BIN LADEN DEATH REPORT

"An announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death appears Friday in one of his close aides’ most credible Web sites. It has sparked a storm of controversy in al Qaeda circles, some of whom claim notice is false, others that it is “authentic and Islamic.”
DEBKAfile (Israel), 30 Apr 2005
http://www.debka.com/index.php

CIVILIZE AND CHRISTIANIZE THOSE UNFIT FOR SELF-GOVERNMENT

"... I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight, and I am not ashamed to tell you gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed God Almighty for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way—I don't know how it was, but it came: ... that we could not leave them to themselves—they were unfit for self-government—and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there... there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate... and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow men for whom Christ also died..."
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h833.html

"... After the eagle landed, the fighting went on for several years and... 10,000 American troops had died from rebel attacks and disease. It became the first conflict in which more Americans died after the formal end of hostilities than before.... 16,000 resistance fighters were killed and 200,000 civilians were left dead. And there were atrocities. Thousands of unarmed... including women and children, were slaughtered. Torture was routine and people were executed without trial..."
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0420-12.htm

IRAQ BEYOND CONTROL OF CABINET.
CIVIL WAR IF SUNNIS EQUATE THE CABINET TO THE OCCUPATION.

"... the cabinet is... hostage to a big picture it won't be able to control. This is because the foundations for a new Iraq... simply do not exist. The country's infrastructure and administration were totally devastated. Everything the Americans did pointed to an incendiary division on sectarian lines. Major players - fiercely against the occupation - are absent from this cabinet or any previous interim government. Scores of employees in most Iraqi ministries simply don't go to work; as far as the Ministry of Interior is concerned, according to the Jordanian press, this means hundreds of staff in the counterinsurgency sections. With unemployment at a staggering 70%, many won't think twice to secure a US$400 monthly salary as a police officer; but when the going gets tough, as it does on a daily basis, these forces instantly dissolve... (while) At least six militias are rampaging throughout Iraq, armed, trained and funded by the Pentagon..."

"... the moment the majority of Sunni Arab public opinion equates illegal occupation to the Shi'ites, Kurds and the political process, civil war is inevitable. There's nothing this hostage cabinet can do about it. We're not there yet, but it's getting closer by the minute. "

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD30Ak01.html

ALLOCATION OF MINISTRIES IN NEW CABINET

"... Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari... was unable to appoint permanent ministers to the Oil, Defense, Electricity, Industry and Human Rights ministries. All posts are meant to be filled by May 7..."

"... acting (Oil) Minister is ... convicted fraudster, former Pentagon darling and purported Iranian agent Ahmad Chalabi..."

"... Kurds... keep Hoshyar Zebari as Foreign Minister... and they have important positions in ministries such as as Planning and Development Cooperation (Barham Salih), Communications (Jwan Maasoum, a woman), Labor and Social Affairs (Idris Hadi) and Water Resources (Abdul Latif Rashi)..."

"... Shi'ites predictably got several important ministries: Interior (Baqir Jabbur), Finance (Ali Allawi), Agriculture (Ali al-Bahadli), Justice (Abdul Hussein Shandal) and Transport (Salam al-Malik). A welcome development is that the Science and Technology Ministry is attributed to Bassima Boutros, a Christian woman..."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD30Ak01.html

WINNING NO LONGER THE ISSUE FOR U.S.

"... winning or losing is not the issue for 'we,' in my view, in the traditional, conventional context of using the word 'winning' and 'losing' in a war. The people that are going to defeat that insurgency are going to be the Iraqis."
-- Donald Rumsfeld in Pentagon briefing
http://investing.reuters.co.uk/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=N26575946

MEN AND MATERIEL

"... Since 2001, the U.S. military has deployed more than 1 million troops for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 341,000, or nearly a third, serving two or more overseas tours. Today, an entrenched insurgency in Iraq ties down 150,000 U.S. troops, inflicting upwards of 1,500 deaths so far -- more than 10 times the number killed in the major combat operations that President Bush declared ended on May 1, 2003...

"... Army stocks in Southwest Asia are exhausted, and those in Europe have also been "picked over" ... Roughly half of the Army and Marine equipment stored afloat on ships has been used up... Refilling the stocks must wait until the Iraq war winds down... Meanwhile, a sizable portion of Marine and Army gear is in Iraq, wearing out at up to six times the normal rate. Battle losses are mounting; the Army has lost 79 aircraft and scores of tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. "We are equip-stretched, let there be no doubt about it. . . . This Army started this war not fully equipped," Cody (the Army vice chief) said in recent congressional testimony.,,"

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031905B.shtml

COST OF WAR TO U.S. CITIES

"... Last week Milwaukee County found it would be $3 million in the red... Guess how much this Iraq invasion has cost the city of Milwaukee in tax dollars - $282 million. It has cost Madison $128 million. Our two major cities have lost nearly half a billion dollars that will never be recovered while we fret over a $3 million shortfall..."
http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/index.php?ntid=37865&ntpid=1

RECONSTRUCTION STATUS (Sep 2004)

Estimated needed: $55 billion
Pledged: $32 billion
Disbursed: $ 2.5 billion

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/in_depth/post_saddam_iraq/html/1.stm

INSURGENCY ATTACKS - SAME NUMBER AS A YEAR AGO

"... Between 50 and 60 attacks are carried out each day, the same number as in 2004, according to Gen Richard Myers... "I think their capacity stays about the same. And where they are right now is where they were almost a year ago."... But he... insisted that US-backed forces were "winning"..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4488099.stm

DUELFER ADDS FINAL ADDENDA TO WMD REPORT AND CLOSES BOOK ON THE HUNT

"... In 92 pages posted online Monday evening, Duelfer provided a final look at an investigation that, at its peak, occupied more than 1,000 military and civilian translators, weapons specialists and other experts. His latest addenda conclude a roughly 1,500-page report released last fall... the CIA's top weapons hunter in Iraq said his search for weapons of mass destruction "has been exhausted" without finding any. Nor did Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, find any evidence that such weapons were shipped officially from Iraq to Syria to be hidden before the U.S. invasion... The questioning of Iraqis did not produce any information to support the transfer possibility, one addendum said. The Iraq Survey Group believes "it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0426-08.htm

DUELFER CONCLUDES WMD REPORT

"... In 92 pages posted online Monday evening, Duelfer provided a final look at an investigation that, at its peak, occupied more than 1,000 military and civilian translators, weapons specialists and other experts. His latest addenda conclude a roughly 1,500-page report released last fall... the CIA's top weapons hunter in Iraq said his search for weapons of mass destruction "has been exhausted" without finding any. Nor did Charles Duelfer, head of the Iraq Survey Group, find any evidence that such weapons were shipped officially from Iraq to Syria to be hidden before the U.S. invasion... The questioning of Iraqis did not produce any information to support the transfer possibility, one addendum said. The Iraq Survey Group believes "it was unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0426-08.htm

TERRORISM TRIPLED IN 2004

"World terror attacks tripled in 2004 by U.S. count... a rise that may revive debate on whether the Bush administration is winning the war on terrorism... The number of "significant" international terrorist attacks rose to about 650 last year from about 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides briefed on the numbers by U.S. State Department and intelligence officials..."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8303708

ANNUAL TERRORISM REPORT DROPPED DUE TO INCREASED TERRORISM

"... the recently created... National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) states there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985. So... Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice orders the "sanitation" of this year's version of "Patterns of Global Terrorism"... The problem is, the NCTC has come up with figures that reflect reality on the ground - contrary to the fantasy world sold via a massive public relations campaign by the White House..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GD23Aa01.html

TERRORISM REPORT DROPPED

"The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered... current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism..."

"The statistics didn't include attacks on American troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/11407689.htm

GOOD NEWS

"Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, said yesterday that the strength of the Iraqi insurgency is waning as a result of momentum from elections, and he predicted Iraqi security forces would be leading the fight against insurgents in most of Iraq by the end of 2005." (Ann Scott Tyson, Iraqi Insurgency Is Weakening, Abizaid Says, the Washington Post, March 2, 2005.)

"[Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler,] the top Marine officer in Iraq said Friday that the number of attacks against American troops in Sunni-dominated western Iraq and death tolls had dropped sharply over the last four months, a development that he called evidence that the insurgency was weakening in one of the most violent areas of the country." (Eric Schmitt, "Insurgency Loses Ground, Top Marine In Iraq Says," the New York Times, March 18, 2005.)

"In the privacy of their E-ring offices, senior Pentagon officials have begun to entertain thoughts that were unimaginable a year ago: Iraq is turning the corner… ‘This is still a tough fight. We don't want anyone to think that it is not,' said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a military analyst who strongly supports Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. ‘But the momentum is in our direction…' A military source in Iraq declined to give raw number of attacks, but said, ‘There has been a decided downward trend in the number and lethality of attacks since the January 30 elections.'" (Rowan Scarborough, Pentagon begins to see Iraq momentum shift, the Washington Times, March 28, 2005.)

"In the last two years, you have accomplished much, yet your work isn't over. Freedom still faces dangerous adversaries. Terrorists still want to attack our people. But they're losing. These terrorists are losing the struggle because they're under constant pressure from our Armed Forces, and they will remain under constant pressure from our Armed Forces. (Hoo-ah!)" (George Bush, President Discusses War on Terror, Ft. Hood, Texas, April 12.)

"General Westmoreland embarked on a whirlwind tour of the U.S. to testify before Congress and drum up support for the Johnson Administration. ‘With 1968,' he said, speaking before the National Press Club in Washington, ‘a new phase is starting... we have reached an important point where the end begins to come into view... light at the end of the tunnel'..."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0426-29.htm

OCCUPATION COST TO BE BETWEEN $646 BILLION AND $1 TRILLION

"... With approval of the latest spending bill, taxpayers will have been forced to cough up more than $300 billion for the war to date — above and beyond the annual $400-billion Pentagon budget — and tens of billions for a bungled reconstruction. Even if the United States can lower its troop commitment to 40,000 troops in Iraq by 2010, as some Pentagon strategists optimistically anticipate, the war could still end up costing U.S. taxpayers up to $646 billion by 2015, according to Rep. John Spratt of South Carolina, the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee. If insurgency, corruption and incompetence continue to plague the U.S. occupation as they have steadily for the last two years, however, the number could surge to a trillion dollars or more..."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-scheer26apr26,0,2052689.column?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

DUELFER FINDS NO EVIDENCE SYRIA HID WMD

"... Report Finds No Evidence Syria Hid Iraqi Arms... Yesterday's final report... included 92 pages of addenda that tied up loose ends on Syria and other topics..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/25/AR2005042501554.html

LOOTING AND DESTRUCTION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL ARTIFACTS AND SITES

"It is two years since looters ravaged one of the world's most important museums, in central Baghdad... More than 15,000 objects were taken. Many were smuggled out of Iraq and offered for sale. To date, 3,000 have been recovered in Baghdad, ... more than 1,600 objects have been seized in neighbouring countries, some 300 in Italy and more than 600 in the United States. Most of the stolen items are unaccounted for, but some private collectors in the Middle East and Europe have admitted possessing objects bearing the initials IM (Iraq Museum inventory number). An ever-growing number of websites also offer Mesopotamian artifacts - anywhere up to 7,000 years old - for sale..."

"... the mere existence of this market has fuelled the looting of archaeological sites in southern Iraq. The picture there is appalling. More than 150 Sumerian cities dating back to the fourth millennium BC - such as Umma, Umm al-Akkareb, Larsa and Tello - lie destroyed, turned into crater-filled landscapes of shredded pottery and broken bricks... Coalition forces have themselves damaged archaeological sites by using them as military bases... US military vehicles crushed 2,600-year-old brick pavements, archaeological fragments were scattered across the site, more then 12 trenches were driven into ancient deposits and military earth-moving projects contaminated the site for future generations of scientists..."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4461755.stm

ADMINISTRATION CONCEALED DOD AUDIT OF HALLIBURTON OVERPAYMENTS FROM U.N. MONITORS

"... Defense Department audits showing additional overcharges totaling $212 million were concealed from United Nations monitors by the administration of President George W Bush... "both the amount of Halliburton's overcharges and the extent of the information withheld from the auditors at the UN's International Advisory and Monitoring Board [IAMB] were much greater than previously known... The evidence suggests that the US used Iraqi oil proceeds to overpay Halliburton and then sought to hide the evidence of these overcharges from the international auditors..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD23Ak01.html

OIL PROBLEMS

"... In Basra, which is the site of Iraq’s southern oil fields... oil smuggling operations were now carried out in the open... the Iraqi army’s Border Forces 4th Regiment Command, which controls frontier crossings and the ports, claimed that some government officials had asked the authorities to turn a blind eye to oil smuggling... the government had recently discovered that one of its southern pipelines was peppered with more than 20 illegal taps... only 60 percent of trucks carrying oil products from wells to other areas reach their destination, while the remainder are attacked and hijacked."
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2005/2005-04-21-03.asp

LACK OF FUNDS THREATENS WATER SUPPLY

"Security costs drain funds for water projects in Iraq... the country's supply of clean water is being seriously threatened, because of shrinking funds from the United States and an outdated water treatment and sewage system.... Lack of clean water has led to water-borne diseases, says Abdul Jalil Naji, director of the Health Ministry's Communicable Diseases Center.
He says Sadr City, a Baghdad slum, experienced an outbreak of infectious hepatitis two months ago because of a lack of good running water. Last year, another Baghdad neighborhood was hit with a rash of typhoid, he says."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-04-21-water-projects_x.htm

70% OF PUBLIC WORKS WATER MONEY SPENT ON SECURITY

"... Humam Misocni of the public works ministry (said) "We are crippled because we don't have enough funding. Last year we started 15 new water treatment plants all over Iraq. This year we don't have the funds to build new ones," he says. The Americans have allocated $18.4bn dollars for reconstruction in Iraq, but Mr Misocni says more than 70% of the money his ministry was originally granted has now been reallocated to spending on defence and security... Iraq can't now produce all of the drinking water it needs. "Our people are drinking water either directly from rivers or wells, even the so-called treated water or clean water is not actually clean," says Mr Misocni."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4414291.stm

WATER PROJECTS DROPPED TO PAY FOR SECURITY FORCES

"... with the outbreak of insurgency in central and southern Iraq last year, the United States shifted $3.4 billion from water, electricity and oil projects to pay for training and equipping the Iraqi Army and police forces... The implications of that shift are only now becoming clear as individual projects are canceled in scores of communities across the country. Some of the largest cuts have come in waterworks: of 81 water projects that were to be financed through the Public Works Ministry, all but 13 have been canceled, with many of the rest reduced in scale... "
http://nytimes.com/2005/04/16/international/middleeast/16halabja.html?hp&ex=1113710400&en=d0cc53d0702952e7&ei=5094&partner=homepage

440 SUICIDE BOMBERS VOLUNTEER, MOSTLY WOMEN

" More than 400 young men and women have volunteered to carry out suicide bombing attacks against Americans in Iraq and targets in Israel, a militant group said Wednesday... The Iranian government has distanced itself from the organization. But the event was attended by Mahdi Rahimian, the head of the Martyr's Foundation and the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee, both quasi-government organizations run by hard-liners loyal to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "Some 440 volunteers, most of them women, signed up today," said group spokesman Mohammad Ali Samadi..."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/04/20/international/i164839D98.DTL

U. S. TRACKS IRAQI CIVILIAN DEATHS

"Aid worker uncovered America's secret tally of Iraqi civilian deaths.... humanitarian worker Marla Ruzicka forced military commanders to admit they did keep records of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces... in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before her death on Saturday and published yesterday, the 28-year-old revealed that a Brigadier General told her it was "standard operating procedure" for US troops to file a report when they shoot a non-combatant. She obtained figures for the number of civilians killed in Baghdad between 28 February and 5 April, and discovered that 29 had been killed in firefights involving US forces and insurgents. This was four times the number of Iraqi police killed. "These statistics demonstrate that the US military can and does track civilian casualties," she wrote..."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=631173

BREMER PREDICTION ON IRAQ, FEB 2003

"... Bremer estimated a war would be over within four to six weeks but said the process of rebuilding Iraq afterwards is likely to take years. "We're going to be on the ground in Iraq as soldiers and citizens for years. We're going to be running a colony almost."
http://cincinnati.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2003/02/24/daily23.html

ARMED ELEMENTS MAKE IRAQI STATE A FICTION

"... the terms we all use... such as “the insurgency” or “the resistance,” are an inherently misleading shorthand. In... Vietnam, one could speak of the opponent as a something. In... Iraq, one cannot. There is no single opponent. Rather, what we face is a vast array of armed elements operating outside the control of the state. They range from true insurgents, such as the Ba’athists, through kidnappers, gangs of robbers, hostile tribes, foreign mujaheddin seeking martyrdom and party or faction militias to men out to avenge their family’s honor. The essence of the problem is not that they are fighting the American occupation – some are, some aren’t – but that they are armed elements not controlled by the state. Their very existence undermines the state to the point where it becomes a fiction..."
http://www.sftt.us/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=841&rnd=591.1135825287148

NEW GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO BE INDEPENDENT OF U.S.

"... The new government faces some old nemeses, yet its foremost challenge is to take immediate measures to create a public image that - unlike the previous interim government - is independent of the Americans... the Iraqis are highly suspicious that the new government will become a stooge of the Americans. So the elected officials in Iraq know they are likely to lose that legitimacy quickly if they do not perform according to the expectations of their constituents. In the meantime, their enemies will do everything to make their job nearly impossible... Now, the Iraqi thinking is that the US is really interested in making their country its colony..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD13Ak02.html

COALITION WITHDRAWAL

"... Poland has said it will pull its (1,700) troops out of Iraq when the UN mandate for the stabilisation mission expires at the end of this year.... Italy, with just over 3,000 troops in Iraq, has said it wants to pull its contingent out as soon as possible. The Netherlands (about 800 troops) and Ukraine (1,600 troops) have begun phased withdrawals of their contingents. The last Ukrainian troops are due to leave by mid-October. Bulgaria (about 500 troops) also wants to pull its troops out this year..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4436165.stm

POLITICS OR CIVIL WAR

"... It's emerging that the real meaty matters in Iraq - federalism, who gets oil-rich Kirkuk, and, crucially, what happens to the oil industry overall - will be settled by the constituent assembly. But two developments are ominous. The attribution of ministries for the "new" government once again will be sectarian. And every faction will remain armed to their teeth. The Kurds keep their independent peshmerga militia, and financed by Baghdad. The SCIRI keeps its Badr Brigades. The Da'wa Party also keeps its own militia. None of these will answer to Baghdad - which mobilizes its own, US-trained Iraqi security forces. Cynically, one might add that outside the political process, the Sunni resistance will also keep its thousands of fighters..."

"The big question now is how the Shi'ites and Kurds will deal with marginalized Sunni Arabs - paying close attention to their political grievances or clobbering them with peshmergas, Badr Brigades and Iraqi security forces. It's politics or civil war."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD08Ak04.html

MILITARY TO REMAIN A LONG TIME

"... we'd be naïve to think that the insurgency is over," said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and former officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. "We're there militarily for the long haul."... Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, said, "I think we're there for a long time."
http://nytimes.com/2005/04/11/politics/11military.html?hp&ex=1113278400&en=2630fbfad9e0eaea&ei=5094&partner=homepage

FOUR TURNING POINTS - IMAGES

"... During the more than two years since the Iraq war began Americans have seen on their television screens its four major turning points: the fall of Baghdad, the capture of Saddam Hussein, the "transfer of authority" to the interim Allawi government, and now the Iraq elections. Each has been highly successful as an example of the management of images -- the toppling of Saddam's statue, the intrusive examination of the unkempt former dictator's mouth and beard, the handing of documents of sovereignty from coalition leader L. Paul Bremer to Iraqi leader Iyad Allawi, the voters happily waving their purple fingers -- and each image has powerfully affirmed the broader story of what American leaders promised citizens the Iraq war would be. They promised a war of liberation to unseat a brutal dictator, rid him of his weapons of mass destruction, and free his imprisoned people, who would respond with gratitude and friendship, allowing American troops to return very quickly home.

"With the exception of the failure to find WMDs, the images have fit so cleanly into the original narrative of the war that they could almost have been designed at the time the war was being planned. And because these images fit so closely with the story of what Americans were told the war would be, they have welcomed each of them with enthusiasm. Unfortunately, after the images faded, the events on the ground that followed refused to fit that original narrative. In this the January 30 election has been no exception..."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0408-26.htm

NEW BAGHDAD ARCHITECTURE

"... Jersey barriers: concrete half-walls that, arranged in the form of "chicanes," or tight S-curve-shaped obstacles, force vehicles to slow and stop. Tank traps: massive iron bars welded together in crisscross forms so that they resemble the jacks a giant child might play with, typically draped, as here, in flamboyant swirls of barbed wire. Hesco barriers: huge square canvas bags reinforced with steel and filled with dirt or cinderblocks, the giant's version of a sandbag, stacked in their scores and hundreds. Sandbagged bunkers. Steel watchtowers. Iron blast doors. X-ray machines. Magnetometers. Sniffer dogs. And the ubiquitous squads of men... armed with 9 mms and AK-47s..."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0408-26.htm

ROOFTOP REPORTERS

"... The correspondent you watch signing off his nightly report from the war zone with his name, network, and dateline "Baghdad" is usually speaking from the grounds or the roof of a fully guarded, barricaded hotel -- a virtual high-rise bunker -- and may not have ventured out of that hotel all day, having spent his time telephoning, reading the wires, and scrutinizing footage from Iraqi "stringers" who have been out on the street. When he does leave the hotel it will be in an armored car, surrounded by armed security guards, and very likely the destination will be a news conference or briefing or arranged interview in the vast American-ruled bunker known as "the Green Zone...."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0408-26.htm

THE VALUE OF FOREIGNERS

"You must realize," a Jordanian security expert (said) in Amman, "that as a foreigner the moment you enter Iraq now, you are transformed from human being into commodity -- a commodity worth half a million to a million dollars."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0408-26.htm

PRESIDENT HAS MEMORY LAPSE

"... Shiite Arab leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari was chosen yesterday as Prime Minister of Iraq... Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani, mysteriously left the ceremony. When he re-emerged he explained that he had momentarily forgotten the name of the new prime minister whom he was appointing. Mr Jaafari... did not look disturbed by Mr Talabani’s sudden memory loss. But other members of the... Shiite coalition... saw it as a possible ill-omen for future relations between Kurds and Shiah..."
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10119401

VIEWS OF IRAQIS

Inaam Tadra, student, 24
"Our biggest problem is the loss of security. We need to re-establish security in the country. Hopefully the new government will be strong and united, so they can start the process. The Americans brought the terrorists here. They weren't here before. And I don't believe the terrorists are Muslims. The Americans search our houses. With their aggressive behavior, they are turning the Iraqis against them."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/in_pictures_iraqi_lives_two_years_after_saddam/html/10.stm


Abbas Ahmed, caterer, 27
"Unemployment is a major problem. We have to pay bribes to get a job. I left my family in Baquba and came to Baghdad because I could not find a job. The corruption is even worse now than under Saddam. Everybody in Iraq will tell you that security is the most important issue. Then the unemployment. If people cannot find work, they will turn to crime."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/in_pictures_iraqi_lives_two_years_after_saddam/html/9.stm

RUMSFELD BLAMES TURKEY FOR INSURGENCY STRENGTH

"... Donald Rumsfeld indirectly blamed Turkey for the strength of the insurgency in Iraq during an interview on FOX News Sunday. The remarks came two days after the March 18 resignation of U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Eric Edelman. “Given the level of the insurgency today, two years later, clearly if we had been able to get the 4th Infantry Division in from the north through Turkey, more of the Iraqi Saddam Hussein Baathist regime would have been captured or killed,” Rumsfeld said, referring to the Turkish parliament’s refusal to allow coalition troops to enter Iraq from Turkey. Had Turkey cooperated, Rumsfeld added, “The insurgency today would have been less.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,152683,00.html

SHIA SHEIKH, SUNNI VICE PRESIDENT CALL DEMOCRACY "CANNED, FARCE"

"... Sheikh Abdul Karim al-Mahamadawi, who led Shiite resistance to Saddam's regime in the marshlands of southern Iraq in the early 1990s... (said) "This is how this next government is being formed and it looks like it will even be enshrined in the permenant constitution. I call it canned democracy offered by America, or even worse and more dangerous, the forbidden fruit that the devil tempted Adam with..."

"Even some Sunni MPs questioned the wisdom of establishing a Lebanese-style political system dominated by sectarian loyalties. "The old wounds I think are getting deeper," said Sheikh Fawaz al-Jarba, whose second cousin Ghazi al-Yawar is the Sunni vice president-elect. "This is a farce, everything is pre-ordained and pre-arranged before lawmakers convene," said Jarba, who, as a chief of the Shammar tribal confederation which straddles Iraq's ethnic divide, was elected as an MP for the Shiite alliance even though he is Sunni."

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/050407/1/3rr8y.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0407-01.htm

HALF OF RECONSTRUCTION FUNDS SPENT ON SECURITY

"... the (reconstruction) conference's organisers said rebuilding the country would cost upwards of $60 billion over the next few years....The US has spent only 20% of the $18.6 billion allocated for reconstruction, of which half has paid for security...

"The conference comes less than two months after a US Senate panel heard accusations that the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA)... had been profligate with the resources available for reconstruction and government. Its programme had been a "scandal", senators said, after a former CPA official said it had suffered financial and administrative chaos reminiscent of the "Wild West".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4410153.stm

BREMER ORDERS - REVERSIBLE OR NOT

"Many of the 100 "orders" decreed by Paul Breme... are uncontroversial.... Some of the other orders are almost universally viewed... as counter-productive.... Orders 37 and 49 slash top tax rates from 45% to 15% - one of the lowest rates in the world. Order 54 erases all duties on imports to Iraq. Order 39 allows 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi companies except in the oil, gas and banking sectors..."

"Bremer's defenders point out that Iraq's interim constitution allows the transitional parliament... to rescind any of the decrees passed by Mr Bremer with a simple majority - not the three-quarters majority needed to alter the Transitional Administrative Law. "None of these laws are irreversible"...

"But... the laws have helped create a society based largely on speculation and profiteering - and a number of interest groups associated with that. The parliament may be influenced by these pressure groups. It is now going to be a problem for the future Iraqi government to deal with the groups which now have an interest in the present institutional structure."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4417759.stm

WOMEN TAKEN HOSTAGE

"An Iraqi... accused U.S. forces on Tuesday of taking his mother and sister hostage to pressure him and his brothers into surrendering for questioning... A handwritten sign in Arabic on the front gate of their house read: "Be a man Muhammad Mukhlif and give yourself up and then we will release your sisters. Otherwise they will spend a long time in detention." It was signed "Bandit 6," apparently U.S. Army code, possibly designating a company commander. When Reuters called the mobile telephone number at the bottom of the message, an American answered, saying he was on a military patrol... A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said he doubted the accusation and was not aware of such an incident..."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8093558

" The U.S. military in Baghdad confirmed on Wednesday it was holding two Iraqi women and was investigating accusations that they were being held hostage to pressure their fugitive male relatives to surrender. A spokesman said the women were detained as insurgent suspects, not hostages... Neighbors... said U.S. troops accompanied by Iraqi police had arrested Batawi's 65-year-old mother and a sister who is 35, and had told locals through an interpreter that the women would be freed only once the brothers surrendered themselves.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8103383

REGIME CHANGE - SECULAR TO SHIA?

"... There are two scenarios for Iraq. One, the American one, aims for a pro-Western government, an uninterrupted supply of Middle East oil to US markets, and a semi-permanent military base in the area to ensure that the first two objectives are secured. The other is more complex, and only now slowly beginning to emerge... The US, having destroyed the sole major secular government in the region, is now at risk of replacing it with a theocratic regime... The scene is now set for a prolonged power struggle between the US and the Shia majority. Having been deprived for more than 500 years of the opportunity to govern Iraq, the Shias, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, are clearly now determined to exert their influence..."

"... To forestall a clerical-driven religious regime, Washington has a plan... to arm small militias backed by US troops... these US supported militias would comprise former members of the Baath party... Despite the show of democratic elections, a great deal of manoeuvring will continue before the US-Shia power struggle is finally played out."

http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=626452

U.S. RELIED ON CURVEBALL TO JUSTIFY WAR

"US relied on 'drunken liar' to justify war... An alcoholic cousin of an aide to Ahmed Chalabi has emerged as the key source in the US rationale for going to war in Iraq. According to a US presidential commission looking into pre-war intelligence failures, the basis for pivotal intelligence on Iraq's alleged biological weapons programmes and fleet of mobile labs was a spy described as 'crazy' by his intelligence handlers and a 'congenital liar' by his friends... The Americans never had direct access to Curveball - he was controlled by the German intelligence services who passed his reports on to the Defence Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's spy agency. Between January 2000 and September 2001, Curveball offered 100 reports, among them the claims of mobile biological weapons labs that were central in the US evidence of an illicit weapons programme, but subsequently turned out to be trucks equipped with machinery to make helium for weather balloons..."
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1451138,00.html

$10 BILLION IN CASH FLOWN TO BAGHDAD FOR CPA TO SPEND

"... Two former employees are suing Custer Battles, saying the firm fleeced the CPA out of about $50 million... Custer Battles has argued that it cannot be sued in the U.S. for actions involving the use of seized Iraqi funds... The Justice Department... (said) the U.S. law applied because U.S. officials were handing out the money. The Justice Department (gave) details of how the United States moved money to Baghdad to fund the fledgling Iraqi government and pay contractors. A dozen U.S. military flights carried about $10.3 billion in cash to Baghdad during the time the CPA was governing Iraq, the brief said. That currency was deposited in the Central Bank of Iraq..."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/04/01/national/w145318S75.DTL

IRAQ WAR IS MOTOR FOR FOREIGN JIHAD

"Iraq is the motor," said a senior French anti-terrorism official, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons. "It's making them all go crazy, want to be shaheed [martyrs]. The danger of suicide attacks in Europe and the United States increases"... Iraq has become the new Chechnya, a promised land of jihad.. The Iraq war played a central role in radicalizing (Euopean Muslin youths)... they were obsessed with Iraq... "
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kidjihadis2apr02,0,3852038.story?coll=la-home-headlines

IRAQI GAS SUBSIDIZED BY U.S. TAXPAYERS

""Regular gasoline pump prices in the United States may average as high as $2.50 by Memorial Day..."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2611925

"While Americans are shelling out record prices for fuel, Iraqis pay only about 5 cents a gallon for gasoline -- a benefit of hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies bankrolled by U.S. taxpayers...."
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2611925