BASRA IS LOST

"Basra is lost, they are in control now. It's a full-scale riot and the Government are just trying to save face. I want people to see it as it is; not the sugar-coated version. We have overstayed our welcome now. We should speed up the withdrawal. It's a lost battle. We should pull out and call it quits."
--Private Paul Barton, 1st Battalion, Staffordshire Regiment, who returned from his second tour of Iraq this week.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/article2489444.ece

REBUILDING OF IRAQ MISSING GOALS

"... leaving the country plagued by power outages, inadequate oil production and shortages of clean water and health care, according to a report... by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction...
- less than a third of Iraq's 3.5 million students attend class...
- only 15 of 141 primary health-care centers have been completed ...only eight are open...
- Before the U.S.-led invasion, Iraq's power system produced 4,500 megawatts a day...
- in the most recent quarter, Iraq generated only 3,832 megawatts a day...
- Before the war, Baghdad received an average of 16 to 24 hours of power a day...
- during the last week of March, the city received only 6.5 hours a day...
- only 24 of 56 projects planned to upgrade the transmission of power have been completed..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/29/AR2007042901414.html?%20hpid=topnews

IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION NOT WORKING

"Six out of eight Iraqi reconstruction projects hailed as successes by the US government are in fact failures, a US federal investigation has found. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction... said most were falling apart within as little as six months... the speed and scale of the deterioration was so bad that it was doubtful whether some of the projects would even survive..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6607039.stm

BUSH ADMINISTRATION STILL SEEKING WAR CZAR

“What we need... is someone with a lot of stature within the government who can make things happen.”
--Stephen J. Hadley, President Bush’s national security adviser
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/washington/30hadley.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

DEMOCRATIC PLAN SETS UP ENDLESS WAR

"The language on a timetable for US withdrawal from Iraq voted out of the House and Senate conference committee this week contains large loopholes that would apparently allow US troops to continue carrying out military operations in Iraq's Sunni heartland indefinitely... The plan,... makes an exemption from a 180-day timetable for completion of "redeployment" of US troops from Iraq to allow "targeted special actions limited in duration and scope to killing or capturing members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations of global reach". The al-Qaeda exemption, along with a second exemption allowing US forces to re-enter Iraq to protect those remaining behind to train and equip Iraqi security forces and to protect other US military forces, appears to approve the presence in Iraq of tens of thousands of US occupation troops for many years to come."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ID27Ak02.html
or
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37494

TENET: AL QAEDA IS ALREADY HERE

"... The administration’s latest reason to stay the course in Iraq is, “If we leave they will follow us home.”
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1379.shtml

"... What's different about this conflict than some others is that if we fail there, the enemy will follow us here."
-- President Bush, February 14, 2007
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/02/20070214-2.html

"... Mr. Tenet expresses puzzlement that, since 2001, Al Qaeda has not sent “suicide bombers to cause chaos in a half-dozen American shopping malls on any given day. I do know one thing in my gut,” he writes. “Al Qaeda is here and waiting.”
--Former CIA director George Tenet in his book “At the Center of the Storm"
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/27/washington/27intel.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1177678991-r6vk2Pl0DDv7y2KH8Zc68w

DROP IN IRAQ VIOLENCE EXCLUDES CAR BOMBS

"U.S. officials exclude car bombs... one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians... in touting drop in Iraq violence... not counting bombing victims skews the evidence of how well the Baghdad security plan is protecting the civilian population - one of the surge's main goals... Since the administration keeps saying that failure is not an option, they are redefining success in a way that suits them..."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17134253.htm

PARLIAMENT BOMB WAS TO KILL OPPONENTS OF OIL LAW

"The attack on the Iraqi parliament was very strange. I don't think it was a suicide bomber. Take a look at this video and note that the explosion is way bigger than what an explosive belt would do. Besides, why would anyone blow himself up to kill the only anti-occupation group in the greenzone? The official spokesman of a secular group that lost an MP in the explosion announced that the attack was aimed at silencing "nationalist MPs who are against splitting Iraq and against the oil law..."
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2007/04/iraqi-nationalists-leaving-government.html

INTERESTING CLAUSE IN U.S. OIL LAW FOR IRAQ

"An English version of a new Iraqi oil law leaked in mid 2006... had some exact text from a previously leaked seminar papers produced by a private contracting company called “Bearing Point”.
"According to the new oil law, the foreign oil companies will have exclusive rights to produce oil from certain fields. They do not have to do any work during the first 10 years, which is called the “exploration period” in the law. This 10 year period is very convenient for foreign oil companies so that they won’t do any work while Iraq is violent and unstable, but they’ll make sure that no one else will produce the Iraqi oil for the next 10 years. When foreign oil companies think the time is appropriate to start working, they can produce oil for up to 25 years with huge profits because they own a certain percent of the oil..."
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/2007/04/new-oil-law-will-increase-violence-in.html

UN CRITICIZES IRAQ'S HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD

"The UN has sharply criticised Iraq's human rights record, in the two months since a new security plan was launched... (saying) Iraqi authorities had failed to guarantee the basic rights of about 3,000 people they had detained in the operations... Report key facts:
* 3,000 people arrested since launch of Baghdad security plan in mid-February
* 37,000 people detained in Iraqi and US prisons, many without charge or trial
* 54% of Iraqi live on less than a US dollar a day
* 69% unemployment rate..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6591151.stm

JESSICA LYNCH TESTIFIES ABOUT ARMY PROPAGANDA

"... at a congressional hearing on the use of misleading information... former US private Jessica Lynch today condemned what she said were Pentagon efforts to turn her into a "little girl Rambo", and accused military chiefs of using "elaborate tales" to try to make her into a hero of the Iraq war... She said the (Army) reports were lies: she had been treated well and the Iraqis had tried to return her to US forces... Ms Lynch criticised the Pentagon, saying: "I'm still confused why they lied and tried to make me into a legend."
http://www.guardian.co.
uk/usa/story/0,,2064617,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1
and
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2007/04/24/couricandco/entry2723818.shtml

CHANGES IN DESCRIPTION OF WAR

"... the Bush administration... has often said the United States is involved in a “long war”... to signal to the American public that the country was involved in a lengthy struggle that went well beyond the war in Iraq... In 2005, the Pentagon argued that the phrase “war on terror” should be replaced by “global struggle against violent extremism"... (and now Central Command's) decision to drop the “long war” terminology was reported by The Tampa Tribune..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/washington/24policy.html

U.S. BLAMED FOR BLOODY WEDNESDAY

"Iraqis blame the U.S. occupation for the failure of two parallel security plans drawn up by U.S. forces and Iraqi troops that failed dramatically with the bombings last week that killed more than 300 people in Baghdad... many people around Baghdad are blaming the occupation forces and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government... "We do not know who is killing us, but we do know who is responsible for our safety..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37449

BAGHDAD PLAN FALTERS

"Despair stalks Baghdad as plan falters... The Sunni extremists... seem to be making a mockery of the US and Iraqi security plan, which is now into its third month. So far, their surge seems to be having more effect than the American one... An average of 80-90 Americans die each month. And US personnel have just had their tours extended by another three months... But it is the Iraqis who suffer most... at the end of another week of unspeakable, random carnage, hundreds more Iraqi families are grieving... And there are no signs of change."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6575717.stm

MARINES DEVALUED IRAQI LIVES

"The US Marine Corps fostered a climate that devalued Iraqi lives... "All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics...the marines thought Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as US lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes..."
--Maj Gen Eldon Bargewell, Haditha massacre inquiry
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6579511.stm

TRAINING IRAQI TROOPS DID NOT WORK

"... President Bush first announced the training strategy in the summer of 2005. "Our strategy can be summed up this way. As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down"... (But) Military analysts cite a number of reasons that the training program didn't work... Training Iraqi troops (is) no longer (the) driving force in U.S. policy... No new training resources have been included in U.S. plans to dispatch 28,000 additional troops to Iraq... Military planners have abandoned the idea that standing up Iraqi troops will enable American soldiers to start coming home soon and now believe that U.S. troops will have to defeat the insurgents and secure control of troubled provinces... "
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17104704.htm

A NEW WALL

"(The U.S.) is constructing a 3-mile-long concrete wall to cut off one of the capital's most restive Sunni Arab districts (Adhamiya) from the Shiite Muslim neighborhoods... the 407th Brigade Support Battalion, part of the 82nd Airborne Division... have ventured out almost nightly after curfew, overseeing installation of the 14,000-pound wall segments, using giant construction cranes and employing Iraqi crews... Soldiers have dubbed the project the "The Great Wall of Adhamiya"... Shiite and Sunni Arabs living in the shadow of the barrier were united in their contempt for the imposing new structure... (and) likened the project to the massive barriers built by Israel around some Palestinian zones..."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-wall20apr20,0,5085656.story?coll=la-home-headlines

PREVIOUS WALLS

"...the Berlin Wall was 96 miles long... Israel's barrier, still under construction, is expected to reach at least 403 miles in length. The average height of the Berlin Wall was 11.8 feet, compared with the maximum current height of Israel's Wall -- 25 feet."
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1775.shtml

Map of Israel's Wall:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/middle_east_israel0s_security_barrier/img/2.jpg

"... To deter arms smugglers and foreign militants, the 101st Airborne Division built a 15-foot-high earthen barrier earlier this year along 200 miles of the border with Syria."
http://nytimes.com/2004/04/20/international/middleeast/20BORD.html

"...The Green Zone... its 15ft concrete wall now stretches for 20 miles, enclosing a vast area of central Baghdad."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/04/02/wirq102.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/04/02/ixnewstop.html

IRAQ COULD OVERTAKE SAUDI ARABIA IN OIL PRODUCTION

"... a study by energy analysts IHS... found that Iraq had known reserves of 116 billion barrels and could be sitting on a further 100 billion barrels.... If these reserves were exploited, it said, Iraq could overtake Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6570623.stm

BAQUBA, WAITING FOR DEATH

"Baquba, capital city of Iraq's Diyala province is located 50 kilometers northeast of Baghdad on the Diyala river. In 2002 the estimated population was 280,000... well over half of our city has left, and those who remain never leave their homes. Those who are left sit in their homes and wait for their death. They may take their fate from a terrorist entering their house, or a car bomb, or a shooting"... al-Qaeda is largely in control of the city, and that US forces are doing little to stop them... Americans only control one kilometer of... the main road where the governor's office and court building are in central Baquba..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ID18Ak01.html

U.S. COMPANIES TO GET CONTROL OF PRIVATIZED IRAQ OIL

"The most notable feature of the (Iraq Oil) law is a revival of an exploitive type of contract... known as a production sharing agreement... the Oil Law uses an alternative term, “exploration and production contract”... (allowing) the bulk of Iraq’s reserves to be controlled by outside oil companies... The other major Middle Eastern oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya, and Iran... all maintain national control over oil, bringing in foreign corporations only as needed using technical service contracts, under which control is not relinquished and there is no sharing of profits..."
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/18/606/

OIL IN IRAQ WORTH $21 TRILLION

"According to a 2002 estimate by the Energy Department, the quantity of proven, probable, and possible reserves in Iraq is approximately 330 billion barrels. At today’s $64 per barrel, that’s $21 trillion dollars worth of oil... that’s $70,000 per U.S. citizen or $200,000 per household..."
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/18/606/

U.S. MILITARY IN IRAQ POSITIONING FOR IRAN WAR

"... It now appears that the US military intends to place as many as five mechanised brigades - comprising about 40,000 men - south and east of Baghdad, at least three of them positioned between the capital and the Iranian border. This would present Iran with a powerful - and potentially aggressive - American military force close to its border in the event of a US or Israeli military strike against its nuclear facilities later this year..."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2439530.ece

FIVE OVERLAPPING WARS WILL PREVENT U.S. CONTROL OF OIL AND BASES

"... overlapping wars in Iraq:
- the Sunni Arab guerrilla struggle against the US;
- strands of Sunni Arab guerrillas against assorted Shi'ite militias/death squads;
- al-Qaeda in Iraq against the puppet, US-backed Iraqi government in the Green Zone;
- the Sunni Arab guerrilla war against the government inside the Green Zone;
- the Sadrists, from Sadr City to Kufa and Najaf, against the Americans.
All strands of these five overlapping wars will never allow... Anglo-American Big Oil to control Iraq's oil wealth. Even if the new oil law is ratified by Parliament before June, implementation will be a certified nightmare, and security for billions of dollars of necessary investment (will be) non-existent... these five overlapping wars also will never accept the long-term imposition of vast US military bases under a Status of Forces Agreement..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ID14Ak01.html

GIVE BUSH CREDIT FOR IRAQ BEING PART OF A PLAN

"Give the Bush administration credit... The post-September 11 strike at Afghanistan was never simply a strike at al-Qaeda... It was always a prelude to war against Saddam's Iraq. And the invasion of Iraq was never meant to end in Baghdad (as indicated in the neo-con prewar quip, "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran"). Nor was Tehran to be the end of the line. Under the rubric of the "global war on terror", they were considering literally dozens of countries as potential future targets..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ID13Ak07.html

IRAQI RESISTANCE EXISTS TO END U.S. OCCUPATION

"... There is only one solution to this disaster, and that is for the US and Britain to accept that the Iraqi resistance is fighting to end the occupation. And to acknowlege that it consists of ordinary Iraqis, not only al-Qaida, not just Sunnis or Shias, not those terrorists... inspired by neighbouring countries such as Iran. To recognise that Iraqis are proud, peace-loving people, and that they hate occuption, not each other. And to understand that the main targets of the resistance are not Iraqi civilians. According to Brookings, the independent US research institute, 75% of recorded attacks are directed at occupation forces, and a further 17% at Iraqi government forces... Without the Iraqi people's support, directly and indirectly, this level of resistance would not have happened."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2054881,00.html

ARMY PAID $32 MILLION FOR WRONGFUL IRAQI WAR DEATHS

"The US military has paid at least $33 million to civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan for wrongful deaths and injuries... (information was) obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under an open government law... Of the $33 million paid out in such claims, $32 million was for incidents in Iraq..."
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2007/April/theworld_April309.xml§ion=theworld&col=

BUSH LOOKING FOR A WAR CZAR

"The White House wants to appoint a high-powered czar to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with authority to issue directions to the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, but it has had trouble finding anyone able and willing to take the job... At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined... the difficulty in finding someone to take the job shows that Bush has exhausted his ability to sign up top people to help salvage a disastrous war..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/10/AR2007041001776.html?hpid=topnews

REFUGEES ESCAPE FROM HELL OF BAGHDAD

"I used to work with the Americans near Kut (in the south)," Sa'ad Hussein, a 34-year-old electrical engineer told IPS. "I worked for Kellogg, Brown & Root in construction of an Iraqi base there"... Hussein, who left three months back, described Baghdad as a "city of ghosts" where black banners of death announcements can be seen hanging on most streets. The city, he said, lives on an hour of electricity a day, and there are no jobs to be had..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37302

POLICY IN IRAQ SPAWNING NEW TERROR

"The British and US policy towards Iraq has "spawned new terror in the region"... The countries had tried to "keep the lid on" problems by military force and had failed to address the root causes... (while) Iran, Syria and North Korea had become "emboldened", while the Taleban was on the rise in Afghanistan...."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6542567.stm

IMMENSE SUFFERING OF IRAQIS GETTING WORSE

"Iraqis face 'immense' suffering... (and) The International Committee of the Red Cross says the situation for ordinary Iraqis is getting steadily worse.... every aspect of life in Iraq is getting worse - a trip to the market has become a matter of life and death.... The report also highlights the following problems:
* Iraq's healthcare facilities face critical shortages of staff and supplies. Many doctors, nurses and patients no longer dare to go to hospitals and clinics because they are targeted or threatened
* much of Iraq's vital water, sewage and electricity infrastructure is in a critical condition
* food shortages have been reported in some areas and malnutrition is said to have increased..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6543377.stm

COUNT OF 650,000 IRAQI WAR DEATHS WAS ACCURATE

"... the government's own scientists advised ministers that the Johns Hopkins study on Iraq civilian mortality was accurate and reliable, following a freedom of information request... Published in the Lancet last October... it estimated that 650,000 Iraqi civilians had died since the American and British led invasion in March 2003... Scientists at the UK's Department for International Development... concluded that the study's methods were "tried and tested"... "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2044345,00.html

MID EAST PRESS UNITED OVER IRAQ AS A TRAGEDY

"Four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein, press opinion across the Middle East is united in its condemnation of the invasion of Iraq as an unmitigated disaster. Most commentators accuse US President George W Bush and his allies of turning the country into a "republic of real fear", although some do describe the Iraqi insurgency as a shining example of resistance to foreign occupation..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6538229.stm

IRAQIS REGRET INVASION

"... "We got rid of a tyrant and tyranny. But we were surprised that after one thief had left, another 40 replaced him... (now) we regret that Saddam Hussein is gone, no matter how much we hated him...."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/08/AR2007040801058.html?hpid=topnews

"We live at this moment and so far 48 months of anxiety, oppression and occupational tyranny have passed, four years which have only brought us more death, destruction and humiliation. Every day tens are martyred, tens are crippled and every day we see and hear U.S. interference in every aspect of our lives, which means that we are not sovereign, not independent and therefore not free. This is what Iraq has harvested from the U.S. invasion."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-ex-iraq9apr09,1,7487564.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=2&cset=true

IRAQI MINISTER DETAILS SHOCKING U.S. MISMANAGEMENT OF IRAQ

"... an Iraqi government insider details in 500 pages the U.S. occupation's "shocking" mismanagement of his country — a performance so bad, he writes, that by 2007 Iraqis had "turned their backs on their would-be liberators"... "The corroded and corrupt state of Saddam was replaced by the corroded, inefficient, incompetent and corrupt state of the new order"... (and) the Americans' "insipid retelling of "success' stories" merely hid "the huge black hole that lay underneath."
--Ali A. Allawi, Iraq's trade, defense and finance minister at various times since 2003
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070408/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_insider_s_account

BUILDING PRISONS FOR 22,000 MORE CAPTIVES OF SECURITY PLAN

"To deal with more detentions, the US is building facilities and adding military police.... For the past several years, the United States itself has held about 13,000 individuals captive and now holds about 18,000 captives. But as the Baghdad security plan also known as Fard Al Kanoon moves forward, (General) Petraeus is planning for the possibility of holding as many as 40,000 captives. Most are being held at two facilities, one at Camp Cropper in Baghdad and another at Camp Bucca, south of the city...."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0406/p02s01-usmi.html

SUNNI INSURGENTS CONDEMN AL QAEDA TACTICS

"A Sunni insurgent group... the Islamic Army of Iraq... comprised mainly of former Baathists and military officers from the Saddam Hussein era... has called on Osama Bin Laden to exert more control over al-Qaeda members there... it called on al-Qaeda to review its behaviour in the country...."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6533865.stm
and
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A6EC4EAB-854C-4D2F-A922-754648CDED8D.htm

U.S. CREATED A STRONG AL QAEDA IN IRAQ

"... There is no doubt that the US and the existed Iraqi political groups have failed to solve the security issue.... There are not enough words or language to describe the misery and sadness of the whole situation in Iraq now... The USA and the world with it have failed in its war against the terror and we will see new kind of attacks and new generations of terrorists in the near future. Indeed there were no Al-Qaeda terrorists in Iraq before the invasion and it is very strong now."
--Hammorabi, Iraqi blogger, 4/03/2007
http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/2007/04/failure-of-war-against-terror.html

BANK LINKS SADDAM, BIN LADEN AND BUSHES

"Now that the U.S. Congress is investigating the truth of President George W. Bush's statements about the Iraq war, they might look into one of his most startling assertions: that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden... The link between Hussein and Bin Laden was their banker, BCCI. But the link went beyond the dictator and the jihadist -- it passed through Saudi Arabia and stretched all the way to George W. Bush and his father. BCCI was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a dirty offshore bank that then-president Ronald Reagan's Central Intelligence Agency used to run guns to Hussein... (and) finance Osama bin Laden..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37212

IRAQ OCCUPATION PRODUCING FUTURE AL QAEDA LEADERS

"... Experts say they still see Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as largely independent of Al Qaeda’s hub in Pakistan but that they believe the fighting in Iraq will produce future Qaeda leaders. “The jihadis returning from Iraq are far more capable than the mujahedeen who fought the Soviets ever were,” said Robert Richer, who was associate director of operations in 2004 and 2005 for the C.I.A. “They have been fighting the best military in the world, with the best technology and tactics.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/02/world/middleeast/02qaeda.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

KISSINGER: IRAQ VICTORY IMPOSSIBLE

"Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger... said the problems in Iraq are more complex than that conflict, and military victory is no longer possible..."
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/iraq+victory+impossible++kissinger/371257

"Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday. Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter into dialogue with Iraq's regional neighbors _ including Iran _ if progress is to be made in the region..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/19/AR2006111900287.html

IRAQI RELEASED AFTER 5-YEAR GUANTANAMO "NIGHTMARE"

"An Iraqi held at the US base in Guantanamo Bay for nearly five years says his "nightmare is finally at an end"... Mr Al-Rawi was arrested in November 2002 while on a business trip to Gambia... He returned to the family home in London this weekend... His lawyer... said that Mr Al-Rawi was showing signs of... psychosis, which affects prisoners held in high-security compounds... (and) described the conditions in which Mr Al-Rawi was held as "worse than any death row I've ever seen."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1886960.htm

NEW IRAQ OIL LAW FIRST DRAFTED IN HOUSTON BEFORE INVASION

"... In the months before the March 2003 invasion, members of the U.S. State Department “Oil and Energy Working Group” met to plan how to open Iraq to international oil companies.... the oil law now proposed by the Iraqi Council of Ministers is a virtual photocopy of a plan first drafted by U.S. oil industry executives and consultants in Houston long before Iraq was “liberated.” The proposed Petroleum Law creates a Federal Oil and Gas Council on which would sit representatives of Exxon- Mobil, Shell, BP, etc., whose tasks include approving their own contracts..."
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/01/236/

DOCTORS FLEE HOSPITALS

"Iraqi medical crisis as doctors flee... Most of the best medical staff have left after being targeted by insurgents... Drugs and equipment are almost non-existent. The notorious militias target patients inside hospitals, and doctors inside the health ministry... All this in a country that used to pride itself on the best medical services in the Middle East. As for the billions of dollars spent on reconstruction, these doctors say they saw a little of it. But most was wasted on shoddy furniture and poor decorations... Some money has gone on high-tech machinery. But it is useless, say the doctors, because no one knows how to use it..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6479997.stm