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

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HE'S BACK
Malcom Lagauche
If you ask anyone who the most powerful person is in Iraq, you may get
varied answers: the stooge prime minister; the stooge president; or even
Sistani. They are all wrong. The most powerful person is Ahmed Chalabi.
That is not a typo. A few days ago, he was named as the Minister of Oil for
Iraq, albeit on a "temporary" basis until a permanent minister is
appointed. Anybody who knows Chalabi realizes that he will turn the
temporary position into a lifetime grant. The person who controls! the oil
controls the money in Iraq. That is whatever money is left over after the
U.S.-stolen booty. Money (of the illicit kind) is Chalabi's forte...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11432&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11432


Baghdad Remembers Saigon
Raed Jarrar
Vietnam celebrated the communist victory over a US-backed government today,
parading troops on the same boulevard used by tanks on their way to
smashing the Presidential Palace of South Vietnam 30 years ago. Can anyone
miss the similarities between what happened in Vietnam and what's happening
in Iraq? Between the fake falling governments and the populations fighting
against the occupiers?...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11437&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11437


The New Baghdad Government
Jude Wanniski
...I had been persuaded by my own intelligence sources that Saddam Hussein
possessed no weapons of mass destruction and was no threat to the U.S. or
to the region (including Israel). I passed all my findings on to high
officials of the Bush administration, obviously to no avail. The reason I'm
writing now is that I have looked over the new government installed in
Baghdad and am frankly amazed that while I once believed it might be a
puppet government of ours, it now begins! to look like a puppet government
of Iran's...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11438&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11438


Belgian Doctors Bill U.S. for Treating Iraqi Girl.
Full text of the letter to the US embassy underneath
Medical Aid for the Third World
...We hold the US government accountable for the serious physical and
psychological harm done to Hiba Kassim. First, US troops hit Hiba with a
cluster bomb, while, according to International Humanitarian Law, targeting
civilians in an international armed conflict is prohibited, as is the use
of cluster bombs or ammunition in civilian areas. Second, Hiba was not able
to get p! roper medical care, while according to the Fourth Geneva
Convention (Articles 50, 55 and 56), the Occupying Power has the duty of
ensuring the medical supplies of the population and of ensuring and
maintaining the medical and hospital establishments and services in the
occupied territory. As a humanitarian agency, we decided to step in and
try, to the best of our ability, to provide Hiba Kassim with the care and
the opportunities that the US occupation of her country denied her. But we
promised to Hiba and to the broad group of supporters and sympathizers -
including Olympic medalist and multiple world and European judo champion
Gella Vandecaveye - that we would send the bill to the US government...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11418&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11418


"The worst aspect of a tragedy .. is that it induces humor" .. An Arabic
proverb
Imad Khadduri
"At a ceremony on a Pentagon parade ground that overlooks the Potomac
River, Wolfowitz reviewed a military honor guard and was presented with a
Defense Department medal for distinguished public service which cited him
as an 'internationally recognized voice for freedom.' Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld praised his top deputy for intellectual firepower and
perseverance, noting that he was a leading force in Rumsfeld! 's drive to
modernize the military...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11434&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11434


France in Algeria: Lesson for America
Institute of Policy Studies
America today is what the colonial France was in the 19th century. Like
France, it is too self-assured of its 'virtue' and has embarked upon a
civilizing mission of spread of democracy. These were the views of Mr. John
W. Kiser III, President, Kiser Research Inc., Washington D.C., at a talk
"French Experience in Algeria: Lessons for America" at the Institute of
Policy Studies, Islamabad. Besides him, Senator Khurshid Ahmad also spoke
briefly on th! e subject, while Pakistan's former ambassador Dr. S.M.
Koreshi presided over the session...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11426&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11426


Britain: Blair forced to publish legal advice on Iraq war
Julie Hyland, WSWS
As the general election campaign enters its final stages, the issue that
all the main parties have sought to suppress—the Iraq war—has finally
reared its head. On Thursday, April 28, the government was forced to
publish a 13-page memo from the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, advising
on the legality of war against Iraq. The content of the March 7, 2003, memo
has long been contested, but it was thought to have contradicted the legal
car! te blanche for military action that Goldsmith gave to parliament 10
days later, just days in advance of the US-led attack on Iraq...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11416&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11416


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 30 April 2005.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice.
...In a dispatch posted at 2:55pm Mecca time Saturday afternoon, the
correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in al-Fallujah reported that US forces
had encircled the al-Karmah area east of the city and dropped leaflets from
helicopters demanding that Resistance fighters in the besieged area
surrender to the invaders. The leaflets also prohibited local residents!
from leaving their houses, imposing a curfew...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11443&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11443


IRAQ: Making a killing: the big business of war
Doug Lorimer, Green Left Weekly
While nearly 100,000 Iraqis and 1600 US troops have died as a result of the
Iraq war and tens of thousands have been severely wounded, the war has
proven to be extremely lucrative for the Houston-based oil services company
Halliburton and the San Francisco-based construction company Bechtel. These
are the two largest private contractors to the US occupation forces in
Iraq...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11441&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11441


IRAQ: US admits rebellion hasn't weakened
Doug Lorimer, Green Left Weekly
"In city after city and town after town, security forces who had signed up
to secure Iraq and replace US forces appear to have abandoned posts or
taken refuge inside them for fear of attacks" by Iraqi resistance fighters,
the April 23 Washington Post reported. As an example of this, the Post
cited the situation in the town of Husaybah on the Syrian border, near a US
Marine Corp base that came under a well coordinated attack by up to 100 in!
surgents on April 12. It reported that a puppet "Iraqi army unit that had
once grown to 400 members has dwindled to a few dozen guardsmen 'holed up'
inside a phosphate plant outside of Husaybah for their protection, a marine
commander said"...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11440&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11440


UK document leak shows early plan to topple Saddam
Peter Graff, Reuters
U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were
determined to topple Saddam Hussein at least nine months before they
launched the war in Iraq, British documents leaked in a Sunday newspaper
say. The secret documents could have a late impact in Britain's election
next Thursday, in which Iraq -- and whether the prime minister told the
truth when making his case for war -- has resurfaced as an issue in the
final week of ! campaigning...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11439&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11439


A crucial question for activists
The case for immediate withdrawal
Socialist Worker
...Those in the antiwar movement who support Woolsey's resolution--and
other similar calls for "responsible withdrawal"--are moving away from the
position that has long guided organizations and movements opposed to U.S.
military intervention around the world. The basic right of
self-determination for Iraq--that Iraqis themselves should determine their
own future--needs to be reasserted. The U.S. military is the ! chief
obstacle to Iraqis having this right...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11430&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11430


U.S. contracting firm accused of bilking millions and running wild in Iraq
Deborah Hastings
His career in Baghdad was brief. And it ended badly. On a blistering July
afternoon, three MP5 submachine guns were pointed at Robert Isakson. The
men carrying the weapons wanted his money and his security pass. As Isakson
tells it, they also wanted his guns, leaving him unarmed in a mess of a
country and banned from its safest haven...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11431&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11431


Swindler on a gusher'
Maureen Dowd, New York Times
The Iraqis have thrown us another curveball. Ahmad Chalabi - convicted
embezzler in Jordan, suspected Iranian spy, double-crosser of America,
purveyor of phony war-instigating intelligence - is the new acting Iraqi
oil minister. Is that why we went to war, to put the oily in charge of the
oil, to set the swindler who pretended to be Spartacus atop the ultimate
gusher? Does anybody still think the path to war wasn't greased by oil?...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11428&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11428


Seven US soldiers die in Iraq
News24.com
Seven US soldiers were killed and six wounded in Iraq, the military said on
Saturday. A bomb attack on a Task Force Freedom convoy on Thursday killed
four US soldiers in Tal Afar city, 150km east of the Syrian border, the
military said in a brief statement. Two soldiers wounded in the attack were
treated at a combat hospital. Two US soldiers were killed on Friday when a
Task Force Baghdad patrol struck a homemade bomb in the western part of the
capital, the military said! in a statement. Nine suspects in a nearby house
were detained by the military. In western Iraq, a soldier was killed on
Saturday by gunfire in Khaldiyah, 120km west of Baghdad, the military said
in a statement from Camp Fallujah...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11427&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11427


Robbing the Last Bag of Gold in the Public Vault.
Another Mad Bush Press Conference
MIKE WHITNEY, CounterPunch
Thursday night's press conference gave us with a solid example of how elite
interests dominate the news cycle. Consider this; at the same time Bush was
braying about fixing the Social Security system, the violence in Iraq was
reaching a crescendo (13 bombs went off in Baghdad on Friday killing 50
civilians and 3 American servicemen), the convicted fraudster, Ahmad
Chalabi, was assuming his posi! tion in the Iraqi cabinet as oil minister
in the new Iraqi government, and the journal "Science" was releasing a
report confirming that "Climate scientists have found the heat exchange
between earth and space is seriously out of balance validating forecasts of
global warming"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11425&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11425


Lesson from a Total Defeat for the US.
The End of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Ago
GABRIEL KOLKO
... There are so many obvious parallels with their futile projects in Iraq
and Afghanistan today, and the lessons are so clear, that we have to
conclude that successive administrations in Washington have no capacity
whatsoever to learn from past errors. Total defeat in Vietnam 30 years ago
should have been a warning to the U.S.: wars are too complicated for any
nation, even the most powerful, to undertake with! out grave risk. They are
not simply military exercises in which equipment and firepower is decisive,
but political, ideological, and economic challenges also. The events of
South Vietnam 30 years ago should have proven that. It did not...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11424&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11424


Defense Department Invokes Geneva Conventions to Withhold Torture Photos
ACLU, www.globalresearch.ca
"Until now, this administration has shown only contempt for the Geneva
Conventions, and it has built its policies dismissing the application of
international humanitarian law," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director
of the ACLU. "It's simply astounding that the Defense Department has now
invoked the Geneva Conventions to suppress evidence that prisoners have
been abused. The government cannot cloak its attempt! s to protect itself
from public embarrassment in a newfound concern for the Geneva
Conventions"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11422&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11422


Commanders Responsible for Abu Ghraib
Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers
...The responsibility ultimately lies with President Bush, Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, then White
House counsel, who decided that the Geneva Conventions on Humanitarian
Treatment of Prisoners of War didn't apply in the "war on terrorism." (...)
Bush has said he was opposed to torture. Fine. But the proof of the pudding
is for him to issue an executive order against torture and to announce that
the Un! ited States will again abide by the Geneva Conventions...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11423&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11423


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Friday, 29 April 2005.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org
...Iraqi sources in the Jordanian capital 'Amman that are close to the Arab
Baath Socialist Party have disclosed that leading cadres of the Baath party
have been reporting that during his latest visit to occupied Iraq, American
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in
prison at Saddam Internationa! l Airport. Saddam Hussein, still the legal
President of Iraq, on Thursday marked his 68th birthday like the state of
Iraq itself, as a prisoner of the occupation (...) The sources are
unanimous in reporting that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein totally rejected
Rumsfeld's offer, responding instead with his own conditions for talks...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11414&s2=01>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11414




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