THE VALUE OF FOREIGNERS

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

PRESIDENT HAS MEMORY LAPSE

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

VIEWS OF IRAQIS

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


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

RUMSFELD BLAMES TURKEY FOR INSURGENCY STRENGTH

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

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

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

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

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

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

HALF OF RECONSTRUCTION FUNDS SPENT ON SECURITY

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

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

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

BREMER ORDERS - REVERSIBLE OR NOT

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

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

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

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

WOMEN TAKEN HOSTAGE

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

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

REGIME CHANGE - SECULAR TO SHIA?

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

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

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

U.S. RELIED ON CURVEBALL TO JUSTIFY WAR

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

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

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

IRAQ WAR IS MOTOR FOR FOREIGN JIHAD

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

IRAQI GAS SUBSIDIZED BY U.S. TAXPAYERS

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

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

CHILD MALNUTRITION ALMOST DOUBLED

"Malnutrition rates in children under five have almost doubled since the US-led invasion... and more than a quarter are chronically undernourished, a UN report says..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4395525.stm

"... Overall, more than one-quarter of Iraqi children don't have enough to eat... Children who manage to survive are usually physically and mentally impaired for the rest of their lives and more vulnerable to disease. Acute malnutrition signifies a child is actually wasting away... The situation facing Iraqi youngsters is "a result of the war led by coalition forces"
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0331-08.htm

BULGARIA WITHDRAWAL

"Bulgaria's government says it will ask parliament to back a full troop withdrawal from Iraq this year... taly, Ukraine and the Netherlands are also planning to withdraw their troops from the US-led coalition..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4398019.stm

ITALIAN ACCOUNT OF U.S ATTACK ON GIULIANA SGRENA

"... when Calipari was killed and Sgrena wounded, they were on a secured road that can only be accessed through the heavily-fortified Green Zone and is reserved exclusively for top foreign embassy and US officials.... Sgrena is very frustrated by the US government's claim, repeated consistently by the media, that the Italians were fired at from a checkpoint. She says it wasn't a checkpoint at all... It was simply a tank parked on the side of the road that opened fire on them. There was no process of trying to stop the car, she said, or any signals. From her perspective, it was just opening fire by a tank...

Sgrena also says that the US soldiers fired at them from behind... the bullet that injured her so badly came from behind, entered through the back of the car. And the only person who was not severely injured in the car was the driver, and she said that this is because the shots weren't coming from the front... the soldiers were firing at a car that was driving away from them.

That could explain why the US military in Iraq has blocked the Italian government from inspecting the Italians' vehicle, even though the car is the property of the Italian government which bought it from the rental agency after this incident. 'I think they have something to hide if they won't give the car over for inspection,' Sgrena told Klein. 'It's very strange. If there is nothing to hide, why not let Italian justice officials see the car?'

'It was not self-defense,' Sgrena said. 'The soldiers were to the right of us on the side of the road, they started to shoot from the right and kept shooting from behind but most of the shots came from behind, Calipari was shot from the right and I was shot in the shoulder from behind. When we stopped, they were behind us. We could see that all the back windows of the car were broken from behind. If they are afraid, they can stop the car, they can ask it to stop, then you can shoot at the wheels but they didn't do that. They didn't try to stop the car and they shot at least ten bullets at the level of people sitting inside the car. If Calipari had not pushed me down they could have killed me.'

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5599
Audio:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8361.htm

TWO MONTHS AFTER ELECTIONS - BETWEEN 50-60 ATTACKS A DAY

"... George Casey, the commanding US general of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, told (CNN) that current insurgent assaults were running at between 50 and 60 attacks a day.... "What it means to me is that is they're not nearly as strong or as capable as some people thought they were prior to the elections."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1332344.htm

BORDER CONTROL

"... 2,268 miles of border... separate Iraq from its six neighbors... The interim Iraqi government is struggling to deal with (a) sharp rise in smuggling two years after the American-led invasion left the borders wide open, even as it grapples with the border's more heralded problem: the movement of money and fighters that is helping to sustain the guerrilla war. Outside of foreign fighters, the surge in drug trafficking has Iraqi officials most concerned.... Drug trafficking was rarely a problem under Mr. Hussein because the government executed smugglers. General Abdul-Kareem, the head of border security, said... "During Saddam's time, the borders were very tightly controlled," he said. "But we have a history of thousands of years of law, dating back to Hammurabi's Code, and we will establish order again."
http://nytimes.com/2005/03/27/international/middleeast/27border.html?hp&ex=1111986000&en=b835f0e6d7c92b5d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

HUNT FOR WMD COST A BILLION DOLLARS

March 2005
"... The Iraq Survey Group's budget is classified, U.S. officials have said. But Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, told the AP that a report that $600 million was appropriated for 2004 was correct. That doesn't include a reported $300 million spent on the weapons hunt before the 2004 fiscal year, and additional spending in late 2004..."
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/085/world/Missiles_microbes_sacked_weapo:.shtml


January 2005
"The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq has come to an end... The top CIA weapons hunter is home, and analysts are back at Langley.... Congress allotted hundreds of millions of dollars for the weapons hunt, and there has been no public accounting of the money... the entire budget and the expenditures (will) remain classified."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2129-2005Jan11.html

October 2003
"... The Bush administration is seeking a further $600 million to fund the WMD search. According to The New York Times, the request... would increase the size of Mr Kay's team to 1,400 and bring spending on the so-far futile exercise to $1 billion."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1003-01.htm

THE DUTY OF THE U.S.

"... outside Falluja, 2nd Lt Ilario Pantano of the US Marines told me what the Iraq invasion had been for... "Our duty as Marines is, quite frankly, to export violence to the four corners of the globe, to make sure that this doesn't happen again."
... when I met him near Falluja, in June of last year, his life was almost a recruiting ad for the Marines, an example of the idealism surrounding America's Iraq adventure. Now, he has just become the first US serviceman from Iraq to be charged with murder. He is accused of killing two unarmed Iraqis, shooting them in the back, and putting their bodies on display as a warning to others..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4366269.stm