded in an improvised explosive device in the Baghdad area," a coalition spokeswoman told AFP on Friday.

Advertisement


The death took to 101 the number of US troops killed in action since President George W. Bush declared an end to major combat hostilities in Iraq on May 1, and came just hours after three other members of the US military police were killed in Karbala.

The troops and Iraqi police came under attack by bodyguards of a local cleric in the Shiite holy city, 110 kilometers (70 miles) south of Baghdad, the coalition said.

Spokesmen said two Iraqi policemen were killed and another five wounded, though the officer who headed the police patrol put the toll among his men at one dead and one wounded, and said the gunmen also suffered several casualties.

"Three coalition troops were killed and seven wounded," said US military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel George Krivo.

"The firefight was initiated by non-compliant forces after someone reported that a number of men were congregating with arms near the Al-Abbas mosque after curfew," he said.


http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/52842/1/.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

Just turned on Channel 4 news to see small children throwing stones. I thought it was the Israel/Palestinian conflict at first glance, but no, it was Mosul in Iraq.

US soldiers approached and they ran off....A sign of things to come no doubt.......

 

[Barking_Mad]

Kay’s WMD Report – More holes than swiss cheese

Its perhaps not surprising to learn that the botulinium vile found at a scientists home in Iraq came from….the USA (in 1980).

The single vial of botulinum B had been stored in an Iraqi scientist's kitchen refrigerator since 1993. It appears to have been produced by a non-profit Virginia biological resource center, the American Type Culture Collection, which legally exported botulinum and other biological material to Iraq under a Commerce Department license in the late 1980s.

Secondly the danger of this vile is thought to be non existent as botulinium b has never been transformed into a biological weapon, not even by the USA or Russia…

But Dr. David Franz, a former chief U.N. biological weapons inspector who is considered among America's foremost experts on biowarfare agents, said there was no evidence that Iraq or anyone else has ever succeeded in using botulinum B for biowarfare.

"The Soviets dropped it [as a goal] and so did we, because we couldn't get it working as a weapon," said Franz, who is the former commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Ft. Detrick, Md., the Pentagon's lead laboratory for bioweapons defense research.

Oh and the ricin claims, they were a load of old piddle too…

"They gave up using ricin as a weapon," Franz said. "That was the right decision, in my opinion." Because it is so difficult to produce the proper powdered form for aerosol distribution, he added, "you almost need to be hit by a brick of it to kill you."

http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/latimes13.html

Bob Drogin Times Staff Writer - The Los Angeles Times

 

[Barking_Mad]

Roll up! Roll Up! Iraq for sale......

For centuries, pillage by invading armies was a normal part of warfare: a way in which to reward badly-paid or unpaid troops for risking their lives in battle.

Nowadays, at least in more civilised countries, we do not let armies rampage for booty. We leave the pillaging to men in suits, and we don't call it pillaging any more. We call it economic development.

Today, the men in suits are gathering at Olympia, in London, for a two-day conference and exhibition entitled Doing Business in Iraq. Protesters will be gathering outside.

The event, which is sponsored by the US-Iraq business council, is one of a series being held in different parts of the world over the coming 12 months (another will take place in Moscow in December), culminating in a grand spoils of war exhibition in Baghdad towards the end of next year.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1062049,00.html

 

[Barking_Mad]

MOre US Reserves to go to Iraq. Perhaps the most important factor is that they will have to learn all the brutal realities of those they might be replacing.......

U.S. to Ready More Guard, Reserve Troops for Iraq

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More U.S. National Guard and Reserve troops will be notified within weeks to serve in Iraq, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld would not predict whether 133,000 troops now there might be reduced next year.

Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said military leaders will advise Rumsfeld in two or three weeks on additional logistics and other support units that will be needed for rotation duty in Iraq.

Pace and Rumsfeld, speaking at a Pentagon briefing, said no final decision has been made on how many additional Guard and Reserve troops will be called to active duty.

Three National Guard combat brigades totaling 15,000 troops have already been called to duty or notified of a call-up, and more will be needed as nearly all of the active and reserve American troops in Iraq are rotated home in the coming year.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3659488

 

[Barking_Mad]

Another story about US troops shooting Iraqi civilians.....

The Americans seemed to panic," said Hussein al-Jabari, who witnessed the events.

"As well as the two cars that were hit, they fired indiscriminately all around them. I heard someone shout in English: 'Shoot anything that moves'. They even shot each other. Two of them were laying screaming in the road," says Hussein.

There was no indication anyone else opened fire, he adds.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3212156.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Hmm....

WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 - A yearlong State Department study predicted many of the problems that have plagued the American-led occupation of Iraq, according to internal State Department documents and interviews with administration and Congressional officials.

Their findings included a much more dire assessment of Iraq's dilapidated electrical and water systems than many Pentagon officials assumed. They warned of a society so brutalized by Saddam Hussein's rule that many Iraqis might react coolly to Americans' notion of quickly rebuilding civil society.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/i...00&en=68b5f9f75d404f05&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

 

[Barking_Mad]

Poll results as framed by Cheney were misleading.....

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1022-12.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Halliburton in Iraq fuel costs row

Halliburton, the oil services and construction group, has been accused by US lawmakers of charging "inflated prices" when they sell petrol to US troops in Iraq.
Halliburton charges the US government more than $1.59 (£0.95) for a gallon of petrol used by the US Army Corp of Engineers in Iraq, according to US Representatives Henry Waxman and John Dingell.

The price charged is much higher than that paid by Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation when it imports petrol from Turkey or other neighbouring countries at 98 cents or less for a gallon.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3205105.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Another Tony Blair lie, no wonder the fuckwits heart is missing beats. So would mine if I had that much death crawling over me whilst I slept.

-----------

On 25 April, two weeks after Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled in central Baghdad, Tony Blair gave an assurance to major British charities in a handwritten note that, "funds will not be redirected from other emergencies... nor from programmes supporting poor people elsewhere." But the Department for International Aid and Development, now led by Hilary Benn, has been told to find up to £100m by cutting back programmes in countries like Peru, Philippines, Bolivia and South Africa.

"This means Tony Blair has broken his promise," said Justin Forsyth policy director at Oxfam. There was similar condemnation from Christian aid, while Caroline Spelman, Shadow International Development Secretary, said it was, "morally wrong" to take aid from other countries to fund the rebuilding of Iraq.

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=456249

 

[Barking_Mad]

Ermmm yeah, right, whatever.

Homesickness Leads U.S. Troops in Iraq to Suicide

TIKRIT, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. soldiers who have committed suicide in Iraq were mostly just desperate to return home, and may have meant only to injure themselves, a military combat stress officer said on Thursday.

Officials in Washington said last week at least 13 soldiers have killed themselves in Iraq, representing more than 10 percent of non-combat deaths. More case are being probed.

Captain Justin Cole, who works at a U.S. military base in Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, said that while a majority of soldiers are dealing well with the stress of being away from home, for some it was proving too much.

He said he had personally dealt with two self-inflicted deaths. One soldier shot himself in the leg after being told he could not go home, hitting an artery.

Another, a woman, shot herself in the stomach. He said he thought neither meant to kill themselves.

"I don't think the issues on hand were combat issues," he told Reuters. "I think they were missing home, very much wanting to go home and a as a result did harm to themselves. Unfortunately they did pass away."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3676521

 

[nino_savatte]

George Galloway expelled from Labour Party

George Galloway has been expelled from the Labour Party by what he describes as a "kangaroo court". He told reporters waiting outside the ISTC Hq. in London that "he would not be leaving politics". Mr Galloway has a full diary of speaking engagements, one of which is at Wood Green Labour Club tonight.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,1069446,00.html

Mr Galloway also claimed that fellow MPs, Glenda Jackson and Bob Marshall-Andrews -both of whom were critical of the invasion - could also find themselves called before the "court".

 

[Barking_Mad]

Analysis: Rumsfeld's sobering thoughts

Suddenly one of the chief architects of the Bush administration's war on terrorism seems to have doubts about how it is going.

At least that is the impression left by a leaked memo to top Pentagon aides from the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

Mr Rumsfeld seeks opinions from top staff like General Peter Pace
Defence officials are playing down the significance of the memo, which was sent to the Pentagon's top civilian and military leaders last week. They say it is merely Mr Rumsfeld doing what he normally does, probing senior colleagues on major long-term issues.

Mr Rumsfeld is notorious for his "snowflake" memos which are meant to drift down to Pentagon staff, carrying the defence secretary's thoughts and concerns.

The secretary is a hard taskmaster who requires clear thinking and ideas from his subordinates.

The leaked document, however, is not one of those snowflakes but an official memorandum, and so carries even more weight.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3206125.stm

 

[mears]

One idea Mr Rumsfeld throws out is to create a "private foundation", as he calls it, to entice the madrassa religious schools - which are blamed in the administration for nurturing radical Islamic militants - to take a more moderate course.

This is an interesting part of a very good memo. Rumsfeld gets straight to the heart of the matter: are more radical Islamic terrorists being killed and captured than produced in "religious" schools like the Madrassas? Not lefties on the street, but radicals willing to blow themselves up and drive airplanes into buildings. Its hard to measure but its the most important question in the war against Islamic terrorism, in my opinion.

The west needs to fund institutions that counter the poison taught by the radical Islamic groups. Memorization of the scriptures (with nothing else taught) and preaching continual violence against the west produces a vicious, brainwashed radical. Maybe funding schools where the kiddies can learn a little math and geography without the religious hatred is appropriate.

 

[Barking_Mad]

the article then goes on to say.........

"Such a suggestion, coming on top of the row over the US general accused of disparaging Islam, is unlikely to endear the Pentagon in parts of the Muslim world."

So maybe its not so good Mears? Selective quoting

 

[Gumbert]

Welcome to the reality of your war on Iraq Wolfowitz! Making Iraq a safer place indeed...

Visiting US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has escaped unhurt after a rocket attack on his hotel in Baghdad. Up to eight rockets were fired at the Hotel al-Rashid, one of the most heavily guarded sites in the Iraqi capital. The attack came on the day an overnight curfew, which has been in force since the arrival of US-led troops in the city, is being lifted for the start of Ramadan. A BBC News Online correspondent in Baghdad says that many people there believe anti-American attacks may increase with the ending of the curfew.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3214901.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Simmering Religious Tension?

Two corpses lie in cold storage at the Baghdad children's hospital - still known locally by its old name, Saddam Hospital.

The bodies have been cleaned up now - bound up in the traditional Islamic fashion and placed in wooden boxes for their funeral on Monday.

A third body - of a teenage boy - has already been taken for burial west of Baghdad.

"We've seen many similar cases in this area," says Saddam hospital doctor Muhammad Dahham.

"But they've been small things, injuries, burning of cars. It has never reached the level of murder before this morning."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3216359.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraq had no nuclear program (there's a surprise)

------------

New evidence acquired by the Washington Post newspaper suggests that Iraq made no attempt to restart its nuclear programme following the first Gulf War in 1991.
It follows the report presented by the weapons inspector David Kay earlier this month who admitted they had not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The information obtained by the newspaper suggests there is no evidence of any renewed nuclear programme in Iraq in the last 12 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3216397.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Bombs rock central Baghdad and 3 more US troops dead


At least 18 people are reported to have been killed in a series of explosions in central Baghdad.
The first bomb appeared to have been packed into an ambulance, which exploded as it entered the gates of the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

At least three other bombs are reported to have exploded in the city within an hour, with police stations being the targets.

The blasts come a day after a rocket attack on the Rashid Hotel, where a senior US official was staying, left one person dead and 17 injured.

In two other attacks, three US soldiers have been killed and four wounded, the US military said on Monday.

Two soldiers were killed and two wounded on Sunday in Baghdad after their patrol was targeted by a roadside bomb.

Later on Sunday, another US soldier was killed and two wounded in a mortar attack on Abu Gharib prison near Baghdad.

The attacks raised to 112 the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since President George Bush declared major hostilities over on 1 May.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3216539.stm

 

[Barking_Mad]

Inflated Oil Figures - Fisk

Oil is slippery stuff but not as slippery as the figures now being peddled by Iraq's American occupiers. Up around Kirkuk, the authorities are keeping the sabotage figures secret - because they can't stop their pipelines to Turkey blowing up. And down in Baghdad, where the men who produce Iraq's oil production figures are beginning to look like the occupants of Plato's cave - drawing conclusions from shadows on their wall - the statistics are being cooked. Paul Bremer, the US proconsul who wears combat boots, is "sexing up" the figures to a point where even the oilmen are shaking their heads.

Take Kirkuk. Only when the television cameras capture a blown pipe, flames billowing, do the occupation powers report sabotage. This they did, for example, on 18 August. But the same Turkish pipeline has been hit before and since. It was blown on 17 September and four times the following day. US patrols and helicopters move along the pipeline but, in the huge ravines and tribal areas through which it passes, long sections are indefensible.

Washington has got its hands on the biggest treasure chest in the world - but it can't open the lid. No wonder they are cooking the books in Baghdad.

http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=4311

 

[Barking_Mad]

another car bomb........

Suicide Bomber Kills Four in Iraq Town-Police
Tue October 28, 2003 06:04 AM ET

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew up a car near a police station in the flashpoint Iraqi town of Falluja Tuesday killing himself and four civilians, police said.
Police officers said a small car driven by one man exploded yards from the main police station in the town west of Baghdad, outside a boy's secondary school.

"Four civilians were killed," said Major Assad Abdul Karim. A U.S. military spokeswoman in Baghdad said she had no immediate information on the incident.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3702805

 

[Barking_Mad]

This would seem like the perfect excuse to invade Syria.....

Arms smuggled from Iraq, U.S. official says
By Douglas Jehl
NEW YORK TIMES

WASHINGTON - The director of a top U.S. spy agency said Tuesday that he believed that material from Iraq's illicit weapons program had been transported into Syria and perhaps other countries as part of an effort by the Iraqis to disperse and destroy evidence immediately before the recent war.

The official, James Clapper Jr., a retired lieutenant general, said satellite imagery showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria, just before the U.S. invasion in March, led him to believe that illicit weapons material "unquestionably" had been moved out of Iraq.

"I think people below the Saddam Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," Clapper, who leads the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, told reporters.

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/news/7130257.htm

 

[Barking_Mad]

7 Ukrainian Troops Under Polish Command Wounded in Iraq

Seven Ukrainian troops were wounded in the first ambush of a multinational unit in the Polish sector south of Baghdad, international agencies reported on Wednesday.

A spokesman for the multinational division at Camp Babylon said the attack on the Ukrainians occurred when two of their armoured personnel carriers rolled over land mines near Suwayrah about 40 miles southeast of Baghdad. After the vehicles were disabled, unidentified gunmen opened fire on the disembarked soldiers.

A nearly 500-strong Bulgarian infantry battalion is also a part of the 9,000-strong 22-nation force under Polish command. It carries out a six-month mission in Iraq, patrolling the city of Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Baghdad.

About 1,650 Ukrainians are serving in the Polish-led stabilization force patrolling central and southern Iraq in Baghdad.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=27584

 

[Abu Arak]

Soon tanks and helicopters will surround a house somewhere in Iraq and the mutilated grisly corps of this man, would be shown to the media as part of the Bush re-election campaign.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3226093.stm

 

[Abu Arak]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1073968,00.html

A family who lost 10 relatives during a wartime attack on Basra are to sue the government in a case that could see the Ministry of Defence facing a civil claim for unlawful killing.
Members of three generations of the Hamoodi family were killed on April 5 when coalition forces accidentally bombed their home in southern Iraq.

 

[Abu Arak]

Surprise surprise...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1073781,00.html

Halliburton, the oil services company formerly run by US vice president Dick Cheney, yesterday reported soaring revenues from its contracts to help rebuild Iraq.
The company said sales in the third quarter were 39% higher at $4.1bn (£2.5bn).

Iraq-related work transformed the prospects of its Kellogg Brown & Root subsidiary. The division's total revenues increased by 80% to $2.3bn, of which $900m came from Iraq and profits grew fourfold to $49m, of which $34m was Iraq business.

 

[Snow Tiger]

<rubbish snipped by R2G>

 

[Barking_Mad]

Iraqi Insurgents Attack Freight Train

Thursday October 30, 2003 10:46 AM


FALLUJAH, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents attacked a freight train with an improvised bomb Thursday, setting four containers on fire and setting off a spree of looting by residents, witnesses said.

The attack occurred on a rail line four miles west of Fallujah against a train that carries freight, mostly for the U.S. military, from this city to Haditha, about 135 kilometers to the northwest.

The engineer escaped injury and fled the scene, witnesses said.

As soon as the flames subsided, local residents swarmed over the wreckage, carrying off computers, tents, bottled water and anything else they could carry away.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3327378,00.html

 

[X-77]

Bush's donors got all the contracts

no surprise there then. Btw, I originally read this on Yahoo but couldn't find it when I went back, maybe I've overlooked it and it's still there. Anyway, here's a link from Aljazeera about it:-


http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/BBC50BC5-532E-4717-A09B-E7CBF48875C0.htm