[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 13 Apr 2005]

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WHAT DID APRIL SAY?
Malcom Lagauche
...By the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Iraq's economy had been greatly
weakened. The incidents leading to Desert Storm began to emerge. Kuwait had
loaned money to Iraq during the war. The money was loaned for the defense
of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, as well as that of Iraq, and the Iraqi
government did not expect to be hard-pressed to repay the loans after the
hostilities ended, especially because much of the money was used in
thwarting Iran from invading Kuwait. Soon after the cea! se-fire, Kuwait
demanded repayment. Saddam Hussein was shocked that Kuwait would apply so
much pressure after his country had spent eight bloody years defending
Kuwait from Iranian aggression. When Iraq attempted to discuss the matter
of repayment with Kuwait, the Kuwaitis became ever more insistent about
immediate remission. The Iraqis did not know at that time that the CIA and
Kuwait (in collaboration) had already instituted measures to further
undermine the Iraqi economy...



<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11067&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
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Keep Your Eyes on John Negroponte
Jude Wanniski
...There have also been questions raised about his effectiveness as
Ambassador to Baghdad, as the situation in Iraq got progressively worse --
as he worked with the interim government to win the minds and hearts of the
occupied Iraqis by destroying the city of Fallujah. Senator, I hope you
don't think it was Negroponte's decision to bomb the bejesus out of the
town to "teach Iraqis a lesson" in how they should be occupied. Of course
not. He took his orders from the ! Cabal in Washington, with Paul Wolfowitz
telling him "bombs away," after checking with Richard Perle, the mastermind
in the Cabal. Negroponte then rang up interim Prime Minister Allawi and
gave him his orders. Everyone in Iraq knows what happened, which is why
Allawi didn't get any votes in the elections and will soon be out of
business. Okay, okay. There was a little blood spilled in Fallujah. But I
would forgive Negroponte even for that. There was no intelligence failure.
Perle wanted blood to be spilled, and he had the backing of the President,
Vice President, Defense Secretary, down the line. My gripe about
Negroponte, which nobody seems to have brought up, is that he was our
Ambassador to the United Nations during those many months when the U.N. was
passing UNSCR #1441 and then executing it successfully...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11060&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11060


The Paintings of Fernando Botero
Fighting Torture with Art
MIKE WHITNEY, CounterPunch
The Columbian artist Fernando Botero has produced a brilliant collection of
life-sized paintings depicting the horrors of Abu Ghraib. The works show
prisoners bound and gagged, stacked on top of each other, and being beaten
by American soldiers. The paintings have a haunting, frenzied feeling to
them, like Pieter Bruegel's medieval "The Triumph of Death" (1562) where
the artist conjures up a scene of armies clashing w! hile wagon-loads of
skulls are carried across an apocalyptic-looking landscape. Abu Ghraib is
the entryway into that same world, faithfully reproduced in detail by
George Bush. We're fortunate to have men like Botero to shine a light on
the real machinery of Bush's terror-apparatus. Already, 100,000 Iraqis have
died in a gratuitous act of aggression, entire cities have been flattened
and 17,000 Iraqis languish in overcrowded gulags waiting for an improbable
turn-of-events. Botero captures the look of desperation on men's faces when
there is no expectation of justice. He confronts his audience with the
bloody stanchions that support the new world order and the increasing
number of innocent victims required to keep them upright...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11080&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11080


Semper Fraud, Senator Roberts
Scott Ritter, Antiwar.com
..."Semper Fi," Senator. "Always Faithful." The words roll out easily; but
faithful to what? You are the epitome of faithfulness to your party - less
so to the Constitution, and still less so to our fellow Marines putting
their lives on the line for a highly dubious purpose. If you continue to
put loyalty to party above all else, and shirk your duty to the American
people, then your motto should instead be "Semper Fraud," and you should be
drummed out of the! Corps...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11085&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11085


MEDIA ALERT: IRAQ AND ZIMBABWE - A TALE OF TWO ELECTIONS
MEDIA LENS
...Claims of democratic elections in Iraq were not just nonsense, they were
self-evident nonsense, repeated by every major media entity in the land.
Consider, by contrast, the response to recent elections in Zimbabwe, run by
one of the West's favourite bad guys - Robert Mugabe. Here, suddenly, the
media regained their mental faculties and were able to identify obvious
flaws in the process. A Guardian editorial entitled, 'Stealing Democracy,'
obse! rved: "Intimidation, gerrymandering and the use of famine relief as a
weapon are just some of the many abuses that have been documented so far"
in "what looks like being an utterly flawed election (...) The same editors
had declared the Iraq process "the country's first free election in
decades", a "landmark election" that would be "in a way, a grand moment"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11082&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11082


Israeli Blackjack with Iran
Sharon Tries to Pawn Off Fake Photos of Iran's "Nuclear Installations"
KURT NIMMO, CounterPunch
...Here's a novel idea... if the flipping Israelis are so hot to invade (or
at minimum bomb) Iran, let them do it themselves. Of course they will not
do this since there are around 66 million Iranians and about 6 million
Israelis, including a couple hundred thousand rabid settlers in the West
Bank, Gaza, and the land Israel filched from Syria. Better to get the
stupid Americans to ! do it, although it appears the Pentagon is not
exactly chomping at the bit to invade Iran considering the mess in Iraq. So
here we have Sharon and his mass murder advisor presenting Bush the Dumber
with photos, obviously contrived since nobody can find nukes in Iran except
the Israelis and their Neocon buddies, who are, just like the Likudites,
demonstrated and practiced liars and deceivers, well tutored in making up
fake "intelligence," as the Neocon lie factory, the Office of Special
Plans, did in the lead up to mass murdering around 100,000 innocent
Iraqis...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11081&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11081


Rumsfeld warns Iraqi regime not to purge US allies
Patrick Cockburn, Independent
...After meeting Mr Rumsfeld, the Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari
played down the problems ahead. "I am sure we are going to form very good
ministries. All of [the ministers] are good technocrats. They are very
effective and from good backgrounds." If Mr Jaafari fails to form a
government, Ahmed Chalabi, a leading member of the Shia bloc, is likely to
step in and be asked to try again. Though distrusted by many, no one
doubts! Mr Chalabi's political agility. As an ally of the American
neoconservatives, he played a central role in fomenting the war to
overthrow Saddam Hussein. He later fell out with the neoconservatives and
was denounced for allegedly passing information to the Iranians, with whom
he has good relations. He is also close to Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical
Shia cleric...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11079&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11079


US relied on 'drunken liar' to justify war
What Really Happened
An alcoholic cousin of an aide to Ahmed Chalabi has emerged as the key
source in the US rationale for going to war in Iraq (...)
"We didn't lie. We were all fooled by this drunken bum!" "The President was
fooled by this drunken bum!" "The Vice President was fooled by this drunken
bum!" "The guy looking at photos of balloon inflators and claiming they
were mobile biological laboratories was fooled by this drunken bum!" "The
CIA was fooled by this drunken bum!" "The FBI was fooled by this drunken
bum!" "The entire United States Congress was fooled by this drunken bum!"
"ABC was fooled by this drunken bum!"...




<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11078&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11078


How many have gone to war? OVER 1 MILLION !
Mark Benjamin, Axis of Logic
Three and a half years have passed since U.S. bombs started falling in
Afghanistan, and ever since then, the U.S. military has been engaged in
combat overseas. What most Americans are probably unaware of, however, is
just how many American soldiers have been deployed. Well over 1 million
U.S. troops have fought in the wars since Sept. 11, 2001, according to
Pentagon data released to Salon. As of Jan. 31, 2005, the exact figure was
1,048,884,! approximately one-third the number of troops ever stationed in
or around Vietnam during 15 years of that conflict...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11077&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11077


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 12 April 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org
...In a dispatch posted at 9:50am Tuesday morning Mecca time, the
correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in al-Qa'im reported that Shaykh
'Abdallah al-Jannabi, the Mufti Islamic Jurisconsult for al-Anbar Province
issued a General Call to Arms. In his statement circulated throughout the
cities of al-Anbar Province Tuesday, Shaykh al-J! annabi called on the
population to go and fight the US occupation forces. ...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11076&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
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Bomb kills nine Iraqi soldiers as US official visits
Ned Parker, AFP
An Iraqi oil security commander and eight of his soldiers were killed in a
bomb blast at a northern fuel pipeline on Wednesday, as US Deputy Secretary
of State Robert Zoellick made a surprise visit to Iraq. Rebels greeted the
senior US diplomat's arrival with three attacks around the capital, which
came one day after US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld laid down the law
to Iraq's ruling Shia elite, warning them against corruption and purging
th! eir opponents from the security forces...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11072&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11072


JINSA: Al-Qaeda Redux (with Nukes) Ad Infinitumy
Kurt Nimmo
You really have to hand it to the JINSAites for beating a dead horse,
namely al-Qaeda, the CIA manufactured booga-booga scarecrow dredged up on
occasion to scare gullible American adults and grade school kids alike.
"New warnings that al Qaeda is preparing for another attack on the United
States, likely making use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), has
spurred America's scientific community to develop new technologies capable
of detecting, tracking, ! and neutralizing these threats," warns JINSA (the
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) editorial assistant
Jonathan Howland. Mr. Howland references Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
who told the House Armed Services Committee on February 16, 2005, that
"extremists continue to plot to attack again. They are at this moment
recalibrating and reorganizing"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11074&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11074


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 11 April 2005
''Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
In a dispatch posted at 11am Monday morning, Mecca time, Mafkarat al-Islam
reported that US invader troops had stormed into the eastern neighborhoods
of the liberated city of al-Qa'im on the Syrian border and that at the time
of reporting fierce fighting had been raging between the Resistance and the
American aggressors inside the city since the early hours of Monday
morning...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11070&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11070


The Pitfalls of Privatising War
Madeleine Byrne, Online Opinion
Licking combs, practicing their lines, the opening salvo of Michael Moore's
anti-war film Fahrenheit 9/11 lines them up like witnesses for the
prosecution: Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and George W. Bush. If there
were a corporate version of this axis of evil for many Iraq-war sceptics,
it would be the energy firm once run by US Vice-President Dick Cheney:
Halliburton...



<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11068&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11068


Colombian Artist Depicts Abu Ghraib Abuse
DAN MOLINSKI, Associated Press Writer
In a new series of paintings by famed Colombian artist Fernando Botero,
Iraqi detainees are shown being beaten by American prison guards, made to
wear women's lingerie and suffering other abuse (...) The 73-year-old
Botero said his paintings are inspired more by written descriptions of the
abuse than by the photographs. The paintings are each titled simply "Abu
Ghraib," followed by a number from 1-50 to distinguish them. Botero said !
his intent is to emblazon the images upon the consciousness of the world.
"No one would have ever remembered the horrors of Guernica if not for the
painting," said Botero, referring to Pablo Picasso's masterpiece
"Guernica," which depicts the aerial bombardment of civilians during the
Spanish Civil War...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11066&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11066


Anti-War Activists Promote 'Tax Resistance' As Direct Protest
Martha Baskin, The NewStandard
By April 15, the Internal Revenue Service estimates that 132 million
individual income tax returns will be filed and that two trillion dollars
will be collected for the US Treasury. But in protest of the federal
government's military expenditures, an estimated ten thousand people will
not file their taxes or will deliberately withhold money from the IRS this
year. Glen Milner, an electrician and father of three in Seattl! e,
Washington, files his taxes every year. His approach, however, is unusual.
On the top of his 1040 form he writes in large print: "Some taxes withheld
in protest of funds appropriated for illegal military purposes"...



<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11065&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
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US appears to have fought war for oil and lost it
Ian Rutledge, Financial Times
Sir, Your recent report that oil prices have reached an all-time nominal
high and that Goldman Sachs has suggested the possibility of a "super
spike" in prices to as high as $105 per barrel ("Crude at all-time high
despite Opec's efforts", April 5) should be of no surprise to anyone who
has studied the informed opinions of US energy experts in the period
leading up to the invasion of Iraq. Nor, for that matter, to anyone who has
seen ! my own observations on future world oil prices in my recent book
Addicted to Oil....

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11064&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11064


An Anniversary Worth Remembering
Harry Browne
Two years ago today, the U.S. military took over Baghdad, and the glorious
event was celebrated by jubilant Iraqis who rushed to Firdos Square and
pulled down an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein (...) But it was all an
illusion - the kind created by the best magicians. There were three
elements in the illusion: 1. The statue was actually toppled by U.S.
Marines using their own equipment - not by Iraqis. The Marines first draped
an American flag over the statue's face! , but then realized that this
would make it too obvious that the Marines had come to occupy, not
liberate, Baghdad. 2. The square wasn't filled with thousands of Iraqis.
Only a hundred or so people witnessed the event.
3. The few people there weren't oppressed Iraqis - celebrating the event
with joyous relief that their years-long oppression in Baghdad had ended.
The people crowded around the statue were mostly members of the Iraqi
National Congress - an organization of Iraqis who had been living outside
Iraq, and had been flown into Iraq just before the event...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11063&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11063


Air Force Colonel Abuses American Citizens over Uranium Weapons Coverup
Dr. Doug Rokke, US Army, Ret., and Bob Nichols, Project Censored Award
Winner, Axis of Logic
..."Col. Helbig has consistently misrepresented himself and his
participation, voluntarily or on a paid basis, as a "minder" or enforcer
for the DOD lie about Uranium Munitions in direct contravention of US Army
Regulations and Orders," Nichols stated. "Col. Helbig apparently is
fervently following the Secret Los Alamos Memo about Uranium Weapons (UW)!
, aka so-called "Depleted Uranium," instructing personnel to lie about
Uranium Weapons to maintain the political viability of continued use of the
Genocidal Weapons: "weaponized radioactive and poisonous ceramic uranium
oxide gas and dust" in Iraq and throughout Central Asia," added Nichols...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11058&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11058


The second time in less than two weeks --- Al-Qaim
Imad Khadduri
Further to an earlier posting on April 3, 2005. More, surely, are to
follow, this is the very sanitized news about Al-Qaim that has finally
filtered out in the corporate media (...) The following is the 'other side'
of the same news that has been daily reported since last Thursday, in
Arabic, by Mufakirat Al-Islam's four reporters on the ground in Al-Qaim ...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11059&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11059


Many Iraqis killed in US air attack
Aljazeera.net
Twenty Iraqis have been killed and 22 injured after US helicopters and
heavy artillery bombed houses in al-Rummana village north of al-Qaim city.
Seven children, six women and three old men were among the dead, witnesses
said, while the injured included 13 children, seven women and two old men.
The witnesses added that the shelling started after US forces, who landed
near al-Qaim on Monday night, came under several attacks...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11056&s2=14>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11056




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