NL 20 June 2005 - Part Two

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A Rape in the Making
Stephen Gowans, What's Left
...The Paris Club’s debt reduction deal obligates the new government in
Baghdad to dismantle the largely publicly owned economy established under
the previous government, and to junk the large scale system of social
supports the former Ba’athist government put in place to furnish Iraqis
with jobs and food subsidies out of revenue earned from oil sales. Much as
Saddam Hussein was reviled in the West, including by those who lay claim to
anti-imperialist credentials, ! his government did pursue a course of
independent development, that put some measure of emphasis on the domestic
population. The country, complains the Los Angeles Times and the present
collaborationist government, was “a huge welfare state,” that maintained a
nationalized oil industry, built up a largely state-owned economy, and
directed oil revenue to internal development, rather than wholly to Western
financiers and oil companies. But unless the insurgents drive the Americans
out, and overthrow the Quislings in power, that will soon change...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12835&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12835


We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Downing Street Memo
Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire
...So, to paraphrase the Mexican bandito in John Huston’s classic Treasure
of the Sierra Madre, the only sane response is to snarl: “We don’t need no
stinkin’ Downing Street Memo.” Because we know the truth—although the truth
will not set you free, not from this underhanded rabble of war criminals
and their fulminating apologists. Unfortunately, the whole Bush
saga—undoubtedly on the top ten of the most egregious series of premedi!
tated official crimes in the history of the United States—will have to play
itself out with devastating result, not only for the Iraqi people (and soon
the Syrian and Iranian people) but for the bemused and somnolent American
people as well...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12826&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12826


Gulf War Syndrome: "I am 42 and feel like 90 years old"
Veteran's Testimony, www.globalresearch.ca
I am Canadian and served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. I was a Captain and
a Registered Nurse (...) Although I was never in actual combat, I believe I
received secondary exposures to DU from the Iraq casualties and POW's. I
was with a surgical unit and 90% of our patients were Iraqi. Blown up
covered with shrapnel wounds. I am now aware many years now) that the
shrapnel was DU fragments. Also the Iraqi patients were! very ill, covered
with lice and parasites and had communicable diseases. Also, at the end of
the war, for some reason, a Iraqi blown up tank was brought into our
compound. Of course many of us had to go into it and many picked off stuff
to bring home as souvenirs! NEVER knowing it was covered with DU. Canada
NEVER made us aware of the use of DU on the battlefield nor ever made aware
of how to protect oneself...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12816&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
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From CentCom: 4 US Soldiers killed
Iraqwar.mirror-world.ru
One 1st Corps Support Command Soldier was killed as a result of wounds
sustained from an improvised explosive device attack while conducting a
combat logistics patrol northeast of Tall Afar June 20 (...) A Marine
assigned to Regimental Combat Team-2, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine
Expeditionary Force (Forward), was killed in action June 18 by small-arms
fire (...) Two Task Force Liberty Soldiers were killed, along with one
Iraqi civilian and one detainee,! who was being transported by the combat
patrol at the time of the engagement, near Buhritz in Diyala Province about
11:30 p.m., June 17...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12829&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12829


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 20 June 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 2:40pm Mecca time Monday afternoon, Mafkarat
al-Islam reported that US F-16 fighter-bombers and British Tornado
warplanes carried out violent air raids on the village of al-Karabilah
Monday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported. US aircraft bombed the only
medical clinic in the village, killing four d! octors and a number of
patients who were inside the facility at the time, witnesses told Mafkarat
al-Islam...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12828&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
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If I Have a Chance to Invade..."
Old News Indeed: In 1999, Bush Craved Opportunity to Attack Iraq
GARY LEUPP, CounterPunch
...Some in Congress affect to be shocked by these memos, which are
certainly welcome news for the antiwar movement because they do constitute
a "smoking gun" affirming what some of us have been saying all along. But
the Bush supporters aren't wrong in calling their content "old news." Many
of us have known all along that Bush's case for war was based on lies; the
problem is that some! are altogether comfortable with lies if they serve
the "strategic imperatives" of U.S. imperialism. And some people have
merely been naïve. These are the ones who might be awakened by the memos to
the dishonesty and cynical manipulations of the administration...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12817&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
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General Update...
Riverbend, Baghdad Burning
The cousin, his wife S. and their two daughters have been houseguests these
last three days. They drove up to the house a couple of days ago with
several bags of laundry. “There hasn’t been water in our area for three
days…” The cousins wife huffed as she dragged along a black plastic bag of
dirty clothes. “The water came late last night and disappeared three hours
later… what about you?” Our water had not been cut off completely, but it
came and went during the day...!

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12820&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
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Hill defends US on use of napalm in Iraq
AAP
Defence Minister Robert Hill has defended the United States' use of napalm
bombs in Iraq. Australian Democrats leader Lyn Allison told the Senate the
US had used 30 MK77 napalm firebombs in its attack on Iraq. She claimed
that the bombs breached a 1980 international convention on such artillery.
According to the American Federation of Scientists (AFS), the bombs in
question are still in use and do not breach the convention...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12830&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
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Why we invaded Iraq (and what's coming)
Rich Procter, SmirkingChimp.com
...Remember that campaign in the fall of 2002? We heard that Saddam Hussein
was Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot rolled into one. He had chemical
weapons. He had biological weapons. He was hell-bent on getting nuclear
weapons, and was feverishly developing the means to deliver them. What a
great "product"! Republicans branded themselves as the party of strength,
security, victory over evil, and moral certainty. Any Democrat who tried to
join t! his parade was quickly muscled into the gutter. Any Democrat who
opposed this rush to war, or even voiced the tiniest murmur of skepticism
was heaped with scorn as a fuzzy-thinking appeaser at best, a traitor at
worst...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12825&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12825


Classic Bait And Switch Enacted As Downing Street Memos Called Possible Hoax
Propaganda Matrix
This has all the hallmarks of a classic sting operation. The Murdoch papers
release the Downing Street Memo story worldwide. Despite the fact that the
British government have already admitted that the information in the
documents is true (and many more which essentially say the same thing were
later released), this one document was photocopied, allowing the mainstream
to raise questions about its authenticity and kill t! he story. Forget the
fact that Bush told his own biographer that he wanted to invade Iraq and be
a war president back in 1999, forget the 1998 and 2000 PNAC documents which
called for removing Hussein as a means of getting a foothold in the Middle
East, this one memo was a photocopy!...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12833&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12833


Where were the doctors at Abu Ghraib?
Maura Lerner, Star Tribune
When Dr. Steven Miles first saw the news photos of American guards abusing
Iraqi prisoners last year, he couldn't help wondering one thing: Where were
the doctors? Surely, he thought, there was a medical staff at Abu Ghraib
prison in Baghdad. Somebody must have seen the bruises and treated the
injuries that the prisoners had suffered. So why didn't they speak up? It's
a question that has haunted Miles, 55, a human rights activist and
University of! Minnesota physician, ever since. Now, after more than a year
of research, he's writing a book on the hidden role of U.S. military
medicine in the prisoner abuses that shocked the world...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12832&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
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Fixing the Intelligence Around the Facts Part Deux
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
...Justin Raimundo explores one source of the controversy around the
Democratic Party hearings held by Congressman John Conyers, which was the
criticism voiced by one witness of Israel and its rightwing Zionist
supporters in the Bush Administration, for having helped push the US into
war against Iraq. Well, gee, I wonder what was the position of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on whether the US should go to war against
Iraq? Ooops,! one war wasn't good enough for him. He wants our young men
and women to die in Iran, as well...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12834&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
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Departing Afghanistan Envoy Pledges to Use Same Approach in Iraq
Chris Shumway, The NewStandard
An Afghan-born intellectual with ties to leading neoconservatives and the
oil industry is sailing through the Senate confirmation process on his way
to becoming the new US Ambassador to Iraq (...) In 1998, as a member of the
Project for a New American Century, a neoconservative think tank that
advocates military-driven expansion of US political and corporate
influence, Khalilzad, along with Wolfowitz and Defense Secret! ary Donald
Rumsfeld, signed a letter to President Clinton advocating the military
overthrow of Saddam Hussein...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12824&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12824


We've Seen Enough to Impeach Bush
Dave Zweifel, Capital Times (Madison, WI)
...In a matter of a few days, more than a half million Americans signed
petitions backing Conyers in urging the president to explain the memos. So
far, Bush has dismissed it all as "falsehoods" and refused to comment
further. But the people want answers. Even those who don't hate Bush don't
like being lied to. Lying presidents need to be impeached. That's what the
Republicans in Congress told us only a few years ago. So let's get on with!
it...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12823&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12823


Abuses at Abu Ghraib exhibited in Rome Show
Colombian artist Botero flays abuses at Abu Ghraib in portraits, sculptures
in Rome show
Andrea Bambino, Middle East Online
Colombian artist Fernando Botero, celebrated for his portraits and
sculptures of well-rounded models, savagely attacked US abuses of human
rights at Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib jail in an exhibition that opened in
Rome Thursday. "War and injustice are present everywhere in the world. But
I was very marked by these acts of tortu! re, because the United States is
the richest and most powerful country on the planet," Botero, 73, said...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12822&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12822


‘Memo-Gate’ Hearing Ends With Call For Full Inquiry
The Lone Star Iconoclast
A month and a half after the so-called “Downing Street Memo” was published
in the Sunday Times in England, 20 U.S. House Democrats held a hearing last
Thursday that ended in a call for Congress to open an inquiry into
accusations that President Bush was committed to war on Iraq months before
he said so publicly. The congressional inquiry would look into whether the
President should be impeached for misleading the nation...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12821&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12821


Posts Considered for Commanders After Abuse Case
ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER, NYTimes
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is considering new top command
assignments that would possibly include promoting Lt. Gen. Ricardo S.
Sanchez, the former American commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison
abuse scandal, Pentagon and military officials say...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12813&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12813


Why George Went To War
Russ Baker, TomPaine.com
...In interviews I conducted last fall, a well-known journalist, biographer
and Bush family friend who worked for a time with Bush on a ghostwritten
memoir said that an Iraq war was always on Bush's brain. "He was thinking
about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and Houston Chronicle journalist
Mickey Herskowitz (...) Herskowitz's revelations illuminate Bush's personal
motivation for invading Iraq and, more importantly, his general inclination
to use war to! advance his domestic political ends. Furthermore, they
establish that this thinking predated 9/11, predated his election to the
presidency and predated his appointment of leading neoconservatives who had
their own, separate, more complex geopolitical rationale for supporting an
invasion...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12814&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12814


We are Back
Al- Moharer
We are very happy to announce to our readers that Al-Moharer is back on
track. It will be weekly as usual and it will continue to carry the news
and analyses that are forbidden in the controlled Media (...) Our people,
especially in occupied Palestine and Iraq, armed with the progressive
ideals of freedom, unity and social justice, are fighting against the
foreign invaders to liberate their land and wealth from foreign occupation
and domination. This movement regards all Arabs are being pa! rt of one
nation both in the cultural and spiritual sense...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12818&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12818


The Downing Street Memo: Primary source or 2nd hand info?
Ben Frank, Bellaciao
The Memo raises the question: Did the President, the Vice President and
other high level officials deliberately fabricate intelligence to convince
a gullible public to accept war? These are high crimes and misdemeanors,
impeachable offenses to say the least. And with the carnage in Iraq, they
could all go to trial for war crimes. Is it any wonder that Bush and Co are
running away from the questions? (...) Ray McGovern, 27yr CIA analyst!
(retired), stated at the Conyers’ Hearing that the Downing Street Minutes
are in fact a primary source, not merely 2nd hand information. The Memo is
actually the minutes from a top secret meeting with Blair, his cabinet and
the head of MI6 (...) What more of a primary source is necessary to
initiate a Senate Investigation?...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12811&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12811


Americans Are Finally Waking Up to the Failure of U.S. Policy in Iraq
Ivan Eland
Although the American people slept through the facile national debate about
whether the Bush administration should invade Iraq and the post-invasion
unraveling of justifications for doing so, the public is finally waking up
to the nightmare of U.S. policy in Iraq. And their representatives in
Congress, many of whom were previously hiding in the bushes, are now
beginning to get the courage to finally speak out...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=12831&s2=21>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info/?p=12831




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