Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

*IRAQ: latest news and developments

UK to lobby US for Iraq contracts

Tony Blair is sending the foreign trade minister, Mike O'Brien, to Washington to lobby for UK companies to be given more contracts to help rebuild Iraq.
Most big deals so far have been awarded to US firms. Papers leaked to the Guardian newspaper suggest ministers' rising frustration over the situation.

The Guardian says Mr O'Brien is meeting US officials ahead of a new round of contracts being awarded in March. Number 10 has confirmed his visit, but would not comment on the leaked papers. Mr O'Brien will be accompanied by Brian Wilson, the prime minister's special representative on overseas trade.

The Guardian said Mr Wilson had denied there was any anger among ministers over the US contracts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3484659.stm

Original Guardian story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1147271,00.html
 
Another intelligence officer speaks out

......But it has recently got even more embarrassing. The prime minister told the House of Commons that he was unaware at the time of the war debate that the 45-minute piece of intelligence referred only to battlefield rather than strategic weapons. Let me list just some of the procedures which must have been executed incorrectly to allow him to be kept in such a state of ignorance at such a crucial time on such a crucial matter when other members of his cabinet (Cook and Hoon) appear to have been in the know.

One: neither Cook nor Hoon saw fit to tell the prime minister, for whatever reason.

Two: the intelligence was not considered important or accurate enough to explain to him in detail - even though it appears in the September 24 dossier at least three times and in the prime minister's own foreword.

Three: Blair had to rely on verbal briefings from the JIC chairman and others, who told him about the 45 minutes bit of the intelligence but omitted to mention that it referred only to battlefield weapons, and neither the prime minister nor any of the brilliant young staff asked the obvious question.

Four: the original SIS report mentioned the 45-minute time, but made no attempt to distinguish between strategic and battlefield weapons - even though the service was aware that the report was about battlefield munitions.

Five: the prime minister's daily written intelligence brief from the Cabinet Office included the 45 minutes point but not the crucial distinction between battlefield and strategic weapons. And not a single member of the Cabinet Office assessments staff (the most brilliant intelligence analysts in the UK) spotted this or thought it important.

This is not the case of a few guardsmen out of step or a few trumpeters out of tune. This is like holding trooping the colour but forgetting to tell the Queen the correct date.

· Lieutenant Colonel Crispin Black worked for defence intelligence from 1994-96 and was on the intelligence assessment staff from 1999-2002

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1146330,00.html
 
What the fuck is "reasonably credible" ?!? Either its a credible election or it isnt! I can imagine it being unreasonably incredible however...... :rolleyes:

UN urges credible Iraqi election

United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said it is "terribly important" for Iraq to have elections but they must be "reasonably credible". Mr Brahimi has been in Iraq to discuss the feasibility of early elections and the ways the UN could help.

Iraq's top Shia cleric wants the poll to take place before 30 June when the US-led coalition plans to hand over power to an Iraqi authority. Mr Brahimi did not specify when he thought an election could be held.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3481203.stm
 
Breaking news
100 or so prisoners freed in a raid on a govt building and police station in Fallujah
approx 50 people mounted the raid
estimated 18 dead
 
Some more liberated Iraqis. Some of these US troops sure know how to win hearts and minds.......

Drowned Iraqi 'was forced into river by five US soldiers'

Five American soldiers have been accused of driving a 19-year-old Iraqi civilian to his death in the Tigris river in one of the main centres of resistance to the occupation.

Zeidun Fadhil and his cousin Marwan Fadhil were allegedly taken to a remote spot on the shore and ordered into the river at gunpoint. When they refused, the soldiers were said to have forced them into the river. Zeidun, who could not swim, drowned in the strong current. His cousin survived to tell the story.

A lawyer for the family of the dead man said US soldiers in Samarratold the family there would be a full investigation, and that a military investigator had interviewed the surviving cousin as a witness. Nazar Fadhil, the dead man's uncle and the family lawyer, said the US military had ordered Zeidun's body to be exhumed for an autopsy. He said the family was awaiting the arrival of a forensic pathologist. He also said that the US army had offered the family compensation, but that they had refused it.....

....Zeidun - full name Zeidun Mamun Fadhil al-Samarai - had become engaged three weeks before his death, and was saving for his wedding. Samarra, a Sunni city and one of the main centres of Iraqi resistance to the American occupation, is seething with anger over the alleged circumstances of his drowning.



http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=491210
 
Update on Falluja incident.....

Iraqi police station attack leaves 21 dead

FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - At least 21 people have been killed and 35 wounded during an attack by Iraqi guerrillas on a police station and a government building in the town of Falluja, hospital officials say.

Police said an unknown number of prisoners escaped from the police station during the attack which, according to hospital officials, left 14 policemen, four civilians and three attackers dead. The defenders were clearly overwhelmed.

The attack, involving rockets, mortars and machineguns, signalled a growing boldness on the part of insurgents fighting U.S.-led occupation forces and Iraqis seen as supporting them.

On Thursday, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, narrowly escaped an attack on his convoy near Falluja, a town in what is known as the "Sunni Triangle" centre of resistance to U.S. forces.

An Iraqi police officer said the guerrillas outgunned the policemen at the station, attacked at the same time as a government building situated several hundred metres away.

"Unknown men fired mortars, explosives and light machine guns from four directions. Their weapons were more powerful than our Kalashnikovs," said police officer Earazan Abu Issa, who was outside the police station when it was attacked.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040214/325/elzu4.html
 
another update on the Faluja killings......

.......Hours after the attack armed men in plain clothes roamed the streets and kept watch outside the hospital, some reportedly relatives seeking revenge.

There was no sign of American forces in the town, which lies in an area known as the so-called Sunni Triangle - the heartland of the guerrilla campaign against the US-led occupation of Iraq.

The latest attack adds to fears that the Iraqi police cannot protect themselves, let alone anyone else, our correspondent says.

_39859683_falluja_afpindex203.jpg


Where exactly are the US troops whilst armed gunmen are roaming the streets?! Oh hold on they're sat behind piled up sandbags and massive security fences.....
 
Ten months after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s despotic regime, the situation is getting ever worse.

According to aid agency USAID there were more attacks during January than any month since September. These included 642 organised assaults involving mortars, hand-grenades and small-arms, 522 ‘random’ incidents from drive-by shootings to rock-throwing, and 11 attacks on coalition aircraft. Little wonder that, as we report today, there is a growing demand for British machine-guns and other weaponry from security firms in Iraq.

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/opinion.cfm?id=182422004
 
Great piece by Naomi Klein's 'No Logo' site.....

Bush's Iraq an Appointocracy

Bremer wants his Coalition Provisional Authority to appoint the members of 18 regional Organizing Committees. The Organizing Committees will then select delegates to form 18 Selection Caucuses. These selected delegates will then further select representatives to a Transitional National Assembly. The Assembly will have an internal vote to select an executive and ministers who will form the new government of Iraq. This, Bush said in the State of the Union, constitutes “a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty.”

Got that? Iraqi sovereignty will be established by appointees appointing appointees to select appointees to select appointees. Add to that the fact that Bremer was appointed to his post by President Bush and that Bush was appointed to his by the U.S. Supreme Court, and you have the glorious new democratic tradition of the Appointocracy: rule by appointee’s appointee’s appointees’ appointees’ appointees’ selectees.

http://www.nologo.org/newsite/detail.php?ID=360
 
'US knew Iraq was WMD free'

Ooops.

Iraqi nuclear scientist Dr Imad Khadduri has told Aljazeera.net he does not believe any ''errors'' were made regarding WMD intelligence.
Dr Khadduri, a former senior Iraqi nuclear scientist who worked for the Iraqi nuclear programme from 1968 to 1998, said there was a deliberate media blackout of evidence proving Iraq did not possess WMD, and that to redress the balance he had written a book in English to have his witness testimony made available to the world.

In 1997 Iraq delivered a report to UN weapons inspectors stating that Iraq's civil and military nuclear programme was brought to a halt. When UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998 there was sufficient evidence that Iraq was free from non-conventional weapons, according to Dr Khadduri.
Click to expand...

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/38CDF820-17B8-47C3-85C8-ECDF602720CB.htm


Dr Khadduri
 
Bomb kills US soldier in Baghdad

One US soldier has been killed and one injured in a roadside bomb in central Baghdad, the US military has said.
The explosion took place at 0920 (0620 GMT), a spokesman said.

The death brought to at least 374 the number of US soldiers killed in combat since US-led forces invaded Iraq nearly a year ago. Earlier, it was announced that a US civilian had been killed and three others injured when gunmen ambushed their car south of Baghdad.

The Baghdad blast hit a three-vehicle convoy driving through the capital. It was not clear when the American civilians were attacked. US paratroopers found them in a hospital south of Baghdad. "They were travelling in an Iraqi taxi from Babylon to Baghdad when people in a white sedan ambushed them with small arms fire," a US military spokesman said.

The US spokesman said they were members of a religious group but it is not clear what they were doing in Iraq.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3491795.stm
 
Iraq school bomb kills two children

Two children have been killed and four others wounded in an explosion at a primary school in a Shia Muslim suburb of the Iraqi capital.

The US-led occupation's deputy operations chief, Brigadier
General Mark Kimmitt, told reporters on Monday the blast was a bomb attack.

"An IED (improvised explosive device) exploded at a school in central Baghdad in the Kadhamiyah district today at approximately 2:00 pm (11:00 GMT)," Kimmitt said.

"Initial reports indicate two civilians were killed and four were wounded," he said, adding that a disposal team sent to the scene found a second bomb that was defused.
Click to expand...
:(

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9C576F9F-BFDA-4ECA-AD4B-9C9AEDA8FD50.htm
 
A rare attack to the south of Baghdad.......

Attack on base kills four Iraqis

A suicide bomb attack has killed at least four Iraqis and wounded eight coalition soldiers at a Polish army base at Hilla, officials say.
A Polish military spokesman said two cars were involved in the attack south of Baghdad - one of which was stopped before its bomb was detonated. "We found the bodies of the two drivers, and two Iraqis standing in the street were killed," he said.

Six Polish soldiers, a Hungarian and an American were wounded

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3498577.stm
 
Two more US soldiers die.

A roadside bomb has killed two US occupation soldiers and one Iraqi in the city of Khalidiya, west of Baghdad.

"Two US soldiers were killed and one wounded at 10:30 this morning (07:30 GMT) in a roadside blast near Khalidiya," a military spokesman in Iraq said on Thursday.

"At least one Iraqi was also killed."

He was not certain if the Iraqi was a civilian or a member of one of Iraq's security forces, who often patrol alongside US troops.

Thursday's deaths brought to 378 the number of US soldiers killed in hostile action in Iraq since the war erupted in March.
Click to expand...

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8EFE00E9-51B7-4831-897F-B34A11CE1FCB.htm
 
'TROOPS ASSAULTED IRAQI POWS'

British soldiers took turns to kick and punch hooded Iraqi prisoners on the night one of them is alleged to have beaten a man to death, a witness has claimed. In an interview with The Sun, the unnamed soldier said he had witnessed the treatment of nine prisoners arrested as suspected bandits. "Some of the lads were just coming up, booting them in the stomach and punching them," he said. He claimed their screams were so loud they kept the other prisoners awake.

The soldier said the prisoners were placed in "stress positions" - ordered to hold out their arms, or kneel with their heads against the wall - until they fell over. He said that the prisoner who died had been unable to maintain the stress positions, and was dumped in a toilet where he was later found dead.

The witness also alleged to have seen the dead man with his hood off.He had a black eye, a broken nose, and what looked like a dislocated jaw. Soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment have been questioned in relation to the death of the prisoner, known only as Al-Maliki. If one of the soldiers is found to have delivered the fatal blow he could be charged with manslaughter. A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said it would be inappropriate to comment, since an investigation into the alleged incident is under way.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30100-12994277,00.html
 
An international body that monitors displaced people says about 100,000 Arabs have been forced from their homes by returning Kurds in northern Iraq. The Global IDP Project estimates that about 30,000 Kurds who were evicted under Saddam Hussein have gone back to their home towns and villages.

Many are camped in abandoned public buildings in non-Kurdish areas and are dependent on food aid. The latest report from the Global IDP Project details the consequences of what it calls the "revolving door effect", triggered by last year's war in Iraq. Suddenly the hundreds of thousands of Kurds driven out of their homes in northern Iraq in the 1980s were free to go home.

The Kurdish authorities have encouraged them to return, and offered assistance while they resettle.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3503895.stm
 
CIA reportedly removes top officer in Baghdad

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA has recently removed its top officer in Baghdad because of questions about his ability to lead the station there, the Los Angeles Times has reported. U.S. intelligence sources also told the newspaper on Friday that the spy agency has also closed several satellite bases in Afghanistan because of security concerns.

Some current and former CIA officials, who requested anonymity, told the daily the agency was stretched thin as it searches for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, confronts insurgency in Iraq and tries to cultivate ties to warlords in Afghanistan. A CIA spokesman could not be immediately reached for a comment on the report.

A senior U.S. official told the Times the CIA station chief in Baghdad was removed in December after deadly attacks against U.S. forces and Iraqi civilian targets."There was just a belief that it was a huge operation and we needed a very senior, experienced person to run it," the official told the Times.

According to a U.S. official cited by the daily, the CIA's Baghdad station is now the largest in agency history

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=461707&section=news
 
OSP insider blabs on Iraq

Her 3 reasons for Op. Iraqi Freedom:

One of those reasons is that sanctions and containment were working and everybody pretty much knew it. Many companies around the world were preparing to do business with Iraq in anticipation of a lifting of sanctions. But the U.S. and the U.K. had been bombing northern and southern Iraq since 1991. So it was very unlikely that we would be in any kind of position to gain significant contracts in any post-sanctions Iraq. And those sanctions were going to be lifted soon, Saddam would still be in place, and we would get no financial benefit.

The second reason has to do with our military-basing posture in the region. We had been very dissatisfied with our relations with Saudi Arabia, particularly the restrictions on our basing. And also there was dissatisfaction from the people of Saudi Arabia. So we were looking for alternate strategic locations beyond Kuwait, beyond Qatar, to secure something we had been searching for since the days of Carter — to secure the energy lines of communication in the region. Bases in Iraq, then, were very important — that is, if you hold that is America’s role in the world. Saddam Hussein was not about to invite us in.

The last reason is the conversion, the switch Saddam Hussein made in the Food for Oil program, from the dollar to the euro. He did this, by the way, long before 9/11, in November 2000 — selling his oil for euros. The oil sales permitted in that program aren’t very much. But when the sanctions would be lifted, the sales from the country with the second largest oil reserves on the planet would have been moving to the euro.
Click to expand...
 
British Iraq mediator fears a powderkeg

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Anglican Christian clergyman mediating in Iraq says he fears civil war could erupt if the U.S.-led administration fails to win over the Sunni Muslim minority. Canon Andrew White, who is negotiating between the U.S.-led occupation authority and Iraq's rival sects, warned on Sunday of dire consequences if the once privileged Sunnis are increasingly marginalised as majority Shi'ites push for more power.

"My biggest fear is that if the Sunnis are pushed too hard, they will explode. They need to be won over, otherwise there will be dangers of civil war," White, special representative to the Middle East for the Archbishop of Canterbury, told Reuters. "I have spoken with Sunni clerics who are worried about discontent in their community, about Sunnis who will join forces with the guerrillas or cooperate with foreign groups such as al Qaeda if they are driven too far," he said in an interview.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=462324&section=news
 
Gunmen Attack Police in North Iraq Cities

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Gunmen attacked Iraqi police in two northern Iraqi cities, sparking battles that killed two attackers, police said Sunday.

In northern Iraq, gunmen opened fire on the house of the Mosul police chief Saturday, police colonel Abdul-Azal Hazim said. The police returned fire and killed one attacker and injured another, he said Sunday


In the northern city of Kirkuk, insurgents opened fire with machine guns on the headquarters of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps on Saturday. Security officers returned fire, killing one of the attackers, said the corps' regional commander, Col. Anwar Amin.


Two mortar rounds landed near a British camp on the outskirts of the southern city of Basra at about 5:00 a.m. Sunday, a spokesman for British troops in the area said, adding there were no immediate reports on damage or casualties.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=3&u=/ap/20040222/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
 
The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged that it did not provide the United Nations with information about 21 of the 105 sites in Iraq singled out by U.S. intelligence before the war as the most highly suspected of housing illicit weapons.

The acknowledgment, in a Jan. 20 letter to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., contradicts public statements before the war by top Bush administration officials.

Both George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, said the United States had briefed U.N. inspectors on all of the sites identified as ``high value and moderate value'' in the weapons hunt.

The contradiction is significant because congressional opponents of the war were arguing a year ago that the U.N. inspectors should be given more time to complete their search before the United States and its allies began the invasion. The White House, bolstered by Tenet, insisted that it was fully cooperating with the inspectors, and at daily briefings the White House issued assurances that the administration was providing the inspectors with the best information possible.

In a telephone interview on Friday, Levin said he now believed that Tenet had misled Congress, which he described as "totally unacceptable."
Senior administration officials said Friday night that Rice had relied on information provided by intelligence agencies when she assured Levin, in a letter on March 6, 2003, that "United Nations inspectors have been briefed on every high or medium priority weapons of mass destruction, missile and UAV-related site the U.S. intelligence community has identified." Tenet said much the same thing in testimony on Feb. 12, 2003.

Asked about the contradiction between the CIA's current account and Rice's letter, the spokesman for the national security council, Sean McCormack, said, "Dr. Rice provided a good-faith answer to Senator Levin based on the best information that was made available to her."

reproduced from the Mercury News - http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=37959&lang=en
 
Gunmen kill senior Iraqi policeman in Mosul

Gunmen have assassinated one of the most senior policemen in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul as he drove to work, police said, in the latest deadly attack on Iraqis cooperating with occupying forces. Police said Brigadier Hikmat Mahmoud Mohammad, chief of administration in the provincial police headquarters in Mosul, was shot dead around 8:00am local time.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1053414.htm
 
U.S. Helicopter Crashes in Western Iraq; 2 Killed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. Kiowa reconnaissance helicopter crashed in western Iraq Wednesday, killing the two crew on board, and the U.S. Army said mechanical problems rather than hostile fire had probably brought the aircraft down. Witnesses in the town of Haditha, 125 miles northwest of Baghdad on the highway to the Syrian border, said the helicopter hit overhead power cables and crashed into a river. The Kiowa is an observation and light attack helicopter that carries a crew of two.

Guerrilla attacks have brought down several U.S. helicopters since the invasion of Iraq last year. In the deadliest incident, 17 U.S. soldiers were killed last November when two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters collided and crashed in the city of Mosul after coming under fire.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=4434669
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Sweet FA
Trump's Second Term: U.S. News and Politics
2
Replies
32
Views
438
story
story
Protag
Israel-Iran conflicts - news and discussion
6 7 8 9 10
Replies
294
Views
17K
The39thStep
The39thStep
J
  • Locked
Why Europe and NATO ignores Zelensky's requests and offers? [LOL Bot]
Replies
13
Views
799
editor
editor
PR1Berske
Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion
561 562 563 564 565
Replies
17K
Views
748K
Gramsci
Gramsci
hitmouse
US immigration, deportations, detention and resistance
Replies
0
Views
55
hitmouse
hitmouse
Back
Top Bottom