[uruknet.info - daily information from occupied iraq] newsletter 13 Sep 2004.

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Rumsfeld's Dirty War on Terror - Parts 1 & 2
Seymour Hersh, World Crisis Web
...But General Taguba’s highly critical internal investigation into
military prisons in Iraq - which, together with the shocking photographs of
prisoner abuse, sparked the Abu Ghraib scandal in April - amounted to an
unsparing study of collective wrongdoing and the failure of army leadership
at the highest levels. The picture Taguba drew of Abu Ghraib was one in
which army regulations and the Geneva convention were routinely violated,
and in which much of the d! ay-to-day management of the prisoners was
abdicated to army military intelligence units and civilian contract
employees. Rumsfeld’s most fateful decision, endorsed by the White House,
came at a time of crisis in August 2003 when the defence secretary expanded
the highly secret SAP into the prisons of Iraq. The roots of the Abu Ghraib
scandal therefore lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few army
reservists, but in the reliance of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld on
secret operations and the use of coercion - and eye-for-an-eye retribution
- in fighting terrorism...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5566&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5566


Iraq: gli americani non cessano di martoriare Falluja
Arabmonitor
L'artiglieria e l'aviazione delle forze di occupazione americane hanno
nuovamente bombardato la città di Falluja. Secondo fonti mediche locali, i
morti potrebbero essere anche 18, oltre a una trentina di feriti. E' stato
colpita un'ambulanza che trasportava dei feriti, provocando la morte di 7
persone. Il direttore dell'ospedale di Falluja Rafea al Isawi ha detto al
sito online di al Jazeera che ogni volta un'ambulanza parte, viene subito
presa di mira dagli americani. So! no state bombardate diverse aree della
città e si parla di almeno tre palazzi distrutti o gravemente danneggiati...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5570&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5570


The United State of Denial
John N. Cooper, Ph.D., Axis of Logic
...Reports in the last few weeks have alleged that the 'war' in Iraq is
essentially lost. Whatever we may have sought to accomplish -- a coherent,
cohesive nation; some semblance of a legitimate, effective government
'friendly' to our national interests; a self-reliant nation capable of
standing on its own two feet -- is essentially now unobtainable (...) The
Iraqi resistance to our occupation have made it clear: they will quit when
we leave. Our 'leadership' calls them thu! gs, bandits, and outsiders; but
American reporters on the scene say they are principally Iraqi nationals,
doing what we would, were we occupied by a foreign invader: trying to
protect homes and families by expelling the alien invaders...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5565&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5565


US Forces Hold Iraqi Women As “Bargaining Chips”
Samir Haddad, IOL Correspondent
An Iraqi resistance group threatened Sunday, September 12, a volcano of
attacks against the US occupation forces, who have taken Iraqi women
hostage to exchange them with fighters. A group calling itself the Saladin
Al-Ayyubi Brigades, the military wing of the Sunni Islamic Front for the
Iraqi Resistance, said the occupation troops kidnapped a mother and three
girls on August 26 in Al-Latifia district, 70 kilometers south of Baghdad.
“The coward Americans d! emanded Iraqi resistance fighters in the area to
lay down their arms and hand themselves in to release the four female
hostages...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5567&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5567


Chalabi aide in Israel
Khalid Amayreh, Aljazeera.net
A key aide to Iraqi National Congress party leader Ahmad Chalabi has paid a
visit to Israel to explore "future horizons" in Iraqi-Israeli relations.
Midhat al-Alusi arrived in Tel Aviv earlier this week ostensibly to attend
a conference on counter-terrorism at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Centre,
a right-wing Israeli thinktank. Al-Alusi, who heads the Iraqi interim
government's "de-Baathification" campaign, voiced a desire to normalise
relations with Israel, says Israeli press sourc! es...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5561&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5561


Former ambassador says Iraq situation worse than Vietnam
JAMES GORDON MEEK, New York Daily News
..."Strategically and politically, the situation in Iraq is worse than it
ever was in Vietnam," Kerry's top foreign policy adviser told "Fox News
Sunday." "The situation is clearly getting worse ... and there is no
strategy either for success or for victory or for exit." As American deaths
in Iraq passed 1,000 last week, Kerry promised to bring home troops by the
end of his first four-year term. By comparison, the United States didn't
reach 1! ,000 dead in Vietnam until mid-1965 - nine years after the start
of U.S. involvement in fighting communist insurgents there...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5560&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5560


Breakup of Iraq into three countries a possibility: Powell
The Hindu
A civil war in Iraq followed by its breakup into three countries on
sectarian lines is a possibility but may not happen, US Secretary of State
Colin Powell, has said. "It is always a possibility. But I don't think it
is going to happen", Powell told NBC-TV yesterday when asked whether there
could be a civil war in Iraq followed by a breakup of the country into
three States...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5559&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5559


Iraqi resistance pushes the US back
Doug Lorimer , Green Left Weekly,
...According to a September 6 US Knight Ridder Newspapers report, Fallujah
is being used by a resurgent Baath (Arab Renaissance) Party as “the model
to recruit new members or woo former Baathists back into the fold”. KRN
reported that the revived Baath Party is “going strong with sophisticated
computer technology, high-level infiltration of the new government and
plenty of recruits in thousands of disenchanted, impoverished Sunni Muslim
Iraqis, according to interviews! with current and former members, Iraqi
government officials and groups trying to root out former Baathists”. “The
political party”, KRN added, “has morphed into a catchall resistance
movement that poses a serious challenge to” the IGI. “There are two
governments in Iraq”, Mithal al Alusi, director general of the IGI's
Supreme National Commission for De-Baathification, told KRN. The
neo-Baathists, he said, “are stealing the power of the new government.
Their work is organised and strong”...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5558&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5558


From Vietnam to Fallujah
Fran Schor, ZNet
...Of course, the racism that led the US military to see every "gook" as VC
in Vietnam has also re-appeared in Iraq. According to one British commander
in Iraq American troops often saw Iraqis as "undermenschen" the Nazi
expression for sub-humans. Although embedded US reporters rarely provided
an insight into this racist mentality, Mark Franchetti of the London Times
quoted one US soldier as asserting that "Iraqis are sick people and we are
the chemotherapy." And with chemotherapy if the sick pe! rson dies it was
only to help cure the person. This reminds one of the infamous
pronouncement by a US officer on the destruction of a Vietnamese village
during the war in that ravaged country: "We had to destroy the village in
order to save it"...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5557&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5557


US air attack on Falluja kills civilians
Aljazeera.net
US forces have launched air strikes on the Iraqi town of Falluja, killing
up to 18 people, including women, children and an ambulance driver. Up to
29 others have been injured in the strikes, which began at 4am (0100 GMT),
on different parts of the city, just west of Baghdad. Seven people,
including the driver of an ambulance, were killed when US aircraft fired a
missile at the vehicle while it was transporting casualties near the
northern gate of the city, Aljazeera has learnt...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5556&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5556


"Saddam Hussein, the Fighter, the Thinker and the Man" - Part II
Amir Eskander, Al-Moharer
...This is the starting-point of his criticism of some misleading
descriptions which are sometimes applied to History and the renaissance of
the nation the Revolution, such as the statement that it is the
"progressive Revolution of the 17th July" or "the Revolution's
progressiveness is its ultimate characteristic", He asserts, by way of
contrast, that "The Revolution is essentially popular and socialist; to
describe it as progressive necessarily d! etracts from its value and its
essence as a continuous Revolution in the achievement of its strategic
goals"...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5546&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5546


Whistling in the Dark in Iraq
Mike Whitney, ZNet
...When Gardiner was asked how he would "fix" the current situation he
offered this: "The fix the administration has picked, which is to get it
off of the newspapers. The strategic communications objectives right now,
as I read them, are to take this off of the radar screen of the American
people. In July, you can... we were seeing roughly 250,000 articles in the
world press per day about this. It's now down to 150." ( Hmmmm. So,
according to a "conservative" member of the Defense establi! shment, the
strategy is not to win the war and "democratize" the country, but simply to
keep it out of the media)...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5562&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5562


Is America safer? Pulitzer Prize-winning author examines how U.S. got from
9/11 to the war in Iraq
Seymour Hersh
...There is so much about this presidency that we don’t know, and may never
learn. Some of the most important questions are not even being asked. How
did they do it? How did eight or nine neoconservatives who believed that a
war in Iraq was the answer to international terrorism get their way? How
did they redirect the government and rearrange long-standing American
priorities and policies with so much ease? How did they overc! ome the
bureaucracy, intimidate the press, mislead the Congress, and dominate the
military? Is our democracy that fragile?...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5550&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5550


A Peace Bloodier Than War
Patrick J. Buchanan, AntiWar
Since the transfer of power to a provisional government in Baghdad at the
end of June, more Americans have died in combat than during Gen. Franks'
invasion. In August, 1,000 U.S. soldiers were wounded, the highest figure
for any month (...) We are coming to a turning point. From the rising
casualties and attacks, not just from roadside bombs but combat, it seems
this war is a stalemate. We and our Iraqi allies cannot eradicate the
enemy, whose numbers have multiplied four-fold in 18! months, while U.S.
forces have not increased. We are now tolerating enemy base camps in
Fallujah and Ramadi in the Sunni Triangle. Sadr City in Baghdad is less
pacified now than in April 2003...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5548&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5548


It's Worse Than You Think
Scott Johnson and Babak Dehghanpisheh, Newsweek
...Sixteen months after the war's supposed end, Iraq's insurgency is
spreading. Each successful demand by kidnappers has spawned more
hostage-takings—to make Philippine troops go home, to stop Turkish truckers
from hauling supplies into Iraq, to extort fat ransom payments from
Kuwaitis. The few relief groups that remain in Iraq are talking seriously
about leaving. U.S. forces have effectively ceded entire cities to the
insurgents, and much of the country elsewhere! is a battleground...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5547&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5547


«Armiamoci e partite»
ALESSANDRO ROBECCHI
...E ora che la guerra (bombardare, invadere, «colpire e terrorizzare» e
poi - cretini - conquistare «teste e cuori») è diventata un'altra cosa,
ecco i migliori talenti e paladini della guerra chiedersi se per caso non
la stiano perdendo. Se lo chiedono al Pentagono, se lo sussurrano mentre
ammettono di non controllare il territorio (né in Iraq né in Afghanistan).
Se lo chiede il Financial Times, che addirittura teorizza il ritiro delle
truppe dei volenterosi. Se lo chiede il New York Times...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5543&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5543


New Spasm of Violence Sweeps Iraq, Killing 110
Ibon Villelabeitia
At least 110 people were killed across Iraq on Sunday in a sharp escalation
of violence that saw gun battles, car bombs and bombardments rock the
capital. The Health Ministry said the worst casualties were in Baghdad,
where 37 were killed, and in Tal Afar near the Syrian border where 51
people died. The capital suffered at least seven car bombs, and insurgents
fired a dozen mortar bombs or rockets around the so-called Green Zone
compound housing Iraq's interim governmen! t and the U.S. embassy. It was
one of the heaviest barrages in Baghdad for months. "We've seen a
tremendous increase in the number of attacks," said Brigadier General Erv
Lessel, a U.S. military spokesman...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5542&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5542


‘Fallujah Brigade’ to Disband, Join Resistance in Control of City
Brian Dominick
Three weeks after initially suggesting the US-created "Fallujah Brigade"
had long since served its purpose, and one week after a clash between
Brigade members and US Marines left four Iraqis dead, American and Iraqi
officials announced the official dissolution of the controversial unit
Saturday, the LA Times reports. But as US pilots continue to bombard areas
of Fallujah, reports suggest the city is still very much in rebel control
-- possibly reinvigorated! by the dispersal of the controversial Brigade...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5539&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5539


Misplaced history: Israel, the Arab oil embargo and Iraq
Louis Farshee, Online Journal Contributing Writer
...The ultimate question is who benefits from the destruction of the Iraqi
State, US military intervention in the Middle East and unquestioning
support and funding for Israeli policies? The short answer is the State of
Israel. The US purchased for Israel peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan
and destroyed Iraq, the last imaginable Arab competitor to the Jewish State
(8). US access to Middle East oil was curtailed only after American!
intervention on Israel's behalf in the 1973 war and the resulting oil
embargo gave birth to a US imperialist policy vended under many guises, but
most recently behind the Bush administration's deceptive anthem, "war on
terror"...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5538&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5538


U.S. troops face acute dangers in Iraq guerrilla war
Will Dunham, Reuters
...But how can guerrillas using relatively crude weapons inflict casualties
on the peerless armed forces of the world's only superpower? Simple, say
military experts. The nature of the guerrilla war being waged in Iraq tends
to negate the vast superiority of 138,000 U.S. forces in technology and
firepower and give advantages to insurgents able to blend into an urban
civilian population and pick and choose their mode and place of attack, the
experts said. "Now, da! re I say it, we are fighting a war that looks more
like Vietnam but in the desert instead of the jungle," said defense analyst
Charles Pena of the Cato Institute...

<http://www.uruknet.info?s1=1&p=5536&s2=13>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=5536




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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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