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

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THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME
Malcom Lagauche
The scandal of Iraqi POW abuse at Abu Ghraib has the world in an uproar.
However, there is a precedent that went unnoticed and underreported of
brutal treatment of Iraqi POWs — the 1991 abuse of Iraqi POWs during and
after Operation Desert Storm. In June 1991, while the editor of the East
County Weekly newspaper in Alpine, California, I received a call from a
veteran of Desert Storm. He heard that I was compiling information about
the Gulf War and said he had a st! ory to tell me. I made an appointment
for later that morning and he showed up and talked. The former U.S. Army
soldier told me that Iraqi POWs were rounded up and put in barbed wire
pens. After a few days, they were shot and/or burned to death by soldiers
without any reason or ways of defending themselves...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11653&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11653


Soaring birth deformities and child cancer rates in Iraq
James Cogan, WSWS
Iraqi doctors are making renewed efforts to bring to the world's attention
the growth in birth deformities and cancer rates among the country's
children. The medical crisis is being directly blamed on the widespread use
of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the US and British forces in southern
Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and the even greater use of DU during the
2003 invasion. The rate of birth defects, after increasing ten-fold from 1!
1 per 100,000 births in 1989 to 116 per 100,000 in 2001, is soaring
further...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11651&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11651


Pablo Paredes faces Court Martial on May 11th.
Sign the online petition
www.DefendPablo.org
We urge the Department of the Navy to discharge FC3 Pablo Paredes as a
conscientious objector on the basis of his beliefs, and further ask that
the charges against him be set aside because his public statements and
actions show that he is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in
any form. They demonstrate that the acts with which he is charged arose
entirely from sincere and deeply held beliefs...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11645&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11645


Will a Voice of Conscience Be Heard?
Conscientious Objection on Trial: The Court Martial of Keith Benderman
Kevin B. Zeese*
This Wednesday, May 11, the court martial of Sgt. Keith Benderman begins.
Sgt. Benderman, who has served in the military for eight years including
one tour of duty in Iraq, filed for conscientious objector status after
seeing the reality of war in Iraq. He has been denied and now faces court
martial on two counts, for desertion with the intent to avoid hazardous
duty and missing moveme! nt by design. He could spend five years
incarcerated if found guilty of the first charge and up to two years for
the second...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11646&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11646


The Course is Set for Impeachment
Grace Reid, Daily Kos
...Everyone knows that this war is stinking and criminal , and has known
for years... so why is this newsworthy? Because it's the first material
evidence that diplomacy was NEVER an option. That Bush lied to Congress,
that intelligence was fabricated to fit the policy, that the deal between
the US and the UK to go to war was struck in April 2002, and there was
going to be nothing to stop it (...) During the Nixon years it was John
Dean who said, "There is! a cancer on the Presidency." But now it is our
whole form of government that has reached a critical mass. If the United
States is a democratic Constitutional republic, then there is no question
that impeachment is the proper course of action. Anyone who says otherwise
has chosen the serfs role...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11627&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11627


Soaring birth deformities and child cancer rates in Iraq
James Cogan, WSWS
Iraqi doctors are making renewed efforts to bring to the world's attention
the growth in birth deformities and cancer rates among the country's
children. The medical crisis is being directly blamed on the widespread use
of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the US and British forces in southern
Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and the even greater use of DU during the
2003 invasion. The rate of birth defects, after increasing ten-fold from 1!
1 per 100,000 births in 1989 to 116 per 100,000 in 2001, is soaring
further...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11651&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11651


Missing Before May 1, 2003
Iraqi Families Looking for their Sons in the American Secret Prisons
E.A.Khamas, BRussells Tribunal
One of the major problems that the Iraqi families are going through after
two years of occupation, a problem that is rarely mentioned in the media,
if at all, is the case of people who disappeared during the 2003 American
invasion, or after that during the occupation, whom the American
authorities refuse to give any information about because they are
considered dangerous, or those wh! o are called security inmates in the
American controlled prisons. All the national and international NGOs who
work(ed) in Iraq are very familiar with a reply that they always get from
the American military bases or information centers, when they ask about a
detainee who was arrested or disappeared in the period March 20-May 1st,
2003: "No information about whoever was arrested before May 1st 2003", no
compensations, no complains heard, nothing. On May 1st 2003, President Bush
announced the end of the military operations in Iraq. It is also impossible
to know any thing about those who are called security inmates, because they
are the responsibility of the American Army (according to Chuck Ryan, the
American officer who was responsible of the Iraq prisons late in 2003)

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11648&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
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Marines surprised by insurgent's preparation for attack
JAMES JANEGA, Chicago Tribune
The Marines who swept into the Euphrates River town of Ubaydi confronted an
enemy they had not expected to find - and one that attacked in surprising
ways. As they pushed from house to house in early fighting, trying to flush
out the insurgents who had attacked their column with mortar fire, the
Marines ran into sandbagged emplacements behind garden walls...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11650&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11650


U.S. attack rages a 3rd day in Iraq
The Associated Press
U.S. forces backed by helicopter gunships and warplanes swept through a
large area of western Iraq near the Syrian border for a third day Tuesday,
raiding desert outposts and safe houses belonging to insurgents, the U.S.
military said.
As many as 100 militants have been killed in the offensive, the largest by
the U.S. military in Iraq since the attack on Falluja six months ago, the
military said. It began in the border town of Qaim, 320 kilometers, or 200
miles, west of Baghdad...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11655&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11655


U.S. to Expand Prison Facilities in Iraq
Bradley Graham, Washington Post Staff Writer
The number of prisoners held in U.S. military detention centers in Iraq has
risen without interruption since autumn, filling the centers to capacity
and prompting commanders to embark on an unanticipated prison expansion
plan. As U.S. and Iraqi forces battle an entrenched insurgency, the
detainee population surpassed 11,350 last week, a nearly 20 percent jump
since Iraq's Jan. 30 elections...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11656&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11656


The Case of Kamel Bourgass
William Bowles, I'n'I
...In fact, aside from the three stories mentioned here from the
Independent and the Guardian, the press coverage of the Kamel Bourgass case
is probably one of the most pernicious cases of mis(under)reporting to
currently be found in the UK, surpassing previous 'massaging' of the truth
and exposes the incestuous relationship that exists between the press and
the state. It is moreover a textbook example of how the state has
engineered a non-existent plot (with the a! ble assistance of the media)
and used it to whip up a hysterical frenzy with which to justify the 'war
on terror' and given the timing of the 'ricin plot', (just before the
invasion) to further justify the invasion of Iraq...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11636&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11636


The war on Iraq destroyed 84% of education establishments
ArabicNews.com
A study carried out by the UN and issued on Friday revealed that 84% of the
higher education establishment in Iraq were "destroyed, damaged and robbed
" since the beginning of the American invasion in 2003. It said that some
50 university teachers were assassinated and "the threats are directed to
others working in this sector." The study said that the current re-building
operation of Iraq "includes only 40% of the higher education establis!
hments and called on the international community to give support for
rehabilitation of this vital sector"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11649&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11649


An Open-Letter to CEO of Ford Motor Company, Bill Ford, Jr.
Cindy Sheehan, CommonDreams.org
...My son, Casey, was killed in action in Iraq on 04 April 2004. He was an
excellent human being and I am sure he would have contributed so much to
our society if he wasn't sent to a needless war to make some evil people in
the world richer. Casey was also very interested in the environment and in
ecology - and very concerned about climate change. Well, he doesn't have to
worry about anything, anymore, but I am writing thi! s letter to you for
him, the rest of our world's children, and future generations because as
the manufacturer of the world's worst fleet when it comes to fuel
efficiency, it's time for you to take immediate action to help break our
oil addiction...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11642&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11642


They had flowers in their minds
Xymphora
Douglas Feith is interviewed [1] by Jeffrey Goldberg. Although Feith is
obviously batshit crazy ("they had flowers in their minds"), he does seem
to have a good handle on that part of reality which relates to what the
world thinks of him. He says that the thesis of Administration critics: ".
. . is that we were a bunch of people intent on going to war with Iraq no
matter what. September 11th was a pretext. We believed that it would be
easy, that we were linked up to Ch! alabi who was arguing that it would be
easy and there would not be problems in the aftermath, and so for that
reason nobody planned for anything hard, and when it turned out to be hard
we were left without a plan"...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11640&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11640


The Four Reasons
why "We the People" must uphold
the Constitution of The United States of America and hold those who violate
it accountable
The Four Reasons.org
The invasion of Iraq is illegal within the framework of the laws of the
United States Constitution and the United Nations Charter. The invasion of
Iraq has been planned for many years by the Project for the New American
Century (PNAC), an organization founded by a small group of right wing
political ideologues and corporate elite dedicated to pr! omoting American
global leadership. The PNAC signatories hold the most powerful positions in
the current administration and other highly influential political offices.
Read their Statement of Principles and note the signatories. Read the
PNAC's "Rebuilding America's Defenses" for a detail of their military
strategy for American global hegemony...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11639&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11639


'We are very good drivers...'
Sheila Samples
...Al-Zarqawi, a bogeyman of our own making, gets blamed for everything --
car bombings, kidnappings, assassinations, beheadings -- and it appears he
is just as wily as bin Laden. In a recent incident in which Gen. Richard B.
Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, bragged they "almost got
him," al-Zarqawi leapt from a speeding pickup truck and fled on foot. A
one-legged man of sub-par intelligence outrunning a crack, highly trained
special forces team. I'd pay t! o see that feat, wouldn't you? Bin Laden
and al-Zarqawi are ideological poles apart and, in real life, would have no
reason to team up or to have anything at all to do with each other...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11638&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11638


Fearing Prosecution, Allawi's Ministers Flee Iraq: Report
IslamOnline.net
Some ministers of the outgoing US-handpicked Iraqi government of Iyad
Allawi, regarded as highly corrupt by Iraqis, are fleeing the country,
fearing possible prosecution on corruption charges, a leading British
newspaper revealed on Monday, May 9...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11637&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11637


U.S. deaths in Iraq surpass 1,600
CNN
Total U.S. troop casualties in the Iraq war passed 1,600 Sunday, according
to a CNN count, when two soldiers were killed near Khaldiya and a third
died in Samarra. All three were killed by roadside bombs, the U.S. military
said. Two soldiers assigned to a Marine combat team were killed during
operations near Khaldiya, just east of Ramadi, which is 60 miles west of
Baghdad, the Marines said. Officials did not give the time of the incident.
In Samarra, about 75 miles north of t! he capital, one soldier was killed
and another wounded at about 2:30 p.m. (6:30 a.m. ET), the military said
(...) A day earlier, three Marines and a sailor were killed during a battle
with insurgents who were using a Haditha hospital to attack U.S. forces,
the military said...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11635&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11635


Two Years Out
Charley Reese
Well, here we are, two years out (as they say in Washington) from "mission
accomplished," the president's now-famous speech during the photo
opportunity on an American carrier. The American death toll in Iraq is now
1,594, and the wounded exceed 10,000. The cost is about $300 billion.
Somewhere between 140,000 and 150,000 Americans remain in Iraq. A third
interim government has been partially formed after three months of
wrangling...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11634&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11634


U.S. deaths in Iraq surpass 1,600
CNN
Total U.S. troop casualties in the Iraq war passed 1,600 Sunday, according
to a CNN count, when two soldiers were killed near Khaldiya and a third
died in Samarra. All three were killed by roadside bombs, the U.S. military
said. Two soldiers assigned to a Marine combat team were killed during
operations near Khaldiya, just east of Ramadi, which is 60 miles west of
Baghdad, the Marines said. Officials did not give the time of the incident.
In Samarra, about 75 miles north of t! he capital, one soldier was killed
and another wounded at about 2:30 p.m. (6:30 a.m. ET), the military said
(...) A day earlier, three Marines and a sailor were killed during a battle
with insurgents who were using a Haditha hospital to attack U.S. forces,
the military said...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11635&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11635


Chalabi's Reversal of Fortune
BRIAN BENNETT, TimesOnline
When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice phoned Iraqi politician Ahmad
Chalabi last week, sources in the U.S. government say she kicked off the
conversation with the understatement of the year. "We haven't talked for a
while," she said to the onetime Pentagon favorite, who by last year had
become a pariah in the halls of Washington (...) But Washington has
reversed course again now that Chalabi has wheeled and dealed himself into
one of three Deputy Prime M! inister positions in Iraq. The day after Rice
dialed him, an Administration official says, Vice President Dick Cheney
phoned to congratulate Chalabi...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=11629&s2=10>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=11629




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information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts
of iraqi resistance available in Italian and English.





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