[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 22 Dec 2004 - Part One]

["uruknet.info" <redazione at uruknet.info>]

  uruknet.info
  «Ë-Ë"Ê Æ‰Ê·Ë
:: information from occupied iraq
:: informazione dall'iraq occupato

Jim Talib: Interview with an Anti-War Veteran
Derek Seidman
...Seidman: From your experiences, what can you tell us about the armed
resistance to the occupation? Talib: Well… it is certainly much better
organized than at first suspected. Everyone, even the average American,
seems to be unable to deny that now. The incursions into Fallujah over the
last few weeks have uncovered a solid infrastructure, and they were able to
rebound from the incursions with a well-coordinated series of attacks in
other areas.A nd that's just the attacks that make the papers. There are
numerous actions carried out by the insurgency on a nightly basis that do
not make the news....

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8329&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8329


IRAQ RESISTS! Despite U.S. bombs and napalm
Leslie Feinberg, Workers World newspaper
Even in the face of overwhelming Pentagon firepower and high technology,
Iraqi resistance is raging. Even after the bloodiest battle of the war, the
siege of Falluja--in which the invaders had complete control of the air,
enormous material supre macy, forced several hundred thousand people to
flee their homes and reduced most of the city to rubble--the resistance
goes on. As Pentagon warplanes continued to pound the city with bomb s and
missiles on Dec. 12, insurgents fought the Marines in running battles...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8317&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8317


Mosul resistance attack reveals US disarray in Iraq
Rick Kelly, WSWS
...The latest strike by the Iraqi resistance has enormous ramifications,
for both the US strategy in Iraq and the Bush administration's political
fortunes. It constitutes a devastating blow to the Bush administration's
Iraq strategy, which stands in disarray. If Iraqi fighters can penetrate
and strike a US military base in broad daylight it is impossible to believe
that any part of the country is secure...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8328&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8328


Don't Believe the Denials
Brian Dominick, The NewStandard
I see the Washington Post is playing fast and loose with reality on this
story. When we put this piece together, we intentionally segregated the Abu
Ghraib/Iraq documents that were released Monday from the
Afghanistan/Guantanamo documents releaed at the same time. We'll handle the
latter in a separate story. But most outlets did not make the distinction.
That's fine, of course, if they know how to separate disparate stories
within the same article. B ut the Post took a different approach (...) The
Post has chosen obfuscation and denial. This is really incredible...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8325&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8325


Tents to be erected in Parliament Square to demand justice for Fallujah
refugees
Press Release, Voices in the Wilderness UK, 21 December 2004
Peace activists will erect tents and stage a night-long protest in
Parliament Square on Wednesday to demand justice for the more than 200,000
refugees who fled the November US assault on Fallujah, many of whom are
currently struggling to find food, shelter and medical provision in
near-freezing temperatures. The campers will display a banner reading
'Justice for Fallujah's r efugees', as well as placards demanding housing
for the refugees and protesting US war crimes in the city...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8326&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8326


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 21 December 2004
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member editorial board The
Free Arab Voice.
...At 3am Tuesday, US forces imposed a blockade on the city of Hit in
western Iraq. More than 300 US tanks, armored vehicles and Humvees
surrounded the city on all sides, closing all approaches to the city. The
American invader troops demanded that the people of Hit hand over six
persons to them. The US accuses the six of being "terrorists." They are:
Walid F ahd al-Hitawi, Haytham Mahmud az-Zawbi'i, 'Uqayl Jabbar, Shaykh
Salman Muhammad (a famous local religious figure), Shaykh Zubayr 'Abdallah
(another well-known religious scholar in Hit), and Rasul Muhammad. At
4:15am, local time Tuesday morning, Iraqi Resistance fighters attacked one
of the US tanks that was closing the western entrance to the city - the
route leading to Baghdad...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8327&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8327


U.S. using chemical weapons against civilians: Iraqi leader
Aniket Alam, The Hindu
"The Americans are losing the war in Iraq and in their frustration have
started using chemical weapons and napalm bombs on civilian populations,"
alleges Khudur al-Azawi of the Iraq National Democratic Party. Speaking to
The Hindu on the sidelines of the recently-held Anti-War Assembly in
Hyderabad, Mr. Azawi dismissed media accounts of the war in Iraq as "U.S.
propaganda". He denied there were divisions within Iraqis on sectarian a nd
ethnic lines...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8323&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8323


Don't Lose Sight of the Real Scandal
Sean Gonsalves
...Bert was involved in repeated efforts to get humanitarian relief into
Iraq during the 1990s. In 2002 he was fined by the U.S. government for a
1997 trip in which he helped bring $40,000 in medicine to children in Iraq
in violation of U.S. sanctions. Regarding this oil-for-food scandal, he
says: "The U.N.'s Oil for Food Program didn't begin until 1996, more than
six years after sanctions began. A 'scandal' in a program that didn't yet
exist cannot be blamed for six years of Iraqi deaths. When the Oil for Food
Program was finally allowed, it permitted $4 billion in oil sales a year
for humanitarian needs: this came to $10 per person per month for each
Iraqi living in South/Central Iraq. Of the total amount of oil sales, 30
percent went immediately for war reparations - $16 billion to Kuwaiti
Petroleum - while the U.N. reported 960,000 Iraqi children were chronically
malnourished."...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8324&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8324


Soldier who killed unarmed Iraqi discharged to face lesser charges
Drew Brown, Knight Ridder Newspapers
A U.S. soldier was discharged from the Army for manslaughter rather than
charged with murder for shooting an unarmed Iraqi prisoner last year,
despite the fact that Army investigators found sufficient evidence to press
the murder charge, Pentagon records released Tuesday show. The records also
show that military investigators examined allegations that U.S. military
dog handlers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison held a competition to see who
could make Iraqi detainees urinate on themselves the fastest...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8322&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8322


The Exploitation of Soldiers
Butler Shaffer
Those who defend warfare tend to see it only as an abstraction, a game
pitting strategists from opposing collectives against one another in
furtherance of contrived objectives. The ugly details of orchestrated
butchery and torture are to be suppressed, lest persons of humane
sensitivities become upset and demand a cessation of the game. But facts
have ways of insinuating themselves into the most carefully devised
schemes, causing the sordid nature of warfare to move from the abstract to
the concrete. When this occurs - as it did in the My Lai massacre or, more
recently, at Abu Ghraib - the political establishment is quick to look for
scapegoats or explanations that do not implicate war itself...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8321&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8321


Rise of the Amerikan Nazis
Amerikan Terrorists, American Tragedy. Part III of III
Manuel Valenzuela
...t is perhaps a product of the lack of accountability at the highest
reaches of governance why tens of millions of Amerikans applaud the utter
destruction of an entire society. If the Amerikan Nazis at the top, nothing
but war criminals and criminals against humanity and the planet, are able
to direct atrocities on a massive scale without so much as a whisper of
guilt or questioning, then average Amerikans are surely able to discern
from this that tacit approval of the brutality occurring in lands thousands
of miles away is therefore warranted. Thus the acceptance of state
sponsored terrorism has been birthed. Indeed, at the upper echelons of
government Amerika is about to approve as Attorney General the man
responsible for making legal the use of dehumanizing torture on prisoners
of war, thus validating war crimes oftentimes against innocent people who
happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8320&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8320


RAMSEY CLARK - New Year Resolve to Stop Bush & March 20th in Central Park
in NYC
Ramsey Clark, International Action Center
Citizens of the United States must unite to stop the Bush Administration in
its tracks. We are responsible for its acts. The whole world watches and
wonders where and what we are while a ruthless, runaway U.S. government
wages wars of aggression, "the supreme international crime", in Iraq,
Afghanistan and threaten others: The U.S. is branded with the images of
Shock and Awe, Fallujah, Abu Grai b, Guantanamo and an arrogant, lawless
President who flaunts international law, the Constitution of the United
States and the human rights of all...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8316&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8316


Iraqi city in lockdown
Maher al-Thanoon in Mosul
US forces sealed off entire districts of the Iraqi city of Mosul today and
raided homes in a hunt for suspects following a guerrilla attack that
killed 18 Americans and four Iraqis. Mosul's governor issued an order
banning the use of the five bridges that span the River Tigris in the city,
and said anyone breaking the order would be shot. Residents said Iraq's
third city was a virtual ghost town, with no one in the streets...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8314&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8314


IRAQI POW ABUSE
What Really Happened
A document released for the first time today by the American Civil
Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order
authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in
Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including
a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense
Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of
the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of d etainees is being covered up
(...)
"Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor
cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." -- 8th Amendment to the US
Constitution.
President Bush has acted illegally in signing an order authorizing the use
of torture...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8313&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8313


Saddam Hussein's Lawyer Aims for Bush
Kareem Fahim
Curtis Doebbler, a human rights lawyer who has been retained to defend
Saddam Hussein in his upcoming war crimes trial, tells a story that he says
hints at the problems with America's occupation of Iraq. Since July, he
said, he has been approached by not one but two separate organizations
funded by the United States to help train the judges of the Iraqi Special
Tribunal. Their proposal? That he contribute to the training (...) "To me,
I find that incredibly inept, " Doebbler said. "I think it shows the . . .
incompetence by which they're going about this. It troubles me."..


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8308&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8308


Al-Jazeera hits back at charges of funding Iraqi insurgents
AFP
Al-Jazeera, which sprang another scoop by announcing the release of two
French journalists held hostage in Iraq,, has denounced accusations by the
Iraqi interior minister that the news channel helps fund terrorists.
"Al-Jazeera wishes to state unequivocally that all the allegations and
accusations leveled at it by Mr. (Falah) al-Naqib are totally and
completely unfounded," the satellite station said in a statement sent to
AFP...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8309&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8309


New Data Hints at Poor Review of Abuse Cases
NEIL A. LEWIS
Documents made public on Tuesday in connection with a lawsuit about abuses
by military personnel in Iraq suggest that some killings of prisoners may
not have been investigated thoroughly. One set of documents, among many
released by the Defense Department to the American Civil Liberties Union,
which brought the lawsuit, shows that in one instance an Army specialist
shot and killed an Iraqi prisoner in Tikrit on Aug. 8, 2003...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8307&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8307


Death toll of Iraqi policemen hits 1000: minister
The Sydney Morning Herald
One thousand policemen have been killed in Iraq since the US-led coalition
re-established the war-torn country's security forces, interim Interior
Minister Falah al-Naqib was quoted as saying yesterday (...) Iraqi security
forces, who are not as well-equipped or trained as their US counterparts,
have been increasingly targeted by rebels in the approach to the January 30
elections...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8305&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8305


Precision of Base Attack Worries Military Experts
homas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writer
In April 2003, as the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was ending, the Pentagon
projected in a formal planning effort that the U.S. military occupation of
the country would end this month. Instead, December 2004 brought one of the
deadliest single incidents of the war for U.S. forces. More than 80
casualties were suffered yesterday by U.S. troops, civilian contractors and
Iraqi soldiers when a U.S. base near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul was
blasted at lunchtime. Defense officials said 15 of those killed in the
attack on a mess tent at the city's airport were American soldiers -- more
U.S. troops than have been lost in nearly any other major incident in the
fighting, even during the spring 2003 invasion. Before yesterday, the worst
incidents were the deaths of 17 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division
in the November 2003 collision of two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, also in
Mosul, and, two weeks before that, the loss of 15 soldiers when a CH-47
Chinook transport helicopter crashed west of Baghdad. All three occurred
after President Bush's May 2003 declaration that major combat operations in
Iraq had ended...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8306&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8306


Scapegoating Rumsfeld
Patrick J. Buchanan, Antiwar.com
... To neocons, this war was never about WMD or any alleged Iraqi ties to
9/11. That was merely to mobilize the masses for war. Their real reason was
empire and making the Middle East safe for Israel. President Bush had best
recognize what Kristol is telling him. The neocon agenda means escalation:
enlarging the Army, more U.S. troops in Iraq, widening the war to Syria and
Iran, and indefinite occupation of the Middle East, as we forcibly alter
the mindset of the Islamic world to embrace democracy and Israel...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8303&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8303


Iraqi Elections: A Ruse on the Road to Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
...It is the "old imperial game of divide and rule" currently underway in
Iraq. The Strausscons realize the ultimate result of any staged elections,
no matter who "wins," will be civil war and the splintering of Iraqi
society along ethnic and tribal lines. The Strausscon and Likudite playbook
calls for an Iraq split into three parts: Kurdish, Shi'ite, and Sunni, with
the US-friendly Kurds in control of the lion's share of Iraq's oil
reserves...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8302&s2=22>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8302




<http://www.uruknet.info>www.uruknet.info: a site gathering daily
information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts
of iraqi resistance available in Italian and English.





You receive this newsletter because you subscribed it. If you think it has
been an abuse, or simply if you don't want to receive it any more, to
unsubscribe from our newsletter, please write to
<mailto:webmaster at uruknet.info?subject=UNSUBSCRIBE>webmaster at uruknet.info
If you cannot read correctly our newsletter, please write to
<mailto:webmaster at uruknet.info?subject=ONLYTEXT>webmaster at uruknet.info to
get the text-version.