[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 26 Jul 2005]

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DECLARATION OF THE JURY OF CONSCIENCE
WORLD TRIBUNAL ON IRAQ – ISTANBUL 23RD -27TH JUNE 2005
WTI
...The invasion and occupation of Iraq was and is illegal. The reasons
given by the US and UK governments for the invasion and occupation of Iraq
in March 2003 have proven to be false. Much evidence supports the
conclusion that a major motive for the war was to control and dominate the
Middle East and its vast reserves of oil as a part of the US drive for
global hegemony. Blatant falsehoods about the presence o! f weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq and a link between Al Qaeda terrorism and the Saddam
Hussein régime were manufactured in order to create public support for a
“preemptive” assault upon a sovereign independent nation.

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14121&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14121


Kevin Benderman on trial
Anti-war groups mobilize for July 28 court-martial
John Catalinotto
Army Sgt. Kevin Benderman is scheduled to face general court-martial July
28 in Fort Stewart, Ga., for charges of desertion and missing movement.
These charges stem from his principled refusal to return to Iraq and take
part in the war and occupation there. His supporters are organizing to be
present at his trial. Benderman faces up to seven years in prison...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14111&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14111


In Plain English
Al-Moharer
There is no doubt in mind that the Iraqi Resistance is approaching a
decisive victory against the US invaders and their allies. The United
States, under the leadership of the neocons, Bush and his Christian
Zionists are facing a secured bitter defeat under the heavy blows of the
Resistance. Now Bush and his allies are cornered inside the "Green Zone" in
the center of Baghdad and none of his generals and stooges can adventure
out of these few square miles. And the "Green Zone" with its !
fortification they are not safe from the raging anger of the Iraqi people.
There is no way safer for the invaders and their allies but to pack up and
leave...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14101&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14101


Abu Ghraib Dog Tactics Came From Guantanamo
Testimony Further Links Procedures at 2 Facilities
By Josh White, Washington Post Staff Writer
Military interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq learned about the
use of military working dogs to intimidate detainees from a team of
interrogators dispatched from the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba, according to court testimony yesterday. One interrogation
analyst also testified that sleep deprivation and forced nudity -- which
were used in! Cuba on high-value detainees -- later were approved tactics
at Abu Ghraib...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14114&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14114


ISP 'censored' anti-war email
Sam Varghese
A US broadband provider and a security services company have been accused
of blocking emails relating to an anti-Iraq war protest. American online
activist David Swanson says the provider, Comcast, and security services
company Symantec, blocked emails drawing attention to the so-called Downing
Street memo, which activists have seized on as further proof that the Iraq
war was planned well in advance. The leaked memo was first published in
Britain's The Times newspaper...!

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14119&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14119


A War By Any Other Name
Laura Donnelly, Tompaine.com
You know that "war on terror" our troops have been fighting for two years?
Yeah, that's over. Now, we're involved in a "global stuggle against violent
extremism." (It just rolls off the tongue.) The White House has decided
that the "war on terror" moniker that's been a catch phrase for so long
just isn't cutting it anymore. "War," of course, implies death and
destruction and flag-drapped coffins (and heaven knows, we don't want to
think about those) (...) Name! changes don't fool anyone—consumers or
citizens—and if the Bush administration thinks that a new name will give
the Iraq debacle a new image, they're going to be unpleasantly suprised.
Everyone knows the old axiom about lipstick on a pig...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14120&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14120


GI Special 3C3: Contractors In Iraq, July 26, 2005
www.militaryproject.org
...Just read a message on GI Special regarding contractors in Iraq. My
husband has worked as a contractor in post war countries for many years. He
agreed to go to Iraq post war. He was flown in a few hours after the
Mission Accomplished Speech. He was lied to, the war wasn't over. When he
told his employer it was too dangerous to be working there he was told to
stay anyway. He was blown up. He was used, to give the appearance that
things ! were OK in Iraq. After this happened to my husband there were
still people working for his company agreeing to go over there and work. In
fact they were begging for the positions though there was no longer any
doubt that it was very dangerous. I am still trying to find the answer to
the question "When did it become OK to send civilians into war zones?" Who
changed the rules? Why isn't there an outrage?...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14123&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14123


Newspaper reveals Iraq charter draft
Aljazeera.net
A draft of Iraq's new constitution has been published in the government
newspaper Al-Sabah and will designate Islam as the main source of
legislation in a major departure from the model laid down by the US during
the invasion. The draft, which was published on Tuesday, states that no law
shall be approved which contradicts "the rules of Islam". That could set
Iraq on a course different from what was envisioned when US-led forces
invaded the country in 2003. "Isla! m is the official religion of the state
and is the main source of legislation," the draft reads. "No law that
contradicts with its rules can be promulgated"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14116&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14116


A Crude Approach
John M. Peters
The Bush Administration has treated with scorn, accusations that its
invasion and occupation of Iraq were motivated by the drive to control
Iraqi oil. Yet, the evidence – both historical and current – continues to
mount in support of that theory. Starting with World War I and the
proliferation of machines fed by fossil fuels nations began to realize the
dire need to capture and control sources of oil, both as a means of fueling
their own war machines and as a means of denying their! enemy the precious
resource. The dynamics of oil supply and demand would shape entire military
campaigns as well as the food chain among nations. Strategically and
literally war was being fueled by oil...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14117&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14117


Former Bush aide turns critic as Iraq inspector
Yochi J. Dreazen, The Wall Street Journal
During a routine audit last summer of an American office in charge of
doling out reconstruction funding in Hillah, Iraq, U.S. government
investigators made a series of startling discoveries. The office had paid a
contractor twice for the same work. A U.S. official was allowed to handle
millions of dollars in cash weeks after he was fired for incompetence. Of
the $119.9 million allocated for regional projects, $89.4 million w! as
disbursed without contracts or other documentation. An additional $7.2
million couldn't be found at all...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14118&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14118


GI Special 3C2: "I Don't Deserve A Medal" - July 26, 2005
www.militaryproject.org
...It is so much easier being a pacifist, and a person of non-violence
living in America. Plenty to eat, clean water, clean sheets, electricity,
decent health care for most of us. No death squads, nobody bombing us,
nobody robbing us at gun point by criminals living in Baghdad, nobody using
toxic chemicals on us, etc., etc., etc. Now, if you live in Iraq, most of
these threats are very real, and most of these amenities do not exist.!
Before the war in Iraq is over, there will be more people suffering from
PTSD in Iraq, than live in the entire Pacific Northwest, and you could
throw in several other low population states...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14113&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14113


Despite $2 billion spent, residents say Baghdad is crumbling
Leila Fadel, Knight Ridder
...As a result, Iraqis have seen scant evidence of improvement in their
homes, streets or neighborhoods. They blame American and Iraqi government
corruption. "We thank God that the air we breathe is not in the hands of
the government. Otherwise they would have cut it off for a few hours each
day," said Nadeem Haki, 39, an electric-goods shop owner in the upscale
Karrada district in the east of the capital...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14115&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14115


Conflicts' costs may exceed $700 billion
War in Iraq, Afghanistan saddles U.S. taxpayers with enormous debt, critics
say; deficit spending blamed.
James Sterngold / San Francisco Chronicle
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost taxpayers $314 billion,
and the Congressional Budget Office projects additional expenses of perhaps
$450 billion over the next 10 years. That could make the combined
campaigns, especially the war in Iraq, the most expensive military effort
in the last 60 year! s, causing even some conservative experts to criticize
the open-ended commitment to an elusive goal. The concern is that the
soaring costs, given little weight before now, could play a growing role in
U.S. strategic decisions because of the fiscal impact...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14112&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14112


House Demagoguery on Iraq
Ruth Coniff, The Progressive
In a shameless swipe at their political opponents, House Republicans passed
a resolution on July 21 that denounces those who dare to question the
wisdom of an indefinite U.S. military presence in Iraq. "Calls for an early
withdrawal embolden the terrorists," the bill states, adding that the U.S.
must stay as long as it takes to achieve a free and secure Iraq. At this
rate that may be a long, long, long time...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14110&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14110


A Shot in the Head: Blair Answers Terrorism with Promises of more killings
abroad and at home
A World to Win News Service
The nature of all the “we” talk in the last two weeks of British political
rhetoric and all of Tony Blair’s moralising about “evil in our midst” was
illuminated in eight bullets from a semiautomatic pistol Thursday 22 July.
London police shot down 27-year old Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de
Menezes in the Stockwell tube station on his way to work for not having met
their standards of whi! teness and for wearing a jacket. The “we and them”
in the real world turned out to be “we” the British authorities and ruling
class, and “them” the common people...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14122&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14122


Ramping up the fear quotient
William Bowles, I'n'I
A sure fire way of keeping the spotlight off a murderous government that is
neither believed nor trusted by the majority of the population, is to have
a diversion of enormous magnitude caused by an enemy, preferably of an
elemental kind (anarchists, communists, fanatics, fundamentalists,
terrorists, take your pick). Once you have a public fixated on this
perceived enemy, it is necessary to maintain a constant level of fear and
when necessary ramp it up, either th! ough potential events (”not if but
when”) or to exploit events that do occur by connecting the elemental enemy
to the events, however tenuous the connection. If no real connection can be
made, invent the connection...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14109&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14109


The July 21 Attack: The Pictures of the Four Suspects: Where are the Other
Passengers?
Globalresearch.ca
A Guardian Report has released a set of images "of four men they 'urgently
need to trace' in connection with July 21's failed bombings on three tube
trains and a bus in London. All of the suspects entered Stockwell
underground station just before 12.25pm, apart from the fourth suspect who
is wanted for the failed attack at Shepherd's Bush station." What is
striking in these images from the CCTV cameras is tha! t there seem to be
very few other passengers in the London subway at a very busy of the Day In
fact the train carriage in the picture below is, with the exception of the
suspected terrorist, empty at. 12.53 pm...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14107&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14107


Family says son was forgotten
Mark Dunn
AN Australian man imprisoned by the US military in Iraq for more than 18
months without charge has been forgotten by the Australian Government, his
family claims. Ahmed Aziz Rafiq was arrested with up to 150 other people in
February last year during security sweeps in northern Iraq after bombings
killed more than 100 people in the Kurdish city of Erbil. Mr Rafiq, who was
married just days before his arrest, told authorities he had travelled from
Adelaide to Iraq to visit hi! s father and seek a bride...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14105&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14105


John Roberts and the National Security State
Mike Whitney, www.dissidentvoice.org
...The Court’s decision reflects Attorney General Alberto Gonzales belief
that “The president’s authority under the laws of our nation to try enemy
combatants is a vital part of the global war on terror.” This is a subtle
way of saying that the president is above the law and can do as he pleases.
In fact, neither Gonzales nor Roberts believes that the prisoners in
American custody have the right to due process. Rather, they tacitly !
endorse the current regime of endless detention without charges and without
any hope of legal recourse...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14104&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14104


Iran-Contra redux: Bush White House ran “off-the-books” covert operation
for Iraq elections
Patrick Martin, WSWS
An article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh last week in the New
Yorker magazine reveals that the Bush White House authorized a highly
classified covert program to funnel financial and material aid to its
favored slate in the January 30 Iraqi elections, an operation that may have
included ballot-stuffing and other means of directly manipulating vote
totals. Hersh’s exposé underscores both the ! bogus character of the
“democracy” which the American government has established in Iraq and the
severely eroded character of democratic forms of rule in the United States
itself, where the Bush administration feels free to override legal
restrictions, congressional oversight and even objections from within the
military-intelligence apparatus itself...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14102&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14102


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 25 July 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org
...More than 600 families are now sleeping in Iraq’s western desert after
being driven out of their homes by the savage and endless US bombing and
shelling of their home town of Rawah. The Rawah correspondent for Mafkarat
al-Islam reported the Director of near by ‘Anah City Hospital as saying
that more than 600 families from Rawah ha! ve since yesterday (Sunday) been
staying in the western desert because of the intensity of the American
offensive on their city. For two days, the Director said, US forces have
been resorting to massive bombardment of the city and his residences in an
attempt to pressure the Resistance fighters in the city to come out where
they can be mowed down...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=14100&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=14100




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information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts
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