BUSH DELAYS WITHDRAWAL TO MAKE McCAIN LOOK GOOD
"... as Obama wrapped up meetings with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh reiterated his government’s stance, saying “the end of 2010 is the appropriate time for the withdrawal”... (But) Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said that as part of the security agreement, Bush wanted U.S. troops to stay in Iraq even longer. “It was a U.S. proposal for the date which is 2015, and an Iraqi one which is 2010, then we agreed to make it 2011,” Talabani said... the White House communications staff were concerned that Maliki’s endorsement of the 2010 time line would damage Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign."
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/09/23/maliki-bush-mccain-iraq/
"... The Bush administration... negotiators pushed the date from 2010 -- the year suggested by both Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki -- to 2011. According to Maliki in an interview with an Iraqi TV station, this change came from the administration's concern over the "domestic situation" in the U.S. (that is, the needs of the McCain campaign)."
http://tomdispatch.com/post/174982/chalmers_johnson_the_pentagon_bailout_fraud
Thursday, September 25, 2008
BAGHDAD'S MAIN HOSPITAL
"Baghdad Medical City, built once as the centre for some of the best medical care... has over a thousand beds for patients...
- Not even the elevators work now... take the stairs, sometimes to the 18th floor.
- no air-conditioning in the building...
- not even safe to drink tap water... even to wash their hands.
- Equipment is often not sterilised...
- medicines... out of date... lack almost all basic antibiotics...
- sometimes not even basic material for intravenous treatment...
- no senior doctors... Most of them left...
- two hours of electricity a day..."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43997
"Baghdad Medical City, built once as the centre for some of the best medical care... has over a thousand beds for patients...
- Not even the elevators work now... take the stairs, sometimes to the 18th floor.
- no air-conditioning in the building...
- not even safe to drink tap water... even to wash their hands.
- Equipment is often not sterilised...
- medicines... out of date... lack almost all basic antibiotics...
- sometimes not even basic material for intravenous treatment...
- no senior doctors... Most of them left...
- two hours of electricity a day..."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43997
IRAQI RED CROSS CEASES AFTER SCANDAL
"The Iraqi Red Crescent... has been crippled by allegations of embezzlement and mismanagement... (including) the inappropriate expenditure of more than $1 million on Washington lobbying firms in an unsuccessful effort to win U.S. funding. The group's former president, Said I. Hakki, an Iraqi American urologist recruited by Bush administration officials to resuscitate Iraq's health-care system, left the country this summer after the issuance of arrest warrants for him and his deputies... The group has ceased nearly all its humanitarian work in recent months after the government froze its assets."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092403938.html?hpid=topnews
"The Iraqi Red Crescent... has been crippled by allegations of embezzlement and mismanagement... (including) the inappropriate expenditure of more than $1 million on Washington lobbying firms in an unsuccessful effort to win U.S. funding. The group's former president, Said I. Hakki, an Iraqi American urologist recruited by Bush administration officials to resuscitate Iraq's health-care system, left the country this summer after the issuance of arrest warrants for him and his deputies... The group has ceased nearly all its humanitarian work in recent months after the government froze its assets."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/24/AR2008092403938.html?hpid=topnews
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
$13 BILLION OF U.S. FUNDS WASTED OR STOLEN, SOME DIVERTED TO AL-QAEDA.
"... Salam Adhoob, a former chief investigator for Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee... that more than $13 billion meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through elaborate fraud schemes... Investigations by Iraqi oversight agencies also found that some of the money sent to the Defense Ministry was diverted to al-Qaeda in Iraq, Adhoob said, and deposited into banks in Jordan and elsewhere."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092202053.html
"... Salam Adhoob, a former chief investigator for Iraq's Commission on Public Integrity, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee... that more than $13 billion meant for reconstruction projects in Iraq was wasted or stolen through elaborate fraud schemes... Investigations by Iraqi oversight agencies also found that some of the money sent to the Defense Ministry was diverted to al-Qaeda in Iraq, Adhoob said, and deposited into banks in Jordan and elsewhere."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/22/AR2008092202053.html
Saturday, September 20, 2008
IRAQ REJECTING U.S.PLAN FOR OIL, WILL OWN THEIR OIL
"... Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Al Shahristani... signed a $3b contract with the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)... for the development of the Ahdab field... the deal with China (may) set a precedent that will derail the American oil project in Iraq... Iraq’s oil would remain in sovereign Iraqi hands (via the Iraq National Oil Company), and foreign participants would not have any ownership rights over it... foreign companies would be... paid a fee for their services... Iraq would not sign with western companies Production Sharing Agreements (PSA) — a concept that evolved in the 60s — which allowed foreign participants to profit from the sale of oil they had been involved in extracting."
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/17/stories/2008091756161100.htm
"... Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Al Shahristani... signed a $3b contract with the state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC)... for the development of the Ahdab field... the deal with China (may) set a precedent that will derail the American oil project in Iraq... Iraq’s oil would remain in sovereign Iraqi hands (via the Iraq National Oil Company), and foreign participants would not have any ownership rights over it... foreign companies would be... paid a fee for their services... Iraq would not sign with western companies Production Sharing Agreements (PSA) — a concept that evolved in the 60s — which allowed foreign participants to profit from the sale of oil they had been involved in extracting."
http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/17/stories/2008091756161100.htm
Friday, September 12, 2008
45% OF DEATHS IN SOUTH DUE TO WAR-RELATED CANCER
"... Over the years the local population [in the south] has been exposed to the most serious radiation and chemical factors resulting from war... statistics from local morgues and hospitals, have shown... 45 percent of deaths in the southern provinces are caused by cancer..."
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/consequences/2007/0531cancer.htm
"... Over the years the local population [in the south] has been exposed to the most serious radiation and chemical factors resulting from war... statistics from local morgues and hospitals, have shown... 45 percent of deaths in the southern provinces are caused by cancer..."
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/consequences/2007/0531cancer.htm
Monday, September 08, 2008
U.S. HAS LOST IRAQ TO IRAN
"... the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has made it all too clear that, in the long run, it has little inclination to remain "aligned with U.S. interests" in the region... Washington's efforts to dominate the Middle East are definitively deep-sixed... Maliki has moved strongly in the direction of a nationalist position on two key issues: the continuing American occupation of the country and the future of Iraqi oil... he has sought to distance his government from the Bush administration and to establish congenial relationships, if not an outright alliance, with... Iran."
"Iran has emerged as the country's top trading partner. Its firms are present in the Kurdish north and southern Iraq carrying out projects worth billions of dollars. Iranian goods are the most conspicuous merchandise in Iraqi shops. Iraq, though occupied and administered by America, has grown to be so dependent on Iran that some analysts see it as a satellite state of Tehran."
"The inevitable controversy over "who lost Iraq" -- an echo of those earlier controversies over "who lost China" and "who lost Vietnam" -- is bound to be on the way."
http://tomdispatch.com/post/174973/michael_schwartz_is_american_success_a_failure_in_iraq_
"... the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has made it all too clear that, in the long run, it has little inclination to remain "aligned with U.S. interests" in the region... Washington's efforts to dominate the Middle East are definitively deep-sixed... Maliki has moved strongly in the direction of a nationalist position on two key issues: the continuing American occupation of the country and the future of Iraqi oil... he has sought to distance his government from the Bush administration and to establish congenial relationships, if not an outright alliance, with... Iran."
"Iran has emerged as the country's top trading partner. Its firms are present in the Kurdish north and southern Iraq carrying out projects worth billions of dollars. Iranian goods are the most conspicuous merchandise in Iraqi shops. Iraq, though occupied and administered by America, has grown to be so dependent on Iran that some analysts see it as a satellite state of Tehran."
"The inevitable controversy over "who lost Iraq" -- an echo of those earlier controversies over "who lost China" and "who lost Vietnam" -- is bound to be on the way."
http://tomdispatch.com/post/174973/michael_schwartz_is_american_success_a_failure_in_iraq_
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
MALIKI: ALL U.S. TROOPS OUT BY 2011 - OR BEFORE
"Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signaled last week that that all U.S. troops -- including those with non-combat functions -- must be out of the country by the end of 2011 under the agreement he is negotiating with the George W. Bush administration... Al-Maliki declared Aug. 25 that the U.S. had agreed that "no foreign soldiers will be in Iraq after 2011"... He added that the Iraqi government "could ask the Americans to withdraw before 2011 if we wish."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43753
"Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signaled last week that that all U.S. troops -- including those with non-combat functions -- must be out of the country by the end of 2011 under the agreement he is negotiating with the George W. Bush administration... Al-Maliki declared Aug. 25 that the U.S. had agreed that "no foreign soldiers will be in Iraq after 2011"... He added that the Iraqi government "could ask the Americans to withdraw before 2011 if we wish."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43753