IRAQ OIL SITUATION

"... average exports in November fell to 1.21 million barrels a day – the lowest level since at least November 2003 – and down from 1.24 million barrels per day last month. An (Oil) ministry spokesman... said the country was facing an oil supply crisis. "Production in the north, centre and south is about to suffocate..."
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-12-30T210241Z_01_KRA056976_RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ.xml&archived=False

"... An official of the Oil Ministry in Baghdad... (said) “We do not know the exact quantity of oil we are exporting, we do not exactly know the prices we are selling it for, and we do not know where the oil revenue is going to.”
http://www.juancole.com/2005/12/iraq-petroleum-production-suffocating.html

MOST OPTIMISTIC SCENARIO - 20,000 ON 4 PERMANENT BASES

"A senior U.S. military commander, familiar with strategic plans, told me today there are two possible longish-term scenarios for Iraq... Optimistic scenario: In three years, the U.S. will be down to 20,000 troops. Their main mission will be to provide Iraqi forces with training, intelligence, logistics support, close air support, and lift. The forces would mainly be stationed at four "enduring bases," which the commander said would likely be: Talil, Taji, Balad and one of the bases around the Baghdad Airport."
--Richard Engel, NBC, Blogging Baghdad - The Untold Story, 29 Dec 2005
http://onthescene.msnbc.com/baghdad/2005/12/us_troops_are_s.html

U.S. PRISONS IN IRAQ EXPANDING

"U.S. forces are working to complete a major expansion of detention facilities in Iraq as a growing prisoner population nears 15,000... The military earlier in the year launched a $51 million expansion of detention facilities to accommodate a growing population... The biggest is Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr in the south, holding 8,011 detainees. Abu Ghraib, notorious also as a torture center under deposed President Saddam Hussein, holds 4,648. Fort Suse, at a Russian-built former military barracks near Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq, holds 1,347. Camp Cropper near Baghdad airport, holds 124 detainees, including many "high-value" prisoners. A further 542 are held at smaller facilities... Existing facilities are strained, with the population at 123 percent of "optimal capacity..."
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N286539.htm

KURDISH IRAQI SOLDIERS WELCOME CIVIL WAR AND END OF IRAQ

"... Iraqi army soldiers in northern Iraq - who are overwhelmingly Kurdish - made clear that many soldiers think that a civil war is coming... "I see Iraq gradually becoming three regions that will one day become independent," said Jafar Mustafir, a close adviser to Iraq's Kurdish interim president, Jalal Talabani, and the deputy head of Peshmerga for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two major Kurdish parties. "I see us moving toward the end of Iraq."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/13495281.htm

"Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan... Many said they wouldn't hesitate to kill their Iraqi army comrades, especially Arabs..."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13495329.htm

SOLDIER BLOGGERS

"In a development that is worrying US military commanders in Iraq, a growing number of US soldiers - 200 at the last count - have set up their own blogs, or internet diaries, and are updating them from the battlefield..."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/us-military-worried-by-soldiers-blogs/2005/12/27/1135445571736.html

MOST PROBABLE SCENARIO FOR IRAQ

"... the most probable scenario for 2006 and beyond is a fragile central government in Baghdad bombarded by an intractable guerrilla movement - a chaotic and sectarian hornets' nest breeding one, 10, 100 mini (or maxi) al-Qaeda leaders able to convulse the Middle East..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL23Ak01.html

ARAB MEDIA COVERAGE OF IRAQ WAR IS BETTER THAN U.S.

"In the past three years, covering the Anglo-American led war in Iraq and its messy aftermath, I've made it a point to regularly watch Arab, European and American television services in order to compare their coverage. On the basis of what I have witnessed during the past 1,000 days... the overall coverage of Iraq on the mainstream Arab satellite services has been more comprehensive, balanced and accurate than the coverage of any mainstream American cable or broadcast television service."
--Rami Khoury, the editor of The Daily Star of Lebanon and a former Nieman Fellow in journalism at Harvard Unversity
http://search.csmonitor.com/2005/1227/dailyUpdate.html


PENTAGON DISSEMINATES SOME FALSE INFORMATION

"... Retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, in a lengthy 2003 study, cited 50 stories in U.S. publications based on information that the Pentagon disseminated even though it knew that the information was false. "It's a culture that believes that it's OK to manipulate the story," Gardiner said. "It goes all the way from the senior leaders down to the battalion commanders."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512110416dec11,1,3760766.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

SHIITES MAY ASK U.S. TROOPS TO WITHDRAW

"... If... (Shia) leaders feel they have to choose between relying on U.S. military protection and the security of their regime (by controlling the Ministry of Interior police), they are likely to choose the latter. They could counter U.S. pressures by warning they will demand a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops... The implication of calling for a relatively rapid U.S. withdrawal would be that the Shiite leaders would turn to Iran for overt financial and even military assistance... The Bush administration's strategy of pressure on Shiite leaders over the issue of control over state security organs thus has the potential to spin out of control and cause another policy disaster in Iraq and the entire Middle East."
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31576

U.S. ALLOWS HUMAN TRAFFICKING BY CONTRACTORS

"... Middle Eastern firms working under American subcontracts in Iraq, and a chain of human brokers beneath them, engage in the kind of abuses condemned elsewhere by the U.S. government as human trafficking. KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary, relies on more than 200 subcontractors to carry out a multibillion-dollar U.S. Army contract for privatization of military support operations in the war zone.the Defense Department has yet to adopt a policy to bar human trafficking..."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0512270176dec27,1,2117782.story

SADDAM TRIAL NOT A FARCE

"... Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin is a quiet, polite, highly intelligent man, who wants the world to see that he dispenses a very different kind of justice from Saddam's own courts... The chief judge has been remarkably lenient to Saddam and his half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, and they have taken advantage of this... But does this mean, as some people in the Western media are starting to say, that the trial is descending into farce?... If the judge treated Saddam more roughly, he would seem like a martyr. The fact that he does not is a sign of success, not of failure."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4556268.stm

PROMINENT ELECTED SUNNI CANDIDATES DISQUALIFIED

"An Iraqi court has ruled that some of the most prominent Sunni Muslims who were elected to parliament last week won't be allowed to serve because officials suspect that they were high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party... The ruling is likely to dampen Bush administration hopes that the election would bring more of the disaffected Sunni minority into Iraq's political process and undermine Sunni support for the insurgency. Instead, the decision is likely to stoke fears of widening sectarian divisions in a nation already in danger of descending into civil war... the ruling would agitate already frustrated Sunnis who are questioning the validity of the elections...."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/13476434.htm

IRAQ AND IRAN BUILDING TIES

"... Baghdad is keen strengthening mutual ties in all areas with Tehran... The Iraqi foreign ministry is planing to dispatch a special delegation to Tehran to discuss issues outstanding between the two nations... Iran has agreed to Iraq's proposals for opening a coordination office in Tehran... The two nations have been striving to forge closer trade ties..."
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-17/0512246904234417.htm

U.S. IS NOT BETTER OFF WITHOUT SADDAM

"We're better off now without Saddam." That is not true. The fall of Saddam led to the rise of al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers; and even Allawi admitted that human rights in Iraq now are no better than under Saddam. Not to mention that there is no reconstruction, unemployment is at 70%, and a country which in the late 1980s had one of the highest standards of living in the Arab world has been razed to a sub-Saharan level."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL23Ak01.html

IRAQ DISINTEGRATING

"Iraq is disintegrating... the parliamentary election last week shows the country is dividing between Shia, Sunni and Kurdish regions... Religious fundamentalists now have the upper hand. The secular and nationalist candidate backed by the US and Britain was humiliatingly defeated... The election marks the final shipwreck of American and British hopes of establishing a pro-Western secular democracy in a united Iraq..."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article334476.ece

SUNNIS REJECT ELECTION RESULTS

"Sunni leaders dismiss election results (as rigged)... fueling fears about civil war... many fear that Sunnis will depend on the insurgency to achieve their political aims, not the parliament, pushing the nation toward civil war, not consensus, and threatening U.S. plans to withdraw some troops..."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/13451275.htm

AL QAEDA GIVEN A NEW BASE IN IRAQ

"... Bush proclaims his war without end in Iraq the central front in a new cold war, never acknowledging that he has handed Al Qaeda terrorists a new home base.... Under Bush's watch, we not only suffered the September 11 terrorist attacks while he snoozed, but he has failed to capture the perpetrator of those attacks and has given Al Qaeda a powerful base in Iraq from which to terrorize."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051128/scheer1116

WHY MARGINALIZING THE SUNNIS WILL NOT END THE INSURGENCY

"... A recurring theme in the history of war is that most of the killing typically occurs long after rational calculation would call for the surrender of the losing side. ... If one or more of the parties knows that peace implies the end of its existence, there exists no motive to return to peace. That explains why the majority of casualties in such wars are suffered long after all hope of victory has disappeared..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL20Ak02.html

PRE-EMPTIVE WAR ONLY A PART OF IMPERIAL POWER

"... he can authorize preemptive wars, spying on American citizens without court orders, incarcerating American citizens as "enemy combatants" without any constitutional protections, and torturing whomever he wants... All of this is, of course, is within the law as he... define(s) it. As one of the White House insiders said: "We are an Empire. We make our own reality."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1219-31.htm

ARABS SEE IRAQ AS A POLICE STATE

"... Bush keeps making that the political developments in Iraq will influence the rest of the Middle East is ridiculous to anyone who actually talks to anyone from the region. Arabs mostly believe that Iraq is laboring under an oppressive foreign military occupation.... American Imperial "democracy" strikes most Arabs as paternalistic and hypocritical, masking a police state of a sort they are all too familiar with..."
--Juan Cole, Informed Comment, December 18, 2005
http://www.juancole.com/2005/12/parties-jockey-for-power-in-wake-of.html

IRAQ WAR WAS WRONG

"... Bush admitted Wednesday, "It is true that much of the intelligence (on which his administration invaded Iraq) turned out to be wrong."... If the United States invaded Iraq based on false intelligence, the attack itself was wrong, and Bush should admit this. In the war that began on a false premise, at least 30,000 Iraqi civilians are believed to have been killed, and more than 2,000 U.S. troops have died..."
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200512170149.html

BULGARIA AND UKRAIN WITHDRAW

"Bulgaria has ended military operations in Iraq and has begun withdrawing its troops... The Bulgarian withdrawal coincides with the departure of the remaining Ukrainian forces in Iraq, due to be completed by the end of December..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4536040.stm

U.S. EMBRACES INSURGENTS - NOW CALLED NATIONALISTS

"... the image of the insurgents has been transformed from "anti-Iraqi forces" to "nationalists"... (the) administration has quietly renounced the goal of defeating the non-al-Qaeda, Sunni-armed organizations there... The administration is evidently preparing for serious negotiations with the Sunni insurgents, whom it has started referring to as "nationalists"...."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL17Ak02.html

ANY WITHDRAWAL DUE TO ELECTIONS WILL BE ON TERMS UNFAVORABLE TO BUSH

"... (Americans are) hoping that these elections are a milestone on the way to withdrawing US troops from Iraq. I cannot imagine why anyone thinks that. The Iraqi "government" is a failed state. Virtually no order it gives has any likelihood of being implemented. It has no army to speak of and cannot control the country. Its parliamentarians are attacked and sometimes killed with impunity. Its oil pipelines are routinely bombed, depriving it of desperately needed income. It faces a powerful guerrilla movement that is wholly uninterested in the results of elections and just wants to overthrow the new order. Elections are unlikely to change any of this...

"The only way in which these elections may lead to a US withdrawal is that they will ensconce parliamentarians who want the US out on a short timetable. Virtually all the Sunnis who come in will push for that result... and so will the members of the Sadr Movement, now a key component of the Shiite religious United Iraqi Alliance. That is, these elections lead to a US withdrawal on terms unfavorable to the Bush administration..."

--Juan Cole in Informed Comment, 15 Dec 2005
http://www.juancole.com/2005/12/high-turnout-expected-as-iraqis-go-to.html

DRAW-DOWN TO SUBSTITUTE AERIAL OCCUPATION FOR TROOPS

"... A broad overview of the types of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft the U.S. military is employing in Iraq gives an idea of the scope of the air war currently underway and the sort of destructive power available on an everyday basis. It can also offer hints of what we might expect in an air-power intensified draw-down future.

"While this is in no way an inclusive list, fixed-wing aircraft include the F-14D Tomcat and F/A 18 fighter jets which are being used by the Navy and Marines. The F-18 fires the laser-guided, 630 pound Maverick Missile (at a cost of $141,442 per shot, by the way). In addition, both the F-14 and F/A 18 fire a 20mm hydraulically operated gatling gun which emits between 4,000 and 6,000 rounds per minute at a range of "several thousand yards."

"The Air Force is using F-15 Eagle and F-16 Falcon fighter jets, along with AF MQ-1 Predator drones which are armed with Hellfire missiles. AV-8 Harrier fighter jets have also been used in Iraq as have AC-130 gunships, especially in urban battles like the fighting for Fallujah last year. These planes are capable of circling targets for long periods while raining thousands of rounds of ammunition per minute down from above. Then there is the A-10 Warthog military jet which is used as ground support, as it is capable of firing 4,200 armor piercing 30mm rounds per minute.

"At this point, bombs used commonly range in explosive power from 250-2,000 pounds, with cluster bombs, the MK-77 500 pound fire bomb (napalm) and the infamous White Phosphorous also having been employed at various moments. The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) bomb, ranging from 250-2,000 pounds, was used extensively during the most recent military operation against Fallujah. The 2,000 pound variety, for example, has the capacity to blast a crater in a concrete street 70 feet in diameter and 30 feet deep. This size of bomb has a blast radius of 110 feet within which a human being will die, while fragmentation from the bomb casing can achieve velocities up to 9,000 feet per second and reach areas over 3,000 feet away from the detonation site.

"The U.S. military is also using a wide variety of helicopters offensively in Iraq. These include the Apache, Kiowa, Black Hawk, Cobra, Pave Low, Chinook, and Iroquois...."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1214-23.htm

IRAN BENEFITTED FROM INVASION OF IRAQ

"... One country... has benefited greatly from the US-led invasion. Iran, increasingly radical, now knows that the United States lacks both the military strength and the political will to attack it. And the new, democratic, predominantly Shia Iraq has become its closest ally. None of this is what... (the neocons) in Washington expected back in 2002.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4527908.stm

DOOMED TO FAIL

"... no amount of feel good stories disguise the fact that the American project is doomed to fail because the premise itself is flawed - a semblance of democracy as the offspring of an illegal invasion and foreign occupation.."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL15Ak03.html

IRAQI FORCES MISTREATING PRISONERS AGAIN

"... On Nov. 15, soldiers with the Third Infantry Division, charged with controlling Baghdad, entered a (Ministry of Interior) bunker in central Baghdad and found 169 malnourished prisoners, some of them tortured. Most of those prisoners were Sunni Arabs... (on) Dec. 12 American and Iraqi forces raiding an Iraqi government detention center... in Baghdad discovered more than 600 prisoners packed into a cramped space, 13 of them mistreated so badly they had to be taken to a hospital... The detention center... is run by a commando unit from the Interior Ministry, which oversees the country's police forces, said the senior American official, Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill, a spokesman for the American detention system in Iraq".
http://nytimes.com/2005/12/12/international/middleeast/12iraq.html?hp&ex=1134450000&en=1c5afa302c14e8ec&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"... 12 of the 13 men in hospital had suffered torture, including electric shocks and the loss of finger nails.... "Two of them showed me their nails, and they were gone..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4520714.stm

QAEDA-IRAQ LINK OBTAINED BY FOREIGN TORTURE, RECANTED

"The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment... The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that (Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi) made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1209-07.htm

BAGHDAD - THE UNTOLD STORY - BY NBC

"Blogging Baghdad aims to provide a dynamic look at the story behind the story of covering the news in Iraq. Online entries – from text to video blogs – will detail the realities of daily life for ordinary Iraqis, American troops and the media living and working in a 24 hour war zone. Regular contributors include NBC News correspondent Richard Engel, as well as other producers and staff on assignment in Iraq."
http://www.baghdadblog.msnbc.com/

U.S. BLAMED FOR FUNDAMENTALIST SHI'ITE DEATH SQUADS

"... Iraqis are coming to fear those bands of men in masks who seem to operate with the Iraqi police... such killing is the work of death squads operating with the Iran-backed Shi'ite forces that dominate the government, and therefore the police... The "death squads" as they have come to be called are getting more active with just a week to go before the December 15 election... "

"... the men... were members of the Shi'ite Badr Organization, a militia affiliated with Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)... the Americans have helped bring in new Iran-backed terror. "So many of us are against Iraq being controlled by these fundamental Islamic Iranian loyalists like al-Hakim... Now we are seeing the suffering and ultimate dictatorship they have brought us here with the help of the Americans."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL09Ak03.html

CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES EVANGELIZING IN IRAQ?

"... the Iraqi constitution says that Islam is the religion of state, that the civil parliament cannot pass legislation that contradicts the laws of Islam; and it allows ayatollahs to be put on court benches... Bush implied to his evangelical supporters that they would have a free mission field in Iraq (which they wanted to use then to evangelize the rest of the Muslim world). Any evangelical missionary who shows up in Iraq today may as well just go straight to the studio to record his hostage tape..."
http://www.juancole.com/2005/12/dean-v.html

RUMSFELD'S HANDSHAKE DEAL WITH SADDAM VS CURRENT TRIAL

"... A photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand on Dec. 20, 1983, is easily available... (but) the initial trial of Saddam and co-defendants is focusing on grisly crimes that occurred the year before Rumsfeld gripped his hand... the methodical torture and murders in Dujail that have been front-paged this week in coverage of the former dictator's trial; they occurred 17 months before Rumsfeld arrived in Baghdad..."
"... The picture has been notably absent from the array of historic images that U.S. media outlets are providing to viewers and readers in coverage of the Saddam Hussein trial. And journalistic mention of Rumsfeld's key role in aiding the Iraqi tyrant has been similarly absent..."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1208-34.htm

U.S. MILITARY BUYS IRAQI TV STATION AND NEWSPAPER TO RUN PRO-US REPORTS

"... One unnamed military official told reporters that Baghdad's "Information Operations Task Force" has bought an Iraqi television station and newspaper, which have been running pro-US reports. He would not reveal which ones for fear of insurgent attacks. How unnerving for the increasingly suspicious Iraqi readers..."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/just-a-change-of-masters-for-iraq-press/2005/12/07/1133829660308.html

BUSH CREATED A THEOCRACY ALLIED TO IRAN

"... The real winners of the January 2005 elections were the Shiite religious parties... the Shiite parties swept to power throughout the south... Shiite militias proliferated and established themselves... (in the) constitution... the Shiites inserted a provision that no legislation could be passed by parliament that contravened the established laws of Islam, and made provisions for Muslim clerics to be appointed to the judiciary... Baghdad (moved) closer to Tehran, seeking warm relations with the clerical rulers of Iran. Shiite power now dominated the eastern stretches of the Middle East. The Bush administration trumpeted its bestowal of democracy in the region, but most Middle Eastern observers saw only the installation of a new Shiite power... Bush has inadvertently strengthened Iran, giving it a new, religious Shiite ally in the Gulf region."
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_bush_created_a_theocracy_in_iraq

DEFINITION OF TERRORISM

"... terrorism is only the privatization of war... terrorists are the free marketers of war. They believe that the legitimate use of violence is not the sole prerogative of the State."
--Indian writer and human rights advocate Arundhati Roy in the 2004 City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture titled Peace and The New Corporate Liberation Theology
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigidea/stories/s1232956.htm

INVASION OF IRAQ A SIGN OF THINGS TO COME

"... The invasion of Iraq will surely go down in history as one of the most cowardly wars ever fought. It was a war in which a band of rich nations, armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world several times over, rounded on a poor nation, falsely accused it of having nuclear weapons, used the United Nations to force it to disarm, then invaded it, occupied it and are now in the process of selling it... it is a sign of things to come. Iraq marks the beginning of a new cycle. It offers us an opportunity to watch the Corporate-Military cabal that has come to be known as 'Empire' at work. In the new Iraq the gloves are off."
--Indian writer and human rights advocate Arundhati Roy in the 2004 City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture titled Peace and The New Corporate Liberation Theology
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bigidea/stories/s1232956.htm

ANOTHER AL-QAEDA NO. 3 MAN KILLED

"... it is faintly perplexing to learn that yet another chap described as "al Qaida's number three" has been killed in Pakistan. How many number threes is that now? In May, US authorities announced they had captured "al Qaida number three" Abu Faraj al Libbi, while, three years ago, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was nabbed whilst apparently toiling in this same rank. Now it seems the similarly important Abu Hamza Rabia has been killed in Pakistan... each time a number three is captured or killed, another operative steps up to take his place. In which case, you'd have to think whoever is currently number four will today be gripped by a certain reluctance to take on this seemingly accursed promotion. Talk about dead men's shoes..."
hhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1659295,00.htmlere

US ARMY SAYS MAJORITY OF FIGHTERS ARE IRAQI, NOT FOREIGN

"Iraqis, rather than foreign fighters, now form the vast majority of the insurgents who are waging a ferocious guerrilla war against United States forces in Sunni western Iraq, American commanders have revealed. Their conclusion... contradicts the White House message that outsiders are the principal enemy in Iraq..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/12/04/wirq04.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/12/04/ixportal.html

U.S. IS ABUSING ITS UN MANDATE IN IRAQ

"... John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), said... the US military is abusing its United Nations mandate in Iraq by detaining thousands of people without due process of law... the system, including the pattern, duration and conditions of detention, were "not consistent with what is foreseen in (UN Mandate Resolution) 1546" and complained of a "total breakdown" in individuals' rights..."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/america-abusing-mandate-in-iraq/2005/12/05/1133631201911.html

UN SAYS SADDAM TRIAL WILL NOT BE FAIR

"The UN said yesterday said that Saddam Hussein's trial would never satisfy international standards because of ongoing violence and flaws in Iraq's legal system..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1657953,00.html

TRAINING OF IRAQI FORCES SUFFER SETBACK

"The training of Iraqi security forces has suffered a big "setback" in the last six months, with the army and other forces being increasingly used to settle scores and make other political gains, Iraqi Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer said... Al-Yawer disputed contentions by U.S. officials, including President Bush, that the training of security forces was gathering speed, resulting in more professional troops..."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1205-08.htm

STATE DEPT REMOVING AMERICAN REPRESENTATIVES ABROAD WHO ARE CRITICAL OF IRAQ POLICY

" The State Department has been using political litmus tests to screen private American citizens before they can be sent overseas to represent the United States, weeding out critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policy... The effort, known as the "U.S. Speakers/Specialist Program," is part of a public diplomacy effort to change negative foreign opinions of the United States. It's overseen by Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes..."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13314542.htm

INSURGENTS NOT THREE GROUPS

"... The Bush administration has long maintained... that the insurgency comprises three elements: disaffected Sunni Arabs, or "rejectionists"; former Hussein government loyalists; and foreign-born terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda.

"... (but) the single most important fact about the insurgency is that it consists not of a few groups but of dozens, possibly as many as 100. And it is not, as often depicted, a coherent organization whose members dutifully carry out orders from above but a far-flung collection of smaller groups that often act on their own or come together for a single attack... Each is believed to have its own leader and is free to act on its own.

"... American and Iraqi officials agree on the essential structure of the Iraqi insurgency: it is horizontal as opposed to hierarchical, and ad hoc as opposed to unified. There is no center of gravity, no leadership, no hierarchy; they are more a constellation than an organization. They have adopted a structure that assures their longevity."

http://nytimes.com/2005/12/02/international/middleeast/02insurgency.html?ei=5094&en=7ce4d7d46d02679b&hp=&ex=1133586000&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1133529659-NaW5n2BRS214YiTYosqQCg

TROOP WITHDRAWALS ERODING COALITION

"... The coalition has steadily unraveled as the death toll rises and angry publics clamor for troops to leave... Two of America's allies in Iraq are withdrawing forces this month and a half-dozen others are debating possible pullouts or reductions... Bulgaria and Ukraine will begin withdrawing their combined 1,250 troops by mid-December. If Australia, Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland and South Korea reduce or recall their personnel, more than half of the non-American forces in Iraq could be gone by next summer... "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5452396,00.html

KURDS MAKE OIL DEAL WITH NORWAY SEPARATE FROM BAGHDAD GOVERNMENT

"The Kurdistan Democratic Party, which controls a portion of... northern Iraq, last year quietly signed a deal with Norway's DNO to drill for oil... the first involving new exploration in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003... In Baghdad, political leaders on Wednesday reacted to the deal with astonishment. "We need to figure out if this is allowed in the constitution," said Adnan Ali Kadhimi, an advisor to Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari... "This is unprecedented," said Alaa Makki, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab group. "It's like they are an independent country. This is Iraqi oil and should be shared with all the Iraqi partners."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-oildeal1dec01,0,4057840.story?coll=la-home-headlines

BUSH STRATEGY FOR ENDLESS WAR IN MIDDLE EAST

"... the President asserts that the war in Iraq is the central front in the struggle against what he describes as "Islamofascism," (while) real "Islamofascists" are already in power in Baghdad -- and they are, shamefully, America's allies..."

"... The Bush administration has put into operation an utterly paradoxical and self-defeating strategy. First, its policies inflame the region, feeding the growth of political Islam and its extremist as well as terrorist offshoots. Then, as in Iraq -- and as seems to be the case in Syria and Egypt -- it seeks "regime change" in countries where it knows that the chief opposition and likely inheritor of power will be... forces of "conservative" political Islam and those associated with radical-right, violence-prone Islamists. This is a formula for endless war in the region."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1130-22.htm

CHRISTIAN PEACE GROUP BLAMES U.S. POLICIES FOR KIDNAPPING

"... The aid group Christian Peacemaker Teams said today that the policies of the United States and British governments were ultimately to blame for the kidnapping. "We are angry because what has happened to our teammates is the result of the actions of the U.S. and the U.K. governments due to the illegal attack on Iraq and the continuing occupation and oppression of its people," the group said in a statement posted on its Web site..."
http://nytimes.com/2005/11/30/international/middleeast/30cnd-Iraq.html?hp&ex=1133413200&en=469abc3dac6c717c&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"... We are angry because what has happened to our teammates is the result of the actions of the U.S. and U.K. governments due to the illegal attack on Iraq and the continuing occupation and oppression of its people. Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has worked for the rights of Iraqi prisoners who have been illegally detained and abused by the U.S. government. We were the first people to publicly denounce the torture of Iraqi people at the hands of U.S. forces, long before the western media admitted what was happening at Abu Ghraib. We are some of the few internationals left in Iraq who are telling the truth about what is happening to the Iraqi people We hope that we can continue to do this work and we pray for the speedy release of our beloved teammates."
--Christian Peacemaker Teams, November 30, 2005
hhttp://www.cpt.org/ere

REPUBLICAN VIEW OF MURTHA'S REASON FOR WITHDRAWAL

"... In his speech, Representative John Murtha (D-PA) said the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is "uniting the enemy against us." Does this mean that we should not have landed on the beaches of Normandy out of fear that the invasion would "unite the enemy against us?"... Using Rep. Murtha's logic, D-Day was a tragic mistake."
http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/bstock/2005/bs_11291.shtml

IRAQ PRISON ABUSE AS BAD AS SADDAM

"The former Iraqi prime minister, Iyad Allawi, has called for immediate action against human rights abuses. Such abuses are as bad today as they were under Saddam Hussein... Militias are operating within the Shia-led government, torturing and killing in secret bunkers..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4475030.stm

"... Deputy Human Rights Minister Aida Ussayran and Gen. Muntadhar Muhi al-Samaraee, a former head of special forces at the Ministry of the Interior, (said) Iraqi authorities have been torturing and abusing prisoners in jails across the country... women were being raped by male guards... former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite (said)... that Shiites are behind the death squads and secret torture centers. "People are doing the same as Saddam's time and worse," he said. "It is an appropriate comparison."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/13278134.htm


IRAQI FORCES CARRY ON TORTURE AND DEATH SQUADS OF SADDAM

"... Iraqi forces are carrying out executions in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods. Hundreds of accounts of killings and abductions have emerged in recent weeks, most of them brought forward by Sunni civilians, who claim that their relatives have been taken away by Iraqi men in uniform without warrant or explanation. Some Sunni men have been found dead in ditches and fields, with bullet holes in their temples, acid burns on their skin, and holes in their bodies apparently made by electric drills... Sunnis believe that the security forces are carrying out sectarian reprisals... in revenge for years of repression at the hands of Saddam Hussein's government... Ayad Allawi, a prominent Iraqi politician who is close to the Sunni community, charged... that the Iraqi government - and the Ministry of Interior in particular - was condoning torture and running death squads."
http://nytimes.com/2005/11/29/international/middleeast/29security.html?ei=5094&en=f18810368c98ae2c&hp=&ex=1133326800&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1133269527-PvFXHY1XskkaAmECTRbZKA

U.S. INVOLVED IN CIVIL WAR

"... a Sunni-Shiite civil war. In many areas, that war has, in a sense, already begun, and the United States military is being drawn into the sectarian violence. An American Army officer who took part in the assault on Tal Afar, in the north of Iraq, earlier this fall, said that an American infantry brigade was placed in the position of providing a cordon of security around the besieged city for Iraqi forces, most of them Shiites, who were “rounding up any Sunnis on the basis of whatever a Shiite said to them.” The officer went on, “They were killing Sunnis on behalf of the Shiites,” with the active participation of a militia unit led by a retired American Special Forces soldier. “People like me have gotten so downhearted,” the officer added."
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/051205fa_fact

IRAQI LEADER SAYS U.S. IS ALLOWING EXPANSION OF TERRORISM

"... the United States is tying Iraq's hands in the fight against insurgents. One of Iraq's "biggest problems is the mistaken or wrong policies practiced by the Americans"... the United States was being too weak against Iraq's insurgency, allowing attacks to mushroom... "there are plans to confront terrorists, approved by security agencies, but the Americans reject that... This has led to the expansion of terrorism..."
--Abdul Aziz Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Shiite Muslim religious party that leads the transitional government.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/26/AR2005112601211_2.html

HIGH CONTRACTOR CASUALTY RATE

"... a spokesman for L-3 Communications, said his firm had had so many losses because its translators were "with the combatants; they're with the special forces; they're with the infantry units. That probably puts them out in the most dangerous places"... (he) noted that L-3's employees aren't killed in combat, they're being assassinated. Of the company's 152 dead Iraqi employees, 105 were murdered because they collaborated with Americans..."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/13055180.htm

SUPPORTING THE TROOPS

"... The last man or woman to die in any war almost surely dies in vain: The outcome has been determined, if not certified. And he or she might die happier thinking that death came in a noble cause that will not be abandoned. But if it is not a noble cause, he or she might prefer not to die at all. Stifling criticism that might shorten the war is no favor to American soldiers. They can live without that kind of "respect."

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.kinsley25nov25,1,5593897.story

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/24/AR2005112400477.html?nav=hcmodule

IRAQI RECONCILIATION CONVENTION IN CAIRO RECOGNIZES THE RESISTANCE

"The preliminary meeting of the Iraqi "Reconciliation" Convention ended its sessions in Cairo last Monday... it called for the pullout of the foreign forces and set a deadline... In addition, it considered resistance a "legitimate right"... it recognized the resistance, the role of which revolves around targeting the foreign forces on Iraq's territory upon the request of the government..."
http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/OPED/11-2005/Article-20051125-c816445f-c0a8-10ed-0092-eb766d0478dc/story.html

"... At the conclusion of the conference, Iraqi Interim President Talabani made an unprecedented offer: "If those who describe themselves as Iraqi resistance want to contact me, they are welcome . . . I am committed to listen to them, even those who are criminals.''
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/13260029.htm

IRAQI PRISONS

"... the influx of new prisoners - the population of the four American-run prisons here has doubled over the past year, and Iraqi jails are packed - has overwhelmed the Iraqi authorities,... the mushrooming Iraqi detention facilities operate virtually unchecked.... There is so little oversight... it is impossible to tell how many detention centers exist..."
http://nytimes.com/2005/11/25/international/middleeast/25search.html?ei=5094&en=055fba1854dc85ad&hp=&ex=1132981200&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1132922516-PF/LxZBnlNlItiffCYppiQ

BUSH BOMBINGS OF AL-JAZEERA TV OFFICES

Kabul, Afghanistan, November 2001
"... The Kabul offices of the Arab satellite al-Jazeera channel have been destroyed by a US missile..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1653887.stm

Baghdad, Iraq, April 2003
"Reporters Without Borders expressed outrage at the U.S. bombing of the Baghdad office of the pan-Arab TV station Al-Jazeera that killed one of its journalists, cameraman Tarek Ayoub, and wounded another..."
http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/2003/04/10/stories/2003041000891500.htm

Doha, Qatar, April 2004
"... Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals. But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair..."
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16397937%26method=full%26siteid=94762%26headline=exclusive%2d%2dbush%2dplot%2dto%2dbomb%2dhis%2darab%2dally-name_page.html

ORGANIZING FOR THE ELECTION

"... top Baghdad electoral official, Izzadin al-Muhammadi (is) unable to travel anywhere unless accompanied by enough firepower to level a village... After landing at the main American base near Baquba, Mr. Muhammadi dashed into a convoy of two Bradley fighting vehicles, four Humvees and three armored sport utility vehicles. Soldiers from the Special Forces and the Third Infantry Division sat inside, holding automatic rifles and grenade launchers. The roadside bomb detonated next to one of the Humvees as the convoy rolled through downtown... Baquba to a meeting with local politicians..."
http://nytimes.com/2005/11/23/international/middleeast/23elect.html?hp&ex=1132808400&en=94d717a5d4c10fe3&ei=5094&partner=homepage

U.S. USED WHITE PHOSPHOROUS (WP) IN FALLUJAH, KNEW IT WAS ILLEGAL

"... 9b. White Phosphorous. WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired "shake and bake" missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out."
-- Captain James T. Cobb, Task Force 2d Battalion, 2d Infantry’s (TF 2-2 IN’s) Fire Support Element (FSE), in Field Artillery Magazine, March-April 2005 issue, "Fight for Fallujah"
http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/Previous_Editions/05/mar-apr05/PAGE24-30.pdf

November 23, 2005
ALTERNATING EXPLOSIVE AND WP MORTAR ROUNDS = SHAKE 'N BAKE
"... (in Fallujah) they ran through the drill again and again, sending a mixture of burning white phosphorus and high explosives they call 'shake 'n bake' into a cluster of buildings where insurgents have been spotted all week."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4442988.stm

November 22, 2005
ARMY DOCTRINE SAYS WP ILLEGAL AGAINST PERSONNEL
"... The US army knows that its use as a weapon is illegal. In the Battle Book, published by the US Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas... (is) the following sentence: "It is against the law of land warfare to employ WP against personnel targets."
"... a declassified document from the US department of defence, dated April 1991, and titled "Possible use of phosphorus chemical" (says that) "During the brutal crackdown that followed the Kurdish uprising... Iraqi forces loyal to President Saddam may have possibly used white phosphorus (WP) chemical weapons against Kurdish rebels and the populace in Erbil ... and Dohuk provinces, Iraq... These reports of possible WP chemical weapon attacks spread quickly ... hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled from these two areas." The Pentagon is in no doubt, in other words, that white phosphorus is an illegal chemical weapon..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1647998,00.html

November 16, 2005
U.S. ADMITS USE OF WP, CALLS IT LEGAL
"The Pentagon on Wednesday acknowledged using incendiary white-phosphorus munitions in a 2004 counterinsurgency offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja, but defended their use as legal... (because) ... the U.S. military had not used the highly flammable weapons against civilians... It's part of our conventional-weapons inventory and we use it like we use any other conventional weapon..."
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-iraq-usa-phosphorus.html

November 14,2005
WP REPORTS RESURFACE

"... the available evidence suggests the following: that WP shells were fired at insurgents, that reports from the battleground suggest troops firing these WP shells did not always know who they were hitting and that there remain widespread reports of civilians suffering extensive burn injuries..."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article327094.ece

"... Some saw what they thought were attempts by the military to conceal the use of incendiary shells. "The Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah... In the centre of the Jolan quarter they were removing entire homes which have been bombed... he saw bulldozers push soil into piles and load it on to trucks to carry away. In certain areas where the military used "special munitions" he said 200 sq m of soil was being removed from each blast site..."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article327136.ece

November 8, 2005
"Italian state TV, Rai, has broadcast a documentary accusing the US military of using white phosphorus bombs against civilians in the Iraqi city of Falluja... The documentary... shows a series of photographs from Falluja of corpses with the flesh burnt off but clothes still intact - which it says is consistent with the effects of white phosphorus on humans. Jeff Englehart, described as a former US soldier who served in Falluja, tells of how he heard orders for white phosphorus to be deployed over military radio - and saw the results. "Burned bodies, burned women, burned children; white phosphorus kills indiscriminately... When it makes contact with skin, then it's absolutely irreversible damage, burning flesh to the bone," he says."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4417024.stm

"Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon... information has surfaced, including hideous photographs and videos and interviews with American soldiers who took part in the Fallujah attack, which provides graphic proof that phosphorus shells were widely deployed in the city as a weapon..."
"Phosphorus burns bodies, in fact it melts the flesh all the way down to the bone ... I saw the burned bodies of women and children. Phosphorus explodes and forms a cloud. Anyone within a radius of 150 metres is done for." .. dozens of high-quality, colour close-ups show bodies of Fallujah residents, some still in their beds, whose clothes remain largely intact but whose skin has been dissolved or caramelised or turned the consistency of leather by the shells... A rain of fire fell on the city, the people struck by this multi-coloured substance started to burn, we found people dead with strange wounds, the bodies burned but the clothes intact."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article325560.ece

WP "WILLY PETE" APPEARS IN FALLUJAH
November 22, 2004

Effects of "Willy Peter" (white phosphorous):
http://webpages.charter.net/dmarin/cbwbeta/wp.htm

"... We Americans pioneered the use of weaponized "Willy Peter," as GIs call it. Using Willy Peter, my dad's generation barbecued tens of thousands of Japanese. Resembling pelletized napalm, Willy Peter burns so hot that if a glob lands on you it instantly melts your skin and sticks to you. Following gravity, it will burn right through your body and come out the other side..."
http://www.theava.com/03/1119-protection.html

“They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud,” he said, having just arrived yesterday, “Then small pieces fell from the air with long tails of smoke behind them. These exploded on the ground with large fires that burnt for half an hour. They used these near the train tracks. You could hear these dropped from a large airplane and the bombs were the size of a tank. When anyone touched those fires, their body burned for hours.”
hehttp://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/article.php?id=913re

"Usually we keep the gloves on. For this operation, we took the gloves off." Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns... a physician at a regional hospital, said, "The corpses of the mujahedeen which we received were burned, and some corpses were melted."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35979-2004Nov9_2.html
and
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/11/10/MNG6P9P3ER1.DTL

IRAQ A BLACK HOLE MAKING U.S. LESS SECURE

"... Iraq today is ''a black hole," as France's antiterrorism judge, Jean-Louis Brugiere, said, sucking in impressionable youths from all over the Muslim world and radicalizing them.... The Iraq war is harming us in the greater struggle against Islamic extremism and making the United States less secure..."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/11/22/why_its_time_to_bring_american_troops_home/

IRAQ MAY LOSE OIL TO US AND BRITAIN

"Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200 billion of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year... reawaken(ing) fears that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure its oil came under Western control..."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article328526.ece

IRAQ SERVICE A PAIN IN THE BACK

"More than half of U.S. soldiers who have been medically evacuated from Iraq and treated at two of the military's large pain treatment centers suffer not from battle wounds but from bad backs... the high percentage of soldiers who leave Iraq because of back pain is disturbing, says lead author Steven Cohen, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves and pain specialist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore..."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-11-20-back-pain_x.htm

LOCKHEED MARTIN

"... for signing up, they got a US$2,000 check from... Lockheed Martin... they flew to... their final destinations - Iraq's infamous prisons, including Abu Ghraib, Camp Cropper near Baghdad International Airport and Camp Whitehorse near the southern Iraqi town of Nasariyah... Known in the intelligence community as "97 Echoes" (97E)... these civilian contractors work side-by-side with military interrogators..."

"... Lockheed Martin is now positioned to profit from every level of the "war on terror", from targeting to intervention and from occupation to interrogation... Lockheed Martin... (also) sorts your mail and totals your taxes. It cuts Social Security checks and counts the United States census. It runs space flights and monitors air traffic..."

"... "Men who have worked, lobbied and lawyered for Lockheed Martin hold the posts of secretary of the navy, secretary of transportation, director of the national nuclear weapons complex and director of the national spy satellite agency."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GK19Ak03.html

BLOWING IN THE WIND

"In the background of today's entries, Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind" is playing.

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?

In response to the call for a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by a retired marine colonel, decorated Vietnam War veteran and Democratic Congressman, John Murtha, White House Spokesman Scott McClellan implied that Murtha was advocating a "surrender to the terrorists." McClellan is not a veteran of any war, and nor are his bosses, George W. Bush and Richard Bruce Cheney (the latter actively sought 5 deferrals from serving in Vietnam).

Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?

Peace activist and mother of a GI killed in action in Iraq, Cindy Sheehan, was fined $75 for demonstrating without a permit outside the White House.

Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

The US military is puzzled about the outcry over the use of white phosphorus at Fallujah. After all, a 500-pound bomb is also destructive. My guess? You can't go to war against Saddam on the grounds that he has stockpiles of chemical weapons, and then turn around and use incendiary bombs of a sort that much of the world regards as a form of chemical weapon. It is the hypocrisy factor. Not to mention that the international community is trying to get such weapons banned.

. . . Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?

Over two hundred years after the Founding Fathers banned "cruel and unusual punishment," the Congress is considering banning the use of torture on detainees of the US. A no-brainer? Sure. But George W. Bush is threatening to veto the measure.

Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?

Some 62 percent of Americans think Bush is doing a poor job in Iraq."

--Juan Cole, Informed Comment, November 18,2005
http://www.juancole.com/2005/11/blowing-in-wind-in-background-of.html

BRITISH WERE CONCERNED OVER LEGALITY OF WAR

"... there were profound concerns over the legality of regime change, and relying on resolution 1441 without a security council authorization. Indeed, Sir Michael Boyce, the chief of staff, made it a requirement of mobilizing the troops that he should be given an unequivocal assurance that the war would be legal - and the prime minister and attorney general both obliged.

"... the full advice of the attorney general of March 7 2003 (was) far from being unequivocal, it is full of legal riders and cautionary statements: the language of resolution 1441 "leaves the position unclear", "arguments can be made on both sides", and "the safest legal course would be to secure the adoption of a further resolution to authorize the use of force". Further, he advised that the government should "consider extremely carefully whether the evidence of non-cooperation and non-compliance by Iraq is sufficiently compelling to justify the conclusion that Iraq has failed to take its final opportunity".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/antiwar/story/0,,1645524,00.htm
and
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1118-20.htm

DEMOCRATS SUPPORTED IRAQ WAR

"The Democrats cannot be allowed to use faulty intelligence as a crutch to hold up their unforgivable support for the Iraq invasion... None of the horrors playing out in Iraq today would be possible without the Democratic Party... The Democrats didn't need false intelligence to push them into overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime. It was their policy; a policy made the law of the land not under George W. Bush, but under President Bill Clinton when he signed the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, formally initiating the process of regime change in Iraq... No matter how hard some party leaders try to deny it, this is their war too and will remain so until every troop is withdrawn."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1118-33.htm

SOUTH KOREA TO WITHDRAW 1/3 OF TROOPS FROM IRAQ

"... We will never back down and we will never give in and we will never expect less than complete victory," the president told US troops stationed in South Korea after attending a trade summit there."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4451860.stm

"In a move that caught the White House by surprise, South Korea has announced plans to pull one-third of its troops out of Iraq... As many as 3,200 South Korean troops are currently in Iraq, the third-largest contingent behind the United States and Britain... The announcement comes a day after U.S. President George W. Bush met with South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun..."
http://www.mytelus.com/news/article.do?pageID=cbc/world_home&articleID=2093435

ATTACKS ON OIL COSTING $28 MILLION PER DAY

"Insurgent attacks are costing Iraq about 500,000 barrels of oil a day, almost a third of its daily output. At today's oil prices, that's costing the country at least $28 million in export earnings every day.... Oil experts no longer think Iraq can bank on oil earnings to rebuild its oil sector, let alone its tattered economy. "Oil business cannot pay for reconstruction in that country, that's the fact. It can run the country, but as far as reconstruction is concerned, that's helpless," said Robert McKee III, the second of three special U.S. oil envoys to the occupation government after the invasion."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/13194741.htm

INSURGENCY NUMBERS 30,000 OF WHICH 3,000 ARE FOREIGN

"Up to 3,000 foreign insurgents may be fighting in Iraq, but they remain a small part of the overall rebellion... The figure is three times as large as unofficial Pentagon estimates, but may total no more than 10% of insurgents. The Iraqi insurgency remains largely home-grown... with 90% or more hailing from Iraq..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4447778.stm

SPLIT BETWEEN ZARQAWI AND AL-QAEDA FAVORS AMERICA

"... since September 11, 2001 the level of cooperation between Iran and al-Qaeda has increased. However, the anti-Shi'ite stance of the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, remains a major obstacle. Should this be resolved, and Iran soften its attitude, al-Qaeda will have taken a major step towards launching its global war against America."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GK15Ak02.html

IRANIAN OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

"... The occupation has ceased to be American. It is American in face, and militarily, but in essence it has metamorphosed slowly but surely into an Iranian one. It began, of course, with Badir’s Brigade and the several Iran-based political parties which followed behind the American tanks in April 2003. It continues today with a skewed referendum, and a constitution that will guarantee a southern Iraqi state modeled on the Islamic Republic of Iran.... Congratulations Americans- not only are the hardliner Iranian clerics running the show in Iran- they are also running the show in Iraq."
--" Riverbend", an Iraqi teacher, in her blog "Baghdad Burning", Sunday, November 06, 2005
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

SHIITE IRAQI FORCES STARVING AND TORTURING SUNNI DETAINEES

"... prisoners, many malnourished and some showing signs of torture, were found when US troops took control of a interior ministry building on Sunday. The US operation followed persistent inquiries from the family of one of those held, most of whom were Sunnis... officials believe it may be the tip of the iceberg... There have been persistent allegations of abuse by members of the Shia-dominated security forces..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4440134.stm

U.S. HOUSEHOLDS OWE OVER TWICE AS MIUCH DEBT TO CREDIT CARDS AS TO IRAQ WAR

"... according to The Plastic Safety Net: The Reality Behind Credit Card Debt in America... $8,650 is the average credit card debt of a low- and middle-income indebted household in America..."
http://sev.prnewswire.com/banking-financial-services/20051012/DCW02712102005-1.html

"... (as of June 2004) The United States has spent more than $126bn on the war in Iraq, which will ultimately cost every American family an estimated $3,415..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4956053-103550,00.html

RECONSTRUCTION OF FALLUJAH

June 2005
"Sen. Mitch McConnell's itinerary last week included a day in Iraq... went to Baghdad and Fallujah... Fallujah, which had been a seething center of insurgency, the city "is calm now and getting back to normal, and (the Iraqis are) reconstructing the city," McConnell said..."
http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050605/NEWS0104/506050438

November 2005
"... most of the population has returned to the city centre, but those who live further out cannot because their homes were the most damaged. Power is only available downtown, and only for a few hours in the middle of the night. The majority of the population is still unemployed since the city's factories have not been rebuilt. The economic situation is so desperate that the limited reconstruction funds are being consumed by the immediate needs for food and material aid. Schools are mostly open, but three schools and the Ministry of Education offices are still being occupied by U.S. forces. As we spoke to the sheikh, members of the U.S. forces and the Iraqi Army swept up the street searching homes and threatened to blow-up our driver's car which was parked outside the mosque... The only hospital in Falluja... (is) operating, but very short of modern equipment like incubators, anaethesia machines, and electrical generators... U.S. officials have repeatedly promised aid, but so far have only supplied blankets and a few kerosene heaters. The staff said that the number of violent deaths is increasing, and now averages 100 to 200 per month..."
http://electroniciraq.net/news/2195.shtml

BUSH VETERANS DAY SPEECH

"... it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war..."
"... These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will..."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051111-1.html

BUSH VETERANS DAY SPEECH INACCURATE

"President Bush... (said) that Congress saw the same intelligence the administration did before the war, and that independent commissions have determined that the administration did not misrepresent the intelligence..."
"But Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the administration to provide the material..."
"And the commissions... though concluding that the administration did not pressure intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those conclusions.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/12/MNGNUFNCC31.DTL&type=printable
and
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1112-03.htm

Bush: "When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support."
The Nation: "Congress did not approve Bush's decision to remove Saddam. In October 2002, the House and Senate approved a resolution that gave Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq if he deemed that appropriate... When the resolution passed... the White House insisted that Bush was not bent on "regime change" and that he was willing to work within the UN... when Bush did order the invasion of Iraq months later in March 2003, he did not ask Congress to vote on his decision to remove Saddam."
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=36405

COST OF WAR PER HOUSEHOLD = ABOUT 1/4 OF CREDIT CARD DEBT

"... according to The Plastic Safety Net: The Reality Behind Credit Card Debt in America, a new report released today by Demos and the Center for Responsible Lending... $8,650 is the average credit card debt of a low- and middle-income indebted household in America..."
http://sev.prnewswire.com/banking-financial-services/20051012/DCW02712102005-1.html

According to the National Priorities Project, $2,378 is the cost of the Iraq War per household in America.
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=61

CHALABI BACK IN U.S. FAVOR
November2005

"... Ahmad Chalabi refused to apologize Wednesday for providing the U.S. government with false information on Saddam Hussein's weapons and ties to terrorists, calling charges that he did so an "urban myth."... Chalabi is visiting Washington to try to mend ties with the Bush administration.. Chalabi met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and national security adviser Stephen Hadley on Wednesday, although neither would be photographed with him. He's to meet with Vice President Dick Cheney, a longtime patron, next week... Asked whether he has ambitions to be prime minister, he replied with a smile: "That's for me to know, and you to find out.""
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/13125351.htm

U.S.'S IRAQI LEADER CHALABI HAS IRANIAN CONNECTION
May 2004

"... joint US-Iraqi forces carried out raids on the home and offices of the Pentagon's erstwhile favorite, Iraqi National Congress (INC) chief Ahmed Chalabi... the INC's Information Collection Program (ICP), which until last week had received millions of dollars in US taxpayer funding in the last decade, has essentially been an Iranian disinformation operation designed to get the US to oust Saddam Hussein and that the ICP's chief, currently on the lam in Tehran, was an Iranian agent..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FE25Ak02.html

COST OF WAR

"... According to an October report from the Congressional Research Service, the cost of the war in Iraq has reached $255 billion, and is continuing at a rate of at least $6 billion per month..."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1112-20.htm

DOES ZARQAWI EXIST OR IS HE A MYTH?

November 2005

"Loretta Napoleoni, a terrorism expert and author of “Insurgent Iraq”, says that Abu Mus’ab Al Zarqawi, the alleged leader of armed groups in Iraq, is nothing but a myth created by the United States... A remarkable proportion of the unrest and bloodshed in Iraq is regularly credited to Al Zarqawi... The United States has been using the Jordanian born rebel as a shadow to follow in every region inside or outside Iraq where it deems interference in necessary. “Sometimes it seems no car bomb goes off, no ambush occurs that isn't claimed in his name or attributed to him by the Bush administration. Bush and his top officials have, in fact, made good use of him..."
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=10090

July 2005

"... he and his organization were reputed to be headquartered in Fallujah, prior to the American assault that flattened the city... He has since turned up, according to American intelligence reports and the U.S. press, in Ramadi, Baghdad, Samarra, and Mosul among other places, along with side trips to Jordan, Iran, Pakistan and/or Syria. His closest "lieutenants" have been captured by the busload, according to American military reports... when you try to track down Zarqawi, a man with a $25 million American bounty on his head, or simply try to track him back to the beginnings of his life's journey, whether you look for him in the tunnels of Tora Bora, the ruined city of Fallujah, the Syrian borderlands, or Ramadi, you're likely to run up against a kind of eerie blankness. Whatever the real Zarqawi may or may not be capable of doing today in Iraq or elsewhere, he is dwarfed by the Zarqawi of legend... Even dead, he is unlikely to die; even alive, he is unlikely to be able to live up to anybody's Zarqawi myth."
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0706-03.htm

November 2004

"... I didn't know of Al-Zarkawi, didn't even think that such person exists!! Dad suggests that he's just an imaginary person made by the Americans to make the resistance look worse! ... Believe me, faking someone exists is so easy nowadays, especially with the technology we have!
- Blogger in Mosul, "A Star From Mosul", Wednesday, November 24, 2004
http://astarfrommosul.blogspot.com/

"... not a single source, anywhere, claims to have actually seen "Zarqawi" since late 2001 in Afghanistan. Ask the Pentagon. Ask the CIA. Ask the Federal Bureau of Investigation. No one, on the record, is able to independently verify that "Zarqawi" actually exists. There are no photos - only that same CIA-owned black and white. The CIA doesn't even know how tall or how fat "Zarqawi" is. All the literature on "Zarqawi" since late 2001 springs from dubious "confessions" by prisoners and "statements" by all sorts of people claiming to be "Zarqawi"... he may have been created by US military intelligence..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FJ15Ak02.html

"... American counter-terrorism officials are ignoring a wide array of fundamentalist groups at work in Iraq and surrounding countries in their effort to portray all terrorist activity in Iraq as the handiwork of a single mastermind... America needs to create a serious public enemy who is not Iraqi so they can claim Iraqis aren't responsible for the resistance..."
http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/11/01/zarqawis_role_in_iraq_overstated_analysts_say?mode=PF

BISHOPS FROM BUSH'S CHURCH REPENT IRAQ WAR

"Ninety-five bishops from President Bush's church said Thursday they repent their "complicity" in the "unjust and immoral" invasion and occupation of Iraq. "In the face of the United States administration's rush toward military action based on misleading information, too many of us were silent," said a statement of conscience signed by more than half of the 164 retired and active United Methodist bishops worldwide..."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175245,00.html

THE ADMINISTRATION REALIZES THE INSURGENCY - SUMMER 2003

"... On June 16 Army General John Abizaid... was the first senior American official to say that in fact the United States now faced a "classical guerrilla-type campaign." Two days later... Paul Wolfowitz... (said) "There is a guerrilla war there, but ... we can win it." On June 30 Rumsfeld corrected both of them, saying that the evidence from Iraq "doesn't make it anything like a guerrilla war or an organized resistance." Two days after that President Bush said at a White House ceremony that some people felt that circumstances in Iraq were "such that they can attack us there. My answer is, Bring them on."
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200512/iraq-army/3

U.S. NOT COMMITTED TO "STANDING UP" THE IRAQI ARMY

"... President Bush and other officials say so often, "As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down."... Americans need to understand... when and whether Iraqi forces can "stand up."... if American troops disappeared tomorrow, Iraq would have essentially no independent security force. Half its policemen would be considered worthless, and the other half would depend on external help for organization, direction, support. Two thirds of the army would be in the same dependent position, and even the better-prepared one third would suffer significant limitations without foreign help. The moment when Iraqis can lift much of the burden from American troops is not yet in sight..."

"On the current course we will have two options," (said) a Marine lieutenant colonel who had recently served in Iraq... "We can lose in Iraq and destroy our army, or we can just lose."

"... the United States must therefore choose one of two difficult alternatives: It can make the serious changes—including certain commitments to remain in Iraq for many years—that would be necessary to bring an Iraqi army to maturity. Or it can face the stark fact that it has no orderly way out of Iraq, and prepare accordingly."

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200512/iraq-army

U.S. TROOP ROTATION PLAN FOR 2006

"The Pentagon announced a plan Monday that will send 92,000 fresh troops to Iraq beginning in mid-2006... Included in Monday's announcement were:
-Division Headquarters, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
-3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
-13th Corps Support Command, Fort Hood, Texas.
-1st Brigade, 34th Infantry Division, Minnesota Army National Guard.
-2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Schweinfurt, Germany.
-3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Wash.
-3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, N.C.
-2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, N.Y..."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/13106893.htm

UN EXTENDS MANDATE FOR U.S. PRESENCE IN IRAQ

"... The existing UN mandate had been due to expire at the end of this year, after parliamentary elections planned for 15 December... The UN Security Council voted unanimously to extend the mandate to the end of 2006... In a concession to France and Russia, the US agreed that the mandate should be reviewed in June next year..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4419222.stm

NUMBER OF U.S. PRISONERS IN IRAQ

"... Figures released by the US last week said its forces were holding 13,885 prisoners at several detention centres across Iraq, including more than 5,000 at Abu Ghraib.."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4416116.stm

INSURGENT NUMBERS SAME AS A YEAR AGO

"U.S. and Iraqi forces have killed more than 1,300 insurgents in Iraq and detained 9,000 suspected fighters since last January's election... but... Gen. John Abizaid, the chief of U.S. Central Command... put the number at 20,000... about the same as it was a year ago."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/iraq/13084531.htm

WHY THE INSURGENTS FIGHT

"The reason why they're fighting us is not Osama bin Laden. They're fighting us because we're here. ... They don't want us here. They just want us to leave. I guess that would be a victory for them. As far as I can see there's not going to be any victory for us."
--Sgt. Antonio Molina, Sniper, 3rd Infantry Division, in Muqdadiyah, Diyala Province

"(Sgt. Hunter) Sabin, sitting next to him, nodded. "In past situations you've had a good guy and a bad guy and the troops were impassioned, but now troops just want to go home," Sabin said. "I don't feel like there's a cause. I don't personally think there's a reason for this."

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12776025.htm

IRAQ SAYS NO TO U.S. STRIKES ON SYRIA

"Iraqi president (Talabani) says he is opposed to military action against Syria... (but admits) Iraq cannot stop US using bases against Syria... "I categorically refuse the use of Iraqi soil to launch a military strike against Syria or any other Arab country. But at the end of the day my ability to confront the US military is limited and I cannot impose on them my will."
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=14909

LIBBY REPLACED WITH BOGUS INTELLIGENCE ADVISOR

"Vice President Dick Cheney replaced I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby as his national security adviser on Monday with an aide identified by a former Iraqi exile group as the White House official to whom it fed information on Iraq that turned out to be erroneous..."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13046078.htm

U.S. COUNTS 26,000 CIVILIANS KILLED BY INSURGENTS

"The Pentagon... report says that nearly 26,000 Iraqis have been killed or wounded in attacks by insurgents, with an estimated 26 casualties a day between January and March of last year, rising to 64 a day in the run up to the referendum on the new constitution. This contradicts the Pentagon's assertion that the security situation in Iraq is improving..."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article323498.ece

HIGH COST TO U.S. OF CREATING AN ISLAMIC STATE

"... Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was once questioned about an Islamic government in Iraq. His response: "If you're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: That isn't going to happen." But that is going to happen. The Shiites, who comprise 60 percent of the population, will win any fair election in a landslide. They are the group that pressed for an Islamic republic during the negotiations on a new constitution. Their historical ties to Iran's Shiite government are well known...."

"... The costs to the U.S. of this misguided occupation are enormous. According to the Christian Science Monitor, the war in Iraq has already cost the U.S. more money in real terms than it spent in World War I. Besides the $260 billion in military costs, total spending for Iraq has to include $315 billion in future veterans' benefits, $220 billion in added interest, and $119 billion for every $5 increase in the price of oil through July 2010, plus $24 billion for reconstruction and security. The human costs are 2,000 dead, 20,000 wounded and counting. The political costs in loss of prestige and international support cannot be calculated..."

"... In the end, we will spend $1 trillion or more for an outcome that is inimical to our interests: an Islamic state aligned with Iran, an independent Kurdistan and a rump Sunni state around Baghdad that might well become a haven for terrorists..."

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1030-28.htm

QUESTIONS AFTER LIBBY INDICTMENT

"At the heart of Friday's indictment of a top White House aide remain two unsolved mysteries. Who forged the documents that claimed Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium for nuclear weapons in the African country of Niger? How did a version of the tale get into President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, even though U.S. intelligence agencies never confirmed it and some intelligence analysts doubted it?..."
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/13024382.htm

OIL PRODUCTION LOWEST IN TEN YEARS

"... The U.S. has spent $420 million fixing the oil network and allocated $1.7 billion to the sector.... (but) Iraq's oil production has fallen below prewar levels to its lowest point in a decade... They're producing less this year than last year. And the outlook for next year doesn't look so great... "
http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2005-10-10-iraq-oil-usat_x.htm

"... a report in July by the Government Accountability Office found that Iraqi production had declined since late 2004 to 2.1 million barrels a day from 2.5 million barrels, despite White House legislative requests for almost $3 billion to restore the oil industry there to its prewar abilities..."
http://nytimes.com/2005/10/27/business/worldbusiness/27oil.html?pagewanted=3&ei=5094&en=a82c01e805b01c80&hp&ex=1130472000&partner=homepage

IRAQI OIL EXPORTS HALTED

"Oil exports from Iraq have been completely halted by a combination of attacks and bad weather... and officials warned the (northern) damage may take a month to repair..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4372434.stm

LEGACY OF IRAQ - BADLY WOUNDED TROOPS

"... Without the advances since Vietnam, the U.S. death toll in Iraq would be nearly double the current total... But military doctors said some troops who may have died in previous wars are surviving, but with grievous injuries such as multiple limb amputations. "Someone who loses one limb is a challenge to get back to a meaningful, functional lifestyle. But somebody who loses three limbs, on top of other types of soft tissue wounds, fractures, head injury, spinal-cord injury, paralysis...?"

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=28746+24-Oct-2005+RTRS&srch=Will+Dunham

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1023-07.htm

CONTRACTORS KILLED

"Four U.S. contractors for the U.S. military were killed in Iraq last month, the military said... No reason was given why the military had not released information on the attack earlier..."

"... the victims were American employees of Halliburton unit Kellog, Brown & Root... two of the men were dragged alive from their vehicle, which had been badly shot up, and forced to kneel in the road before being killed.. "Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight..."

"Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man's body to stoke the flames... U.S. soldiers escorting the convoy were unable to respond quickly because the hatches on their Humvees were closed..."

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-10-22T182631Z_01_MOL265092_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-CONTRACTORS.xml&archived=False

HUGHES SAYS SADDAM GASSED HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS

"... (Karen) Hughes... defended the invasion of Iraq as necessary to protect the United States... because... "After all he had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people like he murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people using poison gas against them," she said."

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=83858+21-Oct-2005+RTRS&srch=Tomi+Soetjipto

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Indonesia-Hughes.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1021-05.htm

"... State Department officials later acknowledged that Hughes... had misreported history..."
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051022/NEWS01/510220501/1012/NEWS06

WHAT IF U.S. WITHDRAWS?

"... let's say the US is not around much anymore, what's going to happen if you have a whole brigade of Sunni fighters come down from Mahmudiyah and attack Hila? That sort of thing happened in Lebanon during the civil war. These neighborhood militias can become armies and leave their areas to wage war against other neighborhood militias that become armies. Now, if that started happening, and if the Sunni Arabs started to win, it's inevitable that the Revolutionary Guards will come across the border from Iran to help the Shi'ites. Iran's not going to sit by and allow Iraq's Shi'ites to be massacred. If that happened, the Saudis, the Jordanians and the Syrian Sunnis are not going to stand by either and let Iranian Revolutionary Guards massacre Sunni Arabs in reprisal. They're going to come in. You could simultaneously be having Kurdish massacres of Turkmen, which would bring Turkey in. So you could end up with a regional low-intensity war..."
-- Juan Cole in interview by TomDispatch
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GJ20Ak02.html

WHY IS SADDAM NOT CHARGED WITH GASSING KURDS?

"Who was the first... to authorize use of mustard gas against rebellious Kurdish tribesmen in Iraq?... Winston Churchill. As colonial secretary and secretary for war and air, he authorized the RAF in the 1920s to routinely use mustard gas against rebellious Kurdish tribesmen in Iraq..."

"... (concerning) the 1988 gassing of Kurds at Halabja... The CIA's former Iraq desk chief claims Kurds who died at Halabja were killed by cyanide gas, not nerve gas... At the time, Iraq and Iran were locked in... their eight-year war. Halabja was caught between the two armies that were exchanging salvos of regular and chemical munitions. Only Iran had cyanide gas (and Iraq had mustard and nerve gas). If the CIA official is correct, the Kurds were accidentally killed by Iran, not Iraq..."

"... Who supplied (the Iraqis) with (their) mustard and nerve gas?... Four British technicians in Baghdad who (were) "seconded" to Iraq by Britain's ministry of defence and MI6 intelligence to make chemical and biological weapons, including anthrax, Q-fever and plague, at a secret laboratory at Salman Pak."

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2004/12/19/790077.html


"... immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas... The condition of the dead Kurds' bodies, however, indicated they had been killed with a blood agent -- that is, a cyanide-based gas -- which Iran was known to use. The Iraqis, who are thought to have used mustard gas in the battle, are not known to have possessed blood agents at the time."
http://mosulfamily.blogspot.com/2005/10/saddam-never-gassed-his-own-people.html

"... excerpt from US Army War College report that no evidence exists to support US claims that Iraq used gas on the Kurds..."
http://mosulfamily.blogspot.com/2005/10/no-proof-saddam-gassed-kurds.html

SADDAM ONLY CHARGED WITH KILLING 143 IRAQI SHI'ITES

"... the defense will argue that the 143 people who were executed had been found guilty under Iraq's laws and Saddam's only role was to sign their death warrants - just as George W Bush, as governor of Texas, sent 152 people to death..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GJ20Ak03.html

"Saddam Hussein's... most flagrant crime of committing mass atrocities against the Iranian people has not been included in the criminal complaint... principally as a result of the twin factors tantamount to opening a Pandora's box: (a) Saddam's forced annexation of Kuwait in 1990 was connected to the post World War I "divide and conquer" neo-colonialism of Western governments, thereby denying Iraq a fair share of the Persian Gulf coastline, and (b) the Iran-Iraq war raises the taboo of US and European governments' complicity with the Ba'athist regime..."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GJ22Ak02.html