[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 06 Dec 2005]

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

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

Release Muhsin al-Khafaji
Close the US/UK prison camps in Iraq
For more than two years, Iraqi writer Muhsin al-Khafaji has been held
without charge or trial in the US-run prison, Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.
Family and friends say he is in poor health, and fear that he will not
survive the notoriously bad conditions in the prison camp. When last
visited by friends in January 2004, he told them that he had no idea why he
had been arrested. During his last interrogation in September 2003 he
signed a statement! provided by the camp authorities, promising not to sue
them for damages after his release...


<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18494&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18494


Urgent tasks for peace campaign
George Galloway MP
This weekend's International Peace Conference in London must be a
springboard for extending the anti-war movement into the New Year. So great
is the disaster of the occupation of Iraq that it is impinging even on the
inner sanctums of George Bush’s Republican party. Ten more US soldiers
killed on the outskirts of the supposedly pacified city of Fallujah last
week. Ten more grieving families. Ten more funerals for the neo-cons to
refuse to attend. In Iraq itself t! here is mounting evidence that the
puppet regime is unleashing US-trained death squads. What a fitting
testament to the ambassadorial tenure of John Negroponte, the butcher of
Honduras and Nicaragua...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18491&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18491


The US won in Iraq. And other related Fuckisms ...
Truth About Iraqis
... My generation is the last great generation in Iraq. We were lucky to
have gained knowledge and expertise. But that knowledge dies with us. How
many Iraqi scientists have been killed in the past few years? (...) How
many poets and artists have been killed? How many forward-thinking
women?No, the Iraq you fools all believe exists is being killed in that
farcical court trying Saddam. Because those people, as bloodthirsty and as
guilty or innoc! ent as they are of the crimes they are accused of,
represent the authority in the Iraq that was. So, celebrate all the
Jaafarys and Roubbaies coming your way. The Iranian Iraqis who speak
English like a Persian does. The Iraqi back is broken. Iraqi honor is up
for sale. The tribal system inherent in the Iraqi psyche is now but a
machine for pimping away more of Iraqi wealth. Your women, yes, veil them
quickly and hide them in the back rooms...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18487&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18487


IRAQ: Hundreds of families flee fighting in Ramadi
IRIN
Hundreds of families have fled Ramadi, capital of the western Anbar
Province, amidst fierce fighting between US military forces and Iraqi
insurgents, according to aid agencies. On 2 December, US troops launched an
offensive in Ramadi, located some 110 km from the capital, Baghdad, after
insurgents were shown on television in apparent control of the city...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18488&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18488


"We don't do torture" ... We strip you naked at your home
Imad Khadduri
On Tuesday evening [December 6, 2005], American occupier military forces
committed a new and unprecedented crime. A Mufakirrat al-Islam reporter in
Ramadi to the west of Baghdad has reported that several US marines broke
into a house in the Ta’amim area on the west of Ramadi during Operation
Shank . The report states that upon forcing their way into the house, they
questioned the husband on the names and location of Resistance fighters in
his! area. The man claimed that he does not have such information and
refused to further answer their questions. The US marines threatened to
strip naked his wife in front of him if he refused to speak. The man
insisted that he does not have the requested information. Upon that, the US
marines grabbed the hands of his wife and tore off her clothes completely
as they looked at her naked body in front of the eyes of her husband whose
hands were tied behind his back...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18512&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18512


Local physician and author Steve Miles examines the forensic record of U.S.
abuses in Iraqi prisons
The American Way of Torture
Steve Perry
...The range of interrogation techniques, or abuse techniques, is pretty
much the whole array of usual stuff that happens in countries that torture.
It includes beatings, suspension, near-asphyxia, chemical burns--there were
instances of burns with lighter fluid--kicks, slamming against the wall.
There was at least one thumbscrew I saw. Electrical shocks with, in o! ur
case, external electrodes. I did not see any internal electrodes. There
were instances of asphyxiation, food and water deprivation, deprivation of
access to toilets, deprivation of access to medical care, forcing people to
urinate on themselves, forcing people to masturbate, to renounce their
religion, to put the urine or feces of other people on themselves, other
forms of nudity, forced fondling, verbal abuse, threats against family,
mock executions, forcing the victims to watch other family members being
abused. They also used what's called "perceptual monopolization," which
included loud noise...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18511&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18511


GI Special 3D36: Archangel Reporting - December 6, 2005
www.militaryproject.org
..."My son told us two weeks before he died that he felt the war was not
worth it," Mr. Shroeder said. "His complaint was about having to go back
repeatedly into the same towns, to sweep the same insurgents, or other
insurgents, out of these same towns without being able to hold them, secure
them. It just was not working, and that's what he wanted to get across." He
took issue with the public officials who insist that his son died for! a
"noble cause," however comforting that might be to believe. On the
contrary, he feels that Augie's life "was wasted." Recalling his last
conversation with his son, Mr. Schroeder said, "I asked him, 'Do you feel
like you're protecting your family and other Americans back here?' And he
said, 'No. Not at all.' "...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18510&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18510


Unbelievably strange
A Citizen Of Mosul
..."A convoy of 3 strykers was approaching an intersection at crowded hour
of the day, I was in my car when we noticed the convoy coming, all the car
stopped in caution afraid from the un predictable behavior of the US
soldiers. I heard a single shot fired from one of the US strykers, after
they pass the intersection, the policemen run to the intersection where a
traffic policeman lying dead in a lake of blood. No body know why they
shoot him, they never stop to help him"..! .

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18509&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18509


This War Wasn't Started By Mistake
RageMAker!
...So the only conclusion any sane and rational person can reach is that
this war is not about weapons of mass destruction, establishing
democracies, or assuring security. It is about inflaming and destabilizing
the region to the extent that it provides justification to eradicate as
many of its inhabitants as possible. It's an objective best articulated
perhaps by the criminally insane radio talk show call-ins who want to "wipe
every damned Arab off the face of the ea! rth!" This is no different than
the extermination of other racial, political and cultural groups carried
out by other world tyrants. It's called genocide...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18508&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18508


Secret CIA Detentions Challenged: Law Suit against former CIA Director
George Tenet
ACLU Files Landmark Lawsuit Challenging CIA’s “Extraordinary Rendition” of
Innocent Man
ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union today announced the first ever lawsuit
against former CIA director George Tenet challenging the CIA’s abduction of
a foreign national for detention and interrogation in a secret overseas
prison. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Khaled El-Masri, an innocent
German citizen victimized by the CI! A’s policy of "extraordinary
rendition." "Kidnapping a foreign national for the purpose of detaining and
interrogating him outside the law is contrary to American values," said
Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "Our government has
acted as if it is above the law. We go to court today to reaffirm that the
rule of law is central to our identity as a nation"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18506&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18506


Torture and Secrecy Scandal Intensifies
Democracy Now!
...The CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an
estimated 3,000 people since 9/11. There is no tribunal or judge to check
the evidence against those picked up by the agency. The CIA's inspector
general is now investigating a growing number of what it calls "erroneous
renditions." Amy Goodman of radio show Democracy Now! interviewed Michael
Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Andrew
Tyrie, a British Member of Pa! rliament, who is a Tory and a chair of the
All Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18504&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18504


Civil rights groups protest sex segregation in schools
Azzaman
Civil rights groups have protested new rulings that make segregation of
sexes in Iraqi schools compulsory. Education ministry has issued
regulations under which mixed teaching even at university level will be
forbidden. Already male teachers are not allowed to lecture at high schools
and institutes of girls in many provinces in the country (...) In some
universities and schools, girls are forced to wear the veil or scarf and
forced to attend classes s! eparately. Mixed education at the primary and
tertiary levels was part of the country’s secular system until the 2003
U.S. invasion of the country...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18503&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18503


Brass in Pocket, Blood on the Tracks
Chris Floyd
The only defense for the indefensible is to be offensive, it seems. The
Bush Faction has obviously decided to stop refuting allegations about
torture and just openly embrace the heinous practice instead. You've got
Bush vowing to veto torture restrictions, you've got Cheney twisting arms
on Capitol Hill to preserve the Faction's inalienable right to beat people
to death -- and now you've got Condi Rice traipsing off to Europe to tell
America's allies to stop all th! eir whining about extraordinary rendition,
secret prisons and the CIA kidnapping people in their countries...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18502&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18502


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 6 December 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice
...In a bulletin posted at 5:45pm Mecca time Tuesday night, the ar-Ramadi
correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US warplanes had bombed
several positions in the central and northern parts of the city. The
Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent said that clouds of smoke were billowing
from several buildings but no information on the nature or extent of ca!
sualties was available due to the curfew that US forces had imposed on the
city...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18500&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18500


Tomgram: Brecher and Smith on the Imperial Presidency
Tom Engelhardt, Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith
Typically, when faced with a problem, the first thing Bush administration
officials do is reach for their dictionaries to pretzel and torture words
into whatever shape best suits them. Then they declare themselves simply to
be following precedent (which turns out, of course, to be whatever they've
wanted to do all along). In this way, in the famous torture memos that
flowed from the White House Counsel's office,! the Justice Department, and
the Pentagon, the meaning of "torture" was at one point in 2002 redefined
into near nonexistence ("must be equivalent in intensity to the pain
accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of
bodily function, or even death") and then made dependent on the mind and
intent of the torturer. As a result, "torture" became, by definition, a
policy we didn't engage in even as we waterboarded suspects in our global
network of CIA-run (or borrowed) secret prisons...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18499&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18499


Saddam says he won't attend 'unjust court'
HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press
Waving a finger and pounding his desk, Saddam Hussein told the judges in
his trial to "go to hell" and vowed not to return to court Wednesday (...)
He said the court had time to listen to the witnesses' complaints "but does
anyone ask Saddam Hussein whether he was tortured? Whether he was hit?" He
urged the judge to investigate his conditions because "it is your duty as
judges to investigate the crime at its scene." "I live in an iron cage!
covered by a tent under American democratic rule. You should come see my
cage," he told Amin. "The Americans and the Zionists want to execute Saddam
Hussein"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18497&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18497


Statement by the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces in Hebron on the
CPT Hostages in Iraq
International Solidarity Movement
In the name of God, the Compassionate and Merciful "O ye who believe! If a
wicked person comes to you with any news, ascertain the truth, lest ye harm
people unwittingly, and afterwards become full of repentance for what ye
have done." - The Holy Qur’an, 49:6 The Islamic and National forces in the
governorate of Hebron/Palestine express their deep regret for the
kidnapping of four membe! rs of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) in
Iraq. The Islamic and National forces in the governorate of
Hebron/Palestine have had long experience confronting Israeli crimes and
violations with the CPT since 1995, and wish to confirm that the members of
this group have had and still have a major role in confronting Israeli
crimes and violations, and in the protection of the property and the lives
of the Palestinian citizens...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18492&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18492


Rendition Unto Caesar
Condi to Europe: Trust Me
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Secretary of State Condi Rice is off to Europe to neither confirm nor to
deny that the US government in an operation known as rendition kidnaps
people, often the wrong ones, and flies them to foreign countries to be
tortured. "Trust me" is her line. According to Reuters, "Irish Foreign
Minister Dermot Ahern said Rice told him in Washington she expected allies
to trust that America does not allow rights abuses." Who will trust this
wom! an who, as President Bush's National Security Advisor, said that
Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction capable of producing a
"mushroom cloud" over an American city?...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18490&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18490


Today at the Trial of Saddam
The witness who remembers 432 dates..... 17years later
www.albasrah.net
We saw and heard the first procecusion witness ,Mr. Ahmad Hassan Mohamma,
who was arrested for four years and later released; it seems that his own
brother was one of the failed assailants who tried killing Saddam in the
City of Dujail. The first question that comes to my mind : If there were a
collective massacre , thereafter how come that even the brother of the
assassin was not killed while that alleged " collective punishment " ever
took place ???? and we know from him that his own mother also survived and
his father died from old age illness...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18485&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18485


Suicide bombers hit Baghdad police academy; 43 killed, at least 70 wounded
SAMEER N. YACOUB
Two suicide bombers struck Baghdad's police academy Tuesday, killing at
least 43 people and wounding 73 more, U.S. officials said, while Al-Jazeera
broadcast an insurgent video claiming to have kidnapped a U.S. security
consultant. The suicide attackers were wearing explosives-laden vests and a
U.S. contractor was among those wounded, a U.S. military statement said.
U.S. forces rushed to the scene to provide assistance, th! e statement
said. The military initially said the bombers were women but later
retracted the statement...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18486&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18486


Grisly Testimony, But Saddam Not Yet Linked To Iraq Killings
Energy Matters
...Though it wasn’t a criminal trial, the nagging reminders of Kuwait’s
over-reaching campaign to win U.S. military action to push Saddam out of
Kuwait in 1991 come to mind. Back then, Kuwait hired a powerful U.S. PR
firm to help present its case, which included graphic claims of widespread
episodes of babies being ripped from incubators in Iraqi hospitals. It
later turned out that a witness, testifying before Congress in secret to
protec! t her identity, was actually the 15-year-old daughter of Kuwait’s
then-U.S. ambassador, Sheikh Saud Nasser Al-Sabah (later its oil minister),
and the events described were hyped...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=18498&s2=07>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18498




<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 was
an abuse, or simply if you don't want to receive it any more,
<http://www.uruknet.com/unsub1.php>click here to unsubscribe from the
newsletter.