IRAQ FAILS TO MEET BUSH BENCHMARKS

"Iraq has managed to reach only three out of 18 progress benchmarks set by the US..."
--Draft report by US Government Accountability Office.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6970150.stm

"Pentagon disputes bleak GAO Iraq report... a few of the benchmark grades should be upgraded from 'not met' to 'met'..."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-08-29-gao-iraq_N.htm

CHOLERA OUTBREAK FROM WATER CONTAMINATED WITH SEWAGE

"An outbreak of cholera in two northern Iraqi provinces has killed eight people and infected 80 others... local health authorities were also treating 4,250 suspected cases of the disease in Sulaimaniya and Tamim... Serious problems with water quality and sewage treatment, worsened by crumbling local infrastructure, are being blamed... 70% of Iraq's population does not have adequate water supplies and that only 20% has access to effective sanitation.."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6921623.stm

ISRAEL: BUSH ATTACKED THE WRONG COUNTRY

"Israeli officials warned... that an invasion of Iraq would be destabilising to the region and urged the United States to instead target Iran as the primary enemy... the Israelis reacted immediately to indications that the Bush administration was thinking of war against Iraq. After the Israeli government picked up the first signs of that intention... "The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy -- Iran is the enemy"... the Israeli message to the Bush administration in early 2002... (was) "If you are going to destabilise the balance of power, do it against the main enemy."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39051

VIOLENCE HAS CREATED 4 MILLION IRAQI REFUGEES

"More than four million Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence, the largest population movement in the Middle East since Palestinians left the new state of Israel... Many are barely surviving in makeshift camps, inaccessible to aid workers for security reasons... More than 1.4 million have crossed into neighbouring Syria with between 500,000 and 750,000 heading into Jordan... The number of Iraqi asylum seekers in Europe in the first half of 2007 rose to nearly 20,000, the same number received during the whole of 2006... Only 133 Iraqi refugees have been allowed into the United States... (but) over 400 Iraqi refugees will travel to the US this month... (and) close to 2,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of September..."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070828/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestrefugees_070828172717

MID-EAST RECOGNIZES U.S. HAS LOST AND IRAN HAS GAINED

"... By eliminating Saddam Hussein... and installing a Shia-dominated government for the first time in Iraq's history, the United States strengthened Iran's clerical regime... Without lifting a finger, the Iranians became the most dominant regional power.... All regimes in the Middle East recognize that America has lost the war in Iraq... They're all maneuvering to protect their interests and to gain something out of the American defeat..."
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woiran265346912aug26,0,7481706,print.story

U.S. CONTRACTS ARE FINANCING THE INSURGENTS

"... insurgent groups have financed their war... with hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. rebuilding funds that they've extorted from Iraqi contractors in Anbar province... The Americans are handing out contracts and jobs to terrorists, bandits and gangsters... the arrangement makes sense for insurgents.... Insurgents control the roads... By granting safe passage to a truck loaded with $10,000 in goods, they receive a "protection fee" that can buy more weapons and vehicles... (also) The contracts are inflated, all of them. The insurgents get half... The Americans think you're hiring a security company, but how you execute it is something else entirely. This is how it's been working since Day 1..."

"... a contractor said... (of) a recent order he took to haul gravel to U.S. bases in Anbar. "If I do it in the Green Zone, it's just putting gravel in Hesco bags and it would be about $16,000. But they needed it for Ramadi and Fallujah. I submitted an invoice for $120,000 and I'd say about $100,000 of that went to the mujahideen."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/19232.html

SUCCESS OF SURGE HAS DOUBLED IRAQI DEATH TOLL

"... in June our troops launched a surge of operations that is helping... give families in liberated Iraqi cities a safer and more normal life... the success of the past couple of months have shown that conditions on the ground can change..."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/08/20070825.html

"... the death toll from sectarian attacks nationwide is running nearly double the year-ago pace... Iraq is suffering about double the number of war-related deaths nationwide compared with last year — an average daily toll of 33 in 2006, and 62 so far this year...
http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/247449.html

BUSH AND NAPOLEON IN IRAQ AND EGYPT

http://hnn.us/roundup/comments/17176.html

"... Both leaders invaded and occupied a major Arabic-speaking Muslim country; both harbored dreams of a "Greater Middle East"; both were surprised to find themselves enmeshed in long, bitter, debilitating guerrilla wars. Neither genuinely cared about grassroots democracy, but both found its symbols easy to invoke for gullible domestic publics. Substantial numbers of their new subjects quickly saw, however, that they faced occupations, not liberations..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH25Ak03.html

RECONSTRUCTION THROWING MONEY AT PROBLEMS

"... the Vo-Tech Iskandariyah Industrial School... workshop's ceiling were cracked or curved. The cafeteria floor had a gaping hole and concrete chunks. The auditorium was unfinished, with cracked floors and poorly painted walls peppered with holes... The contract shows the Iraqi contractor was paid $679,000... inexperienced soldiers do their best to scrutinize millions of dollars in contracts and monitor projects they don't fully comprehend... throwing money at the problems... (with) no training in drawing up contracts, handling bids or using worksheets..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/24/AR2007082402307.html?hpid=topnews

DETAINEE POPULATION

"The number of detainees held... in Iraq has swelled by 50 percent under the troop increase... with the inmate population growing to 24,500 today from 16,000 in February... Nearly 85 percent of the detainees in custody are Sunni Arabs... the other detainees are Shiites... of the Sunni detainees, about 1,800 claim allegiance to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia... the vast majority are not inspired by jihad or hate for the coalition or Iraqi government — the vast majority are inspired by money... The primary motivator is economic — they’re angry men because they don’t have jobs... The detainee population is overwhelmingly illiterate and unemployed..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/world/middleeast/25detain.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

SURGE HAS ACCELERATED FIGHTING, PARTITION AND FLIGHT

"... The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February... accelerating the partition of the country into sectarian enclaves.... American-led operations have brought new fighting, driving fearful Iraqis from their homes at much higher rates than before the tens of thousands of additional troops arrived..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/24/world/middleeast/24displaced.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

U.S.-SUPPORTED MILITARY COUP RUMORED FOR IRAQ

"A rumor is circulating among well-connected and formerly high-level Iraqi bureaucrats in exile in places like Damascus that a military coup is being prepared for Iraq... a military commission (majlis `askari) to take over the government... The military group is composed of internals, people who have the goal of securing the country even at the risk of no democracy... It is said that the Americans are supporting this behind the scenes."
http://www.juancole.com/2007/08/military-coup-planned-for-iraq.html

LACK OF WATER AND BAD WATER KILLING IRAQIS

"The collapse of Iraq's infrastructure has created a worsening water crisis that is killing untold numbers of Iraqis. Iraq, with its famous Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run the length of the country, is now unable to provide drinking water to most of its people... 70 percent of Iraqis are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50 percent in 2003... Much of the country is suffering severe lack of water, and the small quantities supplied are not good for human use. .. Iraqi hospitals are full of people with illnesses due to the unsafe water..."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38928

"... The U.S. company Bechtel, whose board members have close ties to the Bush administration, was to carry out reconstruction and rehabilitation of Iraq's water and electrical infrastructure. But it left the country without carrying out most such tasks..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38465

MALIKI A TOOL OF THE OCCUPATION, WILL NOT SURVIVE

"Al-Maliki's government will not survive because he has proven that he will not work with important elements of the Iraqi people. The Prime Minister is a tool for the Americans and people see that clearly. It will probably be the Americans who decide to change him when they realise he has failed. We don't have a democracy here, we have a foreign occupation."
-- Muqtada al-Sadr, interviewed in Kufa, Iraq, August 20, 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2878776.ece

2ND BADR ALLY OF IRAN KILLED BY I.E.D.

"... The killing of a second governor in the Shiite south is... a sign of an increasingly virulent Shiite on Shiite power struggle between SIIC (Shiite Iranian sympathizers) and the Sadrists (Shiite Iraqi nationalists), between the Badr Corps and the Mahdi Army...these assassinations have been strikes against Iranian influence in Iraq..."
http://www.juancole.com/2007/08/second-shiite-governor-slain-levin.html

August 20:
"The Shia governor of Iraq's southern Muthana province has been killed by a roadside bomb... Mohammed Ali al-Hasani... belonged to the largest Shia party in Iraq, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SiiC)... (and) was a key figure in the Badr Organisation, the military wing of SiiC. He is the second Shia governor killed this month... Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr... condemned the killings of both governors, describing them as "a secret plan by the occupiers to create the environment to stay in Iraq".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6954467.stm

August 12:
"A powerful roadside bomb has killed the governor and police chief of the southern Iraqi province of Qadisiya...The governor (Khalil Jalil Hamza) was a key figure in the Badr Organisation, the military wing of the largest Shia Muslim party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC)..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6942239.stm

NO IRANIAN TRAINERS FOUND IN IRAQ

"... U.S. military said... that Iranian soldiers are in Iraq training insurgents to attack American forces... (saying) recently discovered caches of weapons with Iranian markings on them indicate that the Iranians are there..."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/19049.html


U.S. ALLIED WITH IRANIAN-TRAINED GROUP IN IRAQ

"The US military hasn't found any Iranian trainers in Iraq or any training camps... What I cannot understand is why the Pentagon needs Iranians in Iraq as a plot device. The Iraqi Badr Corps, tens of thousands strong, was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and it has been alleged that some Badr corpsmen are still on the Iranian payroll. It is the paramilitary of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, America's chief ally in Iraq.... Why bother to send revolutionary guardsmen when the country is thick with Badr fighters anyway (who have all the same training)? I think the US is just embarrassed because Badr is its major ally in Iraq..."
http://www.juancole.com/2007/08/mortar-shells-kill-10-in-downtown.html

DEMOCRACY DISCREDITED BY IRAQ WAR

"... Bush had made democracy in the Middle East a cornerstone of his response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks... (but) The Iraq war has distracted Bush and... discredited his aspirations... Two and a half years after Bush pledged in his second inaugural address to spread democracy around the world, the grand project has bogged down in a bureaucratic and geopolitical morass..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/19/AR2007081901720.html?hpid=topnews

IRAQ WAR RECRUITERS "OPTED OUT" IN PUERTO RICO

On (Puerto Rico) with a long tradition of military service... pro-independence advocates are tapping the territory's growing anti-Iraq war sentiment... 57 percent of Puerto Rico's 10th-, 11th- and 12th-graders, or their parents, have signed forms over the past year withholding contact information from the Pentagon -- effectively barring U.S. recruiters from reaching out to an estimated 65,000 high school students.... opt-out rates for states in the continental United States rarely break beyond 10 percent..."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081702175.html?hpid=topnews

WHITE HOUSE TO WRITE PETRAEUS REPORT ON IRAQ

"Political Spin’ over Iraq Report... the White House want(s) to block public testimony in Congress next month from war commander General David Petraeus and US ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker... the assessment on the surge, required under US law, will be written at the White House, not personally by Crocker and Petraeus..."
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/17/3229/

NO CHRISTIAN VIDEO GAME FOR TROOPS

"Plans by a Christian group to send an evangelical video game to U.S. troops in Iraq were abruptly halted yesterday by the DOD after ABC News inquired about the program. Operation Start Up (OSU) Tour, an evangelical entertainment troupe that actively proselytizes among soldiers, will not be sending the "apocryphal" video game in care packages as planned... "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" was ... about the battle of Armageddon, in which believers of Jesus Christ fight the Antichrist... said the Rev. Timothy Simpson of the Christians Alliance for Progress. "You either kill or convert the other side. This is exactly what the Osama bin Ladens of the world have portrayed us."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/08/dod-stops-plan-.html

"The Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended... they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers. The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up, or OSU... the episode is just another example of increasingly disturbing, and indeed unconstitutional, relationships being forged between the U.S. military and private evangelical groups... despite what Operation Straight Up and its supporters in the Pentagon may think is taking place in Iraq, the Rapture is not a viable exit strategy."
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-aslan22aug22,1,2971273.story?coll=la-news-a_section&ctrack=1&cset=true

U.S. MISLEADING ON CAUSE OF CASUALTIES AND SOURCE OF E.F.P'S

"When a top top US commander in Iraq reported last week that attacks by Shi'ite militias... killed or wounded US forces in Baghdad, he claimed it was because of an effort by Iran to oust the United States from Iraq, referring to "intelligence reports" of a "surge" in Iranian assistance... (but) the obvious reason for the rise in Shi'ite-related US casualties... is that the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr was defending itself against a rising tempo of attacks by US forces at the same time attacks by al-Qaeda forces had fallen..."

"On April 8, Muqtada issued a statement urged the Iraqi Army and police to stop cooperating with the United States and told his guerrilla fighters to concentrate on pushing US forces out of the country. Thus it requires no Iranian hand to explain... the changing pattern of US casualties in Baghdad..."

"... The administration... (also) continues to assert that EFPs are provided by the Iranian government, despite numerous discoveries by US forces of workshops manufacturing such devices in Iraq..."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH16Ak04.html

CHENEY SAID INVADING BAGHDAD WOULD CREATE QUAGMIRE

"In this interview from April 15th, 1994, Dick Cheney reveals the reasons why invading Baghdad and toppling Saddam Hussein wouldn't be a great idea. He also stipulates that "not very many" American soldiers' lives were worth losing to take out Saddam during the Gulf War.... This clip was originally aired on C-SPAN3 [History] on the evening of Thursday, August 9th."
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6BEsZMvrq-I

IRAQ BY THE NUMBERS

All kinds of numbers...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH15Ak03.html

FATIQUE CRIPPLING ARMY IN IRAQ

"Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq... A whole army is exhausted and worn out... a chaplain's assistant who has come to bless a patrol (says) 'Why don't you tell the truth? Why don't you journalists write that this army is exhausted?'... the public affairs team adds bitterly: 'We should just be allowed to tell the media what is happening here. Let them know that people are worn out..."
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2147052,00.html

ALLY OF IRAN KILLED BY I.E.D.

"A powerful roadside bomb has killed the governor and police chief of the southern Iraqi province of Qadisiya...The governor (Khalil Jalil Hamza) was a key figure in the Badr Organisation, the military wing of the largest Shia Muslim party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC)..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6942239.stm

"Militiamen deployed a powerful roadside bomb to kill the governor and police chief of Qadisiya Province, the capital of which is Diwaniya. Gov. Khalil Jalil Hamza (was) of the Badr Organization... the Badr Corps, the paramilitary of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, was formed in Tehran in the 1980s, trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and may still be in some part on the Iranian payroll. So Iran (had) a Badr commander as governor of Qadisiya province... That roadside bomb did not come from Iran; if Iran was going to give such bombs to anyone, it would be to the Badr Corps itself, not the enemies of Badr..."
http://www.juancole.com/index.html/2007/08/guerrillas-kill-governor-of-qadisiya.html

BAATH PARTY STATEMENT ON U.S.-DRAFTED OIL LAW

Ba'th Party Issues Statement Warning of Reprisals Over Iraq Oil Law Approval
Jihadist Websites -- OSC Summary
Friday, August 10, 2007

"First, control of the oil of Iraq was "one of the most important objectives" behind the US occupation of Iraq, not only to steal more other nations natural resources, but also in order that the United States uses oil as a means to "intimidate" the whole world, particularly the major powers, and "establish the global American dictatorship."

"Second, the "securing" of Iraqi oil and maintaining it under the control of the Iraqi people is one of the most important goals of the Ba'th Party and the armed Iraqi resistance... The party wants to assure all Arabs and Iraqis that keeping Iraqi oil under the sovereign control of the people of Iraq will be the best indicator of the independence of Iraq. When the "military liberation" of Iraq is accomplished, it only will be complete when the oil is liberated and returned to the people of Iraq..."

http://www.juancole.com/index.html/2007/08/baath-party-seeks-information-on-shiite.html

IRAN TO HELP IRAQ
"Al-Maliki... had a warm meeting Wednesday evening with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, walking hand-in-hand with him into an ornate meeting room... Iranian support boosts al-Maliki amid Iraq's political turmoil... Iraqi and Iranian officials also sought to increase the already surging economic ties between the two oil-rich countries... Iran would build a power station in the Shiite Sadr City enclave and supply Iraq directly with electricity. Iran would also provide 363,000 tonnes of kerosene and liquid gas this year."
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2007/08/08/4401847-ap.html

U.S. FINALLY ALLOWING SUNNI INSURGENTS TO COMBAT AL QAEDA

"... Sunni leaders in Anbar were complaining that U.S. military operations were strengthening al Qaeda by disarming local Sunni forces. The Sunni leaders were pleading for the U.S. military to arm Sunnis in the province... (so now) in Anbar (province)... Sunnis have replaced U.S. forces and largely Shiite troops in providing security against al Qaeda... they are unofficially approved Sunni militias. The same arrangements have now been extended to other Sunni provinces and to Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad... (General) Petraeus admitted that the Sunnis "can figure out who al Qaeda is a heck of a lot better then we can..."

"... (but) The Sunni insurgents do not acknowledge their insurgent affiliation to the U.S. forces... (and) remain committed to expelling the "occupation" once al Qaeda has been defeated..."

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38844

U.S. GENOCIDE IN IRAQ: 3 MILLION DEATHS

"... the U.S. invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq in and of itself constitutes a kind of genocide. American economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s killed one million civilians... And the U.S. funded both sides of the Iran/Iraq war in the 1980’s, contributing to well over one million Arab and Persian casualties... Now an additional 996,836 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion in 2003..."
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/07/3059/

SEGREGATION ON U.S. BASE

"... at (Forward Operating Base Warhorse) about four miles west of Baqouba, Iraqis — including interpreters who walk the same foot patrols and sleep in the same tents as U.S. troops — must use segregated bathrooms... soldiers traced the regulations to what they called cultural differences between the Iraqis and the Americans... the Iraqis who're paid $80,000 to $120,000 a year for their interpreting services are offended..."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/18685.html

IRAQI POWER GRID NEARS COLLAPSE

"Power cuts worsen as Iraqi grid nears collapse... Provinces refuse to share electricity across country... Supplies meet only half of demand in 45C (113F) heat..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2142312,00.html

FAKE WAR OPPPONENTS

"... Far too many of the newcomers are fakes. They shout loudly that they want the war to end now. But they choose their words very carefully. They talk about withdrawing troops but are careful never to say "all troops." They endorse withdrawing "combat" troops (a technical term that covers less than half of all U.S. forces in Iraq) or just "starting to withdraw" troops. They oppose "establishing" permanent bases, but they don't say anything against keeping the bases (some of them small cities) that have already been built. And they would let the Pentagon decide which bases are officially "permanent." They never mention the ever-increasing air war, nor the civilian forces... Behind that smokescreen, the fakes are busy building support for the next phase of the war. In that phase, tens of thousands (perhaps up to a hundred thousand) U.S. troops would stay in Iraq..."
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/aug/05/the-real-debate-about-iraq-is-between-real-fake/

U.S. HAS FAILED TO DELIVER 2/3 OF IRAQ ARMY EQUIPMENT

"The US... has failed to deliver nearly two-thirds of the equipment it promised to Iraq's army... The Pentagon said only 14.5 million of the nearly 40 million items of equipment ordered by the Iraqi army had been provided..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6918536.stm

190,000 GUNS GIVEN TO IRAQI FORCES NOW MISSING

"... the Government Accountability Office (GAO) which is an independent US government agency... says that, of some 185,000 assault rifles and 170,000 pistols that the Pentagon says it supplied to the Iraqi security forces, it can account for less than half: there is a discrepancy of 110,000 in the case of AK-47s, and 80,000 pistols. The gaps in the figures for body armour and helmets are even bigger - only 80,000 out of a total of 215,000 sets of body armour accounted for, and only 25,000 out of 140,000 helmets... There is the fear... that many of the missing weapons have found their way into the hands of insurgents..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6933569.stm

OCCUPATION BY AIR A SIGN OF DEFEAT

"... U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft dropped five times as many bombs in Iraq during the first six months of this year as over the first half of 2006,... the dramatic escalation in U.S. military use of air power is a sign of defeat for the occupation forces on the ground... the U.S. military have actually failed in finding solutions on the ground and are now back to air raids that kill more civilians than militants... On the other hand, they are giving away the land to local forces that they know are incapable of facing the militants, who will grab the first chance of U.S. withdrawal to bases to hit back and hold the ground again... Going back to air raids is an alarming sign of defeat,... To bombard an area only means that it is in the hands of the enemy..."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=38726