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information from occupied iraq ::
informazione dall'iraq occupato
The Guerilla War for Iraq’s Oil Mike Whitney
A war is raging in Iraq that will determine the outcome of the present occupation as well as the shape of future conflicts. It is the war for control of Iraqi oil. Currently, America is losing the conflict in rather stunning fashion with little hope of reversing the situation in the near future. This week the Iraqi Oil Ministry announced that oil production "has reached a post-war low" and that the "exports of crude, which had run at an average of about 1.6 million barrels per day since the end of the 2003 war, dropped to 1.2 mbpd in November and 1.1 mbpd in December." All the indicators point to reduced oil production due to escalating violence (...) The Iraqi resistance has grown increasingly skillful in sabotaging pipelines and facilities despite the massive security operations devoted to their protection (...) The resistance’s success is quantifiable in terms of the reduction in oil exports...
New Year Resolution: Shock and Awe to Replace Troops in Iraq Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire
As the new year unfolds, our war crimes complicit corporate media will tell us Bush is "drawing down" the number of troops in Iraq. In fact, the tempo and frequency of mass murder will increase, as the Straussian neocons have no desire to abandon their plan to decimate Muslim society. "Major U.S. news outlets are dodging the extent of the Pentagon’s bombardment from the air, an avoidance all the more egregious because any drawdown of U.S. troop levels in Iraq is very likely to be accompanied by a step-up of the air war," writes Norman Solomon for the MediaChannel. "Caught between the desire to prevent a military defeat in Iraq and the need to shore up Republican prospects at home in the face of an unpopular war, President Bush is very likely to keep escalating the U.S. air war in Iraq while reducing U.S. troop levels there." In short, the increased mantra to "bring the troops home" will result in an escalation of Iraqi death and suffering...
Ruling class debates Iraq war strategies The anti-war movement and Congressional ‘opposition’ Ian Thompson, Socialism and Liberation
Nearly three years after launching the war on Iraq, the Bush administration has a crisis on its hands. The war has proven to be unwinnable militarily. Bush’s goal of setting up a stable client Iraqi regime remains a distant fantasy. The Iraqi resistance to foreign occupation grows stronger every day. It enjoys broad support among the country’s population. Inside the United States, most polls show that a majority opposes the war. Massive anti-war demonstrations in recent months, combined with daily casualty reports have contributed to this sentiment. The brutal economic and racist realities exposed by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have diminished the government’s ability to present a "united effort" behind its imperialist project...
Torture: The Israeli Denial Ghali Hassan, Axis of Logic
...As the U.S. methods of torture are exposed around the world, Israeli methods of systematic torture on the Palestinians remain unbroken taboo. Western countries – led by the U.S. – have not only failed to condemn Israel’s brutal methods of torturing Palestinians, they are complicit in Israel’s denial. The fact is that, Israel has been routinely torturing Palestinians for decades with tacit support of Western powers and without comment. Israel’s policy of denying torture fits into the three common forms of denial of torture identifies in Stanley Cohen’s State of Denial. First, the "Literal denial" is when Israel denies that there is torture and that those who made the allegations against Israel are "anti-Smite" and "enemies of the state". Second, the "Interpretive denial", in which Israel denies practicing torture, but something else, such as 'lite torture’ and 'moderate physical pressure’ to "extract" information from prisoners. Third, the "Implicatory denial", this form of denial is Abu Ghraib model of acknowledging torture, but blaming it on a few "bad apples"; it is the Bush-Rumsfeld model...
US Military Still Runs With Dreaded Wolf Brigade Analysis by Gareth Porter*
Despite the U.S. command's announcement last week that it would seek to curb abuses by Iraqi commando units, the U.S. military has been extremely tolerant of the most abusive unit of all -- the notorious Wolf Brigade -- because it regards it as highly effective against the insurgents. As reported in a front-page New York Times story on Dec. 30, a senior U.S. commander said the United States would greatly increase the number of soldiers advising Iraqi commando units. The unidentified U.S. general also suggested that commandos had developed with little U.S. supervision...
Podhoretz's Bad Faith Distorts Iraq's Prewar al Qaeda Links Walter C. Uhler
...Why, then, was Cheney talking publicly about the links connecting 9/11 hijacker, Mohammed Atta, with Iraqi intelligence? After all, he certainly knew that investigations by the CIA and FBI had discredited such allegations. And why, then, was Rumsfeld talking about possessing "bulletproof" evidence linking Saddam and al Qaeda? After all, Rumsfeld knew quite well that the very persistence of doubts within the IC meant that the evidence was anything but "bulletproof." So who lied?...
Friends Don't Let Friends Commit War Crimes Cindy Sheehan
"You're like an ambassador for peace," a Spanish journalist told me as we finished one of the dozens of interviews I gave in Europe. I did this interview right before I went to meet with the Spanish Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs. In reality, I did feel like an ambassador for peace as I traveled around Europe for 16 days in December. The Mayor of London held a reception in honor of our peace efforts at the new and very modern City Hall, near the impressive and intimidating Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. Mayor Ken Livingstone has always been an outspoken critic of the Iraq war and the war crimes of Tweedledum and Tweedledee…Bush and Blair…the corrupt, yet sadly comical, mis-leaders of two of the most powerful countries on the planet. I believe Bush and Blair are too far gone for redemption. They both need to be removed from their power and tried for their war crimes and betrayals. Until they are removed, the murder and the mayhem will continue...
...For the last two and a half years, unfolding events have revealed the startling Bush administration’s true motives for war. Behind the false reasons given for attacking Iraq, the neoconservatives’ ambitious agenda was to dominate the Middle East, and eventually the world. By removing Saddam, the U.S. could control the flow of Iraq’s oil, change regime by installing a puppet government, and establish a footing for launching future wars within the region. Despite the Bush administration’s claim that the invasion of Iraq was not for oil by turning the oil fields over to the Iraqi puppet government, the U.S. government supported by oil conglomerates plan to seize control of Iraq’s economy by privatizing Iraq’s oil, which was backed by senior figures in the Iraqi Oil Ministry, under the Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs) that will be put into effect as soon as an apparent "legitimate" government is established...
Al-Armuti: "Saddam Remains Iraq's Actual President Under International Laws." Sami Mahasinah
Amman, Asharq Al-Awsat- Salih al-Armuti, the president of the Jordanian Lawyers Association who recently joined the team of lawyers defending deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, has stated that Khalil al-Dulaymi, member of the defense team, informed him that he could meet Saddam Hussein alone a day or two before the court session of 24 January in the Green Zone where he is held (...) Al-Armuti disclosed that he would invite the Jordanian Lawyers Association's general assembly to a meeting within one week to brief it on the power of attorney he was given to defend Saddam and would ask the members to provide detailed studies on international and constitutional law and international agreements, especially the Geneva Convention, so as to contest the legality of the court and its procedures as well as the US presence in Iraqi territories since the US forces continue to occupy Iraq and President Saddam Husayn is Iraq's actual president...
A glance at websites and newspapers of many Iranian "left" groups residing outside the country, gives one little impression that Iran's neighboring country, Iraq, is in a state of war and occupation by the US Empire. There seems to be little concern among Iran's traditional left about the United States' intentions to take over and control Middle East's oil resources. The neoconservative "Project for the New American Century (PNAC)" signifies little (if anything) to many of Iran's left groups (1). Some, even, under the pretext of fighting fundamentalist Islamists(2), indirectly cheer the American incursion into Afghanistan and Iraq. In reality, however, Iraq is a mirror reflecting the many flaws and shortcomings of the left in the Middle East...
There is nothing traditional about the current war in Iraq. There is no clearly defined or uniformed enemy, there is not even a front line or a foreseeable conclusion to what the president has described as "unending war." Most important, this was not a war based on an attack against us – the Iraq War was an illegal preemptive strike – which is something that violates every aspect of all the rules of war, because in Bush’s world, any country can now be attacked for just thinking about opposition to the United States, or to our policies...
Depleted Uranium: Dirty Bombs, Dirty Missiles, Dirty Bullets A Death Sentence Here and Abroad Leuren Moret
...Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But since 1991, the US has staged four nuclear wars using depleted uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the US government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently contaminated with radiation. And what about our soldiers? Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs reported this week to the American Free Press that "Gulf-era veterans" now on medical disability since 1991 number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that same 14-year period...
Time to impeach a President DOUG THOMPSON, Capitol Hill Blue
I’ve always felt impeachment is the nuclear option of politics; a drastic action we call in after all else fails. That’s why I’ve been reluctant to call for the impeachment of President George W. Bush. No longer. The reckless, arrogant actions of the man leave me with no choice but to consider that final solution. Time to impeach the son of a bitch (...) Let’s start the New Year by impeaching the criminal at the top of this corrupt pyramid scheme and then work our way down through the sordid pile. Indict Vice President Dick Cheney for bribes he paid and the money he laundered while Chairman of Halliburton. Send Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to prison for insider trading. Put former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay under the jail...
...In November, 2003, George Bush claimed that the U.S. had already "refurbished" more than 1,500 schools, and Dick Cheney claimed that more than 1,000 had been "rebuilt." More than two years later, we now are given a smaller number. Not to mention that, as I wrote back then, the U.S. government plays rather fast and loose with the words "rebuilding" and "refurbishing," counting such things as providing new desks or replacing some broken windows as "refurbishing" or even "rebuilding." What has the U.S. actually accomplished with its "rebuilding" billions? U.S. officials have shifted at least $2.5 billion from the rebuilding of Iraq's decrepit electrical, education, water, sewage, sanitation and oil networks to build new security forces for Iraq and to construct a nationwide system of medium- and maximum-security prisons and detention centers...
Interview with Mordechai Vanunu: Israel preparing to use nuclear weapons against Iran Voyenny Parad, No. 4, 2005 (original Russian) - Globalresearch.ca
The first rumors of Israel working on its own nuclear bomb arose back in the mid-1950s, when the Jewish state's scientific institutions started serious nuclear physics research. But only in 1986 did the rest of the world find out the real scale of Israel's work on nuclear weapons, thanks to Israeli nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu. With the assistance of Irish journalists Sean O'Carroll and Maria Escribano, we have managed to interview Israel's most prominent dissident. Mordechai Vanunu told us about the threat of a nuclear catastrophe hanging over the Middle East...
Appeal for help and information (especially former service members who were in Iraq) Feral Scholar
We are appealing to you for your help in finding out what really happened to Fred NERAC in Iraq on the 22nd of March 2003. He is the first journalist to go missing in Iraq, part of an ITN crew of four. Two were shot dead - Terry LLOYD, a senior ITN reporter and Hussein OTHMAN their "fixer". The fourth person was Daniel DEMOUSTIER, a Belgian cameraman, who survived. Fred NERAC is a French journalist living in Belgium and working for a British television channel (...) IN THE US REPORT THE TESTIMONIES OF THE MARINES ARE ALL THE SAME: THEY JUST SAW CARS COMING TOWARDS THEM, THOUGHT THEY WERE SUICIDE BOMBERS AND OPENED FIRE. IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE THAT NONE OF THEM CAN BE MORE PRECISE. THEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN DISCOURAGED FROM TELLING THE TRUTH OR FROM PROVIDING MORE DETAILS ABOUT THIS INCIDENT BY THEIR COMMANDING OFFICERS...
...With everybody waging and planning illegal wars of aggression, with American rendition and torture and Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, with Israel's constant scoffing at its obligations under international law including its obligations as an occupying power, you really have to ask: Does international law still exist?...
Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 1 January 2006 Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. ( http://www.freearabvoice.org )
...In a bulletin posted at 2:40pm Mecca time Sunday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that US warplanes had attacked a residential building near the former Immigration building in downtown ar-Ramadi – a facility that the US forces have taken over and turned into their local headquarters. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported a medical source as saying that at the time of reporting two local civilians were known to have been killed in that American air raid – an elderly man and his wife. Three more people had been injured in the raid. The figures were not final, the correspondent noted, however, since rescue teams were at that moment digging through the rubble in an effort to find and extract any remaining civilians...
What a Difference a Year Can Make: Will 2006 be 1966? Gary Leupp, www.dissidentvoice.org
... The Vietnam War began quietly and escalated gradually. Before the Tonkin Gulf Incident of August 1964, there were only 21,000 U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam, military advisors rather than combat troops. By the end of 1965 there were 184,000 troops. Still, the number of US troops killed in action between 1961 (from which military historians date the war) and 1965 was just 1,864. That’s pretty much where we are now in the war in Iraq with our 1,751. But the next year, another 5,008 died as the war suddenly escalated. The Vietnamese guerrillas were just getting started; there were 9, 378 U.S. troops killed in action in 1967. As the insanity of the imperialist war peaked in 1968 -- just as ardent war supporter George W. Bush was graduating from Yale and getting his Texas National Guard appointment -- 14,594 U.S. soldiers died trying to quell a resilient insurgency. Another 15,000 would die in action before a combination of Vietnamese resistance, GI revolt, and domestic American antiwar protest brought an end to the whole criminal enterprise...
Iraqi Sunnis Refute Report on US Bribing Scholars Mazen Ghazi, IOL Correspondent
Iraqi Sunni leaders on Monday, January 2, refuted as baseless and a clear attempt to undermine anti-occupation powers a report by a leading US newspaper that few Sunni scholars were on the payroll of US companies orchestrating media campaigns to polish the US army's badly bruised image. "Of course we dismiss this (report) in form and essence, but it also asserts our long-standing position that any credible political process in Iraq is impossible under occupation," Mohamed Ayyash Al-Kubeisy, a spokesman for the influential Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), told IslamOnline.net...
US Backtracks on Iraq Reconstruction: Report IslamOnline.net
The Bush administration has apparently backtracked on its promises to rebuild Iraq, and does not intend to seek any funds for the gruesome job in the budget request going before Congress in February, a leading US daily reported on Monday, January 2 (...) It further quoted Brig. Gen. William McCoy, the Army Corps of Engineers commander overseeing the Iraq reconstruction mission, as telling reporters in Baghdad recently that "the US never intended to completely rebuild Iraq"...
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