[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 01 Apr 2005]

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BELAFONTE WAS RIGHT
Malcom Lagauche
...Don’t forget that former Secretary of State created the "Powell
Doctrine" of "overwhelming force." Its results were diabolical in the first
Gulf War: destroying the entire infrastructure of Iraq while killing about
a quarter of a million human beings. Militarily, the Iraqi troops could
have been forced to leave Kuwait with much less loss of life and
life-supporting items such as drinking water and electricity. Powell became
the mouthpiece for George Bush and the neocons. The! y had no problem about
lying, but Powell did. Some of his disagreements with the administration
became public, but Powell chose to be the "loyal soldier" and he succumbed
to the deceit 100% of the time. He had many chances to sever himself from
the administration and he would have come out looking like a man with great
integrity. He chose not to...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10841&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10841


Iraqi Children: On The Brink Of Disaster
Ghali Hassan, Countercurrents.org
...Since the US invasion and occupation of Iraq every aspect of life in
Iraq has deteriorated. A new report released to the UN Human Rights
Commission found that malnutrition among Iraqi children under the age of 5
years have doubled to nearly 8 percent since the US invasion of Iraq as a
result of lack of clean water, food, and adequate sanitation. The report is
supported by previous studies of the crisis in Iraq since the Occupation.
It ! has been well documented and reported that since the early 1970s; Iraq
had one of the best national health-care systems in the Middle East. Iraq
boasted a modern social infrastructure with a first-class range of
health-care facilities, and the Iraqi people enjoyed one of the highest
standards of living in the Middle East. Iraq had used its oil revenues,
which accounted for 60% of its gross domestic product (GDP), to build a
modern health-care system with large Western-style hospitals and modern
technology...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10834&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10834


An answer to "Rise of Extremism, Islamic Law Threaten Iraqi Women"
Dirk Adriaensens, BRussells Tribunal
..."What threatens the Iraqi women now is not wearing the scarf or the
hijab as much as it is the fear of being arrested, killed in blasts,
shootings, or on the hands of criminal gangs. The fear of her husband, her
son, brother, father...etc being killed or arrested. there is an army of
newly widowed women, with many children to feed or take care of, mothers of
handicapped children with no money to provide me! dical care, women are
living in refugees camps, with families and children to take care of. Women
are in jails, humiliated, abused, with no future. women are unemployed.
Many are working as house servants. I agree that for a women to put the
scarf against her will is unacceptable, but this is (luxury) problem when
your life, your chidren , your house, and your existance is threatened"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10818&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10818


BENDERMAN COURTS-MARTIAL MOVES FORWARD
Robert S. Finnegan, Managing Editor Southeast Asia News
The ongoing saga of Sergeant Kevin Benderman's denial regarding the
legitimacy of war and his refusal to participate in it has now crystallized
into a war of words and legalities, pitting his beliefs and first-hand
battlefield knowledge against an action by the U.S. Government and Army
prosecutors who are charging him with desertion for choosing to follow his
conscience, in a war declared illegal by U.N. Secretary Gener! al Kofi
Annan. Benderman is scheduled to stand trial before a General
Courts-Martial at Ft. Stewart on May 11 on counts of desertion and missing
a unit movement. Benderman's wife, Monica says that she is having a hard
time expressing her feelings at this point. "Our lives right now have been
put on hold by this issue. My husband is baring his soul. I don't know what
more proof these people need, something so simple, so basic, and they do
not appear to have a clue"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10826&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10826


U.S. Excuses Mercenary Firm Accused of Defrauding Taxpayers
Chris Shumway, The NewStandard.
Despite strong evidence from well-connected whistleblowers and military
investigators that the American mercenary firm Custer Battles over-billed
US occupation authorities in Iraq by tens of millions of dollars, the Bush
administration has refused to pursue legal action, so far declining
multiple invitations to join a lawsuit brought against the company. The
latest invitation expires today...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10842&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10842


US soldiers killed in Iraq unrest
Aljazeera.net
Three US soldiers have been killed in bomb blasts and firefights throughout
Iraq, as Aljazeera issues a call for the release of three Romanian
journalists seized earlier this week in the war-torn country. The US
military said one soldier was killed near Hawija north of Baghdad. Another
died from wounds sustained during a clash in northern Mosul. The soldier
was among several people injured during a clash that erupted on Wednesday
after troops tried to conduct a che! ck of a taxi...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10839&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10839


Army Memo Released By ACLU Suggests Perjury In Lt. Gen. Sanchez Sworn
Testimony on Torture
ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union today sent a letter to Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales asking him to open an investigation into possible perjury
by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the theater commander at the outset of the
Iraq War. The ACLU said that a memo sent by Lt. Gen Sanchez flatly
contradicts sworn testimony given by him before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, in which he denied authorizing highly coercive i! nterrogation
methods...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10838&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10838


WMD Commission: Yet Another Intelligence Failure
Rahul Mahajan
The "Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States
Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction" has done reasonably well what it was
created to do. Unfortunately, it was created to provide political cover for
the Bush administration in the middle of a scandal that dwarfs Watergate,
Iran-contra, and even Lewinsky-gate, but that, in contrast to those events,
has led to no in-depth investigation, minimal television coverage, and
hardly any c! alls for the heads responsible to roll...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10835&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10835


Iraqi seed-saving under attack.
GiantExperiment
New American rules are being seen as a major attack on the traditional
practice of seed-saving and seed-sharing by Iraqi farmers. Iraq was the
birthplace of wheat farming, but agriculture has crashed there in the last
decade. Order 81, put in place by US official Paul Bremer, refers to
seed-saving and patents. It is legally binding unless repealed by a future
Iraqi Government. If seeds can be proven to be “new, distinct, uniform and
stable”, then they are protect! ed. Seed companies can charge royalties for
the seeds, and perhaps most importantly, Iraqi farmers are forbidden to
save them...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10836&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10836


Al-Malwia, as Sad as the Rest of Iraq
Raed Jarrar, Raed in the Middle
...This historical landmark is not the first one destroyed under the
occupation, and I'm afraid it won't be the last. Al-Jazeera website in
Arabic mentioned that the minaret was used by the US army as a sniper base,
and it was destroyed today. Whether it was detroyed by the Iraqi resistance
or the US occupying army, it is just another sad loss for Iraq, Iraqis,
Arabs, and Muslims...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10844&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10844


ARE YOU ANGRY YET?
Michael Rivero, What Really Happened
You should be! You've been lied to. Your tax money has been taken from you
and spent under false pretenses. Your children have been sent off to kill
and be killed in an illegal war launched with lies. You who fought in the
war and think you came back home healthy, well, you've been lied to as
well. Your health is all downhill from here (ask any Vet from Desert
Storm), and your children will have a higher incidence of birth defects
because that depleted urani! um isn't as harmless as you were told it was.
And those VA medical benefits you were promised? That was a lie too. Are
you angry yet?...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10830&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10830


Intelligence Analysts Whiffed on a 'Curveball'
Greg Miller and Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times
Prewar claims by the United States that Iraq was producing biological
weapons were based almost entirely on accounts from a defector who was
described as "crazy" by his intelligence handlers and a "congenital liar"
by his friends. The defector, code-named "Curveball," spoke with alarming
specificity about Iraq's alleged biological weapons programs and fleet of
mobile labs. But postwar investigations showed that he wasn't ! even in the
country at times when he claimed to have taken part in illicit weapons
work...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10833&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10833


U.S. Military Dismisses Convicted Soldier
MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writer
A decorated Army captain convicted in the shooting death of a wounded Iraqi
was dismissed from the military Friday, but will serve no time in prison
after insisting at his court-martial that the shooting was a mercy killing.
A relieved Capt. Rogelio "Roger" Maynulet, 30, threw his arms around his
attorneys, wife and parents after the military court spared him a prison
sentence. Prosecutors had sought a three-year term along with the !
dismissal...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10831&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10831


Bush-appointed intelligence commission whitewashes war based on lies
Bill Van Auken, WSWS
The report released Thursday by the White House-appointed Commission on the
Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass
Destruction was entirely predictable. It follows the same pattern as the
whitewashes performed last year for the Bush administration by the 9/11
Commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Like those earlier
investigations, the WMD panel’s document serves up recommendation! s
promoting an intensification of militarism abroad and police-state measures
at home...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10829&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10829


No Comment from Pentagon Officials
Iraq Reconstruction Fund Invested on Wall Street
STAN COX, April 1, 2005
Of the $18.4 billion that Congess appropriated 16 months ago for postwar
reconstruction in Iraq, only $3.6 billion has been spent to date. There has
been much head-scratching over this uncharacteristic failure of the
Pentagon to spend money promptly. A recently unearthed portion of a Defense
Department memo sheds some light on the issue, suggesting that more than
$14 billion earmarked for reconstr! uction was actually invested on Wall
Street...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10828&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10828


Does US military 'recognize' its own regulations on DU?
Traprock Peace Center
Retired Major Doug Rokke, Ph.D. (USAR, retired), who was an Army health
physicist during the Gulf war and was then responsible for trying to 'clean
up' radiologically contaminated US equipment (RCE's) there, has been
calling on the military to follow its own regulations. He and Damacio Lopez
continue to make this call (...) Reading these regulations and procedures,
one must wonder how the US can justify - morally or legally - using such! a
weapon. (See the Karen Parker, J.D., article on the illegality of DU
Weaponry under international humanitarian law.) Very recently, two US
military publications have taken noticee of the regulations. But again,
what of the Iraqis - a people who will be left to live with what the US has
left behind? And, will the military follow these reminders of their
regulations, even concerning US soldiers?...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10827&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10827


The Neo-Cons vs the United Nations
Jude Wanniski
...If we now look back two years, to the days before the U.S. went to war
against Iraq, I think you should acknowledge that the international
political body proved far superior to our political national body in
debating war and peace. The U.N., both General Assembly and Security
Council, could clearly see that in March of 2003 there was no threat of
weapons of mass destruction from Saddam Hussein. He had been rendered
toothless by the previous decade on U.N. inspec! tions and U.S./British
bombings. You and I could both see that the war was unnecessary, but don’t
you agree you might not have felt that way unless you had seen how Saddam
had buckled in every way to UNSC #1441? If we hadn’t watched the
proceedings at the U.N. over that period, we might have gone along with
Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and signed up for war...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10824&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10824


The gates of hell are open in Iraq
Jawad al-Khalisi, Guardian
The US-British occupation of Iraq is poisoning all political processes in
my country and across the Middle East. The elections held under the control
of the occupying forces in January were neither free nor fair. Instead of
being a step towards solving Iraq's problems, they have been used to
prolong foreign rule over the Iraqi people. Only when the occupiers
withdraw from the country can Iraq take the first secure steps towards
peace and stability...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10822&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10822


U.S. Soldiers Told to 'Beat the F**k Out of' Detainees
William Fisher, Inter Press Service
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is charging that U.S. Army
documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the
mistreatment of detainees in Iraq was much more widespread than the
government has admitted. The advocacy group also accused the Army of
failing to comply with a court order to release the documents and
manipulating the media ”to minimize coverage and public access.” The ACLU
said the r! eason for the delay in delivering the more than 1,200 pages of
documents was ”evident in the contents”, which include reports of brutal
beatings, ”exercise until exhaustion” and sworn statements that soldiers
were told to ”beat the f**k out of” detainees...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10823&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10823


Doubts on Weapons Were Dismissed
Dafna Linzer and Barton Gellman, Washington Post Staff Writers
As former secretary of state Colin L. Powell worked into the night in a New
York hotel room, on the eve of his February 2003 presentation to the U.N.
Security Council, CIA officers sent urgent e-mails and cables describing
grave doubts about a key charge he was going to make. On the telephone that
night, a senior intelligence officer warned then-CIA Director George J.
Tenet that he lacked confidence in the principal so! urce of the assertion
that Saddam Hussein's scientists were developing deadly agents in mobile
laboratories...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10821&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10821


Veterans Group Calls on Congress to Impeach George W. Bush and Richard Cheney
The Baltimore Chronicle
On March 30, a national veterans’ organization called for the removal of
President George W. Bush and Vice-President Richard Cheney for crimes the
group charges were committed during the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In
a letter sent to each member of the US House and Senate, Veterans For Peace
(VFP) stated that “...This administration’s war on Iraq, in addition to
being increasingly unpopular among Americans,! is an unmistakable violation
of our Constitution and federal law which you have sworn to uphold. In our
system, the remedy for such high crimes is clear: this administration must
be impeached”...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10819&s2=02>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10819




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