[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 08 Dec 2004]

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Who's behind the oil-for-food scandal?
Jude Wanniski , Aljazeera.net
...What about the damning report of Charles Duelfer and his Iraqi Survey
Group, which announced last month that Saddam Hussein destroyed all of his
weapons of mass destruction and their programmes in 1991? In his report, he
also brought up the oil-for-food programme, which was never part of his
mission when he was appointed by Bush to check further into Iraq's WMD
intentions. Duelfer, who could not pretend to have found WMD when none
existed, c! learly used the oil-for-food programme to distract attention
from his central finding. (...) His report to the UN will be made public
and judgments can then be made. It may be there is no scandal at all. Just
another trick of the neo-conservatives to blow away anyone who gets in the
way of their plans for a global empire.


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7954&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7954


Cutting Iraq Apart
Raed Jarrar, Raed in the Middle
About 600 leaders from Iraq's Shia Muslims announced plans to begin setting
up their own autonomous region, following a meeting today in the holy city
of Najaf. One of the puppets working with the allawi government announced:
"We must turn ourselves into a regional unit in the context of a federal
Iraq". Federal Iraq is at the core of the US project in the Middle East,
the dream of the Bush-administration. Cutting Iraq apart, turning the
country into small admini! strative cantons where people can (happily) get
lost in the details of their minor daily services problems and forget
everything about their national and regional politics (...) If anyone
outside the US forgot about the "Balkanization" that the US administration
did in Yugoslavia, please read more about it. If anyone inside the US
survived the collective amnesia and still remember the Balkanization,
please try to spread the word...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7935&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7935


Relief
Dahr Jamail
"Iraq is burning with wrath, anger and sadness…the people of Fallujah are
dear to us. They are our brothers and sisters and we are so saddened by
what is happening in that city." There are no words better to describe the
situation in Iraq, and particularly Fallujah, than these of Dr. Wamid Omar
Nathmi, a senior political scientist at Baghdad University....




<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7953&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7953


Saddam lawyer's visit stopped
News24.com
Saddam Hussein's first meeting with a defence lawyer was abruptly cancelled
on Wednesday, apparently because of pressure exerted by US authorities on
the special Iraqi tribunal trying him, the chief of the former dictator's
legal team said. Ziad al-Khasawneh said in an interview that the Iraqi bar
association obtained court permission last week for defence team member
Khalil al-Duleimi, an Iraqi, to meet with Saddam on Wednesday. "But the
syndicate called the lawyer earl! ier today to say the meeting has been
indefinitely postponed," said al-Khasawneh, who heads the Jordan-based
legal team appointed by Saddam's wife Sajida. "The abrupt cancellation
indicates that there was a last-minute decision to ban the meeting," he
said...


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7951&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7951


Canada blocks torture charges against Bush
Lawyers Against The War
The Canadian government used a claim of diplomatic immunity Monday to block
torture charges laid under the Canadian Criminal Code against President
George W. Bush. The charges had been laid by Gail Davidson of LAW on the
occasion of Bush's visit to Canada on November 30. They concerned the
well-known abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, photos of which shocked the world
earlier this year, as well as similar abuses at Guantánamo Bay that have
emerged more ! recently...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7950&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7950


Sailor Refuses to "Kill Iraqi Women and Children", Refuses to Board Ship
for Iraq
Sam Hamod and Associated Press
In a courageous move, Mr. Pablo Paredes, a Petty Officer 3rd Class refused
to become a cog in the American war machine that is killing thousands of
Iraq women and children, as well as men who are defending their homes and
their country, by refusing to board his ship deploying his crew and Marines
to Iraq...


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7949&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7949


Ghetto on the Euphrates
George Paine
...The American occupation authorities in Iraq are creating a massive
city-sized prison camp for Fallujah. They realize that they can't arrest
every resident of Fallujah because they don't have enough space in Saddam's
old prisons. So instead, being the problem solvers that they are, they have
decided to turn the entire city into one big prison. With this prison being
a "model", the other cities of Iraq can't be far behind...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7948&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7948


Memo tells of beating in Baghdad detention center
Jewel Samad
Members of a special operations task force in Iraq punched a prisoner in
the face to the point he needed medical attention and then threatened
Defense Intelligence Agency interrogators after they attempted to document
the abuse, a newly released document shows. Two DIA interrogators also saw
prisoners arriving at a temporary detention facility in Baghdad with burn
marks on their back, bruises and in some cases complaining of kidney pain,
according to ! a June 25, 2004 memo...


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7947&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7947


America's shame
The Boston Globe
Years from now, the mistreatment of Afghan war detainees at Guantánamo and
Iraqi war detainees at Abu Ghraib is likely to rank with the internment of
Japanese-American civilians in World War II as a blot on the history of the
United States. But the Bush administration remains deaf to criticism of its
actions, whether it comes from U.S. courts or the International Red Cross.
Congress must act to steer America back toward compliance with the Geneva
conventions and U.S. law...


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7945&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7945


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 7 December 2004
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member editorial board The
Free Arab Voice.
In a dispatch posted at 11:05pm Mecca time Tuesday night, Mafkarat al-Islam
reported from al-Fallujah that on Tuesday the Iraqi Resistance carried out
more than 15 guerrilla operations targeting US forces as they carried out
raids and searches in the neighborhoods of al-Jaghifi, al-Mu'allimin,
ash-Shurtah, and al-Jawlan...



<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7946&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7946


Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
CIA Warning on Iraq Leaked as 1,000 US Soldier Killed in Action
PATRICK COCKBURN and ANDREW BUNCOMBE
On a cool, bright morning in central Iraq yesterday, an insurgent opened
fire at a US patrol, killing one soldier, the 1,000th American soldier to
die in combat in Iraq since the invasion last year. A brief statement from
US Central Command in Florida, said: "One Task Force Baghdad soldier died
of wounds received at about 11.30am, Dec 7." ....

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7944&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7944


Killed Unarmed Iraqis, Ex-Marine Tells Hearing
Marina Jiménezi
With a report from Canadian Press
A former U.S. marine testified yesterday that the U.S. military "murdered"
civilians in Iraq and that he pumped 500 rounds of bullets into vehicles
that failed to stop at military checkpoints. Jimmy Massey, a former marine
staff sergeant, told an immigration and refugee board hearing in Toronto
that he and his fellow marines shot and killed more than 30 unarmed men,
women and children and even shot a young Iraq! i who got out of his car
with his arms in the air...


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7943&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7943


Blair challenged to tally Iraq war dead
Lyndsay Griffiths
Diplomats and peers have joined scientists and churchmen to urge Prime
Minister Tony Blair to publish a death toll in the U.S.-led war in Iraq. In
an unusual open letter to the premier made available to Reuters, the 44
signatories said Blair had rejected other death counts from the war --
figures span 14,000 to 100,000 -- without releasing one of his own...


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7942&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7942


Report to Defense Alleged Abuse By Prison Interrogation Teams
Intelligence Official Informed Defense Dept. in June
Barton Gellman and R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post Staff Writers
From a classified report five months ago, one of Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld's closest advisers learned of allegations that a clandestine
military task force in Iraq was beating detainees, ordering Defense
Intelligence Agency debriefers out of the room during questioning,
confiscating evidence of the abuse and intimidatin! g the debriefers when
they complained...



<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7941&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7941


Iraq, Jordan See Threat To Election From Iran
Robin Wright and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
The leaders of Iraq and Jordan warned yesterday that Iran is trying to
influence the Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30 to create an Islamic
government that would dramatically shift the geopolitical balance between
Shiite and Sunni Muslims in the Middle East. Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar
charged that Iran is coaching candidates and political parties sympathetic
to Tehran and pouring "huge amounts of mone! y" into the campaign to
produce a Shiite-dominated government similar to Iran's...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7940&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7940


U.S. soldier who left his unit seeks refugee status in Canada, calls war in
Iraq illegal
BETH DUFF-BROWN, Associated Press Writer
An Army private seeking refugee status in Canada after refusing to serve in
Iraq told immigration officials on Monday that the war is illegal and would
have forced him to commit war crimes. Pfc. Jeremy Hinzman, 26, fled from
Fort Bragg, N.C., on Jan. 2 and lives in Toronto with his 31-year-old wife,
Nga Nguyen, and 2-year-old son, Liam...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7929&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7929


Workers threatened over Iraqi prison abuse
Japantoday
U.S. special forces accused of abusing prisoners in Iraq threatened Defense
Intelligence Agency personnel who saw the mistreatment, according to U.S.
government memos released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The special forces also monitored e-mails sent by defense personnel and
ordered them "not to talk to anyone" in the United States about what they
saw, said one memo written by the Defense Intelligence Agency chief, who
complained to his Pent! agon bosses about the harassment.


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7937&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7937


So much loss…
Dahr Jamail
...In a small, one room house in Sadr City lives Sua'ad, a widow of 8 young
children (...) Her husband, Abdulla Rahman, was killed when caught in the
crossfire between occupation forces and the Mehdi Army. She describes the
day her husband was killed. US forces were attacking fighters in the area
of Sadr City where they lived (...) "What can I say for the Americans? God
will have the revenge for me. Now I have 8 orphans, and I am the 9th. As
they make us orphans, God is going to kick the! m out of our country..."

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7930&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7930


Torture and Truth
Tracing the origins -- and the aftermath -- of what happened at Abu Ghraib
Mark Danner Interviewed By Dave Gilson
When the Abu Ghraib scandal boiled over last spring, it looked, briefly, as
if it would cause a major shakeup -- if not in how the Bush administration
was fighting the war in Iraq, then at least within the administration
itself. But soon enough, election season arrived, and the issue all but
faded into the background. That doesn't mean we've heard the last of Abu G!
hraib. Far from it, says journalist Mark Danner. "I don't think this thing
is over by any means." In his new book, Torture and Truth: America, Abu
Ghraib and the War On Terror, Danner explores the origins and aftermath of
the administration's post-9/11 decision to "take the gloves off."


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7928&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7928


2 U.S. soldiers accused of executing 2 unarmed Iraqis
Edmund Sanders, Los Angeles Times
U.S. military prosecutors alleged Monday that American soldiers shot to
death two unarmed Iraqi men in their homes, then tried to cover up their
crimes by claiming that the Iraqis had reached for guns. In chilling
detail, the prosecutors and other U.S. soldiers described in a makeshift
courtroom here how the two accused U.S. servicemen casually executed the
Iraqis even though the civilians posed no immediate danger...


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7927&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7927


Special Ops Task Force Threatened Government Agents Who Saw Detainee Abuse
in Iraq, Documents Obtained by ACLU Reveal
American Civil Liberties Union
Documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union reveal that
a special operations task force in Iraq sought to silence Defense
Intelligence Agency personnel who observed abusive interrogations and that
the Department of Defense adopted questionable interrogation techniques at
Guantanamo over FBI objections...


<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=7926&s2=08>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=7926




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