[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 10 Apr 2005]

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

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

A BLACK CAT IN A DARK ROOM
Malcom Lagauche
...Let's to back to the latter part of 1998. The U.S. was accusing Iraq of
concealing the most deadly chemicals on Earth and in December, Clinton
ordered the bombing of Iraq and called the procedure Operation Desert Fox.
Most people remember this as the "Iraq/U.N. standoff." Even the method of
removing the inspectors from Iraq was a lie. The U.N. ordered the
inspectors from Iraq a few days before the bombing, yet the U.S. always
stated that Saddam Hussein kicked them out! . During this time, Nizar
Hamdoon wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times called "A Black Cat in
a Dark Room." The paper carried it, yet few people took it seriously. Go
back to the time and refresh your memory and you will see how exact and
precise Hamdoon was in his assessment. He did not lie, yet few listened...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11018&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11018


US accused of seizing Iraqi women to force fugitive relatives to give up
Rory Carroll, The Guardian
American forces were yesterday accused of violating international law by
taking two Iraqi women hostage in a bungled effort to persuade fugitive
male relatives to surrender. US soldiers seized a mother and daughter from
their home in Baghdad two weeks ago and allegedly left a note on the gate:
"Be a man Muhammad Mukhlif and give yourself up and then we will release
your sisters. Otherwise they will spend a long ti! me in detention." It was
signed Bandit 6, apparently a military code, and gave a mobile phone
number. When phoned by reporters an American soldier answered but he
declined to take questions and hung up. Salima al-Batawi, 60, and her
daughter Aliya, 35, were blindfolded, handcuffed and driven away in a
Humvee convoy on April 2, leaving the Arab Sunnis of Taji, a suburb north
of the capital, incandescent...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11024&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11024


Democracy Or Colonial Dictatorship?
Ghali Hassan, Countercurrents.org
After two months of wrangling and haggling over the forming of the new
Iraqi "government", the US got what it wants, a US government. The Iraqi
people are saying: 'How could we have elected those people'? And those are
the people the US will continue to protect. At gunpoint, the Iraqi people
have been denied the right to govern their country and live in peace (...)
The vote for secret candidate lists have to be altered so that US allies,
the Ku! rds, will have the final say in any decision-making...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11023&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11023


The Resistance Rolls On
Ibrahim Ebeid, Al-Moharer
Two years has passed since the occupation and the Iraqi people were and
still are enduring the most vicious and inhumane torturous treatment. Chaos
and destruction are spread allover the country and the Iraqi state was
decapitated and left in ruins. Material, cultural and spiritual wealth was
destroyed. Institutions on all levels were crushed and the social
interrelation of the Iraqi society was shaken and sectarianism has been
being encouraged and supported to r! eplace secularism (...) The 9th of
April 2003 was indeed a sad day and the darkest day in the annals of Iraq
but the 10th of April, Nissan, was able to vanish the darkness by giving
birth to the best organized and the most effective Resistance that the
World has witnessed in these modern times...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11013&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11013


"The Only Good Indian is a Dead Indian"
Owatica, Al-Moharer
That's what Europeans used to say about my ancestors. Some Americans still
say it. When I see the savage murder of the Iraqi people and the
destruction of their culture for the purpose of stealing their
resources......I am devastated. It reminds me of the history of my own
American Indian ancestors. You will not read about it in the history books
but there were concentration camps in America long before Hitler built them
in Germany...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11014&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11014


Bush rewards his failures
ERIC MARGOLIS
U.S. intelligence was "dead wrong" in its pre-war beliefs about Iraq's
alleged weapons of mass destruction, a U.S. presidential commission
reported 10 days ago. And just as wrong about nearly every other charge
levelled at Saddam Hussein's Iraq. This column also used "dead wrong" over
the past decade when attacking all the lies being manufactured about Iraq.
Interestingly, the many journalists and pundits who heaped abuse on my head
and accused me of treason for daring t! o challenge the pro-war propaganda
they so greedily lapped up have fallen strangely silent as the truth about
Iraq emerges...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11016&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11016


Jordanian Opposition Condemns US Occupation of Iraq
The Jiordan Times
Jordan's opposition parties marked the second anniversary of the fall of
former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime on Saturday by condemning
the two-year-old US occupation of the neighbouring country and calling on
Iraqis to determine their future independently (...) "The purpose of the
war on Iraq was and will remain to humiliate the Arab nation, protect
Israel's security and profit from the region's wealth and natural resources
to benefi! t the US," the statement said. The parties, which were against
the US-led war on Iraq, called on Arab countries to acknowledge the Iraqi
resistance as a legitimate force and to offer them official and public
support and protection...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11019&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11019


Courage IV
Richard Macintosh, Swans
Staff Sergeant Camillo Mejia got tired of all the killing. He was saddened
by the deaths within his own squad as he was of the innocent Iraqi citizens
killed in what he saw as an illegal war. The war not only made him sad and
tired, it made him sick! Sick of the lies. Sick of the murders. Sick of the
war crimes. Sick of seeing his men killed and dismembered. Sick of a war
that was based on lies. Sick of the orders that asked him to do
unconscionable things. So, Sergeant Camill! o Mejia refused the orders that
would send him back to Iraq. He was arrested, court-martialed and sent to
prison...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11026&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11026


Iraq's Allawi agrees his bloc will join govt
Reuters
Iraq's outgoing prime minister has agreed that his parliamentary bloc will
join the country's new government, and he is in negotiations on what
cabinet posts it will receive, spokesman said on Sunday. "Iyad Allawi
decided that his bloc will take part in the new government because he
believes in making the political and democratic process in Iraqi
successful," spokesman Thaer al-Naqib told Reuters...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11021&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11021


What Khalilzad's Nomination Reveals About U.s. Plans For Iraq -- And The World
Larry Everest, ZNet
Who is Zalmay Khalilzad, and what does his nomination to replace John
Negroponte as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq tell us about Bush's plans for Iraq
and the world? Khalilzad's story - from aid to Paul Wolfowitz in the 1980s,
to neocon theorist in the 1990s, to top official under George W. Bush - is
the story of the rise of a group of imperialist strategists, with a sordid
history drenched in blood, determined to solidify! , deepen and extend U.S.
global dominance by any means necessary...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11005&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11005


Washington sought to suppress UN report on progress of democracy in Middle East
Kate Randall, WSWS
...According to the Times article, the Bush administration threatened to
reduce financing for the UN Development Program if conclusions in the
report critical of the US occupation were not removed. In the end, the
report's authors—including prominent Arab scholars working with the United
Nations Development Program, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social
Development, and the Arab Gulf Program for United Nations Devel! opment
Organizations—released it essentially intact on April 5 in Amman, Jordan,
with what they have referred to as only minor changes...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11020&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11020


Millions Said Going to Waste in Iraq Utilities
T. Christian Miller, Staff Writer
Iraqi officials have crippled scores of water, sewage and electrical plants
refurbished with U.S. funds by failing to maintain and operate them
properly, wasting millions of American taxpayer dollars in the process,
according to interviews and documents. Hardest hit has been the effort to
rebuild the country's water and sewage systems, a multibillion-dollar task
considered among the most crucial components of the effort to improve d!
aily life for Iraqis...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11017&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11017


Murderous Thugs
Cindy Sheehan
...In 1975 my son had not yet been born. Today he is in his grave. Dick
Cheney, on the other hand, is now Vice President of the United States, and
he is materially wealthy beyond what any of us would ever pray to be. This
is the same Dick Cheney who during the months leading-up to the invasion of
Iraq said that Saddam Hussein not only has stockpiles of Weapons of Mass
Destruction...more than a hundred metric tons of the deadly stuff...but he
also said that Saddam Hussein was well-adv! anced in developing nuclear
weapons and that therefore the US must invade Iraq and dethrone Saddam
Hussein...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11015&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11015


Washington's Trojan Horse in the New Iraqi Government: Vice President Abdel
Mahdi
Democracy Now!
Outgoing finance minister Adel Abdel Mahdi was named by the Iraqi
parliament to be one of the country's two vice presidents. We speak with
author and activist Antonia Juhasz about Abdel Mahdi's ties to neo-liberal
institutions and his plans to privatize Iraq's oil...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11004&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11004


Up to 300,000 Demonstrate in Baghdad
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Edmund Sanders reports that the crowds in downtown Baghdad protesting the
US troop presence in the country may have been as large as 300,000 (...)
Big demonstrations were also held in Ramadi and in Najaf. In Baghad, Shaikh
Mu'ayyad al-Khazraji, a Sadr aide, said that the demonstrations would
continue, to pressure the parliament to demand a US withdrawal. Al-Hayat
reports that Muqtada urged his followers not to bear arms and were not to
reply! with gunfire if they were shot at by the Americans, saying that God
would be responsible for defeating the Occupiers...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11012&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11012


Record number of prisoners
Sammy Ketz - The Mercury
UNITED States and Iraqi forces are holding a record 17,000 men and women -
most without being formally charged - and with those in Iraqi-controlled
jails living often in deplorable conditions, said US and Iraqi officials.
About two-thirds are locked up as "security detainees" without any formal
charges in US-run facilities, Lieutenant Colonel Guy Rudisill, the US
military spokesman for Iraqi detention operations, told AFP. The rest are
incarcerated in Iraqi-run ! jails in conditions that fall well below any
international standard and are in dire need of reform, said Bakhtiar Amin,
Iraq's outgoing human rights minister.

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11009&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11009


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 9 April 2005
Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 9 April 2005. Translated
and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free
Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org
The armed Iraqi Resistance organizations issued a statement on Saturday
that was distributed throughout Baghdad and the Sunni provinces of the
country in which they said that Sunnis would mark the passing of two years
of occupation in their own way. "Today the Sunnis i! n Iraq, the heroes of
the Resistance and noble Iraqis are marking the anniversary in their own
way - not merely with false demonstrations or ringing slogans," the
statement said...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11011&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11011


US 'smuggles wounded troops home' under cover of darkness
Andrew Buncombe, Independent
The Pentagon has been accused of smuggling wounded soldiers into the US
under cover of darkness to avoid bad publicity about the number of troops
being injured and maimed in Iraq. The media have also been prevented from
photographing wounded soldiers when they arrive at hospital (...) It is not
even clear how many troops have been injured since the start of President
Bush's "war on terror". The Pentagon says that around 12,000 ! troops have
been evacuated from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, though
because officials only list as casualties those soldiers directly hurt by
bombs or bullets, the actual total of injured and wounded is believed to be
closer to 25,000...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11006&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11006


The Cruel Month...
Baghdad Burning, Girl Blog from Iraq...
Thousands were demonstrating today all over the country. Many areas in
Baghdad were cut off today for security reasons and to accomodate the
demonstrators, I suppose. There were some Sunni demonstrations but the
large majority of demonstrators were actually Shia and followers of Al
Sadr. They came from all over Baghdad and met up in Firdaws Square- the
supposed square of liberation. They were in the thousands. None of the news
channels were actually cover! ing it. Jazeera showed fragments of the
protests in the afternoon but everyone else seemed to busy with some other
news story...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11003&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11003


Whatever you do, don't mention the war
Martin Shipton, Western Mail
ALL the Welsh Labour MPs who voted for the Iraq war and are standing for
re-election have refused to answer a series of questions put to them by the
Western Mail. On Wednesday, we sent this email to 14 Labour MPs who backed
the war:"(...) Do you now accept that the war was fought on a false
premise? Do you apologise for voting in favour of the resolution? Knowing
what you know now, would you still have backed the resolution? Do you agree
that the! UK should never engage in 'pre-emptive' military action again,
unless there is specific authority from the United Nations? As a Labour
Party member, how do you feel about Tony Blair cosying up to the likes of
George Bush and Silvio Berlusconi?"...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11001&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11001


Media Disinfo as Afghan Chopper Crash Kills 18 :
Total Dead: 2 4 9 13 16 18
Fintan Dunne, Editor BreakForNews.com
Looks like the standard game is being played with casualty reports from
today's Chinook chopper crash in Afghanistan. The basic ploy is always the
same: report a low casualty figure and/or a possible 'accidental' cause for
any incident involving loss of life. By the time the real news comes out
many media outlets will have already run with the initial low casualty
report and th! us casualty perception among the public is minimized. Here's
what just happened...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=10999&s2=11>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=10999




<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.