[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 12 Dec 2005]

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Masque of Democracy: Iraqi Election System Still Disfavors Sunni Arabs,
Favors Kurds
Carl Conetta
...The procedures for the December 2005 election of Iraq’s Council of
Representatives, which will govern for four years, puts Sunni Arab areas at
a distinct disadvantage. It virtually guarantees that Sunni Arabs will be
under-represented in government. This is no way to "win hearts and minds"
or to erode support for the insurgency. The 15 December election will fill
the 275 seats of Iraq’s national assembly (now offi! cially called the
"Council of Representatives"). Of these seats, 230 are allocated among
Iraq’s 18 provinces to be filled through local contests. But the allocation
to provinces does not correspond with their relative population size – as
is the case in the United States with House of Representative seats.
Instead, the allocation accords with the relative numbers of people who
registered to vote in the 30 January 2005 election – an election that Sunni
Arabs boycotted. Using these voter registration rolls (which were completed
in late 2004) as a basis for allocating assembly seats is not a democratic
"best practice", as explained below. Nor does it serve political stability.
And, as it so happens, the procedure disfavors Sunnis, while favoring
Kurds...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18656&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18656


Sell Off Your Oil Wealth and Ye Shall be Free
America’s Lust For Oil in Iraq
James Houle
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) plan for the Middle East
was fleshed-out in a policy paper issued in early 2002 entitled "Moving the
Iraqi Economy from Recovery to Sustainable Growth" and produced at the
American Heritage Foundation by Aaron Cohen and Gerald O’Driscoll. Reissued
by the State Department in February 2003, it provided the rationale for the
Bush oil policy for Iraq in those heady day! s after the thunderous advance
up the road to Baghdad. They proposed to sell off all of the oil resources
of Iraq, currently held in trust by the Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC),
to major US oil firms. Privatization of Iraqi oil, literally the sale of
rights to own and exploit the country’s oil and gas resources, was
trumpeted as the cure for all ailments...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18658&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18658


GI Special 3D42: How Many Died - December 12, 2005
www.militaryproject.org
The Pentagon never told Congress about more than 20,000 hospitalizations
involving troops who'd taken the anthrax vaccine, despite repeated promises
that such cases would be publicly disclosed. Instead, a parade of generals
and Defense Department officials told Congress and the public that fewer
than 100 people were hospitalized or became seriously ill after receiving
the shot from 1998 through 2000. They also showed Congress written polic!
ies that required public reports to be filed for hospitalizations, serious
illnesses and cases where someone missed 24 hours or more of duty...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18659&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
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Obviously they will keep getting lower!
Khalid Jarrar
Remember when I told you about the torture in the Iraqi prisons before?
well the worst of it, used to take place in the prison of Sahat al Nosour (
Al Nosour square ) which is controlled and ran by the national guards. NOW
it was discovered, when a video was released showing the torturing ways
used there, with interviews with the victims. The ministry of human rights
inspected the prison last Thursday to find about 600 people in it, 56 were
released immediatel! y and 75 were tranfered to another prison. They
detainees who are Arab Sunni men said that they were arrested in the street
or in their work places, without any legal charges pressed against them,
and that they were forced to sign fake confessions about them making
crimes. ( I can confirm that, it was happening where I was too)...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18654&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18654


Saddam considers Iraq polls a 'farce'
dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Toppled Iraqi president Saddam Hussein considers Iraq's parliamentary
elections to be a 'farce designed to please the occupiers' and will not
vote in them, a spokesman for the ousted dictator's Amman-based defence
team said Monday. 'It is a foregone conclusion that Saddam Hussein will not
vote in these elections because he considers himself head of the Iraqi
state and profoundly believes the ballots are nothing more than a farce
because they are ! designed by the subservient government to please the
American occupiers,' Issam Ghzawi told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18652&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 12 December 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab
...In a dispatch posted at 5:40pm Mecca time Monday evening, Mafkarat
al-Islam reported that Iraqi Resistance forces had attacked joint US-Iraqi
puppet troops in several places in western Baghdad on Monday. The Baghdad
correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported eyewitnesses as saying that
Resistance fighters seized control over the neighborhoods of al-Khadra’,
al! -'Adl, and al-Ghazaliyah in wesetern Baghdad on Monday and attacked
joint US-Iraqi puppet patrols there. The Resistance fighters disabled two
Iraqi puppet army vehicles and one American Humvee, killing six Iraqi
puppet police and wounding three more. Three US troops were also wounded in
the attacks. Quds Press reported that violent fighting broke out between
Iraqi Resistance fighters and Iraqi puppet troops in western Baghdad at 9am
Monday morning...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18651&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
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Comfort Zones
Cindy Sheehan, t r u t h o u t
Today was bitterly cold as I walked from the Charing Cross Tube Station to
Parliament Square in London. I was heading there with my traveling
companion, Julie, to go and visit Brian Haw after several exhausting but
productive days in England and Scotland. Brian is a peace activist and an
exceptionally compassionate man who has been camping out and vigiling in
Parliament Square since June 2, 2001. He was so enraged by the sanctions of
the United Nations against Iraq tha! t were supported by the US and his
government that he felt it was the only thing to do...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18649&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18649


Rumsfeld Guns for the Press
While the Lincoln Group Spins
Chris Lehmann
Give this much to the Lincoln Group, the "strategic communications" outfit
that’s been busted for placing agreeable propaganda in the Iraqi press at
the behest of the U.S. Department of Defense: It’s not exactly shy about
self-justification. "We counter the lies, intimidation, and pure evil of
terror with factual stories that highlight the heroism and sacrifice of the
Iraqi people and their struggle for freedom and security," group spoke!
swoman Laurie Adler breathed heavily last week in a prepared statement to
the press. "We are encouraged by their sacrifice and proud to help them
tell their side of the story."...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18660&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18660


No One Should Go To Iraq Until George Bush Sends His Daughters
Sam Hamod
No one should be sent to Iraq until George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald
Rumsfeld, John Kerry and Joseph Biden and Paul Wolfowitz send their kids to
Iraq--only then should anyone else be called, or be sent to Iraq or
Afghanistan--and even then, they must be sent to a unit that is serving in
a battle zone. At this time, we know of no senator or congressman's sons or
daughters, along with the Bush team's people, who are in a battle zone in
Iraq or! Afghanistan...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18648&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18648


The latest of U.S. scandals in Iraq
"Kavkaz-Center" News Agency
... Mafkarat Al Islam reported that the U.S. Marines in IRAQ stormed a
house in the at-Ta’mim neighborhood of western Ramadi, IRAQ, last Tuesday,
in the course of their "Rams" offensive, asking the house holder about
rebels his is protecting, their whereabouts, and their names. But the man
refused to giver them answers for their questions, simply because he
doesn’t know. Thus, the Marines threatened to strip his wife naked in front
of him if he didn'! t speak, but the man still refused to talk, saying he
had no answer for their questions. So they carried out their threat,
ripping off his wife’s clothing and gazing at her naked body in front of
the husband, who was bound at the time, the paper correspondent said,
adding that the brother of the householder said that the Marines left the
house after his brother collapsed seeing his wife standing naked in front
of the men...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18647&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18647


Bush World: Too Many States
Stephen Lendman, www.dissidentvoice.org
...The U.S. record of illegal aggression against weaker adversaries goes
back to the beginning of the republic. However, it can be argued that it
became standard practice post-WWII once the U.S. became the preeminent
world power. From Korea to Vietnam to Granada to Panama to the Gulf War to
Yugoslavia/Serbia/Kosovo, the U.S. in each instance committed an act of
illegal aggression against other nations posing no threat whatever to the
U.S. In eac! h case we were lied to about the reasons for doing it, and in
each case the chief executive with no congressional authority (as
constitutionally required) acted on his own...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18646&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18646


The Bogus Blurring of Terrorism and Insurgency in Iraq
Norman Solomon, t r u t h o u t
With public support for the Iraq war at low ebb, the White House is more
eager than ever to conflate Iraq's insurgency with terrorism. But last
week, just after President Bush gave yet another speech repeatedly
depicting the US war effort in Iraq as a battle against terrorists,
Congressman John Murtha debunked the claim. His refutation deserved much
more news coverage than it got...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18657&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
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No News is Bad News
A Short History of RADIO FREE IRAQ
Lila Rajiva, www.dissidentvoice.org
Just as President Bush urged support for a "free, independent and
responsible Iraqi media," the Los Angeles Times reported that the military
in Iraq is spending millions on a DC-based defense contractor to plant
stories favorable to the US occupation in the Iraqi media. Senior Pentagon
officials, including General Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
are said to have had no idea that this secret campaign ! was going on...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18645&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
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An Empire Without Virtue
The Defenders of Torture
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
The spectacle of an American Secretary of State being sent to Europe to
reassure America's allies that the US does not torture prisoners has
brought an end to America's moral grandeur. America stands revealed before
the world as just another unaccountable police state. Condi Rice's
declaration that the Bush administration is too morally pure to engage in
torture was just another transparent Bush administration deception. What is
the p! oint of Bush's rendition policy that Rice was sent to Europe to
defend if the purpose is not torture? Why else do CIA agents kidnap foreign
nationals in foreign countries and fly them to secret prisons in other
foreign countries?...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18643&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18643


New 'torture jail' found in Iraq
BBCNews
Iraqi and US officials have found a packed interior ministry prison in
Baghdad, where 625 inmates were being held in "very overcrowded"
conditions. Thirteen of the prisoners needed hospital treatment amid
torture claims. An Iraqi official speaking anonymously said 12 of the 13
men in hospital had suffered torture, including electric shocks and the
loss of finger nails. The conditions were found in the first inspection
since some 170 detainees were found in another jail in ! November...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18642&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18642


Voter registration irregularities found in Iraq
HERALD-LEADER WIRE SERVICES
With just four days to go until parliamentary elections, the Iraqi
electoral commission said yesterday that it had found irregularities in
voter registration in the volatile northern oil city of Kirkuk. The
discovery was the first instance of an election irregularity announced by
the commission as the country prepares for the vote...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18641&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18641


Squeezed To Death
John Pilger
Wherever you go in Iraq's southern city of Basra, there is dust. It gets in
your eyes and nose and throat. It swirls in school playgrounds and consumes
children kicking a plastic ball. "It carries death," said Dr Jawad Al-Ali,
a cancer specialist and member of Britain's Royal College of Physicians.
"Our own studies indicate that more than 40 per cent of the population in
this area will get cancer: in five years' time to begin with, then long
afterwards. Most of my own family now have! cancer, and we have no history
of the disease. It has spread to the medical staff of this hospital. We
don't know the precise source of the contamination, because we are not
allowed to get the equipment to conduct a proper scientific survey, or even
to test the excess level of radiation in our bodies. We suspect depleted
uranium, which was used by the Americans and British in the Gulf War right
across the southern battlefields."..

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18640&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18640


Pinter’s Provocation: Self Love in America
Greg Moses, peacefile
In homage to the Nobel Prize for Literature, Harold Pinter’s acceptance
speech testifies to gifts of inspiration; hints of realms apart within;
callings to craft that expose writers to tempestuous solitudes where lines
between truth and unreality are not marked out in advance, where things
press against each other in duality, both untrue and real at the same time.
That the writer who is driven into realms of edginess and duality can still
keep a col! d eye on profanity, horror, and outlandish hypocrisy is what
Pinter then sets out to prove. His object lesson is the USA. By the time he
is finished, we have a perfect ice sculpture of American immanence. One
should take 46 minutes to see the words played out to their full and
freezing effect...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18637&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18637


Clark says Saddam is "isolated" and calls his treatment cruel
AP
Former U-S Attorney General Ramsey Clark says Saddam Hussein is isolated
and has no idea what is going on in the world. Clark is now helping the
Saddam defense team at his trial in Baghdad. He says Saddam is sometimes
left to go for days without a shower or change of clothes. He has also been
kept from taking his Koran to court -- all in an effort, Clark says, to
make him angry...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18636&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18636


The Vietnam War: Destroying the Village In Order to Save It
Revolution
...Today, as the U.S. fights another unjust war in Iraq, there is debate in
the anti-war movement over whether we should "support the troops." Some
argue that the movement during Vietnam became too extreme when it charged
U.S. troops with being baby killers. In Vietnam there was a draft and
millions were forced to serve in the imperialist armed forces. These
soldiers were press-ganged into fighting and systematically lied to about
the war. But! , no matter what the troops subjectively feel they are
fighting for, as long as these troops are fighting an unjust war of
domination and exploitation, they cannot be supported in fighting that war.
How can we support or honor troops that fight in a war where baby killing
part of the strategic plan?...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18638&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18638


The Old Nation-State May Be Passing Away
Iraq: the Beginning of the End
PATRICK COCKBURN
Iraq is disintegrating as a united state. The election for the National
Assembly this week may mark the point of no return. "A Bosnian solution to
the Iraq crisis is now on the agenda," says Ghassan Attiyah, a veteran
Iraqi commentator. The election is decisive because the Shia and Sunni
Arabs and the Kurds - the three main Iraqi communities - show every sign of
voting along ethnic and religious lines. Secular and ! nationalist groups
looking for support beyond their own community have their backs to the
wall...

<http://www.uruknet.com/?s1=1&p=18634&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.com/?p=18634




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