[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 24 Jan 2005]

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Open letter to World Social Forum on Occupation of Iraq
International Action Center
We appeal to the participants in the World Social Forum to endorse
worldwide actions on March 19-20 to immediately end the criminal occupation
of Iraq, to express solidarity with the courageous Iraqi resistance that
has derailed the U.S. Empire, and to join in spirit and in deed to create a
forum at the WSF for those in solidarity with the resistance...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9132&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9132


Saddam ha davvero "gasato la sua stessa gente"?
Sovereignty - Stephen C. Pelletiere
Nel Sunday Telegraph del 16 marzo 2003, John Simpson affermò che Saddam
Hussein aveva gasato la città curda di Halabja il 16 marzo 1988. L'orribile
incidente è forse il principale oggetto di propaganda usato per
giustificare la guerra contro l'Iraq perché "Saddam sterminò col gas la sua
stessa gente". Ma qual è la verità?...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9133&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9133


Low Fuel, High Violence
Dahr Jamail
Last night I peered out my hotel room window into the vast darkness of
Baghdad. Aside from random lights powered by generators, the blackened
capital city seemed to lay dormant under high winds and a cold, driving
rain. This morning as we're driving under clear, crisp skies on the
harrowing streets Abu Talat tells me, "We have had neither water nor
electricity at our house since 9am yesterday morning. It is as if we are
camping in our house!"...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9130&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9130


A Demobilized Press in a Global Free-Fire Zone
Tom Engelhardt
George Bush's all-foreign-policy inaugural address offered a
globe-enveloping neocon version of a Pax Americana world. Analyses in the
days that followed tended to mention, often critically (as did the
Democrats), that the President named not a single country in his speech,
not even Iraq -- though there was a clear reference to our war there. ("Our
country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would
be dishonorable to abandon.") I! n fact, the only foreign place name, Sinai
("the truths of Sinai"), was fittingly enough for this President a
reference to the Old Testament in a speech that God ("the Author of
liberty") evidently did everything but write. In truth, though, there was
no need to mention the names of specific lands...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9131&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9131


Saddam Defense Lawyer Gets Death Threats
United Press International
The Amman-based Committee for Defending Ousted Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein said Monday one of its lawyers received death threats. Spokesman
Ziad Khasawneh said Iraqi lawyer Khalil Dalimi informed the committee in a
letter he had been threatened with assassination because of his defense of
the former Iraqi dictator. Khasawneh said Dalimi told him three hit teams
were set up to kill him but did not identify those responsible...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9128&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9128


Pentagon Spies
Bob Dreyfuss , Tompaine.com
The issue of Pentagon spies was back in the news this weekend. Ironically,
a famous Pentagon spy—Ahmed Chalabi of Iraqi National Congress—is back,
too. The Times suggests today that Ayatollah Sistani's Shiite
fundamentalist party in Iraq has graciously decided not to appoint mullahs
to the new Iraqi government, leaving the door open for (surprise!) Chalabi.
He's baa-aa-aack. More significantly, the burgeoning Department of Defense
intelligence apparatus, under the! infamous crusader Lt. Gen. William
Boykin, the ultra-Christian undersecretary of defense for intelligence, has
made news in two ways...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9129&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9129


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 23 January 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice.
The correspondent of Mafkarat al-Islam in al-Fallujah on Sunday reported
that the Iraqi Resistance on Saturday evening had reached a tactical
decision to withdraw from the southern parts of the city, most of which
they have held since before the American assault that began on 8 November
2004...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9127&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9127


Unusual Suspects
What happened to the women held at Abu Ghraib? The government isn't
talking. But some of the women are.
Tara McKelvey, The American Prospect
..."The soldiers put me in a Hummer and took me to a police station," she
continues, recalling the events of September 2003. "An American and an
Egyptian translator interrogated me. They asked, 'Do you know any
insurgents?' I said, 'No.' They said, 'Where did you get your money?' I
said, 'We have chicken and sheep farms and property.' Th! ey said, 'You
have something to hide. You are giving money to the resistance. Tell us the
truth.'" Several days later, she was taken in "þexicuffs," or plastic
handcuffs, to a detention facility in Tikrit, 100 miles northwest of
Baghdad, where approximately 700 male Iraqi prisoners were living in desert
tents...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9124&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9124


New spy agency at Pentagon operating in Iraq
Agence France Presse (AFP)
The Pentagon has created a new spying agency that has already been
operating secretly in Iraq and Afghanistan for two years, The Washington
Post reported Sunday. The unit, called the Strategic Support Branch, has
also been in operation in other places sources would not disclose, the Post
said, citing documents and interviews with participants (...) Recruited
agents may include "notorious figures" whose association with the U.S.
government wou! ld be embarrassing if revealed, the Post said, citing a
Pentagon memo...



<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9119&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9119


Vote Saddam on Jan. 30
Destroy Iraq!
...Under Saddam, people were hungry and may not have ridden in Range Rovers
to fancy restaurants, but they could rest assured that their children could
go to school without fear of a suicide attack. Or play in the yard without
the fear of kidnapping. Iraqis went to movie theatres, playgrounds,
football matches, and wedding celebrations. They took sojourns to popular
vacation spots and planned their futures. They had jobs - true, financial
matters were tight - but they had mean! ingful employment. There were no
beheadings on a daily basis. There were no kidnappings by thugs. You
weren't gunned down in the street for being a Shia or Sunni, Christian, Jew
or Kurd. There was order in Iraq. The country worked, the schools were
safe, the universities did not fear assassinations and produced brilliant
minds. What is there of that today? (...) Iraq is screwed, now. Iraq is
destroyed. Congratulations. When you go to the polls, cross out the names
of all those false prophets and write Saddam's name instead...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9112&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9112


Hiding Behind Secrecy
John Prados, TomPaine.com
...Now the same gang is telling us the invasion—and all the consequences it
wrought—is merely the result of an intelligence failure. Yet a more
accurate account is that the Bush people encouraged intelligence failure
and now hide their culpability behind the intelligence failure they are
happy to concede occurred. Worse, President Bush says the election
constituted a referendum on his Iraq policy, and that moment of
accountability excuses him from disciplining any o! f the responsible
officials...



<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9123&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9123


'Believe the Evidence of Your Eyes'
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst, Antiwar.com
Sometimes the truth comes from the strangest places. While arguments for
and against the war rage on TV and radio talk shows, in chat rooms and
editorial pages, at last someone breaks through all the noise to say: "I
ask our youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes" (sic). That
person is President George W. Bush (...) This tiny girl, splattered with
her parents' blood when they were murdered while driving home, was not the
only d! ark-skinned tot to suffer the untamed fire of freedom. This
"unfortunate incident" orphaned six children in one untamed burst of
automatic gunfire...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9122&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9122


Italy to send attack helicopters to Iraq
Associated Press
Italy is to send its powerful Mangusta attack helicopters to Iraq because
of worsening unrest in the run-up to January 30 elections, and following
the killing of one of its soldiers by insurgents last week, media reports
said Sunday (...) Gustavo Selva, chairman of parliament's influential
foreign affairs committee, said Italy should drop its pretence to be a
peacekeeping force. "We need to move from being a humanitarian intervention
force to a fightin! g force," Selva, a member of the National Alliance
party, told the right-wing daily Libero...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9116&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9116


More soldiers implicated in further Iraqi abuse claims
Severin Carrell
At least 20 British soldiers are now facing prosecution after coming under
"significant suspicion" of involvement in the "deliberate" abuse of Iraqi
civilians, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. The figure is contained in
responses by the Ministry of Defence to detailed questions from the IoS.
These also reveal that the total number of cases involving alleged abuse
and negligence by British forces in Iraq has gone up from 12 to 16, and
inc! lude two previously undisclosed cases against Royal Air Force
personnel...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9113&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9113


For the record: "U.S. declares Iraqis can not save their own seeds"
Free Iraq
"As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush
Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save
their seeds, which include seeds the Iraqis themselves have developed over
hundreds of years. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US
corporations. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations
have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by
indig! enous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new
American credo:
Pay Monsanto, or starve...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9114&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9114


Distruggendo Babilonia
Dahr Jamail, ZNet
...Tim Shcadla Hall, assitente in pubblica archeologia all'Istituto di
Archeologia dello University College a Londra, ha dichiarato: "Quello a cui
stiamo assistendo è un conflitto internazionale nel quale gli Stati Uniti
non hanno rispettato i termini della convenzione dell'Aia... per la
protezione dei più importanti siti archeologici-- l'ennesima convenzione
che sembrano felici di ignorare." Così Babilonia viene distrutta. E con
essa popolo iracheno...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9109&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9109


Walking Wounded
Old soldiers don't fade away
Fred Reed
The observant will have noticed that we hear little from the troops in Iraq
and see almost nothing of the wounded. Why, one might wonder, does not CNN
put an enlisted Marine before a camera and, for 15 minutes without editing,
let him say what he thinks? Is he not an adult and a citizen? Is he not
engaged in important events on our behalf? Sound political reasons exist.
Soldiers are a risk PR-wise, the wounded a liability. No one can tell !
what they might say, and conspicuous dismemberment is bad for recruiting.
An enlisted man in front of a camera is dangerous. He could wreck the
governmental spin apparatus in five minutes...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9111&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9111


How Britain was forced to face up to its own Abu Ghraib
Severin Carrell and Raymond Whitaker, Independent
... Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP who has led demands for an independent
inquiry into the abuse allegations, said: "I find it difficult to believe
that that number of incidents would have occurred without there being some
belief there was a culture of acceptance of this kind of behaviour. That is
really the key question. There are certain things which strike you about
many of the abuse allegations against US! and British soldiers. There are
common factors, such as the use of public nakedness, homosexual abuse and
torture. If you put this together, you almost see something akin to an
informal methodology of abusing prisoners"...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9110&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9110


Army prepares armed 'robo-soldier' for Iraq
MICHAEL P. REGAN, AP Business Writer
...The Army is preparing to send 18 of these remote-controlled robotic
warriors to fight in Iraq beginning in March or April. Made by a small
Massachusetts company, the SWORDS, short for Special Weapons Observation
Reconnaissance Detection Systems, will be the first armed robotic vehicles
to see combat, years ahead of the larger Future Combat System vehicles
currently under development by big defense contractors such as Lockheed
Mart! in and General Dynamics Corp...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9108&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9108


Baghdad residents face water crisis
Aljazeera.net
Most of the Iraqi capital - particularly the western districts - has been
without water for the past seven days. Added to a lack of electricity - the
national grid is off more than it is on - a crumbling mobile phone network,
endless lines to get fuel and a daily dose of bombs and mortars, it has
made it next to impossible to even think about the coming election (...)
Some Baghdad residents say the Iraqi government and US military have cut
off the water on purpose! to frustrate people and prompt them to vote in
the 30 January election. ..


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9107&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9107


LA Times: Making Bushzarro World Palatable
Kurt Nimmo
...But then, of course, in Bushzarro world, dictatorships pass for
democracy, resistance against occupation in Iraq is terrorism, and Ariel
Sharon in Israel is a "partner" for peace, as he kills increasing numbers
of Palestinians, steals their land, and locks them in the largest open-air
prisons in the world, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, surrounded by an
apartheid wall and soldiers who riddle pre-schoolers with bullets...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9106&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9106




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