[UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] - [newsletter 11 Apr 2006 - Part One]

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Israeli advice to Americans on Iraq
Xymphora
The Jerusalem Post helpfully provides some advice to Americans on how they
can get out of the Iraq mess by – surprise, surprise – agreeing to the
Yinon solution of breaking the country into three chunks. Iran gets to look
after the Shi’ites (strengthening the covert Israeli ally), Jordan gets to
look after the Sunnis (and keep them pacified and out of Israel’s hair,
just like it does to its own citizens), and Turkey (!!!) gets to look after
the Kurds (the Kurds should be thinking: 'with friends like Israel, who
needs enemies’)...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22445&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22445


Are US military war crimes acceptable?
Truth about Iraqis
A US military investigation has reassigned three officers to new duties
because of "problems" related to their battalion's (the 3rd Battalion, 1st
Marine Regiment) actions which led to the brutal murder of 15 Iraqi
civilians. According to Iraqi eyewitnesses, US troops entered a house and
killed all its occupants including a 3-year old girl. The US military had
initially lied and fabricated accounts of the story saying the 15 civilians
had all died due to a roadside bombing. Then the story was that the 15 were
killed in a firefight. But Haditha residents disputed this saying all those
killed were inside one domicile near the area of the bombing. A videotape
taken by an Iraqi shows the aftermath of the attack by U.S. troops on
civilians in Haditha: a blood-smeared bedroom floor and bits of what appear
to be human flesh and bullet holes on the walls...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22469&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
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Yes, Blame the Lobby
A Response to Prof. Joseph Massad
Jeff Blankfort, www.dissidentvoice.org
... Massad’s article, "Blaming the Lobby," first appeared in the March
23-29 issue of Al-Ahram, the English-language Egyptian weekly, and was
subsequently posted on CounterPunch. What was disturbing was not only
Massad’s rush to the lobby’s defense, but that he failed to respond to the
points raised by Mearsheimer and Walt and provided, instead, what could
best be described as a legal brief for the Chomsky po sition. For those
unfamiliar with the subject and details of the Mearsheimer-Walt paper, it
was, no doubt, very convincing. It was for this reason that, rather than
write a general response, I decided to examine and refute his article,
point by point...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22473&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22473


ACLU: US authenticates Abu Ghraib images
RAW STORY
The American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Civil Liberties Union
today released the first official U.S. government authentication of images
of detainee abuse by U.S. forces at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The
Department of Defense was forced to turn over the information as well as
one additional image as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit
filed by the ACLU in 2004...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22474&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22474


Okay, So Let's Get This Straight: On Monday, Bush Admitted That he Lied
About Leaking a Lie to Smear Someone Who Revealed the Truth About His Lying
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
Okay, so let's get this straight. Bush admits he selectively leaked
classified information that wasn't declassified until days after he and
Cheney had Scooter Libby leak it to Judith Miller, the pro-war megaphone
for the New York Times publication of Bush lies. Bush "authorizes" this
leak at a time that he is claiming that if he ever finds the leaker, he
will basically fire him, meaning himself. Then he continues a public and
Department of Justice vendetta against leakers, but not himself: the
leaker-in-chief...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22466&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22466


RAF doctor: I had no choice but to refuse Iraq duty
The Guardian
A Royal Air Force doctor who refused to be sent to Iraq after arguing that
the conflict was illegal today pleaded not guilty to five charges of
failing to comply with orders at a court martial. Flight Lieutenant Malcolm
Kendall-Smith, 37, said he had studied the judicial advice given to the
prime minister, Tony Blair, ahead of the war and other reports about its
legality before making his decision. "As a commissioned officer I am
required to consider each and every order that is given to me and I am
required to consider the legality of each order in domestic and
international law," Flt Lt Kendall-Smith said in a statement to police last
year...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22465&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 10 April 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice. http://www.freearabvoice.org
In a dispatch posted at 6pm Makkah time Monday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam
reported that Iraqi Resistance fighters attacked a column of armor-plated
four-wheel drive vehicles and a patrol of Iraqi puppet army troops in
central al-Fallujah, about 60km west of Baghdad. The correspondent for
Mafkarat al-Islam reported eyewitnesses in al-Fallujah as saying that
Resistance fighters armed with light and medium weapons and pipe rockets
ambushed the column of four-wheel-drive armor-plated vehicles driven by
mercenaries working for the US occupation forces. The attack destroyed one
of the vehicles and left two of the foreign mercenaries dead and two more
of them wounded...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22463&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22463


MUBARAK’S MIND NOT FUNCTIONING AGAIN
Malcom Lagauche
...His advanced years have not stopped Mubarak from making ridiculous
statements. On April 8, 2006, Al-Jazeera News ran an article titled,
"Mubarak: U.S. Must Not Leave Iraq Yet." His red-white-and-blue tinged
remarks included: Asked what effect an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal
would have, he said, "Now? It would be a disaster. It would become an arena
for a brutal civil war and then terrorist operations would flare up, not
just in Iraq, but in very many pl aces." Maybe Mubarak has not read any
recent newspapers. He uses the future tense for current everyday
occurrences in Iraq. Most Arab leaders, even though in the pockets of the
U.S., would not make a public statement calling for U.S. troops to stay in
Iraq. Eighty-five percent of the Iraqi population is calling for an
immediate withdrawal, even those who once supported the illegal invasion...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22456&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22456


Daniel Pipes and the unfolding civil war in Iraq
James Cogan, WSWS
Daniel Pipes, the director of the neo-conservative Middle East Forum and a
vociferous supporter of the invasion of Iraq, is not an inconsequential
figure in the American political establishment. His writings consistently
articulate and refine the views of the extreme right in the United States,
a layer that exerts considerable influence over the policies of the Bush
administration. It is therefore noteworthy when such an individual begins
publicly arguing that a sectarian civil war in Iraq would be to the
strategic advantage of US imperialism. One can conclude that similar views
are prevalent in Washington’s corridors of power. Pipes first presented
what he views as the advantages of an Iraqi civil war in an article
published by the New York Sun on February 28—six days after the destruction
of the Shiite Muslim Al-Askariya mosque by suspected Sunni Muslim
extremists and amid the reports that Shiite militias were carrying out
revenge killings of Sunnis...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22450&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22450


Rumours of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s survival were greatly exaggerated
So who really killed Nick Berg?
Gavin Gatenby, Possum News Network
...So how much more of the Zarqawi legend is, shall we say, "greatly
exaggerated"? What about the Nick Berg killing – where Zarqawi supposedly
wielded the knife in the infamous beheading video? That was back in April
2004, at a time when the Zarqawi letter to Osama bin Laden letter we now
know to be a fake was the centrepiece of the Coalition psyops campaign. The
beheadin g rescued Bush’s fortunes by providing the neo-conservative shills
with an example of a resistance atrocity that neatly offset the breaking
Abu Ghraib torture story. The authenticity of the video and scepticism
about the role of al-Zarqawi in it surfaced immediately on the internet,
largely because Berg, shortly before his disappearance, had just been
released from US incarceration – where he had been interrogated because of
suspicions he had been involved in insurgent activities. The collapse of
the Zarqawi myth provides an opportunity for a US lawmaker of goodwill to
demand the opening of the State Department, CIA, FBI and US military files
on the Berg case (including the video records of his interrogation in Iraq
by the FBI)...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22468&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22468


Palestinians latest casualty of Iraq conflict
Abdul Jalil Mustafa
Three weeks after they fled violence in Iraq, about 130 Palestinian
refugees, including at least 50 children, are still stranded in the
no-man's-land between Iraq and Jordan with no light at the end of the
tunnel. A controversy is building up between Jordan and international human
rights groups, including the Human Rights Watch (HRW), on to what extent
the Amman government is under obligation to allow Palestinian refugees to
move to the Ruweished re fugee camp, about 60 kilometres west of the
border...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22471&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
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The American Caesar
Ralph Nader
In the name of fighting stateless terrorism, George W. Bush is looming as
the American Caesar running roughshod over the civil liberties of the
American people who have turned against him in ever larger majorities. In
the name of fighting terrorism, George W. Bush fabricated numerous excuses
for illegally invading Iraq and occupying it for now over three costly
years in ways that are magnets for the recruitment and training of ever
more stateless terrorists. His own CIA Director, Po rter Goss, made exactly
this point in testimony before the U.S. Senate in February 2005. So too
have many retired intelligence and military specialists including those who
recently worked for George W. Bush...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22470&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22470


IRAQ: Doctors, NGOs warn of high infant mortality in Basra
IRIN
As a result of water-borne diseases and a lack of medical supplies, infants
born in the southern city of Basra are subject to abnormally high mortality
rates, say officials of an international NGO devoted to child health
issues. "For weeks, there were no I.V. fluids available in the hospitals of
Basra," said Marie Fernandez, spokeswoman for European aid agency Saving
Children from War. "As a consequence, many children, mainly under
five-years old, die d after suffering from extreme cases of diarrhoea"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22461&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22461


Bush's "Nuclear Option"
Evan Augustine Peterson III, GlobalResearch.ca
Just in case you've gotten the impression that the Bush administration
isn't seriously considering a military strike against Iran using both
conventional and nuclear weapons, see the Amercan Progress Action Fund's
4-10-06 Progress Report, "The Nuclear Option." (...) On the brighter side,
there are limits to the U.S. military's loyalty to Mr. Bush, and
high-ranking American military officers have stated that they are adamantly
opposed to the us e of bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapons (i.e.,
so-called "mini-nukes"). Moreover, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has
publicly stated that the idea of a nuclear strike against Iran is
"completely nuts"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22460&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22460


Air Force Chief Predicts Long Iraq Mission
LOLITA C. BALDOR
The U.S. Air Force may remain in Iraq for a "long time," most likely in a
capacity similar to its lengthy patrols of the no-fly zone after the first
Gulf War , the top Air Force general said Tuesday. "I think the Air Force
will be there like we were for the no-fly zone for a long time," Moseley
told defense reporters. "I don't know yet how many bases. We're looking at
reducing the number of bases. We have 18 we are flying airplanes off of
right now. I see that number coming down. But I don't see the air and space
component leaving soon"...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22462&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22462


Paul Wolfowitz’s Heart of Darkness
William Hughes
American policy maker Paul Wolfowitz reminds me a lot of Joseph Conrad’s
character, Kurtz, from his seminal tome, "Heart of Darkness." Kurtz never
allowed himself to be judged by the same standards as other mere mortals,
nor has Wolfowitz. He seems manufactured in the image and likeness of
another purveyor of malevolence - Henry Kissinger! Wolfowitz has so far
escaped earthly punishment for his serial wrong doings. In fact,
incredibly, he has been rewarded with ano ther high paying sinecure by the
Wire Pullers. Wolfowitz was the prime architect of the Iraqi War, when he
was the Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Bush-Cheney Gang...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22459&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22459


Emergency
Cindy Sheehan
...Truly, George Bush is obviously out of control and he and the neocons
need to be stopped. We will make Camp Casey, Easter, next week all about
not invading Iran. It should be so simple: GeorgeCo lied through their
collective asses about Iraq and now they are doing so about Iran. I don't
have to convince you all that this would be a major disaster and could lead
to World War (insert your number here) and it would be an enormous disaster
for the people of Iran, Iraq, and for our troops in harm's way there...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22457&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
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'L'etat, c'est moi: Has the first American dictatorship already arrived?'
Geov Parrish, Working For Change
In 2003, while pledging to fire anyone in his administration found to have
leaked the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Wilson to journalists,
President George Bush intoned that he did not know of "anybody in my
administration who leaked classified information. Well. Pick your favorite
Bush quote on this topic; there are countless good ones, now that we learn
that former Vice Presidential Chief of Staf f Scooter Libby, when forced by
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to testify under oath to save his own
skin, fingered both Bush and his former boss, Dick Cheney. Libby testified
that they both authorized the leaking of classified National Intelligence
Estimate information on Iraq in July 2003 in order to defend the
administration's decision to unilaterally invade Iraq. A president who has
ordered the launching of widespread investigations to find leakers in the
CIA and State Department, including the polygraphing of scores of
intelligence professionals, the man who wants the NSA spying and CIA gulag
whistleblowers prosecuted, is himself a leaker...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22475&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22475


He's dead, Jim
Xymphora
The Washington Post has reported that the role of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in
the Iraqi insurgency has been played up by the Pentagon for propaganda
purposes, both in Iraq and in the United States (...) Presumably, the
Pentagon is clearing the decks of al-Zarqawi in order to roll out a new
series of lies (although not everyone in the Pentagon is going along with
the new program). Al-Zarqawi has been the Scarlet Pimpernel of the Iraqi
insurgency, appearing in an enormous variety of roles and pla ces. You have
to give him credit. The fact that he has been dead since at least 2004
hasn’t slowed him up one bit (nor has the fact that he lost a leg and then
grew it back to star in the Nick Berg beheading video)...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22443&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22443


Padilla Can't Wait
Aziz Huq
Can a U.S. citizen be locked up for three-plus years without access to a
court or opportunity to challenge the government’s reasons for detention?
Today, the answer in America is a provisional "yes." And last week the
government took one important step toward cementing this "yes" into a
permanent power. In legal briefs and internal Justice Department memoranda,
the administration has argued since 9/11 that the president has authority
to detain anyone—U.S. citizen or non-citizen—without charge, without a
hearing before a neutral magistrate and without access to the evidence
lodged against them...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22467&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22467


U.S. Reports Death of 5 Soldiers in Iraq
The Associated Press
Five American soldiers have been killed in Iraq, including three killed
Tuesday north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said. A U.S. statement said the
three members of Multinational Division Baghdad died Tuesday afternoon in a
roadside bombing, but it did not give a precise location. Another soldier
assigned to the 2/28th Brigade Combat Team died Monday of wounds suffered
the day before in fighting in Anbar province west of the capital, the
military said.. .

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=22464&s2=12>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=22464




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