Peace & War: The Iraqi/Afghan War - Archive |
12//2/07 Turkey invades Iraq: U.S. says "no comment" As Turkish military forces make incursions into Kurdish region of Iraq in strikes against Kurdish "militants," U.S. government representatives says simply that the U.S. is continuing its efforts to bring Turkey and Iraq together diplomatically, and have no comment and claim no special information about the military operations. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071201/pl_afp/turkeyiraqunrestkurdsus 12/1/07 U.S. makes an agreement with Iraq and calls it a "decleration of pricnciples." To Nuri Al-Maliki, it may be more like a kiss of death. Just as U.S. embracing of Mahmoud Abbas in Palestine infuriated the Arab street, so too the new "deal" with Iraq which failed to include any provision of a timetable for the withdrawing of U.S. troops. This failure makes even more tenuous the fragile arrangement by means of which Sunni tribal leaders and Shiite cleric al Sadr have agreed to fight al-Qaeda in return for government's progress in getting the U.S. out of the country. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IL01Ak01.html 12/1/07 Over 2 million Iraqis have been displaced, many into refugee camps, and international support for their needs is said by NGOs to be drying up. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1130/p04s01-wome.html 12/1/07 BBC reports killing of 14 Iraqis by militants in Baquba in an article the main thrust of which is to report the decline in such deaths over the last month. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7122598.stm 11/29/07 Blackwater said to have dreated a "culture of lawlessness" among its Iraqi-based employees:. This is alleged in a lawsuit filed by several victims or survivors of those killed or wounded by Blackwater in a September incident. The company is said to boast of its record of never having a State Department employee in its protection killed in Iraq, and promotes a "meaner and tougher" persona of its agents that has led to an alleged frequent use of "performance-enhancing" steroids. The company denies these charges. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/11/27/blackwater.iraq/ 11/28/07 Bill Clinton, campaigning with his wife in Iowa, says he "opposed" the invasion of Iraq from the start although the record shows that he said in 2003 that he "supported the authority" of the President to go to war. Clinton "advisers" tell the New York Times that Clinton felt that, as an ex-President, it would have been "inappropriate" for him to have expressed "full-throated" opposition to the invasion. With Bush a lame duck and his wife bidding to succeed him, it is apparently the "appropriate" time for the great triangulator to move in a straight line http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/us/politics/28clinton.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 11/28/07 Japan's role in military support operation against the Afghan insurgency is stymied by anti-war opposition within the government. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7116358.stm 11/25/07 Too few troops on the ground, too many bombs in the air:.Washington Post correspondents explain why the U.S. and NATO are "losing" the war in Afghanistan. Support of their effort is eroded "one civilian at a time" as the relatively few foot soldiers react in panic, causing civilian casualties when they respond to attack; and as the plethora of aerial assaults generate inevitable "collateral damage" among civilians. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/16/AR2007111601203.html 11/17/07 Helat of Iraqi children was poor under sanctions imposed in 1990, worse under the occupation and insurgency starting in 2003: Recent report of Save the Children details the lack of pediatric and gynaecological medical facilities in the country as a prime reason for the growth in infant illness and mortality. http://www.iwpr.net/?p=icr&s=f&o=340692&apc_state=henpicr 11/14/07 Blackwater and the law: FBI and Justice Department may be at odds. Leaked information on Bureau's investigation of Blackwater security agent's killing of 17 Iraqi civilians indicates that most the shootings were unjustified. New AG Mukasky faces a difficult decision on whether to prosecute, because of the murkiness of U.S. law covering such situations. Members of Congress want to strengthen that law to allow "someone to be held accountable." http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/world/middleeast/14blackwater.html?th&emc=th 11/13/07 The U.S. surge in Iraq is beginning to surge back home. As scheduled draw-down of forces is planned for first half of 2008, military officials are left wondering whether the troop surge produced any lasting effects, especially in light of almost total failure of Iraqi government to "stand up" to the security situation, a long-articulated pre-requisite to the U.S. "standing down." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071112/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_security_gains 11/12/07 Washington Post, in a special report featuring pictures, recorded voices and written words, describes some of the plight of those veterans returning from our recent conflicts "without a scratch" but with traumatizing memories of their combat experiences. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/interactives/walterreed/galleries/scratch.html 11/12/07 If Blackwater is kicked out of Iraq, will Dyncorp be an improvement in U.S. treatment of civilians? Maybe not, as a DynCorp guard fires on and kills a taxi driver in a "knot" of traffic near the State Department convoy he was charged with protecting and then flees the scene. Bystanders say the driver was no threat at all to the convoy. 11/3/07 Charles Sullivan's description of the real motive behind the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraqi, which has resulted in the effective destruction of the country, a consequence not of "incompetence" but design, an intention to open up Iraq to the unimpeded exploitation of its resources by multi-national corporations. Only a propagandist media has concealed this fact from the public. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/11/behind-the-facade-of-incompetence/ 10/25/07 Provinces in northern Afghanistan are paying a "peace penalty" for their non-belligerence: In Bamiyan province, for example, New Zealand troops stationed there have not fired a single shot in four years; but a province the size of Connecticut does not have a single paved road. The "squeaking wheel" syndrome seems to be at work here. It may be changing somewhat as commanders begin to realize that they are spending inordinate amount of resources on security in southern Afghan areas in which development projects have been more lavishly funded. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1024/p06s01-wosc.html?page=1 10/24/07 U.S. kills civilians in Iraqi air attack, blames insurgents for seeking shelter and putting innocent civilians at risk. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/96786814-1AD6-408B-98A2-717C9C1FDD3A.htm 10/23/07 Pepe Escobar of Asia Times on the forging of Sunni-Shiite unity in Iraq: There are signs of detente between the two faiths in the country as they unite around an agenda of opposition to U.S. occupation and especially against the U.S. plan to build permanent bases in the country. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ17Ak03.html 10/23/07 Which world golf course has the most formidable hazards? Try Kargha course in Kabul, Afghanistan where playing is actually hazardous to your continuing to live, with 4 suicide bombers attacking golfers in the last 3 months, the latest killing 12 golfers on the road to the clubhouse. So how about it, will Tiger Woods ever play in the Kabul Desert Classic or not? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/22/wgolf122.xml 10/22/07 As has been predicted for many months, decline in U.s. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan is accompanied by escalation of air attacks: A five-fold increase in air attacks is noted in Iraq, as military commanders delight in the availability of smaller and more precise weapons that allow them to pursue insurgents as they disperse across the country in smaller groups (often among civilians who become the "collateral damage" of these "precise" weapons.) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-10-21-airstrikes_N.htm 10/13/07 "A nightmare with no end in sight" Former U.S. comander in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, joins the chorus of ex-leaders in Iraq who have denounced the prosecution of the war, citing Bush's "flawed" war plan, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/washington/13general.html?th&emc=th 10/8/07 Dr. Pangaloss - AKA George W. Bush:. In Voltaire's Candide, his tutor Pangloss taught him that, no matter how bad things may appear to be in the world, this is "the best of all possible worlds." Similarly, says Christopher Brauchli, Bush closes his eyes to the reality of the Iraqi situation, as his speechwriters are now defining whatever is awry in the country as a necessary "return on success." http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/06/4359/ 10/8/07 New British PM Gordon Brown, despite his protestations of independence from U.S. foreign policy, is said to be ready to "back" U.S. limited air strikes against Iran. This support would not be for "regime change" in Iran, but rather would have to be in response to specific acts of Iranian aggression in Iraq. Given U.S. history of manufacturing "provocations" to justify military actions, this may not be such a high hurdle at the threshold of British support. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=3UZLZHIZ5WVNNQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/10/07/wiran107.xml 10/8/07 General Petraus is increasingly accusing Iran of involvement in support for insurgents in Iraq. 9/20/07 With defeat of Webb amendment, Democrats resign themselves to a strategy of "chipping away" against the Iraq war: Democrats in the Senate are unable to muster necessary 60 votes to thwart a Republican filibuster of their "best chance" of altering the course of the war, Senator Webb's amendment to require rest intervals for soldiers between deployments. Democrats continue to complain that they "don't have the votes" to stop the war; but they have taken "off the table" the very strategy of filibuster used so effectively by Republicans: they would need only 41 votes (not 60) to block any legislation which appropriates funding for the war. It appears that pigs will fly at the same time they find the courage to mount the nuclear option of their own filibuster. But not to worry, by "chipping away," the Democrats may be looking to the next election as they force Republicans to "own" the war and the Ds can gain even more seats in Congress (that magic number of 60) not to mention the White House; as all four Democratic Senators who are presidential candidates voted for Webb amendment. 9/20/07 The Anbar awakening from the view of a U.S. military embed: Katie Halper describes the process by which U.S. forces in Anbar Province have achieved the "progress" in that area touted by Bush and Petraeus. They have used various devices, including cash payments, to buy support from those not only who fought against coalition forces but who were involved in the Sunni death squads which have engaged in extensive ethnic cleansing, which has driven virtually the whole Shiite population into miserable refugee existence in Baghdad. As Halper sees it, by funding and arming both sides of the sectarian violence in the country, the U.S. is only worsening the civil strife there. Her best solution for U.S.: get out! http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/62827/ 9/13/07 Washington D.C. turns out not to be a "Green Zone" for Gen. Petraeus:. From Code Pink demonstrators to grumpy old men Senators, the General receives a reception usually reserved for "failed" military leaders. Michael Gerson laments that other "successful" generals in history, like Andrew Jackson, would have called for a duel if his "honor" were challenged as that of Petraeus was challenged by the likes of Dick Durbin or Harry Reid. (Modern) gentleman that he is, Petraeus responded by charts and statistics that Gerson believes "prove" the remarkable progress in Iraq that Petraeus was asserting. 9/13/07 Benchmark collapses in Iraq. Three ethnic parties now unable to agree on a key "progress" benchmark as two of them, the Kurds and Sunnis, back off from the fragile compromise designed to complete passage of the country's oil law. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/13/world/middleeast/13baghdad.html?th&emc=th 7/13/07 House passes 223-201 bill with a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq by 4/1/08: Bush (who will probably veto if it reaches his desk) and other Republicans throw a blanket of "politics" in condemning the action. (They never define politics; does it have anything to do with responding to the will of the people?) http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/07/12/cq_3069.html The vote: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll624.xml 7/12/07 Private contractor in Iraq describes how his connections bring him "these Iraqi cuties" as prostitutes for U.S. soldiers and civilians: A feminist researcher tries to assay the depth and breadth of the human trafficking of women in Iraq, a pattern difficult to document because of military cover-up and the violence of militias against Muslim women who prostitute themselves. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/11/2453/ 7/11/07 A top Al-Qaeda operative, according to US military command, was killed last week; The same man was killed a year ago: This follows a pattern of military exaggerations of their exploits in eliminating Al-Qaeda leaders. Abu Musab al Zarqawi was a more extreme case; he was killed 4 other times before his final demise in a U.S. air raid. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6252 7/11/07 Possible invasion of Iraq is "on the table" in Turkey. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2055503.ece 7/9/07 "We have a bigger presence but less boots on the ground" says a U.S. soldier involved with the "outpost strategy" that accompanied the "surge" of U.S. troops to Baghdad. The idea was to remove soldiers from large remote bases and into daily contact with civilians at "base camps" throughout the city. However, the insurgency has tended to target these bases for attacks in which civilians are often injured or killed, and the military spends about half of its troop forces in just defending the bases and actually conducts fewer street patrols than the Mahdi Army. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimesA93.html For one specific story abiut the travails of the soldiers atr one of these "outposts", see - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/08/AR2007070801314.html?referrer=email 7/7/07 To cover air strikes "called in" by ground forces that may have killed up to 60 civilians, NATO spokesman explains the strikes occurred in a "sparsely populated area" and that the targets were "positively identified enemy firing positions." Sometimes it takes a village to make a "firing position." http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=8883 7/6/07 Chorus of opposition to Iraqi oil law swells as Moqtada al-Sadr chimes in to give a Shiite section to the chorus, joining Sunni Arab and Kurdish voices already singing at full throat against an alleged foreign power grab of Iraq's oil resources http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070705/wl_mideast_afp/iraqoileconomy 7/5/07 "Cascade of building and safety blunders" in construction of U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Memo from the Embassy to State Department headquarters complains of myriad problems associated with the opening of a new "guards' base," the inaugural meal of which had to be shipped in from the old base after kitchen facilities failed in new construction. The builder is a Kuwaiti firm under investigation for corruption by U.S. Department of Justice. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/04/AR2007070401685.html?referrer=email 7/5/07 "God's rage" called downby Sunni clerics on any Sunni legislator who votes for Iraq's oil law. Sunnis boycott the legislature over passage of a U.S.-backed bill and the "benchmark" of an oil law by September (when General Petraeus gives his "progress" report) seems unlikely to be reached. http://www.kansascity.com/news/world/story/177550.html 7/2/07 Iraqi PM al Maliki condemns U.S. raid in Sadr City without his approval:The raid, which killed a number of people variously designated as armed fighters or civilians, threatens to further complicate al Maliki's fragile coalition of support among Iraqi factions. http://www.gulf-news.com/region/Iraq/10136062.html 7/1/07 The Afghanistan region of Kapisi, a strategically key area from which Taleban activity had been eliminated by coalition forces, is now the target of a re-infiltration of the area. 6/18/07 U.S. shifts to "new emphasis" in approach to Iraqi fredom. The "surge" program of putting U.S. troops in close contact with people in local neighborhoods in Baghdad having failed to reduce the intensity of the violence and having increased the number of U.S. casualties, General Petraeus announces a new approach of focussing on going outside the city to attack the sources of armaments used by "Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia," the "enemy" de jure, as things get all mixed up as to what "militant militia" the U.S. was supposedly fighting. 6/18/07 How does the U.S. get out of Iraq? Mikhail Gorbachev says the same way the Soviet Union exited Afghanistan in the late 1980s: LEAVE. http://www.thestar.com/article/225995 6/17/07 General Antonio Taguba claims that he was forced into early retirement by the Pentagon because of his "overzealous" investigation of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. 6/14/07 What does the sacred Shiite mosque in Samarra, Iraq look like after insurent attacks in 2006 and last week? Not much, as its gold dome and two minarets are destroyed, but hey its clock tower is still standing, so it "needs" one more hit to be total rubble. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/world/middleeast/14iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 6/14/07 AP military writer cites Pentagon report saying that U.S. casualties in Iraq are rising in spite of ttroop surge. How about they are rising because of the surge as more of them are exposed to close encounters with the insurgency? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070613/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_pentagon_report 6/14/07 IS Baghdad captuing General Petraeus the same way it's said that Philadelphia "captured"British Gen. How in the Revolutionary War? Historian Stuart Murray sees an ominous parallel between a British general who triumphantly "captured" Philadelphia in 1777, only to find his forces trapped away from the main action of the revolution...and General Petraeus who seems to be isolated and helpless is a special quagmire of Baghdad. Actually this recaptitulates an important lesson of military history: that commanders whose forces are dangling at the end of extended and insecure supply lines are in danger of a disastrous result. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/06/13/1858/ 6/12/07 As a half-century occupation of Iraq based on the "Korea model" is nw being suggested, , isn't it tme to look closely at how the U.S."presence" has worked out in South Korea? Kim Peterson takes such a look and shows how the U.S. has followed the typical pattern of permanent U.S. military bases maintained despite the hostility of locals but with the approval of governments that have "voluntarily" given over their sovereignty in a Status of Forces Agreement that allows the perhaps 50,000 crimes of Americans against Koreans to be prosecuted almost entirely on U.S. authority. Peterson shows as well how American power in post-conflict Korea resulted in the destruction of a socialist society while it helped promote a capitalistically thriving one; and how the humiliation of Koreans about the occupation of their country by the Japanese does not extend deeply to the American occupation or certainly to any generalized sympathies with other victims of occupation, as it has contribued military forces to the Iraqi occupation and has maintained a warm and friendly relationship with Israel. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/06/a-presence-in-the-south-of-korea/ 6/12/07 U.S. "friendly fire" attack kills 7 Afghan police, in an incident the details of which are disputed between U.S. and Afghans. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6743409.stm 6/11/07 Iraqis of all persuasions are shocked with open talk in Washington of a 50-year "Korea model" for occupation of their country...but you wouldn't know it from reading news coverage of the KM comments, which are based on the premise that a country getting a "Korea-style" occupation will assent to this long-term arrangement as being in their own national interest. No reporters having asked any Iraqis their opinions on KM, two AlterNet columnists do ask and get a resounding "no way" from even those Iraqis who support the current U.S. presence in their country. One critic compared the KM talk in D.C. to a "forced marriage" in which no one bothered to ask the bride about her interest in the marriage. http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/53469 6/11/07 Supposed emancipation of women in U.S.-backed Karzai government in Afghanistanis set back by expulsion of Malalai Joya from Afghan parliament. One of the most "outspoken" critics of the incompetent and corrupt parliament and presidency, Ms. Joya is banned for 3 years from parliament. http://www.countercurrents.org/rehman100607.htm 5/30/07 U.S. surge in Iraq has not helped the situation there:. British think tank says Iraq "on the verge of collapse" as violence persists and people are turning to sectarian militias as source of protection as security failure of the government continues. http://www.antiwar.com/ips/salih.php?articleid=11046 5/30/07 "Trained in glory, they died in absurdity": James Carroll's Memorial Day reflection on U.S. troops in the Iraqi War, as the nation struggles to find a way to recognize the sacrifice of its military men and women and also to grieve about the futility of the process that put them into that conflict. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/29/1504/ 5/30/07 U.S. troops go on another hunt for victims of Iraqi militant kidnappings; not U.S. troops this time, but British citizens seized from government offices. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070530/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AiTgIKbZig5Es73SYd0NrFWs0NUE 5/28/07 Republican candidates for President making little effort to "distance themselves" from President Bush on claims of al-Qaeda ties to Iraq. 5/27/07 Iraq war even more unpopular in Britain than in America. In a national poll, 17% say they approve of Blair's handling of the war, 6% of Bush's handling. 61% says they never approved and still do not approve of the war. http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/15868 5/25/07 Peace in our time? How about betrayal in our time? Keith Olbermann unloads on Republicans and Democrats for having passed an Iraqi War funding bill that contains nothing more than "optional meaningless symbolism" as any check on prosecution of the war, comparing the Democrats' rhetoric about this as the first step in exerting influence on war policy with the 1938 scene of Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper saying "this is peace in our time" based on an "agreement" with Hitler that it was pretty well known would be ignored or used by the dictator as a green light to proceed with his plans. Video and transcript. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17762.htm 5/25/07 "It sounds like Congressman Kucinich is trying to get noticed with a nutty conspiracy theory “ is a Republican Party spokesman's put-down of an hour-long speech on the floor of the House in which claims that Democratic as well as Republican leaders are supporting the effort of U.S. oil companies to grab the profits from Iraqi oil production. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/24/1422/ 5/24/07 Spinning the llosses of US soldiers to I.E.D attacks in Iraq. Head of the the task force established by Pentagon in 2004 to deal with reducing insurgency attacks with improvised explosives, faced with evidence of rising casualties from the use of these weapons, cites "progress" in the anti-I.E.D. program, noting that casualties have remained "about the same" or shown "peaks and valleys" while the number of such attacks has greatly increased: it now takes the insurgents 6 times as many attacks to produce the "same number" of U.S. casualties. Evidently the insurgents have risen to the challenge http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0523/p01s04-usmi.html?page=2 5/24/07 John Nichols: Democratcic Congressional leadership engineered a surrender, not a compromise with Bush on Iraq war funding. A convoluted game may yet be played out as the House and Senate finalize a version of the bill that may allow some Democrats to have their anti-war cake while eating it as they vote for the funding bill, but the reality is that the President has achieved support of the war throughout the remainder of his presidency, with little meaningful accountability. This leads both the "front-running" Democratic presidential candidates and certain "vulnerable" Republican Senators under intense pressure to follow the lead of Senator Mark Feingold who says he will not support a war funding bill. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=198331 5/23/07 As Democrats retreat from battle to put restrictions on Iraq war prosecution, voters will be "taking names" to remember at the next election. Tom Hayden doubts that Democrats in Congress who participate in the retreat will be able to avoid blame for the continued failure of any exercise of power to end the war; support of "benchmarks" that may be "waived" by the President will be no more reassuring than the numerous benchmarks of "progress" that Iraqis have already failed to fulfill. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/22/1363/ 5/17/07 19 Democrats, including Florida's Bill Nelson, join 47 Republicans in defeating an amendment, supported by the Democratic leadership and all Democratic candidates for President, that would limit funding for the Iraqi war. House is hanging tougher on the issue. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/16/AR2007051600708_pf.html The vote: 5/16/07 Strike of oil workers in Iraq attempts to stop or delay an oil law that they see as aainst the national interest of the country. The law would open most of Iraq's oil resources to development by foreign corporate interests without obligation to protect the interest of Iraqi nationals. http://www.counterpunch.org/terrall05152007.html 5/14/07 "Anything that flies on anything that moves" was Richard Nixon's 1969 directive to escalate the bombing of Cambodia to include all U.S. forces against all remotely-likely insurgency targets. If not in that language, this is essentially the same policy that is evolving in Iraq today, as U.S. ground troop withdrawal will likely be accompanied by an increase in tempo of the air war. The result in the 21st century is likely to be the same as it was in the 20th: it will feed the insurgency it is designed to suppress by creating an ever-increasing Iraqi fury at the resulting civilian casualties. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/13/1172/ 5/14/07 U.S. tropps' behavior suring the Baghdad surge. Polls show a majority of soldiers expressing lack of respect for Iraqi civilians and an unwillingness to report a colleague for civilian abuse. The YouTube video linked here demonstrates how these attitudes look to one Iraqi boy. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/#51750 5/7/07 Mixed messages on Iraq. As President Bush vetoes war spending bill containing deadlines for Iraqi actions to contain the insurgency, Secretary of Defense Gates praises Democrats for their efforts and warns Iraqi leaders that "time is running out" for them in terms of U.S. support. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes984.html 5/7/07 New York Times editorial says that U.S. continuation of Iraqi operation must depend on Iraqi adherence to three benchmarks, which Bush administration has not yet insisted upon: (1) removing Iraqi government siding with Shiite militas; (2) an oil law with fair sharing among ethnic groups; (3) removal of the blanket restriction against former Baathists' opportunities for work and government service. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/opinion/07mon1.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 5/6/07 "They can kick and bite and scream and scratch politically, but they haven't done that yet inside the caucus." Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid's comment on the discrepancy between the escalating anti-war rhetoric of the party's presidential candidates, including Hillary Clinton's support of a resolution rescinding the president's war power for Iraq, actions seen by the "caucus" (party leadership) as hindering their efforts to broker a "deal" on Iraq. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/washington/05cong.html?th&emc=th 5/6/07 "Great Wall of Baghdad" continues to be built. As PM Maliki fumes about the walls to "protect" residents of Sunni neighborhoods, the government's Interior Ministry follows U.S. encouragement to continue the project, and local residents fear that the Iraqi officials who man the wall's checkpoints as agents of the Shia-Kurdish government are doubling as members of the death squads that are wreaking vengeance on Sunni insurgents for their suicide bombs. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2516744.ece , 5/4/07 Canadian court denies refugee status to two Americans seeking to avoid military service in Iraq, refusing to declare the war "illegal." http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=41979414-48dc-4a39-bbb7-b5e4693f7212 5/3/07 Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress speak of compromise in the next effort at an Iraqi funding bill, as Democrats say they will drop the withdrawal deadline feature in the bill Bush just vetoed. Some kind of "accountability" will be featured in the new legislation. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/02/AR2007050201517.html?referrer=email 5/3/07 Former UK defence secretary Geoff Hoon admits "errors" in the Iraqi military operation, which he blames on British acquiescence to U.S. mistakes. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2070256,00.html 5/1/07 Iraq; Four ways to influence a President. Democratic congressman John Murtha says that popular opinion, elections, the power of the purse and (yes) impeachment are four ways by which a President can be "influenced" and he doesn't say that any of the four, including impeachment, is "off the table." http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/30/869/ 4/30/07 Fifteen minute US artillery barrage explodes a Sunday morning in southern Baghdad. The attack follows a day after nine U.S. soldiers were killed by insurgents. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-28-iraq_N.htm 4/29/07 "Improved" security situation in Anbar Province, Iraq, has some U.S. officials "giddy" with their success there. Their giddiness is somewhat tempered by the realization THAT some of this improvement has come at the price of a "marriage of convenience" with local tribal leaders and with Iraqi police of uncertain loyalty. One man complains about those on the security force: “One day they’re laying I.E.D.’s, the next they’re police collecting a pay check," http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/world/middleeast/29ramadi.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 4/28/07 Bush tells Democrats to "test my will" on Iraq. He says he will veto and veto again any legislation which provides deadlines for withdrawal. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070427/pl_afp/uscongressiraq_070427173750 4/26/07 House Democrats buy themselves a war. By a vote of 218-208, House passes a spending bill for Iraq war that require "non-binding" benchmarks and deadlines for U.S involvement in Iraq. All but two Republicans vote against it, one of them saying that Democrats were "voting for failure in Iraq." 13 Democrats vote against the bill, including members of the Progressive Caucus (Kucinich, Lee, Woolsey, Waters, Lewis) who warn their colleagues that, by approving war funding, they were "buying into" the war. With a presidential veto a near-centainty, Democrats threaten a "stronger" resolution in response. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18305971/#storyContinued The vote: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll265.xml 4/26/07 "We don;t do body counts." This is the attitude of Iraqi officials about civilian casualties alleged by a UN humanitarian commission in reporting widespread abuses of the civilian population by both insurgents and the government's security operations. Government responds by saying the report is "unbalanced" and exaggerates the gravity of the security operation, and that government can't keep track of casualties because they are increasing. 4/26/07 Bullets and flowers. Cartoon captures the essence of the future of the military operation in Iraq. http://www.csmonitor.com/commentary/index.html 4/18/07 Juan Cole comments on the discrepancy in public consciousness of U.S. shock and outrage at the students killed in an act of random violence at an American university and the tolerance of the definition of the situation in Iraq as "improving" when twice as many people are killed everyday by such violence in Iraq. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17545.htm 4/18/07 Numbers about Iraq you don't often hear. Calling the situation a "national emergency," a retired U.S. Army General says there are 130,000 civilian contractors working in Iraq, 4000 of whom have been wounded and 600 killed in the country's ongoing "civil war." http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=2688598&C=mideast 4/17/07 New survey study reports that 70% of school children in a Baghdad neighborhood pass dead bodies on their way to school and and experience other traumas. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-04-15-cover-war-children_N.htm 4/17/07 Four Iraqis refugees tell their stories to the BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/6552267.stm 4/16/07 A surge of insurgency. As the escalating security operation in Baghdad proceeds, Sunni militant insurgency persists in dogged tactics and in number of participants in Baquba, 35 miles north of Baghdad. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/16/world/middleeast/16insurgency.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 4/16/07 Iraqi political coalition unravels as Moqtada al Sadr orders 6 ministers to withdraw from Parliament in protest to al Maliki government's failure to demand timetable of U.S. withdrawal. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6558405.stm 4/14/07 Excessive force by US Marines in Afghanistan. Washington Post obtains draft copy of a report to be issued by Human Rights Watch today, alleging that Marines went on a rampage of indiscriminate killing of civilians after an ambush of one of their convoys. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302171.html?referrer=email 4/13/07 Suicide bomb in Iraqi Parliament that killed 8 in supposely protected Green Zone raises concern among Iraqis whether the government can even provide security for its own facilities, let alone the security of the Iraqi people. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 4/12/07 Large explosion rocks Iraqi parliament in Green Zone. 4/11/07 If this is success in Iraq, then what would failure look like? Last year Tal Afar, on the border between Arab and Kurdish territories in northeast Iraq, was being hailed as an example of how peace and democracy could be brought to an Iraqi town. This illusion was shattered when a car bomb killed 152 civilians and Shia police went on a vengeance rampage against Sunni insurgents that produced 70 more civilian deaths. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2439534.ece 4/11/07 John McCain takes a stroll in Baghdad. In a walk in a market under heavy military escort, McCain concludes once again that the "liberal media" have been giving an inaccurate picture of Iraq as a "quagmire." This "PR stunt" is too much for even some establishment news media, which portrayed McCain as having "made a fool of himself" (though the kind of fool likely to prevail in Republican primaries). http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion_columnists/article/0,2777,DRMN_23972_5474380,00.html 4/11/07 Title of new International Red Cross Report says it all: "Civilians Without Protection - The Ever-worsening Crisis in Iraq," http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6543377.stm 4/10/07 The White House puts a self-serving spin on the massive anti-U.S. demonstrations in Iraq, saying they demonstrate the progress made since the tyranny of Sadam Hussein was overthrown. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070409/ts_alt_afp/usiraqdemopolitics_070409155441 4/9/07 4 years after regime of Saddam Hussein was ended, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis assemble in holy city of Najaf to protest occupation, while Baghdad in placed under curfew and al-Sadr calls on all Shias to resist the U.S. presence in the country. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6537861.stm 4/9/07 Report card on the Iraq "surge" so far. Baghdad has "quietened" somewhat with fewer "death squad" executions, but U.S. military deaths and insurgency operations outside the capital have also risen; and the surge has contributed to a "fracturing" of Sunni insurgency that makes it hard for U.S. to "deal" with the insurgency as a whole. However, the surge is only about half accomplished, and things could get better (or worse). 4/9/07 4 years after regime of Saddam Hussein was ended, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis assemble in holy city of Najaf to protest occupation, while Baghdad in placed under curfew and al-Sadr calls on all Shias to resist the U.S. presence in the country. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6537861.stm 4/9/07 As Iraqi prisons are swollen with detainees from security "sweeps", the prisons have become rich recruiting grounds for a militant insurgency. LA Times report, based on interviews with former inmates, details the effect of mass detentions in alienating the Sunni population and in permitting extremists within them to intimidate any reluctant insurgents. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes932.html 4/6/07 The biggest "surge" in Baghdad consists in a massive increase in arrests of suspected insurgents, who would be "turned over" to Iraqi security, except that the Iraqi judicial system is in disarray and the U.S. finds itself increasing its own military police staffing and constructing more detention facilities. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0406/p02s01-usmi.html?page=1 4/5/07 U.S. Army now admits it is investigating as probable "friendly fire" deaths the killing of two U.S. soldiers who were rushed not fully prepared into the Iraqi war in February as part of the "surge" and that they may incorrectly have informed the families that the deaths were from enemy fire. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003567503 4/3/07 GOP delegates "do" Baghdad:. Republican members of Congress, including Senator John McCain, visit a market in Baghdad recently devastated by a car bomb and Rep. Mike Pence says that it was “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime,” Noting that the delegation arrived in heavily armored Humvees wearing battle jackets and after extraordinary security precautions, a merchant in the market asked "What are they talking about" and said the visit would make their situation worse. And Nancy Pelosi's visit to Baghdad was a "bad idea?" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/world/middleeast/03mccain.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 4/2/07 Whack-a-mole continues in Iraq: As U.S. "surge" leads to a "quieter" Baghdad, there is a surge of insurgency activity elsewhere in the country. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0402/p01s02-woiq.html?page=1 3/28/07 "Fast detention and slow release, especfially for those who are not guilty“. The assessment of a lawyers' monitoring group in Baghdad which examined the result of security "sweep" there, as it is said that hundreds of arrestees are crammed into detention facilities that were designed for dozens. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html?th&emc=th 3/27/07 The Democrats war-funding bill is atotal "farce": So says Joshua Frank, in noting that the bill, even if it were to become law (it won't because of a presidential veto), could do nothing to stop the war. Any threat of de-funding after the deadline is toothless because it allows the President a waiver of the withdrawal "deadline" if he certifies satisfactory "progress" in the war, which he can do at his own discretion. Again, the President said at the time of its passage: "Congress has sent its message, now it's time for them to send the money." http://www.antiwar.com/frank/?articleid=10728 3/26/07 Retiring U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, says he engaged in peace-seeking talks with various insurgent groups until sectarian violence escalated last summer after the bombing of a mosque in Samarra. His "friend," Ahmad Chalabi, says the talks foundered because the insurgents made "untenable" demands. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/26/world/middleeast/26zal.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogib 3/25/07 It's a story even the "radical" press has ignored, but Max Muller details the history of tortures uncovered by U.S. soldiers at Jadiriyah, Iraq in November, 2005. As with others found tortured and murdered throughout Iraq during the Occupation, the press has attributed these atrocities to "sectarian violence" between Sunnis and Shiites. In fact, Muller asserts, the U.S. military was aware of conditions at the prison long before the alleged "discovery" and allowed or executed tortures of prisoners long after they were supposedly released. These operations were apparently the work of Iraqi's Interior Ministry, heavily infiltrated by the Badr Brigade, whose actions in Iraq were encouraged by U.S. clandestine agencies. If Muller has accurately described the situation in Jaridiyah, it continues a U.S. "tradition" of such operations that include the Phoenix programme in Vietnam and the "Salvador option" in that country. http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1878.shtml 3/25/07 "Would you give a thug who invaded your house, smashed your things up and terrorized your children a timetable for withdrawal?" This rhetorical question is asked by Howard Zinn in his castigation of both the Democratic leadership in Congress and MoveOn which supported them in the passage of a "timetable withdrawal" resolution on Iraq. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17397.htm 3/24/07 With opposition from the right and left, Democratic leadership in House obtains passage, 218-212---with 14 Democrats opposing, 2 Republicans supporting---a version of an Iraqi spending bill that would require withdrawal by 2008 and troop readiness standards before deployment. Bush vows to veto any such legislation from Congress, and says "the Democrats have sent their message, now it's time for them to send their money." (Arrogance 101) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032300531.html?referrer=email The vote: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll186.xml 3/24/07 How the Democrats in the House got thatIraq war funding bill passed, one slab of pork at a time. Various members of Congress inserted into the legislation appropriations for projects of special interest to their constitutents. Rep. Sam Farr of California, a liberal anti-war Democrat, for example, voted for the legislation after gaining a $25 million appropriation for relief of e-coli hit lettuce industry in his district. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/03/23/24/ 3/24/07 "Ultimate nightmare" for Iraqis may be the fleeing of doctors and other medical facilities to care for victims of insurgent and sectarian violence. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6479997.stm 3/24/07 British government is said to be making contingency plans for immediate withdrawal of its troops from Iraq in the event of "operational difficulties." http://www2.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0703225144094859.htm 3/23/07 "When you reach a fork in the road, take it." This Yogi Berra-ism is cited by Democrats in the House in urging liberal colleagues to support the leadership bill to place a deadline on Iraqi war funding. Members of the Out of Iraq caucus take the "fork" and reluctantly support the bill as a deal that is better than "no deal." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/22/AR2007032200944.html?referrer=email 3/23/07 No worse than Detroit. Rural Republican Michigan lawmaker raises ire in the Motor City by suggesting that the violence in Baghdad is no worse than that on the streets of Detroit. http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070322/NEWS06/703220424/1001/NEWS 3/21/07 Repent or die. Insurgents in Sunni sections of Iraq are forcibly issuing this ultimatum at police stations, and many police are responding by "repenting" (quitting the police force.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031901083_pf.html 3/21/07 Life outside Afghanistan's version of a "Green Zone" (The Great Masoud Road). A convoy of U.S. embassy officials is attacked by a Taleban suicide bomber and several are wounded as an Afghan civilian is killed. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia//article1537135.ece 3/20/07 Stories of betrayal. George Packer's article in The New Yorker details the fate of the handful of Iraqis who have embraced the American occupation and attempted to be helpful, only to be abandoned when they sought American protection from the reprisals of their countrymen. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/26/070326fa_fact_packer?printable=true 3/20/07 Rolling the lofs to try to stop a war. In a maneuver as old as U.S. politics, Democratic leaders in Congress try to garner support for their bill to limit funding of Iraqi war by holding out to reluctant lawmakers promise of support for projects that are important to their constituents. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/19/AR2007031901615.html?referrer=email 3/19/07 Cordon and search in Baghdad, as it looks at the scene. Sunni insurgents leave the scene of a cordoned area and U.S. forces come in with full force to "break up households" (literally) and terrorize the hapless non-combatants who remain behind. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17337.htm 3/19/07 Will Bush and Blair ever be making a trip toThe Hague to face war crimes trials? Chief prosecutor of lnternational Criminal Court "envisages" this possibility, a statement which may be designed to encourage more Arab nations to "sign up" for the Court which many in that region see as biassed toward the West. UK Sunday Telegraph notes that the fulfillment of this scenario is "unlikely." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/18/nirq118.xml 3/17/07 Regime change in Iraq: First Saddam, now al-Maliki? Peter Symonds cites evidence that U.S. is attempting, by establishing unattainable "benchmarks" for Iraqi government progress against insurgency, to displace the current government with one which is willing to take a more aggressive stance in line with U.S. opposition to Iran. http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-symonds170307.htm 3/17/07 Fighting the surge in Sadr City. Thousands pour out of Friday prayers at a mosque in the Baghdad suburb demanding that the U.S. base in the neighborhood be closed, carrying pictures of Muqtada al-Sadr and messages from him exhorting them to resist cooperation with the "occupiers," a cooperation that almost cost a Mayor his life. http://sg.news.yahoo.com/070316/1/47bue.html 3/17/07 British coroner rules that "friendly fire" death of British soldier at hands of U.S. soldiers was result of U.S. negligence. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2036080,00.html 3/16/07 Baghdad under surge. Patrick Cockburn's first hand account of the split of the city into sectarian enclaves in which "checkpoints" are instituted by Shia or Sunni in an attempt to contain the perceived danger posed by the other ethnicity. It adds up to a harrowing game of tit-for-tat that makes the city basically unlivable for the foreigner. http://counterpunch.org/patrick03152007.html 3/16/07 Aan un-emboldened enemy and the US Senate. Drowned in a rhetoric of fear that a withdrawal deadline for Iraq would "embolden" the insurgency, Republicans in the Senate, with only one defection, kill a Democratic plan to set a deadline. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/washington/16cong.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin In the logic of this rhetoric, this action should have intimidated the insurgency. Instead it launches ANOTHER DEVASTATING ROUND OF CAR BOMBINGS IN BAGHDAD, in which the "surge" of U.S. troops was supposedly improving the security situation. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070316/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=AqL24qbS0QgUE6o1HQ3ErClw24cA 3/14/07 When surge becomes "mission creep." As General Petraeus is already asking for additional troops beyond the original surge level, military analysts note the tendency for initial military commitments to escalate into larger ones. With Congress in rebellion, when does escalation creep beyond its tolerance? http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0314/p02s01-usmi.html?page=1 3/14/07 Get the oil thing settled, Maliki:. The Iraqi PM has reportedly told aides that a U.S. "benchmark" for continued support is the expectation that by June 30 he will have convinced a recalcitrant legislature to pass an oil law related to the distribution of profits to different regions. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/13/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Oil.php?page=1 3/13/07 "Rec" report on slow and fast bleeding in Iraq. As Cheney complains that Democrats in Congress are engaged in a "slow bleeding" of support for U.S. troops in Iraq, a blogger takes note of the "fast bleeding" of the U.S. Treasury by Cheney's "old" company, Halliburton, which stands to enjoy an unprecedented "surge" of profits from developments in Iraq. http://www.legitgov.org/comment/rec_report_120307.html 3/13/07 Hajji juice (moonshine) makes its way onto US military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan: Pentagon prohibition hasn't stopped widespread drinking and alcoholism that is believed to have contributed to various crimes committed by American soldiers. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/world/middleeast/13alcohol.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th 3/12/07 LA Times reports on an Iraqi "fallback" position if the current Iraqi "surge" fails to contain the insurgency: shift from active military involvement to a "training" mission. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2032022,00.html 3/12/07 What freedom of the press ? Reporters of the insurgency in Afghanistan are being pressured by both the Afghan government and the U.S. military to curb stories and images critical of their operations. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6439121.stm 3/7/07 Congress may put both al-Maliki and G.W. Bush on a short leash. Congressman Jack Murtha expected to introduce legislation that would give Iraqi government 80 days to show its mettle in maintaining security, 6 months after this for withdrawal of U.S. troops, requirements for combat readiness for any deployed troops, and the requirement that the President come back to Congress to request waivers for any of the stipulated conditions of support for the war. http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/03/murtha-to-give-iraqi-government-80.html 3/6/07 Is the Iraq war the Democrats' golden goose? Kevin Zeese thinks so. By opposing the war at the same time they are preparing to furnish the necessary funding to continue it, they hope to harvest the golden egg of anti-war votes. Only if the peace movement makes it clear they will not hand over that "gold" unless the war is stopped will Mother Goose stop laying that egg. http://counterpunch.org/zeese03032007.html 12/31/06 Knight Ridder (McClatchey) reporter returns to Baghdad and finds conditions there dramatically worse than when she last visited there in 2005. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16337639.htm 12/31/06 "Just so much theatre": UF's Dennis Jett says that Bush posturing about a "new strategy" to get the U.S. out of Iraq is simply an effort to put window dressing on a situation in which "victory" is impossible. http://gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061231/EDITORIALS0101/61231011/-1/editorials07 12/30/06 UK Guardian special report: Saddam Hussein's execution further divides an already-splintered society. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1980274,00.html 12/30/06 UK Independent: however deserving of his fate, Saddam Hussein's execution was a "travesty of justice" that ignored American complicity in his crimes and short-circuited a second trial that might have allowed Kurdish Iraqis a measure of satisfaction of their desire for revenge against their oppressor. http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article2112542.ece 12/29/06 A "deeply flawed trial": Human rights organizations and national governments around the world weigh in to oppose the execution of Saddam Hussein, citing such irregularities as the appeals court announcing a decision in advance of its investigation. http://www.arabisto.com/p_blogEntry.cfm?blogID=20&blogEntryID=277 12/28/06 "An excuse to foment violence:" White House spokesman's warning that the execution of Saddam Hussein will likely incite retaliatory actions by Iraqi insurgents. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061227/pl_afp/iraqjusticesaddamus 12/28/06 Blood for Oil charges are revived as plans are said to be in the works to resurrect an oil pipe line that would pump Iraq's oil into Israel, solving Israel's energy crisis and providing a reliable oil supply for U.S. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,940250,00.html 12/27/06 Sailing against the prevailing winds: President Bush shows signs of backing away from early post-election and post-ISG disposition for a "new strategy" for Iraq as he refuses negotiation with Iran and Syria, and considers increasing troop levels rather than diminishing them. With a storm brewing in Congress, his seas may get even more choppy after 110th Congress convenes in January. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/nyt743.html 12/26/06 Senators Christopher Dodd and Harry Reid are among a growing chorus of congressional voices raised in opposition to a "surge" in U.S. troop forces in Iraq. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061225/wl_mideast_afp/usiraqmilitary_061225164134 12/26/06 British troops demolish a prison in Basra, Iraq, after finding 127 prisoners who showed signs of having been tortured by Iraqi security forces. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061225/wl_afp/iraqunrestbritain_061225115721 12/23/06 The surge is coming in Iraq: military commanders now recommend short term increase in troop strength after earlier objections by many that this would not be helpful; Bush can now "take the advice" of the Generals, whose arms must be sore from the twisting. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-troops23dec23,0,2095230.story 12/23/06 Baghdad gets a bath: Shiites are having their ethnic cleansing way in the city as neighborhoods once mixed between Sunni and Shiite are becoming all-Shiite as Sunnis flee. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/23/world/middleeast/23shiites.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 12/22/06 Sham trials? Residents of Haditha, Iraq are angry that U.S. Marines charged with the massacre there in 11/05 are to be tried by courts-martial rather than in the justice system of Iraq. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-21-iraq-haditha_x.htm?csp=34 12/22/06 Bush administration continues its pattern of discontinuing "bad news" reports by classifying previously public information about the number of insurgent attacks occurring in Iraq. http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/002175.php 12/22/06 Saudi Arabia is emerging as supporting the interest of Sunni Arabs in Iraq, whether it be in insisting that the U.S. stay to avoid a further bloodbath at the hands of the Shiites or by helping to fund the Sunni insurgency. http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/45721/ 12/19/06 Deja vu Viet Nam: Bush seems to have unlearned a lesson from Viet Nam, as he begins to cite "body count" numbers of the enemy killed in recent months as a desperate grasp for a measure of the war's "success." The lesson learned and repeated by military people in his own administration is that these announcements are "counter-productive" as they tend to inflame opinion of other people against America. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6637652 12/19/06 Patrick Lange and Ray McGovern: surging to defeat in Iraq. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1218-24.htm 12/19/06 Baghdad under (electrical) siege as insurgents have cut all power lines to outside generating plants. Iraqi electricity minister calls the situation "dire"; Western officials are "optimistic." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/world/middleeast/19electricity.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 12/18/06 Iraq Study Groups says Iraq should be assured that U.S. does not covet Iraq's oil...then "gets down to business" and explains exactly how Iraq should be required to pass laws that will insure foreign control of their oil. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1217-20.htm 12/18/06 All Maliki's horses and all of his men: Iraqi PM wants to try to put back together what was broken by Paul Bremer's disbanding of Saddam Hussein's army, asking them to join the new Iraqi security forces. http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/saddams-troops-are-welcome-back-pm/2006/12/17/1166290413359.html 12/18/06 Central Criminal Court in Iraq, established under U.S. auspices, dispenses quick and harsh judgments to defendants brought before it by the U.S. military with little concern for due process. http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/17/news/justice.php 12/17/06 "Surge" in U.S. troops strength in Iraq moves beyond the "considering" state as Pentagon plans to put 3500 troops from 82nd Airborne in Kuwait after January 1 with a view to increasing forces in Iraq. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061216/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq 12/17/06 Will U.S. achieve "victory" in Iraq? Only 9% of Americans in IPSOS poll say yes, rest see defeat or compromise as likely outcome. http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/14094 12/17/06 Official of Iraqi Red Crescent, an international humitarian organization, complains of harassments and attacks of multi-nation coalition, especially by American troops in Iraq, saying the Americans are more a threat to them than are the insurgents. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1216-05.htm 12/17/06 Smoking gun (again) in Britain on the Iraqi war: Former British negotiator at UN, Carne Ross, said UK government was well aware that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and that they had warned the U.S. against the "regime change" policy in Iraq that has led to the current "chaos." Ross' testimony had allegedly been suppressed by Foreign Office threat to invoke the Official Secrets Act against him. http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2076137.ece 12/12/06 "I took you into this war. Adjust your thinking about me, and I can bring you out. If you refuse to change, I will destroy you. What am I?" James Carroll, speaking for "the Sphinx," suggests this riddle answer if the Sphinx were asked how we are to get out of Iraq. "What am I?" Obviously, nuclear weapons. We went in out of fear of Iraq's weapons, and can get out only with the co-operation of Iran, with which Bush will not talk until it submits to nuclear inspections; which it well might do were the U.S. to give up its double standards on nuclear proliferation and bring down its own nuclear arsenal. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1211-24.htm 12/17/06 Saudi move in the geo-political game: tells Bush it opposes U.S. pullout of Iraq and indicates it may support Iraqi Sunnis in any resulting civil war between Sunnis and Shiites. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/13/world/middleeast/13saudi.html?th&emc=th 12/12/06 Panel of retired generals and academics advises Bush not to follow ISG suggestion for troop reduction in Iraq. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/11/AR2006121100508_pf.html 12/12/06 As U.S. Marines in Fallujah go about the city trying to do good deeds at hospitals and other places of need, their presence is actually feared by those they are trying to help because of likely reprisals against them from the local insurgency. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1212/p01s04-woiq.html 12/11/06 Reuters UK analyst says that, while Tony Blair agrees with the Iraq Study Group's recommendation on negotiating with Syria and Iran to help end the Iraqi war, his "hands are tied" by his inability to influence U.S. foreign policy. 12/11/06 More than 1000 Afghan demonstrators attempt to storm U.S. Air Base at Bagram, demanding the release of civilians arrested during an anti-insurgent raid. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8702657/ 12/10/06 Ethnic cleansing in a mixed Sunni/Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad; Shiite militias go on a rampage forcing Sunni families from their homes, as Rumsfeld arrives in Baghdad and goes straight to Camp Victory for a farewell "thank you" visit to U.S. forces. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/nyt707.html 12/10/06 Iraqi police academy in Baghdad, in which U.S. has sunk $15 billion, stands in shambles and has "all but imploded." http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=171283 12/10/06 "I for one am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore. ... So either we clear and hold and build, or let's go home": Senator Gordon Smith, Republican of Oregon, formerly a war supporter. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061208/ap_on_go_co/iraq_republican_senator 12/9/06 Was the Iraqi War really "about oil?" An answer might come if the Congress to convene in January would re-open investigation of Cheney's mysterious "energy task force" from 2002. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=11584 12/7/06 Tony Snow does the White House spin on Iraq Study Group report. Q: Was it a repudiation of policy? A. No, it was an acknowledgment of reality. Good start! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/06/AR2006120601482.html?referrer=email For full text of the ISG report, see: http://wid.ap.org/documents/iraq/2006isg_report.pdf 12/6/06 Iraq Study Group report cites the "grave and deteriorating" situation in Iraq and calls for plans for "responsible" U.S. withdrawal as troops are reployed as support for Iraqi forces and as diplomatic engagement of Syria, Iran and other mideast powers is stepped up. Bush has so far rejected any thought of withdrawal or face-to-face talks with Syria and Iran. http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?articleid=292557 12/6/06 The Tom Friedman disease: Blogger Glenn Greenwood shows how columnist Thomas Friedman supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003 even though he believed it was not being prosecuted in the "right way" and would have the disastrous consequences that have occurred. Today the Iraq Study Group is likely to offer the same morally corrupt argument that will appeal to the Washington Establishment including the "liberal war hawks" for whom Friedman is a pundit guru: the war is a failure, we should get out, we can't get out because of supposed drastic effects of withdrawal. (This post has numerous links to similar lines of analysis.) http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/12/tom-friedman-disease-consumes.html 12/5/06 As insurgents force resignation of town officials in Siniya, Iraq (80 km north of Sammarra); residents say U.S. enforcing a blockade which prevents the arrival of relief supplies. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L04416398.htm 12/5/06 U.S. military commanders are anticipating an expected recommendation of the Iraq Study Group by shifting thousands of U.S. troops from "combat" roles to being "advisors" to Iraqi security forces. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/05/world/middleeast/05strategy.html?th&emc=th 12/5/06 Did someone say phased withdrawal? Apparently that's to be the watchword of the long (very long) awaited Iraqi Study Group report. As Tom Engelhardt notes, it might better be called phased permanency since there is no indication of likely diminishment of U.S. air power or permanent bases in the country, and the likelihood that "redeployment" of forces will simply move the combat zone to whatever "over the horizon" spot (like Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War) to which these forces are redeployed. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1204-20.htm 12/5/06 Paul Street wonders why it took so long for American political leaders of both parties to blame Iraqi inadequacy for the failure of our war aims in that country....given the long tradition of the power elite of blaming dominated people, at home or abroad, for their own misfortunes: be it conditions in black ghettoes, the poor and the homeless, the slaughter of Indians and Filipinos etc., instead of the actions of that elite. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=11553 12/4/06 Inspectors general of Pentagon and State Department issue joint report saying that U.S. program of training Afghan security forces has been largely a failure. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/04/world/asia/04police.html?th&emc=th 12/4/06 Associated Press writer says "de facto partition" has occurred as Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds flee areas of Iraq in which they are a persecuted minority. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/03/AR2006120300436_pf.html 12/3/06 Off a ship in the Persian Gulf and into the fire: 2200 Marines, 80% of whom have seen no combat duty in Iraq, are sent to Ramadi in Anbar Province, a lethal stronghold of insurgent activity. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061202/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_new_arrivals 12/3/06 Full text of Stephen Hadley's November 8 memorandum regarding the military situation in Iraq and his skepticism of Maliki's ability to handle the situation. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15780.htm 12/2/06 Dennis Kucinich says the only way to end the Iraq War is for Congress to cut off its funding. Tabulation of earlier congressional votes on regular and supplementary appropriations for the war suggest how difficult this will be. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1201-33.htm 12/2/06 In Yarmouk district of Baghdad, according to observer, vigilante militias patrol the streets and "one can say that the Iraqi police is virtually non-functional." http://www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2006-11-29%5Ckurd1.htm 12/2/06 Re-claiming Taliban power, one tribal elder at a time: Taliban brokers a peace agreement in Musa Qala district of Afghanistan which removes British troops and leaves it under a Taliban-influenced authority. Even Afghan government, which approved the deal, fears this as a precedent for the country. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/02/world/asia/02afghan.html?th&emc=th 12/1/06 President Bush disdains talk of a "graceful exit from Iraq" (apparently preferring to wait til we get our butts kicked). Meanwhile his National Security Advisor gives a scaled-down version of U.S. aims in Iraq: to help the government improve its ability to maintain "some semblance of order" in the chaotic country. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/01/world/middleeast/01prexy.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin 11/30/06 A Saudi Arabian official says Sauds will intervene in Iraq to prevent Iran from supporting Shi-ite death squads murdering Sunnis---after the U.S. withdraws. This is not official Saudi policy. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15767.htm 11/30/06 BBC: Baghdad is a city in fear of civil war, as its streets are almost empty even after a 4-day curfew is lifted. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6158847.stm 11/30/06 Is there a civil war in Iraq? Let Abe Lincoln tell you, by way of Tom Toles. 11/30/06 What a difference a day makes: On Tuesday, NATO chief says the Afghani operation can probably be "handed off" to Afghan security forces in 2008. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/JOH832224.htm On Wednesday, at its summit conference in Riga, NATO issues statement that it is in Afghanistan for the "long haul" and says nations not now furnishing troops will be given "entry invitations" in 2008. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L28291430.htm 11/29/06 Blame the victim time arrives in the Iraqi war as U.S. political leaders are increasingly blaming shortcomings of Iraqis themselves for the continuing conflict. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112801499.html?referrer=email 11/28/06 Classified Marine Corps intelligence assessment of situation in Anbar Province, Iraq, indicates no improvement in bleak conditions there, with al-Qaeda the dominant force in the region and the insurgency not containable without huge escalation in U.S. effort; says situtation would be worse without U.S. operations there. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701287.html?referrer=email 11/27/06 Finding a way out: bipartisan Iraq Study Group will consider proposals that would include diplomatic talks with Iran and Syria but exclude setting withdrawal timetables. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/27/world/middleeast/27policy.html?th&emc=th 11/27/06 As Hezbullah in Lebanon, so the Mahdi Army in Iraq: militia blamed for much violence gains popularity in the Iraqi street by doing what the Iraqi government cannot or will not do: provide effective relief to the victims of bombing attacks. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/26/AR2006112601242.html?referrer=email 11/27/06 So much for the idea that Iraqi insurgency is being financed from foreign sources. U.S. government report shows that they are financially self-sufficient, based on proceeds of various "criminal" and "corrupt" activities (like oil smuggling), putting their financing far beyond the reach of U.S. sanctions or "diplomatic" pressures. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/nyt640.html 11/25/06 Matthew Rothschild: Iraq is broken and all the king's horses and 20,000 more U.S. troops will not put it together again. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1124-27.htm 11/25/06 Iraqi lawmaker says doctors who are targets of insurgent attacks, are fleeing the country, leaving behind a medical system which is in the hands of medical students and junior doctors and with woefully inadequate facilities. http://www.topix.net/content/ap/2276162846136819889205365306682842274360 11/25/06 Afghans' anger against what they perceive as a corrupt and foreign-controlled government is apparently fuelling the return to power of the Taliban. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061124/ap_on_re_as/afghan_taliban_return 11/24/06 Imagine if U.S. were to withdraw from Iraq, what a bloodbath there would be! With U.S. forces there, we're doing so well in containing this carnage that actually only about 150 people were killed yesterday in violence between Sunnis and Shi-ites. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/24/world/middleeast/24iraq.html?th&emc=th 11/24/06 As Congress prepares to consider initiatives to end the war in Iraq by refusing to fund it, Alexander Cockburne endorses the idea with his statement that "the way you end a slaughter is by no longer feeding it." 11/23/06 "They say we are here to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, but I just don't see that happening" says a U.S. soldier in Falluja, one of only 300 Americans remaining in the city as they maintain a "bunkered" existence in which they feel their hands are tied in dealing with the insurgency. http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1124/p01s04-woiq.html 11/23/06 Tom Hayden reports on numerous secret contacts between U.S. officials and Iraqi insurgents, including a reported plan to release former Deputy Prime Minister Aziz from prison to help negotiate a settlement. Hayden however thinks that these are little more than "probes" undertaken as a prelude to an actual escalation of U.S. military operations. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1122-20.htm 11/22/06 George and Laura and Barney: with warhawks as diverse as Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger and Richard Perle giving up on the Iraqi war, Eugene Robinson wonders whether Bush's constituency for staying the course in Iraq is shrinking to his wife and dog and John McCain. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/20/AR2006112001101_pf.html 11/21/06 U.S. officials welcome idea of an Iran/Iraq/Syria summit on political violence but say they are skeptical because the "actions" (unspecified) of Syria and Iran are inconsistent with these intentions. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/790384.html 11/20/06 After James Baker has opened a "back channel" of discussion with Syria about cooperating in ending the violence in Iraq, Syrian foreign minister indicates his willingness to do that, but also calls for time table for U.S. withdrawal. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html?th&emc=th 11/19/06 U.S. soldiers in cases of abuse to Iraqi civilians are getting much reduced sentences under generous plea bargaining arrangements. http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=10040 11/18/06 Margaret Hodge, UK's Industry Minister and an ally of Tony Blair, says that the Iraqi war was Blair's "biggest foreign policy mistake." Blair for his part agrees with David Frost's assessment that the war was "pretty much a disaster" but defends the invasion and indicates that Britain will stay the course. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/18/nirq18.xml 11/17/06 A Democracy Now! "debate": George McGovern and Dennis Kucinich square off for a debate about Iraq with a representative of the American Enterprise Institute. Kucinich says the best way to stop the war is for Congress to cut off funding for the war. An enraged AEI guy wants to cut off Dennis' (ahem!) http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/15/1459243 11/16/06 There he goes again: Sources tell UK Guardian that President Bush, bolstered by an expected recommendation of the Iraq Study Group, plans to make "one last big push" to achieve stability in Iraq by beefing up U.S. forces there, apparently forgetting how other touted "big pushes" in Fallujah and Baghdad have only resulted in a worsened security situation in those places. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1948748,00.html 11/15/06 The same ol' train that brought us here...: Robert Fisk examines recent pronouncements of neo-cons like Richard Perle and their pundit mouth-pieces like David Brooks and concludes that, in their "give up" statements on the Iraqi war, they are excusing the U.S. and laying the blame on the intransigence of Iraqis who have hard-headedly refused our profer of "freedom." As Fisk says, "That's the grit we're laying down on the desert floor to help our tanks out of Iraq." http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1114-25.htm 11/15/06 New York Times columnist finds military "experts" who say that a precipitous U.S. withdrawal of forces on a short timetable (as proposed for example by Senator Levin) from Iraq would be a bad idea. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/15/washington/15military.html?th&emc=th 11/15/06 President Bush sets up "internal" review of Iraqi policy by U.S. officials, apparently to relieve the expected pressure of a Baker-Hamilton study report to move toward withdrawal from the conflict. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/14/AR2006111401095_pf.html
11/15/06 Iraq Study Group, shortly to present its report on how to end the Iraqi conflict, is a typical governmental "blue ribbon" committee made up of prominent former government officials with not a single member with special Middle East expertise. http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/11/14/the-iraq-study-group-to-nowhere/ 11/14/06 When co-optation fails: Iraqi government encouraged entry into the political process of Muqtada al-Sadr though it once called him and his Mahdi Army a "band of thugs." Now the "band" is one of the most powerful military and political forces in Iraq and may hold the key to the country's future. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-11-12-al-sadr-cover_x.htm 11/10/06 Election fallout: Jane Harman, ranking Democrat on House Intelligence Committee, may be denied the chairmanship by Nancy Pelosi, and other Democratic "hawks" on the war may be denied leadership roles in the 110th Congress. Harman may be passed over for Florida's Alcee Hastings, the favored candidate of the Black Caucus. http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Pelosi.htm 11/9/06 "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" AP report on continuing investigation of the friendly fire death of Tillman and the apparent cover-up of same. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15965759.htm 11/7/06 It's the Iraqi war, stupid! Middle East conflict is the top issue in the minds of voters as they go to the polls today. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/06/AR2006110601287_pf.html 11/6/06 President Bush now says that "staying the course" in Iraq was never U.S. policy, and 92% of Americans agree that it should not be the policy. http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/13698 11/6/06 As most media are reporting Iraqi reactions to Saddam Hussein verdict as celebrating or protesting, a Time reporter indicates the more typical reaction of a shrug, as people realize that their miseries will continue unabated. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1555031,00.htm 11/4/06 New York Post columnist advocates a military government in Iraq as perhaps the "only hope" of controlling the escalating violence there. 11/3/06 Robert Scheer: the "corner" that Bush incessantly says we are turning in Iraq is actually not a corner around which is "victory" but rather, like Viet Nam, the madness of an extended presence that will only end when we decide to "cut and run." http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1102-20.htm 11/3/06 Rehabilitation: U.S. soldier who handled dogs used to torture Abu Ghraib prisoner was convicted for his part in the incident. Now having served his (non-prison) sentence, he is sent back to Iraqi to help train Iraqi security forces. http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1554326-1,00.html 11/1/06 Not such a bad idea after all: LA Times article say U.S. military leaders are increasingly thinking that the advantages of providing Iraq a deadline for U.S. withdrawal may outweigh the problems of such a decision; more "pressure" on Iraq is seen to be needed. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes528.html 11/1/06 Celebration breaks out among Iraqis as U.S. removes checkpoints from Sadr City in Baghdad on orders of PM Maliki. Imagine the party when the U.S. leaves the country entirely. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/31/AR2006103100225.html?referrer=email 10/30/06 Operation Sinbad in trouble: as Britain winds down its security operation in Basra, Iraq, insurgent mortar attacks prompt decision to evacuate the British consulate housed in a former palace of Saddam Hussein. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/30/wirq30.xml 10/29/06 What, go out in the street with this insurgency on? British troops in Afghanistan are in virtual "lock down" as street patrols are deemed too dangerous because of insurgent suicide bombers. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1938392.ece 10/27/06 Ain't this whack-a-mole game fun? As U.S. troop deaths approach 100 for October and the country is generally in chaos, U.S. commander says of the number of insurgency incidents: "We did in fact see a tremendous downturn in the number within our clear areas which we are trying to watch very closely." Hey, look Ma, I'm sittin' on this mole and watching him closely while the rest of the moles tear up your yard. http://gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061027/WIRE/210270317/1117/news 10/27/06 "Just back off!": this statement by Donald Rumsfeld has widely and properly been reported as an effort to suppress criticism of Administration war policy; but it seems a message as well about the "deadlines" and "timetables" for Iraq now being bandied about. DR says at same press conference that we can't set up "some kind of gilloutine" that will fall on the the Iraqis if they don't comply therewith; they don't comply, we'll "just back off." http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/10/26/iraq-casualties.html 10/26/06 200 active duty U.S. troops join a protest demanding withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. 10/26/06 Canadian government is drug-testing its troops deployed to Afghanistan. A "source" tells CTV that 300 out of 1000 tested have failed them. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061025/afghanistan_drug_test_061025/20061025 10/25/06 Staying the course: Two weeks before elections, under pressure from Republicans about Iraq policy, "the White House itself seems to struggle for a better course, or at least a better way to describe the current course." http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4282184.html 10/25/06 New York Times military analyst saws Pentagon's announced goal of having Iraq take over its own security in 12 to 18 months seems unrealistic in terms of the state and prospects of Iraqi security forces. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/25/world/middleeast/25assess.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 10/25/06 They still don't get it: Warned repeatedly that U.S. military presence in Iraq is fuelling the insurgency, U.S. policy makers signal a likely increase in troop levels while giving Baghdad a 12-18 month "timetable" to get their security house in order so U.S. can safely withdraw. Say what? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/24/AR2006102400171.html?referrer=email 10/23/06 Retaliatory violence between Shiite and Sunni militias has virtually destroyed the city of Balad, Iraq. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/22/AR2006102201071.html?referrer=email 10/23/06 While Iraq burns, Halliburton fiddles: company reports an "exceptional quarter" of profits including "better than expected" returns from Iraqi operations. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4279402.html 10/23/06 I didn't say what I said: State Department official who used words "stupidity" and "arrogance" in reference to U.S. policy in Iraq says he was not referring to his own views but to how "some people" in later times might judge that policy. Whew, maybe he'll keep his job! http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/22/fernandez.statement/index.html 10/22/06 Sources tell London Sunday Times that U.S. officials in Iraq have been holding secret talks with insurgent leaders toward ending the conflict there. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2415692,00.html 10/22/06 New York Times reporter finds that many residents of Baghdad do not trust their own security police forces, especially Sunnis who do not see themselves as protected from Shitte militias. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/world/middleeast/22baghdad.html?th&emc=th 10/22/06 Stupidity and arrogance: in an interview with al-Jazeerha, head of U.S. State Department's "public diplomacy" office for Near East so describes U.S. actions in Iraq. (Hope he has another job lined up.) http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/article1919098.ece 10/21/06 UN High Commissioner for Refugee says 914,000 Iraqis have been displaced since 2003 invasion of Iraq. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1020-08.htm 10/21/06 Speak no evil: Iraqi PM Maliki forbids Health Ministry to release information to UN about toll of civilian casualties in the country. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/20/iraq/main2111951.shtml 10/20/06 In southern Iraqi city of Amarah, formerly occupied by British troops, a Shiite militia assumes total control, government declares an emergency. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061020/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq 10/20/06 Abramowitz and Ricks in Washington Post: political signs are there of an impending major change in U.S. war strategy in Iraq. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901907.html?referrer=email For New York Times take on the same topic, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/world/middleeast/20policy.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 10/19/06 Iraqi war timeline: Tony Blair sets 16 month limit for (British) troops to be out of Iraq. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/19/nirq19.xml 10/19/06 A "November surprise" this time? Judge of show trial of Saddam Hussein "schedules" verdict for November 5, two days before U.S. election. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1018-23.htm 10/18/06 10 U.S. troops killed in Iraq on Tuesday as insurgent attacks continue to rise. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061018/ts_nm/iraq_dc 10/18/06 U.S. send troops back into Balad, north of Baghdad, to deal with an upsurge of violence in an area that had supposedly been "pacified." http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15782387.htm 10/18/06 Under U.S. pressure, Iraqi PM Maliki removes top leaders of the country's militia-infested security force. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/world/middleeast/18iraq.html?th&emc=th 10/17/06 Exiles and martyrs: article in The American Conservative describes how Christians in Iraqi have suffered the consequences of the war that their evangelical co-religionists in America have supported. http://amconmag.com/2006/2006_10_23/article.html 10/19/06 In its effort to regain House control for the party, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is pouring money into 22 closely "contested" races, and 21 of those are races in which the Democratic candidate takes more a "pro-war" stance than is characteristic of the great majority of rank and file Democrats. http://counterpunch.org/walsh10142006.html 10/14/06 Some British soldiers agree with their commander's assessment that their presence is Basra, Iraq, seems to exaggerate violence there. Commenting on the deteriorating security situation, one officer says "we are now just another tribe" in Basra. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1922331,00.html 10/14/06 So what's the story? U.S. media overblow the story of North Korea nuclear test and build up a false dichotomy of explanation (whether they were crazy or crafty) ignoring the self-defensive behavior of a threatened country; and they ignore the more important story of new data on Iraq casualties, which documents that U.S. forces are a major source of these, as they pursue their government-backing "story" that Iraqi violence is essentially inter-ethnic. (52,000 deaths were from aerial attacks; how many planes do Iraqi government or militias own?) http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1013-30.htm 10/13/06 William S. Lind asks why "we still fight" in the hopeless situation in Iraq. His answer: so that Bush does not have to deal with the consequences of his folly in getting into the war. A Democratic congressional turnover in November may not change things, if Democrats show themselves so intimidated by the Israeli lobby that they support another folly: an invasion of Iran. http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=9841 10/13/06 We got it right: Editor of The Lancet, which has published a new study showing 650,000 deaths in the Iraqi war, defends the methodology of the study, based on randomized door-to-door surveys of the population. He also offers his opinion that the war is an unmitigated public health crisis that we are extending every day we remain in Iraq. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1012-21.htm 10/12/06 Fondling their self esteem: British columnist John Pilgar castigates British press and "political class" for lavishing sympathy on Tony Blair, an asserted "war criminal" for his support of the Iraqi war, as he prepares to resign. http://www.antiwar.com/pilger/?articleid=9843 10/11/06 In an upwardly-revised estimate, Johns Hopkins researchers say that around 654,000 Iraqi deaths are related to the war. 10/10/06 U.S. "whack-a-mole" strategy in Iraq has predictable results: as military action focusses on Baghdad, Kirkuk and the rest of northern Iraq, thought to be "pacified," has shown huge recent increase in violence. http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/15711746.htm 10/8/06 Fugue with Variations: Rice, Warner and Khalizad send Iraq the same message in different words: you have only so much time to get hold of your security situation before we do indeed "cut and run." http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061008/wl_mideast_afp/usiraqpoliticsdeadline 10/7/06 In a plea deal, a U.S. medic is given a one-year sentence for particpating in kidnapping of eldely Iraqi who was latered murdered execution-style by U.S. soldiers. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N06408882.htm 10/6/06 Senator John Warner, chairman of Armed Services Committee, returns from Iraq with a decidedly "downbeat" assessment, saying we are in danger of "losing" Baghdad to the insurgency. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/05/AR2006100501645.html 10/6/06 Al Qaeda agrees with conclusion of recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate: that the occupation of Iraq serves to work to their advantage in gaining worldwide support. http://abcnews.go.com/International/CSM/story?id=2533303 10/6/06 "Education here is a complete shambles" an Iraqi teacher tells UK's Guardian, describing the flight of teachers and students from the country's colleges and universities, whose faculties are targeted for militia assassinations. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329593191-103550,00.html 10/5/06 Now here's a "radical" idea: After three and a half years of "shock and awe" against the Iraqi population and still-escalating insurgency, U.S.military is said to be "honing a new strategy" which emphasizes that overwhelming force only fuels the insurgency and that focus should be on improving the lives of Iraqi people. Is it too late? Alan Paton in Cry the Beloved Country quotes a white liberal in South Africa as saying about efforts to deal sympathetically with natives: "my great fear is that by the time we get around to loving them, they will have come to hate us." (quotation from memory). http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/washington/05doctrine.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 10/4/06 As they stand up, we'll stand down? U.S. troop anti-insurgency action in Baghdad leads to a rising level of U.S. troop deaths, while those of Iraqi soldiers decline. http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/100406dnintiraqrdp.313b0ac.html 10/4/06 Let's try again: new military appropriations bill rolls over a "tucked in" funding at $20 million for a "day of celebration" for successful conclusion of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which was also appropriated in the 05 bill but never used. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/04/washington/04victory.html?th&emc=th 10/3/06 Senator Bill Frist, a major supporter of American military action in the Middle East, says during an Afghanistan tour that members of the Taliban should be "brought into" a coalition government for the country. http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2006/10/02/383378-frist-taliban-should-be-in-afghan-govt 10/1/06 As British discontent with involvement of UK troops in Afghanistan rises, London Sunday Times reports on a "secret deal" in one Afghan village in which both British and Taliban forces agree to withdraw from the area. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2383232,00.html 9/28/06 Ron Jacobs: there is little likelihood that, if the Democrats re-assume political control after the 06 and 08 elections, this will end of the wars in Iraq and Afganistan. The Generals in the fields of these conflicts, like Westmoreland in Viet Nam, keep assuring politicians that the war can be "won" with more troops, and Democrats are again showing themselves vulnerable to this argument. http://counterpunch.org/jacobs09282006.html 9/28/06 Iraqi police academy, a much-heralded component of the U.S. plan to have Iraqi "stand up" to their own security as the U.S. "stands down" from same, is described by Iraqi reconstruction inspector general as a "disaster." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092702134.html 9/26/06 "Victims of our own success:" Highly effective 172nd Stryker Brigade learn that their tours in Iraq will be extended as they are sent into Baghad's inferno of insurgency. Many have families back home that are "falling apart." http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091006G.shtml 9/20/06 Former Halliburton employees testify (again) to Democrats' Policy Committee in Senate on illegal company operations in Iraq (includes audio transcript). http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/dpc_hearing091806.html 9/20/06 Iraq Premier Maliki's "unity government" is anything but unified as he struggles to compromise with pressures from Shiite and Sunni forces and, in the view of his critics, ends up doing nothing to improve security or public services. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/world/middleeast/20maliki.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th 9/19/06 People are leaving Baghdad in hundreds of thousands, many seeking refuge in Jordan and Syria. http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2460141&page=1 9/19/06 Death squad watchdogs: Despite Sunni opposition, 15,000 man militia which constitutes the Badr Corps is establishing "community watch" operations that Sunnis fear will furnish intelligence to the militia's death squads. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2364297,00.html 9/12/06 As Iraqi parliament debates controversial "federalism" system that would carve the country into three largely autonomous provinces, Moqtada al-Sadr and Saddam Hussein agree on one point: "Iraq will not be divided!" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/11/AR2006091100264_pf.html 9/12/06 Equal opportunity condemnation: most of the world press (and some of the U.S.) deplores both the acts of 9/11 Islamic terrorists and the U.S. response to those acts. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0911-01.htm 9/11/06 In a secret report, U.S. military analyst says the situation in Anbar Province is "dire" and the region is politically "amost lost." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/10/AR2006091001204.html 9/10/06 Never look back: After Senate Intelligence Committee issues report contradicting Administration claims of a "connection" between Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda and Zarqawi, Tony Snow gives the White House response: "The president's stated concern this week, as you've seen, is to think, 'okay, we'll let people quibble over three years ago. The important thing to do is to figure out what you're doing tomorrow and the day after and the month after and the year after to make sure that this war on terror is won.'" http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/09/world/middleeast/09intel.html?th&emc=th 9/8/06 Privatization of torture: American Prospect's feature article on the 25,000 civilian contractors in Iraq with almost no accountability for any of their abuses against Iraqis. http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11951 9/7/06 Measuring success one mountain barage at a time: U.S. pounds a mountainous area in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border where Americans were ambushed and a rescue helicopter was shot down last year and where Taliban militants are believed still to "roam freely." Using Pentagon-speak, a soldier who heads a mortar-firing unit, gives a briefing on the results of the operation: "We have had nonstop contact for several days and the enemy is on the run. We have cut them off a couple of times and they are not doing as well as they thought they would." http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060906/ap_on_re_as/afghan_wild_east_1 8/30/06 Chicago Tribune columnist asks about reactions to the atrocities committed by U.S. forces in Iraq: "Where's the Outrage?" and cites a military sociologist's observation that, unlike Vietnam, people in the anti-war movement don't want to be perceived as "anti-soldier." 8/29/06 Al-Sadar in control: Report says government of Iraq has been pushed out of the town of Diwaniyah by the Shia militia Mehdi Army after inflicting heavy casualties on government troops. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1222376.ece 8/28/06 Washington Post survey of prosecutions of U.S. soldiers for Iraqi deaths shows that few have been charged, fewer have been found guilty and very few have been sentenced to any severe punishment. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700770.html?referrer=email 8/28/06 While Baghdad outside the Green Zone is ravaged with sectarian violence, lack of electricity and failure of other reconstruction projects, U.S. continues to build a "shielded palace" of amenities for GZ residents that is transforming it into a Washington suburb; all with the clear message to the Iraqis: "We're here to stay." http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/age25.html 8/27/06 There are no prisoners left in Abu Ghraib. Most have been moved to other U.S. detention centers in Iraq. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15369932.htm 8/27/06 Purrfect Angelz, a group of shapely dancers, entertain troops at Hadita Dam, Iraq, courtesy of Uncle Sam. One of the dancers (a former Dallas Cowboy cheerleader) says: “We want to make it more about talent than being risqué, We are not going to boost every part of the morale.” An Army Captain thanked women for "taking our mind off our work," putting it on what "part of the morale," do you figure? 8/25/06 "As they stand up..." again: former British military base in Iraq is "picked clean" by looters on the day after it was turned over to the Iraqis. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15363243.htm 8/18/06 Military investigation reports "suspicious incidents" of Marines destroying evidence related to the killing of 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/18/world/middleeast/18haditha.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 8/17/06 U.S. military officials report an all-time high in bombing attacks in Iraq and, increasingly, they are being directed to U.S. soldiers rather than other Iraqis http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17military.html?th&emc=th 8/16/06 "We see the challenges of Baghdad being exported" says U.S. Army official of the sectarian violence that is rising in mixed Sunni/Shiite neighborhoods outside the capitol. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/15/AR2006081501044_pf.html 8/16/06 Ruth Rosen asserts that Oliver Stone's World Trade Center movie perpetuates the "big lie" that the assault on Iraq was an attack on those who assaulted us in NYC and DC. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0816-33.htm 8/14/06 Fallujah police official says police force has shrunk from 2000 to 100 as insurgents have carried out many assassinations and issued pamphlets threatening to kill all security forces. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/081406J.shtml 8/11/06 Slowly unfolding defeat of coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and of Israeli forces in Lebanon seem to show that the "terrorist bombing" techniques of "modern" warfare are no match for fury-driven insurgent forces. http://counterpunch.org/lind08112006.html 8/11/06 Kabul Desert Classic: American man does what he can for the poor in Afghanistan by holding a benefit golf tournament. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/08/11/ravaged_course_soaring_cause/ 8/10/06 At press conference, after officials said there was a "possibility" of Iraq sliding into civil war, President Bush says: “You know, I hear people say, Well, civil war this, civil war that. The Iraqi people decided against civil war when they went to the ballot box.” (audio) Say again, Mr. President? On the other hand... http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/07/iraq-civil-war-3 8/8/06 A story not for kids: investigator describes how some U.S. soldiers in Iraq relieved the "stress of combat" in one afternoon of partying: drink some whiskey mixed with some "energy drink", play some cards, hit a few golf balls, rape a 14-year-old girl, kill her and her family, then back to their checkpoint post to grill some chicken wings. Bon appetit! http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-08-07-iraqi-case_x.htm 8/8/06 Rep. John Conyers releasing detailed report on how Bush administration manipulated intelligence findings to steer U.S. into Iraqi war. http://www.motherjones.com/washington_dispatch/2006/08/new%20conyers%20report.html 8/8/06 NYT columnist Bob Herbert characterizes Hillary Clinton and other Democrats as "Iraqi war enablers" who, for political advantage, thunder against Rumsfeld and other war sponsors but who, for political fear, do nothing really constructive about ending the war http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0807-23.htm 8/6/06 "As they stand up, we'll stand down": failure of Iraqi security forces to stand up to the increasing chaos in Baghdad forces U.S. military to return to the city. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/world/middleeast/06baghdad.html?th&emc=th 8/4/06 In the town of Hit, in Anbar province, Iraq, everybody in the town wants the Americans out: insurgents, regular townspeople, town officials and American soldiers themselves. Conditions are so bad that a town official asked the American commander to send him to Abu Graib where they have air conditioning, "just for the summer." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301711_pf.html 8/4/06 Peter (Pace) Principle defining what will end the conflict in Iraq: "Shiite and Sunni are going to have to love their children more than they hate each other." This as U.S. Generals say Iraq is sliding into sectarian civil war and doubts being expressed in both parties that U.S. should stay in Iraq under civil war conditions. (The pronouncing of civil war may be our latest "exit strategy": if you folks can't even love your children, we're outa here). http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IRAQ?SITE=TXABI&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&SECTION=HOME 8/3/06 In a military hearing in Iraq, four soldiers from the unit in which four other soldiers are charged with murder of Iraqi civilians in May testify that their commander ordered them the night before to "kill all men of military age." http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/sf/nyt8_3_06_4.htm 8/3/06 Pentagon sources tell Associated Press that their investigation of Haditha killings found evidence that it was a deliberate operation, whether there was an official cover-up yet to be determined. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14150687/ 8/2/06 John Nichols: Letter to President Bush by Democratic leaders in Congress is not yet the unified and coherent voice in opposition to the Iraq War that the country and the Party's success in November demand, but it's a baby step, and the result of next week's Lieberman/Lamont election may be a bigger one http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0802-32.htm 8/2/06 Colonel Michael Steele (portrayed in "Black Hawk Down") is now under investigation as allegedly involved in encouraging troops under his command to engage in a spree of killing of Iraqi civilians. http://www.abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2262469 8/2/06 Iraqi reconstruction IG report says corruption involving army and police is "endemic" with a third of Iraqis having paid bribes to obtain services. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/08/01/national/w120607D13.DTL 7/31/06 Chaos in Baghdad symbolized by an armored car from a bank carrying nearly $1 million in cash pulled over by an "Iraqi Army convoy" and the couriers were bound and the money stolen. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/29/world/middleeast/29banks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 7/30/06 Failure of Bechtel to finish Laura Bush's favorite children's hospital in Basra is just part of the problem, revealed in a federal audit, of accounting malpractice in Iraqi contracts administered by A.I.D. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/nyt341.html 7/28/06 Children's hospital in Basra, Iraq cited by Laura Bush as a "model" is indeed a model of an all-too-typical situation of cost overruns and delays in Iraqi reconstruction, as Bechtel is removed from the project. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/world/middleeast/28basra.html?th&emc=th 7/25/06 New book by Thomas Ricks on the Iraqi war is said to be a devastating critique of the war as "a misguided exercise in hubris, incompetence and folly." http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/books/25kaku.html?th&emc=th 7/24/06 "Aggressiveness" of 4th Infantry Division in Iraq is blamed for inflaming Iraqi public opinion against the U.S. occupation. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/23/AR2006072300495.html?referrer=email 7/22/06 Defense of 4 soldiers accused of murdering civilians in Iraq: "we were under orders to kill all males of military age" during the operation in which the killings occurred. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13974639/ 7/20/06 Republican lawmakers are beginning to "cut and run" from their support of the Administration's prosecution of the Iraqi war; is something happening in November? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/19/AR2006071901787.html?referrer=email 7/19/06 As his wife endorses warhawk Joe Lieberman, Bill Clinton says that Democrats "ought to be whipped if we allow our differences over what to do now over Iraq divide us." The implication of the two Clintons' words and deeds is that Democrats should "unite" around a support of Bush war policy. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/bill-clinton-dems-should_b_24848.html 7/18/06 Afghanistan's religious police, from the Taliban era, the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, is coming back under new Afghan government. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1181612.ece 7/17/06 Some Sunni Arab leaders in Iraq are said to be turning from insurgency to urging U.S. to stay in Iraq to protect them against Shiite militias and the influence of Shiite Iran on the country. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/17/world/middleeast/17sunnis.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 7/16/06 Cut and Run: an animated cartoon by Mark Fiore. http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/mark-fiores-animated-cartoons/20060630150709990001 7/14/06 Robert Parry describes the "enduring logic" of withdrawal of military forces from Iraq; for example, far from leaving Iraq as a "haven for terrorists" it would remove the motive for world-wide terrorists to converge on the country. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/071006.html 7/14/06 Iraqis celebrate a "milestone" in a ceremony in which security control is turned over to local officials in one province in southern Iraq; only 17 more provinces to go. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/13/AR2006071301545.html?referrer=email 7/13/06 British official who formerly worked with Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq says coalition trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan is fueled by lack of trust of local political leaders by American and other coalition forces. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/opinion/13stewart.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th 7/12/06 U.S. soldiers' rape and murder of Iraqi civilians; symbolically in a Marine's song "Hadji Girl" to be released this week on a right wing talk show; and actually in the rape of 14 year old Abir Al-Janabi and the murder of her and her family, bring Iraqi resentment of the American occupation to a boiling point. http://counterpunch.org/jarrar07112006.html On plans to release Hadji Girl recording on the Mike Church Show, see http://www.wfmynews2.com/news/local_state/article.aspx?storyid=66556 7/11/06 "To rejoice the hearts of the faithful"---internet video attributed to Al-Qaeda Iraq shows mutilation of two U.S. soldiers to avenge the rape and murder of a "sister" by soldiers now on trial for this crime. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060711/wl_mideast_afp/iraqusunresthostages 7/10/06 LA Times obtains confidential State Department documents that show extensive brutality, corruption and cooperation with vigilante militias in the Iraqi police force. Remember the Bush mantra: "as they stand up, we'll stand down." (Not happening) http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-corrupt9jul09,0,4624759.story 7/10/06 U.S."white lie" (?) about age of "young woman" allegedly raped and murdered by American soldiers: charging documents show her age at over 20; Reuters obtains her birth certificate showing she was 14. 7/10/06 Sectarian violence reaches a crescendo in Baghdad. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/10/world/middleeast/10iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 7/7/06 Let Freedom Ring! Bush makes June visit to Hungary to praise 1956 Freedom Fighters and its support of Operation Iraqi Freedom; and Nation's poet-in-residence Calvin Trillin pens this ode: "Iraq's like Budapest in '56, Bush said, and Hungary deserves our thanks...For joining (for a while) the fighting there---and this time on the side that has the tanks." Nation issue of July 17/24, 2006, p. 6. For those with an online subscription: http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20060717&s=trillin 7/7/06 Pakistani-based newspaper reports that, in one of its raids to eliminate Taleban insurgents, U.S. forces kill 15 civilians in raid on an Afghan village. http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=1838 7/6/06 Calling Saddam Hospital in Ramadi a center of insurgent activity, U.S. and Iraqi forces raid the hospital. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/05/AR2006070500211.html 7/5/06 U.S. forces, fighting a losing battle against insurgents in Ramadi, has decided to demolish several blocks in the center of the city and created a protected "Green Zone" like that in Baghdad. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/world/middleeast/05ramadi.html?hp&ex=1152072000&en=0324c21d522ca01f&ei=5094&partner=homepage 7/5/06 Defiant British RAF officer, released after 8 months of maximum security confinement and still under home detention for failure to serve in Iraq, makes his first public statement: "Do not believe government propaganda, the continuing use of force against the people of the formerly independent state of Iraq is motivated by political corruption, corporate profits and aggressive capitalism." http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10389836 7/4/06 Speaking with a forked tongue: Now that U.S. pressure has forced Iraqi Maliki to back track on his plan to grant amnesty to Iraqis who have attacked coalition in forces in "defense of their country," U.S. Presidential Press Secretary Snow says we won't interfere with the sovereignty of the Iraqis in deciding for themselves on the conditions for national reconciliation. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060703/wl_mideast_afp/iraqpoliticsreconciliationuswhouse 7/4/06 As in Iraqi, so in Afghanistan; at least 10 Afghan interpreters who work for coalition forces in the country have been killed. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/04/world/asia/04afghan.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 7/4/06 A strong dose of Paul Craig Roberts for the 4th of July: supporters of the Iraqi War blame "liberal media" for reporting our soldiers' rape/murders in Iraq rather than the Administration which has put us into an indefensible war. http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=9236 7/3/06 Standing up and standing down not working in Afghanistan. Afgan military resists involvement in U.S.-directed raids against supposed insurgent targets, saying such raids only inflame popular feeling against Afghan government. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/world/asia/03afghan.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th 7/1/06 Iraqus Interruptus: U.S. brigade commander in Iraq, fearing "negative media coverage" will sap public support for the war, says: "My personal opinion is that the only way we will lose this war is if we pull out prematurely." http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060630/pl_afp/usiraqmilitary 6/30/06 Afghanistan burns as world fiddles over Iraq and Palestine; country faces grim alternative of years of hard guerilla war or return of the repressive Taliban. http://www.antiwar.com/bandow/?articleid=9218 6/28/06 U.S. "spoonfeeding" of Iraqi PM's "reconciliation" plan to end the war, eliminating vital elements of amnesty and U.S. withdrawal timetable, turns the proposal into "pablum" with no chance to bring an end to the conflict. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0627-32.htm 6/26/06 A "citizen of Mosul" describes a dire "security situation" there is which hundreds of civilians are kidnapped and disappear literally under the noses of American troops. http://moslawi.blogspot.com/2006/06/security-situation-in-iraq.html 6/25/06 In Fallujah, 70% of the buildings of which were destroyed in the U.S. assault of November 2004, there is almost no reconstruction and draconian security measures prevail within the city and restrict entry to it. http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=9200 6/25/06 Iraqi PM Maliki's "reconciliation" plan for ending the insurgency is expected to be unveiled today; it calls for amnesty for "insurgents" (as opposed to "terrorists"), a timetable for U.S. withdrawal and a curbing of militia operations. American embassy is involved in the discussions but it will be a political hard sell in the U.S. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13521628/site/newsweek/page/2/#storyContinued
6/25/06 Plan for amnesty for Iraqi insurgents upsets U.S. lawmakers, both Republicans and Democrats; "reconciliation" appeal can't overcome the impulse to punish those who have brought death and injury to our own troops. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060625/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq_1;_ylt=At9qtqMhdQ4tlJVRPUCUl 6/24/06 Will the Iraqi government carry out what the Senate could not? Iraq is set to give U.sS. troops a timetable to withdraw from the country: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13521628/site/newsweek/ 6/23/06 GOP Sen. Rick Santorum and other Republican members of Congress suddenly announce that oodles of WMD have been found in Iraq! Trouble is, that's a lie. The Iraq Survey Group, sent to Iraq by Pres. Bush to look for WMD, already investigated this report and found that they were a few barrels of pre-1991 mustard gas. We went to war for that?: http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Republicanevidence_0621.html 6/23/06 Democratic legislation to set a timetable for the withdrawl of U.S. troops from Irq is defeated. Six Democrats vote against the measure: http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2107565 6/23/06 Foremr U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage gives a gloomy outlook of Iraq, saying that the violence is so bad that the Iraqi government is about to ask U.S. troops to leave the country: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19538585-601,00.html 6/21/06 Even after the brutal killings of two U.S. soldiers in Iraq, 19 GOP Senators still support a plan that would give amnesty to almost all Iraqi insurgents: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/06/19-republican-senators-think.html 6/21/06 Yet another Haditha? Possibly, after Iraqi police report that unprovoked U.S. troops killed 13 unarmed Iraqi poultry workers. U.S. military officials refused to give any details. Then it must be true...: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060620/wl_mideast_afp/iraqusunrestraid 6/20/06 The bodies of two U.S. soldiers, missing for several days in Iraq, are found - battered and tortured. Is this an insurgency in its "last throes"?: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/world/20cnd-iraq.html?hp&exr=homepage 6/20/06 U.S. Ambassador to Iraq relates a grim situation there - a situation different, and more accurate, than the one touted by the White House: http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20060619-031131-8489r 6/20/06 The Japanese government announces an immediate withdrawl of its 600 troops from Iraq in the face of severe public opposition in Japan to the deployment http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060620/ap_on_re_as/japan_iraq;_ylt=AmdQeBHNlYwN0bQ 6/19/06 While overwhelmingly gleeful and joyous predictions and views on the "progress" in Iraq is coming from President Bush and the rest of the Bush administration, the truth is considerably more bleak. A leaked memo from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad shows virtual anarchy prevailing throught that city. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002690071 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/14/AR2005061401828_pf.html 6/19/06 Def. Sec. Donald Rumsfeld is about to order 15,00 more U.S. troops to Iraq, ostensibly to replace "some" of the 130,000 soldiers already there. Apparently the White House is hoping to get the number of troops in Iraq down to 1000,000 by the end of the year (probably by November....). This despite the growing chaos and violence in Iraq: http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Time_Monday_0618.html 6/18/06 With the Taliban now in control of nearly the entire country, Afghanistan is degenerating into violent chaos as U.S. airstrikes and other attacks are rapidly escalating, now more than double the number carried out in Iraq: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700784.html 6/15/06 Iraqi leader proposes a "reconciliation" with the insurgency that would include talks with insurgents and "limited amnesty" that would forgive aggressive actions against U.S. troops if not done for criminal purposes. Will this fly with the U.S.? Stay tuned. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/14/AR2006061402432.html?referrer=email 6/15/06 Despite the killing of "master terrorist" al-Zarqawi, U.S. military deaths in Iraq continue to pile up. Today, another somber milestone has been reached: The 2,500th U.S. soldier has been killed in Iraq, with 18,490 severely wounded http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5084068.stm 6/13/06 New York Times suggests that the Iraq war summit convened yesterday by Bush at Camp David was as much "media event" to take propaganda advantage of the death of Zarqawi as it was a "strategy session." http://www.capitolhillblue.com/content/2006/06/staged_media_event.html That said, was today's "dramatic" surprise presidential visit to Baghdad any different? 6/13/06 With the "important" Zarqawi dead, Pres. Bush now pledges to go after the new leader of "Al Qaeda in Iraq". He will be "brought to justice" according to the president. That boast sounds awfully familiar....: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5074202.stm 6/13/06 Was Zarqawi deliberately killed so he could not talk about his role as an alleged "creation" of U.S. military and intelligence agencies? http://counterpunch.org/lindorff06132006.html 6/13/06 Whither Iraq? Nicholas von Hoffman presents a "nightmare scenario" in which the "creeping disintegration" of military discipline displayed at Haditha may result in a "Dunkirk in the desert" in which are troops are trapped in a situation in which their "rescue" will be the prime and very difficult operation. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0613-24.htm 6/13/06 Official explanations of events surrounding killing of Zarqawi continue to vacillate about children killed in the operation. A "girl" fatality at the bombed safe house, once admitted, then denied, is re-admitted in latest version. General Caldwell, official spokesman, admits that two infant boys were killed after a follow-up sweep when U.S. troops got fire from a roof-top and "responded" (no doubt with an air strike); the General in fact offered "deep condolences" for the boys' deaths. Editor's basketball coach used to say that our practice was to "shoot and holler shit." U.S. military's seems to be: "shoot and holler sorry." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/12/AR2006061200298.html?referrer=email 6/12/06 Reports indicate that the U.S. miltary intends to keep at least 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq "for many years". Also, a fresh brigade of U.S. soldiers will be sent to Iraq withing months. What about the "death" of al-Zarqawi? Wasn't that supposed to mean "victory" for the U.S.?: 6/12/06 The "better way" of prosecuting the Iraqi war seen in the "redeployment" plans of Democrats Murtha and Boxer is not a formula for ending the war but a recipe to substitute ground forces with an air war. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0612-23.htm 6/12/06 Dahr Jamail describes a looming assault and massacre at Ramadi, following a long and little-reported siege by U.S. and Iraqi forces, with literally no place to run as they are turned back at Baghdad and subject to murder by Shi-ite militias. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061206A.shtml 6/12/06 Erratic pay, inadequate food and poor living conditions are driving several hundred Iraqi soldiers out of the army every month. http://www.politicalgateway.com/news/read/18314 6/12/06 Ramadi, city under siege: residents fear another Fallujah as former Anbar Province head says they are "caught between two plagues: the vicious, armed insurgents and the American and Iraqi troops." http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes198.html 6/11/06 Circumstances of killing of Zarqawi continue to be questioned, as a neighbor describes a scene of very aggressive U.S. military treatment of a wounded Zarqawi. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2220222,00.html 6/11/06 Speaking of the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, UN official there says: "The situation is really, in the last four years, the most unstable and insecure I have seen," http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/world/asia/11afghan.html?th&emc=th 6/11/06 Despite being hailed as a "great accomplishment" by the Bush administration and the U.S. military, the death of al-Zarqawi will do nothing to calm violence in Iraq. Why? Because Zarqawi was nothing more than a U.S. propaganda creation devised to link Al Qaeda to Iraq: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/oneill.php?articleid=9119 6/10/06 Haditha massacre not the only incident in which American media have cooperated with Pentagon propaganda by taking many months to "get the story straight," and then only when forced to do so. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=JAM20060609&articleId=2615 6/9/06 In aftermath of Zarqawi's death, Michel Chossudovsky reviews 2 years of research and publication indicating that his life and perhaps his death were orchestrated by the U.S. Pentagon in a PSY-OPS program aimed at creating public acceptance of the Iraqi war. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO20060608&articleId=2604 6/9/06 The U.S. military now acknowledges that deceased terrorist Zarqawi survived the initial U.S. airstrike that was thought to have pulverized him with two 500-pound bombs. Was Zarqawi murdered by vengeful U.S. troops?: http://today.reuters.co.uk/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-06-ZARQAWI-SITE.xml 6/8/06 Can you believe it? Killing of al Zarqawi in a U.S. raid in Iraq is hailed as: "a major victory in the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the broader war on terror." But don't get too excited: the killing or arrest of major "terrorist" figures has been misreported many times before. 6/8/06 Even if al-Zarqawi really is dead, that will not make any difference in the course of the war in Iraq according to ex-U.S. terror expert Richard Clarke: http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/IraqCoverage/story?id=2052737&page=1 6/8/06 U.S. air war shifts largely from Iraq to Afghanistan, with 750 air strikes in the latter in May. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,198531,00.html 6/7/06 Senate Armed Services Committee will hold hearing on Haditha incident as soon as military concludes its own investigation. http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-congress-haditha,0,4208620.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines 6/7/06 Architects of the failed Iraqi war have not been punished, but rewarded with Freedom medals and important posts inside and outside the government; a person-by-person review of what has happened to each of these "architects." http://thinkprogress.org/the-architects-where-are-they-now/ 6/7/06 Iraqi PM announces release of detainees, including former Saddam Hussein supporters, in what is described as modelled after South Africa's "truth and reconciliation" process. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?th&emc=th 6/7/06 Afghanistan is described as a "failed narco-state." http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13519.htm 6/6/06 Syrian political analyst compares Haditha massacre to that of My Lai and suggests that the incident may provide the turning point away from any effective public support of the Iraqi occupation. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HF06Ak01.html 6/5/06 Members of Congress are demanding that investigation of Haditha massacre should go as far up the chain of military command as the facts support. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/060506K.shtml 6/5/06 White House press secretary's claim that Iraqi prime minister was "misquoted" in condemning Americans for Hadita is not supported by Secretary of State Rice, who said the PM was "expressing the concerns of the Iraqi people." http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/04/rice-drops-misquoted-claim/ 6/5/06 With U.S. military units throughout Iraq exhausted and demoralized, Haditha is described as "tip of the ice berg" and field commanders tell Pentagon that the Iraqi war "is lost." http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8790.shtml 6/5/06 Remember Iraq insurgency's "last throes?" May 2006 was the deadliest month in Baghdad since the invasion in 2003. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/06/04/MNGBSJ89RK1.DTL 6/5/06 Both photographic evidence and eyewitness accounts flatly contradict the Pentagon's exoneration of U.S. troops in the casualties at Ishaqi, Iraq. http://counterpunch.org/floyd06052006.html 6/3/06 U.S. military "investigation" clears GIs of responsibility for deliberately killing Iraqis at Ishaqi, much evidence to the contrary. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14728810.htm 6/3/06 Mike Ferner ticks off "just a few instances compiled by one citizen sitting in Toledo with an old computer connected to the internet; an indication that there just might be even more going on." (with U.S. war crimes in Iraq) http://counterpunch.org/ferner06022006.html 6/3/06 Quoting an Iraqi farmer who said "we have a Haditha every day," United for Peace and Justice calls for action to hold accountable "not just the individual Marines who snapped and committed terrible atrocities, but every politician from Congress to the White House who has supported this indefensible war." http://www.unitedforpeace.org/ 6/2/06 Iraqi Prime Minister, in a bid to establish his legitimacy with the Iraqi people, lashes out at U.S. military which he says on a "daily basis" kills Iraqs "on suspicion" and crushes them with its vehicles. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin But not to worry: U.S. military has the solution: conducting "probes" and training in military "ethics and moral values" for all coalition soldiers. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aNwTU1hW342Y&refer=us 5/31/06 Fox News commentator's "analysis" of riot in Afghanistan poses the "profound" question: "Now is it just a small group of troublemakers at work here, or are the Afghan people simply ungrateful?" How about "none of the above?" http://mediamatters.org/items/200605300005 5/31/06 Iraqi PM is tired of hearing U.S. explanation of killing of civilians as "mistakes." Saying he will investigate Haditha and other incidents, he says there's "an acceptable limit to mistakes." http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=MAC048936 5/31/06 Just as the Abu Ghraib scandal focused attention away from widespread torture in other locations, so the current spate over the Haditha "massacre" obscures the everyday nature of retaliatory violence against people suspected of involvement with the insurgency. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/053006Z.shtml 5/31/06 In CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer, new Iraqi ambassador to U.S. says that U.S. Marines deliberately killed his cousin in Iraq. http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/05/nice-to-meet-you-you-killed-my-cousin.html 5/31/06 The once stable Iraqi province of Basra is now under a state of emergency imposed by the Iraqi PM due to deadly sectarian violence: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&story.xml 5/30/06 Nearly 5,000 More U.S. troops are being shipped to Iraq: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/world/middleeast/30troops.html?th&emc=th 5/31/06 Afghanistan's parliament demands that U.S. soldiers responsible for deaths and injuries in Kabul incident be prosecuted under Afghan law. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060531/ap_on_re_as/afghan_riot_investigation 5/30/06 Riot in Afghanistan: "sectarian violence?" No. U.S. raids on Taleban strongholds that killed civilians, another provocative "patrol" in Kabul that ended with a predictable accident, Afghan fury against "foreign" people and life styles in the country---all ingredients of a Watts-style uprising to end the perceived "oppression" of a community. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2202129_1,00.html 5/30/06 As Kabul explodes in anti-American rioting, one of the provocations of which was recent U.S. air raids against Taleban strongholds that resulted in many civilian deaths, a U.S. raid in southern Afghanistan kills 50 people, including many civilians. http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1785358,00.html 5/29/06 Traffic accident in Kabul nvolving a U.S. military vehicle with faulty brakes sets off a riot throughout the city in which at least 8 civilians were killed by U.S. and Afghan police gunfire. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14691655.htm For a video report from the BBC, see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/5026350.stm 5/29/06 Truth-out correspondent in Kabul describes the rioting there, the deteriorating conditions of life in the city and the tendency of neutral observers to blame "trigger-happy" Americans for the escalating tension in the country. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906Y.shtml 5/29/06 Rural Afghanistan now controlled almost entirely by the Taliban. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=49&ItemID=10342 5/29/06 The media follows the lead of the U.S. military and describes the Marines involved in the Haditha massacre as "rogues" and "acting on thier own". Were they? http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name&thold=0 5/29/06 A harrowing interview with a 12-year-old Iraqi girl, the purported sole survivor of the massacre of civilians in Haditha, reveals the brutality of the U.S. Marines that day: "...one American soldier... shot us all": http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=2015052&page=1 5/29/06 Most Iraqi's are not surprised at the news of U.S. atrocities, for they are witness to them every day: http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,,2-10-1460_1940981,00.html 5/29/06 Did "bring it on" bring it on? Was President Bush reflecting some mea culpa about Haditha when, in acknowledging "mistakes," said one of them may have been: "kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people."? http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0529-20.htm 5/28/06 Dirty dozen: military investigators hone in on about 12 Marines from one battalion who apparently killed Iraqi civilians execution-style in retaliation for insurgent attacks in Haditha, Iraq. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/nws/latimes38.htm 5/27/06 The hideous details of the 'worst war crime in Iraq, the massacre of dozens of Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, last Novemeber, finally emerge: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/27ixnews.html 5/27/06 U.S. military photographs of the aftermath of the Haditha massacre of Iraqi civilians in November shows that all of the dead were killed "execution style", with dozens of women and at least six children shot in the head back, and upper body: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/20060527/NEWS06/605270479/1012 5/27/06 U.S. Marines could face murder charges in the Iraqi civilian massacre in November 2005: http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/worldmarines05262006.html 5/26/06 U.S. Marines are likely to face trial in the "My Lai" of Iraq, a massacre of dozens of Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, in November 2005: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1784307,00.html 5/26/06 Mea culpa: Bush and Blair admit "mistakes" on Iraq. Whew, that feels better, now let's get on with the war. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26prexy.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 5/26/06 U.S. military violates Geneva Code's "doctrine of proportionality" for military action in an air raid in which 20 people claimed to be Taliban insurgents were killed, as were perhaps 80 (the Pentagon admits 16) totally innocent civilians. http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff05252006.html 5/24/06 With bi-partisan support for action growing in Congress and pressure increasing on the military, as many as 12 U.S. Marines may face court-martial in the massacre of civilians in Iraq in November 2005: http://marinetimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1823925.php 5/23/06 Afghans say many civilians killed in a U.S. raid on a village in southern Afghanistan in which military says around 20 Taliban fighters were killed. U.S. commander says he's "reviewing reports" of civilian casualties. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/23/world/asia/23afghan.html?th&emc=th 5/23/06 New Iraqi Prime Minister says British troops will be out of the country by the end of the year; it's news to Tony Blair. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1781011,00.html#article_continue 5/21/06 British source reports that U.S. military personnel are likely to face charges in alleged massacre in Haditha, Iraq in November 2005. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/21/wirq221.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/21/ixnews.html 5/21/06 Remember this one? "As they (the Iraq goverment) stand up, we (the U.S.) will stand down." Iraqi stands up with a new government and the U.S. responds by sending in additional troops to "quell" the anticipated backlash. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/21/wirq121.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/21/ixnews.html 5/21/06 New York Times reporters note that the out-of-control violence sweeping Iraq is the product of a "battered and dysfunctional" Iraqi police force, created by U.S. in the proper training of them. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/world/middleeast/21security.html 5/21/06 "Be gone by evening prayers or we will kill you" a familiar threat in Iraqi as ethnic cleansing escalates and people begin to flee from areas in which they represent an ethnic minority. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article548945.ece 5/20/06 Bush and Blair are hoping to use the formation of Iraq's first permanent government since the fall of Saddam Hussein to provide a justification for their withdrawal from Iraq. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,175-2188863,00.html 5/19/06 Afghanistan violence and instability is steadily increasing: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article548102.ece 5/19/06 U.S. military investigation finds that more civilians than the originally reported 15 were killed in a now infamous U.S. Marine raid in Iraq last November http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/eg/civilian-deaths.html 5/18/06 New Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi calls the U.S. invasion of Iraq a "grave error" and promises to rapidly pull Italian troops out of Iraq after "consulting" with allies: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/05/18/italy.iraq.reut/ 5/18/06 Rep. John Murtha, a moderate Democrat who supports an immediate U.S. withdrawl from Iraq, backs up a March report in Time by saying that U.S. Marines slaughtered dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children, last November. Murtha said that because of increased pressure due to incessant violence "they killed innocent civilians in cold blood" and that "this is going to be a very, very bad thing for the U.S.": http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,416816,00.html 5/18/06 Amnesty offer to Taliban by Afghan government highlights the desperation to contain the spreading violence in that country. http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=9004 5/17/06 Religious militias in Iraq are targeting executions for gays, prostitutes, women who don't cover their faces, men who wear their hair too long. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2183948,00.html 5/16/06 Building the U.S. embassy in Baghdad continues the pattern, begun with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, of providing reconstruction contracts with no transparency and with many allegations of fiscal irregularity. http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/15/america_in_baghdad.php 5/15/06 New video on "deconstructing Iraq" suggests that the death squads operating in the country are the product of deliberate American occupation policy designed to destroy resistance by promoting sectarian violence: http://www.cryingwolf.deconstructingiraq.org.uk/index.html 5/15/06 Possibility being investigated that delivery of the "yellowcake dossier" involving forged Niger documents from Italian to U.S. intelligence resulted in a 2005 contract for an Italian firm associated with Berlusconi for the building of a fleet of U.S. presidential helicopters. http://www.alternet.org/story/36183/ 5/15/06 British control of the situation in Basra, Iraq slips further away as police chief is suspended for alleged ties to terrorism: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/15/wirq15.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/15/ixnews.html 5/14/06 Former UN weapons inspector claims that information that "bio-weapons trailor" information in Iraq was faulty was suppressed for political reasons: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/pol?guid=20060513/446559c0_3421_1334520060513-498278195 5/13/06 U.S. Corps of Engineers cancels contract with private contractor in Iraq to rebuild hospitals; Corps and company blame one another for failure to respond to an earlier audit noting failures in health facility reconstruction: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/13/world/middleeast/13reconstruct.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 5/11/06 UNICEF report: as health funding in Iraq lags, one in three Iraqi children are malnourished and underweight http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12981.htm 5/11/06 Double standard on deadlines? Bush rejects extension of deadline for Medicare drug prescription enrollment: "Deadlines help people understand there's finality and people need to get after it." For the same reason, why wouldn't a deadline for Iraqi withdrawal help all concerned to "get after it?" http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/09/bush.ap/index.html 5/10/06 As evidence mounts that Shiite police commandos are carrying out secret killings, Sunni Arab neighborhoods across Baghdad have begun forming citizen groups to keep the paramilitary forces out of their areas entirely http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/world/middleeast/10patrols.html?th&emc=th 5/8/06 As crowds in Basra cheer the downing of a British helicopter, this area of Iraq slips out of coalition control: 5/6/06 10 U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan helicopter crash: http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/nationaafghanistan-helicopter.html 5/5/06 Deaths squads are said to be operating in Iraq under U.S. tutelage to achieve U.S. war aim of promoting sectarian divison, as operations involve support of both Sunni and Shi-ite forces: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12945.htm 5/4/06 U.S. public opinion and the Iraqi war: small majority say we should have "stayed out" but a larger majority approve the "removal" of Saddam Hussein; only 30% approve of Bush's "handling" of Iraqi situation; in summary still a dominant war-hawk mentality to support the Democrats' claim about national security that "we can do it better." http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/11762 5/3/06 Baghdad residents watch in dismay as massive U.S. embassy construction proceeds on schedule while they still lack water and electricity at pre-war levels: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2162249,00.html 5/2/06 U.S. trains Iraqi Interior Ministry police amidst Sunni suspicion that they are "moonlighting" as Shi-ite death squad members: http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/05/02/us_trains_and_monitors_for_moonlighting_by_iraqi_forces/ 5/1/06 Cordesman's reaction to Senator Biden's proposal to partition Iraq and then withdraw U.S. troops: "think long and hard" about that one: http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1909893&page=1 4/30/06 Senator Feingold to propose a "moderate" amendment to emergency defense appropriations bill to provide limited withdrawal from Iraq by year's-end; degree of its support will test the willingness of both Republican and Democratic Senators who have been critical of the war to chart a course independent of the long-war approach of the Bush administration: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=80287 4/25/06 New York Times report on the bumbling effort by a Halliburton subsidiary to re-build an Iraqi pipeline is described as a metaphor that represents the broader failure of Iraqi reconstruction: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/world/middleeast/25pipeline.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 4/21/06 15,000 detainees are held illegally in Iraq, including hundreds in the control of U.S. multinational forces: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5771732,00.html 4/21/06 Building of the billion dollar U.S. embassy in Baghdad, an instrument of perpetual American domination in the Middle East, proceeds quietly and relentlessly: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/saavedra.php?articleid=8884 4/21/06 Iraqis are fleeing their country in huge numbers due to brutal and incessant violence: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5770405,00.html 4/20/06 Contractor paid $2 millions in bribes to U.S. officials in the form of money, sex and designer watches to secure $10 millions of contracts in Iraq: http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/smh09.html 4/19/06 Street battle in Baghdad inches the country closer to all-out sectarian strife: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060418/ts_nm/iraq_insurgents_dc;_ylt=A0SOwj1r3URE62MAGgtZ.3QA 4/16/06 Iraq beginning to look like Bosnia to U.S. troops as sectarian strife increases: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/16/world/middleeast/16peacekeeping.html?th&emc=th 4/15/06 Greg Palast: Generals who called for Rumsfeld to resign are not aiming at the right target: they should be going for the puppeteers (Bush and Cheney) rather than the puppet. http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=493 4/14/06 BBC report: Sharp rise in sectarian violence in Iraq causes at least 65,000 Iraqis to flee their homes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4905770.stm 4/12/06 Colin Powell tells journalist he never believed in a Niger/uranium connection and that the nuclear threat fantasy about Iraq was mostly a Cheney product: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060411_bush_leak_plame_libby_powell/ 4/12/06 Newly-released report of secret fact-finding mission to Iraq in May 2003 shows intelligence agencies debunking idea of trailers that were "mobile labs" for bio-terrorism, a discovery that Bush touted as vindication for his decision to invade the country: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/11/AR2006041101888.html?referrer=email 4/11/06 Italy votes for withdrawal from Iraq: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0410-32.htm 4/10/06 U.S. military conducted propaganda campaign, aimed partly at "U.S. home audience," to inflate the influence of Zarqawi on conflict in Iraq: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/09/AR2006040900890.html?referrer=email 4/8/06 Assassinations by Shiite militias now exceed death toll of sucide bombings by Sunni Arab-led insurgency in Iraq: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/07/AR2006040701719.html?referrer=email 4/6/06 A day in the life: Iraqi Resistance Report for 4/5/06 is like that for every day of the last 3 years: numerous reports of American unprovoked attacks on civilians and more American casualities than the U.S. military ever admits; take with the same grain of salt that one should take with Pentagon reports: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m22261&l=i&size=1&hd=0 4/3/06 Remember all those letters to the editor decrying the fact that we can provide first class health care to Iraq but not to our own people? Forget that...Iraqi "reconstruction" failures include indication that only 20 of 142 planned health care clinics will be completed. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/02/AR2006040201209.html?referrer=email 4/2/06 U.K. joins U.S. in establishing "enduring bases" in Iraq: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article355178.ece 4/2/06 Iraqis flee mixed Sunni-Shiite areas as sectarian violence surges: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 4/1/06 Lindorff: the Mustafa Mosque massacre was no accident of mistake, but a deliberate U.S. message to Iraqis to undermine their sovereignty claims: http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff03302006.html 4/1/06 Decline in deaths of U.S. troops in Iraqi in March is more than matched by massive increase in deaths of Iraqi troops and civilians: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/31/AR2006033101745.html?referrer=email 3/31/06 New York Times reveals secret memo of Bush and Blair discussing provocation to force a war with Iraq that Bush was detemined to have: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/international/europe/27memo.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 3/31/06 Death squads in Honduras and Iraq: the Negroponte connection: http://www.suntimes.com/output/orourke/cst-edt-rour25.html 3/31/06 U.S. military commander says last weekend's raid against a Shiite mosque or community center was a "little reality jab" to warn al Sadr forces against support of insurgency: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060330/30natsec.htm 3/31/06 In speech at Gainesville, Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, says U.S. went to war in Iraq for domestic politics, not national security: http://www.alligator.org/pt2/060329inspector.php 3/30/06 Wave of the future in Iraq?: Prime Minister warns U.S. to "stop interfering" with government operations: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/03/29/news/baghdad.php 3/29/06 Pentagon and U.S. generals scramble to explain whether they attacked a Baghdad mosque, amid claims of a "faked massacre" in which corpses were moved to the scene: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/03/29/wirq29.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/03/29/ixnewstop.html 3/28/06 Shia fury over "massacre" at a mosque in East Baghdad may be the tipping point of loss of Shia support for U.S. occupation: http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick03282006.html 3/28/06 U.S. says Iraq will now have to rebuild itself: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC29Ak03.html 3/28/06 We was framed! U.S. commander in Iraq says (unnamed) Iraqis "faked" a massacre at a Bagdad mosque by bringing in corpses to create an altered "scene": http://www.localnewsleader.com/olberlin/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=165165 3/27/06 U.S. creates new enmities in Iraq, participating in a raid that killed 16 Al Sadr loyalists and another which targeted the Iraqi Interior Ministry's maintaining of prisons using coercive methods: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/26/AR2006032600883.html?referrer=email 3/25/06 Reuters obtains copy of video showing civilian corpses after U.S. Marine operation in Haditha Iraq in November 2005, and civilians describing a "rampage" by the Marines: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12471.htm 3/22/06 Iraqi academic: U.S. presence in Iraq provokes civil war rather than preventing it: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/972DD1C0-237B-473B-96B5-3DBDABBCD35F.htm 3/21/06 Conflict in Iraq is evolving as violence and counter-violence between Sunni insurgents and a Shi-ite militia empowered by the Interior Ministry with U.S. support: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1175055,00.html 3/21/06 U.S. military slaughter of 11 women and children in a house north of Baghdad may signal the beginning of the "My Lai phase" of the Iraqi war: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12404.htm 3/21/06 "Terrorism insurance" now available to Iraqis: it's expensive and only pays out about $3500. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/21/international/middleeast/21insurance.html?th&emc=th 3/21/06 Greg Palast: Iraq is actually Mission Accomplished, the mission being to force Iraq to "enhance" its relationship with OPEC countries' in other words, to keep oil prices high by restricting production: 3/21/06 "Dirty war" may be exactly what the U.S. planners of the war wanted: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=DAV20060318&articleId=2127 3/19/06 World-wide protests mark 3rd anniversary of invasion of Iraq: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11887714/ 3/18/06 Much-touted "massive aerial assault" north of Baghdad fizzles, with no shots fired and no insurgent leaders found: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1174448,00.html 3/17/06 Operation Swarmer in Samarra may do little to contain the Iraqi insurgency, which has regrouped there after earlier raids and which has resources in other parts of Iraq: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC18Ak03.html 3/17/06 U.S. and Iraqi forces launch "largest aerial assault since 2003 invasion of Iraq"; read the fine print on this one: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1732937 3/15/06 Bodies continue to pile up in Iraqi sectarian violence as Shiite government death squads roam free. The Iraqi Army cannot, or will not, stop it: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/15/international/middleeast/15iraq.html?th&emc=th 3/14/06 Two versions of exit criteria for Iraq. Bush: we'll leave as security situation in Iraq "improves", hopefully by year's end: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/13/AR2006031300785.html?referrer=email Biden: we should leave Iraq by this summer if situation doesn't improve: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IRAQ?SITE=NYNYD&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT 3/13/06 British leaders opinion leaders who were cheerleaders for the Iraqi invasion have been unable to admit their mistake, as have many in the U.S.: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0313-23.htm 3/11/06 Iraq still being run as a military occupation, the "sovereignty" of Iraqi government non-existent: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0310-24.htm 3/11/06 Opinion: Government propaganda has "anesthestized" U.S. public into believing that Iraqi war is "revenge" for Iraq's involvement in 9/11; U.S. troops mostly want the war ended because it is not "winnable," not because unjustified: http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/030406a.html 3/11/06 After suffering 13 years under embargo, Iraqi intellectuals now facing severe repression if they question the military occupying power: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0310-25.htm 3/10/06 Pentagon signals change in U.S. strategy in Iraq: from fighting insurgency to curbing sectarian violence and civil war: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/09/AR2006030900280.html?referrer=email 3/10/06 U.S. contractor found guilty of fraud in Iraqi contracts: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/10/international/middleeast/10contract.html?th&emc=th 3/9/06 Contrary to recent news reports, U.S. has no immediate plans to close Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2006/20060309_4434.html 3/2/06 British private military contractor in Iraq making huge profits: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=THO20060302&articleId=2054 3/2/06 Forcible evictions of Shiites from pre-dominantly Sunni neighborhood in West Baghdad may foreshadow civil war in Iraq: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3694254.html 3/1/06 US seeks more funds to build prisons in Iraq. Humanitarian projects like electricity and water are ignored and in shambles. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/28/AR200.html?referrer=email 3/1/06 Inspector General report: plans for post-war reconstruction of Iraq were practically non-existent: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/030106N.shtml 3/1/06 War profiteering goes bi-partisan: Senator Dianne Feinstein: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12106.htm \2/28/06 Death squads, mosque bombers, sectarian violence: U.S. says things going "according to plan" in Iraq. If so, what's the plan? http://counterpunch.org/jacobs02272006.html 2/28/06 William Buckley Jr. has a "Cronkite moment" it's time to acknowledge defeat and cut and run from Iraq: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0227-33.htm 2/27/06 Analysts see in Iraq an impending case of "Lebanon-ization" as sectarian strife produces weak central government and local control by regionally dominant militias: http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes048.html 2/26/06 Afghan prison rivals Guantanamo for grimness: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/international/26bagram.html?hp&ex=1141016400&en=22baccfaad724903&ei=5094&partner=homepage 2/26/06 Death squad tortures and executions being carried out by Shia Muslim militia under direction of Iraqi Interior ministry, says outgoing UN chief rights chief http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article347806.ece 2/26/06 Civil war in Iraq threatens Mideast http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/26/news/war.php 2/26/06 U.S. forces battling insurgents in interestingly hostile "Triangle of Death" southwest of Baghdad: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501738.html?referrer=email 2/26/06 Doing lucrative business in Iraq but want to avoid the suicide bombers? "Nice" homes in the Green Zone can be rented for a mere $25,000 a month: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13294 2/25/06 Attacks surge despite stringent security measures in Iraq: http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2006/02/25/1462034-ap.html 2/24/06 Dozens of Mosques Attacked, Over 100 Dead, Thousands Protest http://www.juancole.com/2006/02/dozens-of-mosques-attacked-over-100.html 2/24/06 Lancet report on massive Iraqi deaths from war and sanctions has been quietly ingnored for a year: http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Feb2006/davies0206.html 2/24/06 Ten imams murdered in Iraqas sectarian killings intensify http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article347384.ece 2/24/06 US envoy in Baghdad says Iraqis on the brink of civil war 2/23/06 Iran blames agents from U.S., Israel for Iraq's sectarian strife: http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060223/API/602230588 2/23/06 Joshua Frank: Democratic Party "redeployment" consensus an "election year stunt" in bid for anti-war support without appearing to be "soft" on terrorism: http://www.antiwar.com/frank/?articleid=8589 2/22/06 Shi'ite Shrine Attack Fans Sectarian Flames in Iraq http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0222-09.htm 2/22/06 Death squads in Iraqi continue an old tradition for U.S. Special Forces: http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060222/EDITORIALS02/60221036/-1/editorials 2/22/06 Nearly 100 Dead in US Custody in Iraq, Afghanistan: Rights Group http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0222-05.htm 2/21/06 Karbala (Iraq) provincial leaders ban U.S. military contacts because of soldiers' behavior, following similar action against British in two other provinces: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1641548 2/20/06 Wisconsin referendums call for troop withdrawal: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/021806G.shtml 2/20/06 Local officials in Basra, Iraq refuse co-operation with British occupation as Iraqi anger grows over video showing abuse of prisoners by British troops: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4729032.stmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4729032.stm 2/19/06 Report of increased uranium levels in UK on "drift" from armaments in Iraq denied by government: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2047373,00.html 2/19/06 Iraq power shift widens a gulf between sects 2/17/06 'Billions more needed for wars' http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1883183,00.html 2/17/06 Death squads in Iraq; recent U.S. claims of horror at "discovering" Interior Ministry agents' actions belie the fact that U.S. special forces have set up such operations throughout the Iraqi occupation: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=FUL20051110&articleId=1230 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/01/1526201 2/17/06 British and American atrocities against Iraqi detainees spreads anger across the country, aggravated by Muslim cartoon outrage: http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=8563 2/17/06 Japan plans Iraq troop withdrawl http://news.monstersandcritics.com/asiapacific/article_1130761.php/Japan_plans_Iraq_troop_withdrawal 2/16/06 Iraqi President Condemns U.S. After New Abuse Footage: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/16/AR2006021600980.html 2/16/06 "The U.S. military has stumbled across the first evidence of a death squad within Iraq's Interior Ministry" (they should have been reading Global Research for the last 6 months): http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/world/13881013.htm 2/15/06 Village Voice investigative report: Pentagon's $500 million operation in pursuit of a "desert jihadist" (not Bin Laden) in Afghanistan: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0605,khatchadourian,71993,6.html 2/15/06 New images suggest further Abu Ghraib abuses 2/14/06 Iraqi officials assert U.S. endangered life of hostage by a "tough stance" of delaying the release of female prisoners (a hostage demand) who would otherwise have been released: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0214-06.htm 2/14/06 Building of permanent U.S. bases in Iraq belies our "withdrawal" rhetoric: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11907.htm 2/13/06 Cheney "swung around and hit the wrong target" in the war on terror and a Texas quail hunt: http://counterpunch.org/lindorff02132006.html 2/13/06 Abusing Iraqis: How much is enough? http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=15archive/&entry_id=2974 2/13/06 Arrest made over Iraq abuse video http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CDE02F01-9D50-4EB5-A42C-790A03751D13.htm 2/11/06 Sunni/Shiite conflict erupts in a formerly tight-knit Baghdad neighborhood: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/10/AR2006021001910.html?referrer=email 2/11/06 Pizza and football installations symbolize U.S. establishment of permanent bases in Iraq: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/11/wirq11.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/02/11/ixworld.html 2/9/06 Private security contractors in Iraq: http://www.slate.com/id/2135362/entry/2135365/ 2/5/06 Turks enjoy new movie about U.S. atrocities in Iraq, but still value Turkish alliance with U.S. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060204/ennew_afp/afpentertainmentturkey_060204231923 2/3/06 U.S. helicopter, pursuing suspected terrorist, fires rocket in Baghdad, killing one woman, wounding another and 2-year-old child: http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1568852 2/3/06 British book claims Bush tried to start war with Iraq by provoking shoot-down of surveillance plane in UN markings: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2023128,00.html 2/2/06 Allies signal big pullout in Iraq: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2020989,00.html 1/31/06 Poll finds nearly half of Iraqis support attacks on U.S. troops, 80% think U.S. bases in Iraq will be permanent: http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/13750080.htm 1/30/06 U.S. in direct talks with Iraqi insurgents: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11079548/site/newsweek/ 1/30/06 CIA expanding its "targeted killing" program against remote terrorist targets with unmanned missiles: http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes014.html 1/30/06 New book claims Bush and Blair conspired to deceive UN on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11703.htm 1/28/06 Afghan leader says foreign troops may be needed for 10 years: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4655196.stm 1/24/06 "Chaos" in U.S.reconstruction program in Iraq: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article340802.ece 1/23/06 Larry Wilkerson's critique of Colin Powell and Iraqi war: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/012006N.shtml 1/23/06 Al-qaeda supporters may be winning elections in Anbar Province: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/01/23/walqa23.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/01/23/ixworld.html 1/23/06 Saddam prosecution described as "show trial" to justify Iraqi invasion: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11641.htm 1/22/06 U.S. disappointed in performance of secular moderates in Iraqi elections, supports Sunni Muslim demands for inclusion: http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news3/latimes171.html 1/21/06 U.S. military walls and checkpoints in area of Beji refinery north of Baghdad anger local residents: http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=8424 1/21/06 Iraqi official protests U.S. truce negotiations with insurgents: http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20060119-105756-9923r.htm 1/21/06 Three combat veterans speak of their experiences in Iraq: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/31053/ 1/20/06 (After downing of helicopter) U.S. closes road, forces Iraqi drivers onto killing field: http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060119/NEWS/601190362/1002/NEWS01 1/18/06 Humanitarian groups say U.S. should compensate civilians who were innocent victims of bombing raids: http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/125635/1/ 1/18/06 Impending nuclear war against Iran: http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20CH20060103&articleId=1714 Patrick Buchanan on: http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=8405 1/18/06 Aghanistan war receding from public consciousness: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060118_meanwhile_back_in_afghanistan/ 1/17/06 Pakistani protests of U.S. bombing raids: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060116/wl_nm/security_pakistan_zawahri_dc_12 http://news.ft.com/cms/s/6fd47972-8609-11da-bee0-0000779e2340.html 1/17/06 U.S. seeks Iranian and Sunni insurgent support to end violence in Iraq: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/porter.php?articleid=8402 http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0117/p01s01-woiq.html 1/17/06 Reconstruction in Iraq: the U.S. "Marshall Plan" fades: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11582.htm 1/17/06 Tariq Ali on "Iraq's Destiny": http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1687114,00.html 1/16/06 Secretary of State Rice refuses to apologize for air strike in Pakistan: http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?idq=/ff/story/0001/20060116/0545372824.htm&ewp=ewp_news_qaeda&floc=NW_1-T 1/16/06 Military analysts: air war to intensify as troops withdraw, strategy is questioned: http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/13623863.htm 1/16/06 Economists calculate cost of Iraqi war: http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/15/business/warcost.php?rss 1/14/06 Air strike in Pakistan against suspected Al-Qaeda officials kills many civilians. Al Jazeerha says Pakistani "protests" against U.S. incursion from Afghanistan: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4F745CF1-DDEB-4707-B7AE-567F6B7EDA54.htm Associated Press says this is "latest of a series" of such strikes, Pentagon denies knowledge of them, may have been "CIA strike": http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PAKISTAN_AL_QAIDA_ATTACK?SITE=VTBRA&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT 1/14/06 U.S. seeking Arab peacekeepers in Iraq: http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20060113-120058-2758r 1/14/06 U.S. Army closes Iraqi detainee abuse case without any suspects being questioned: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-01-13-abuse-probe_x.htm 1/14/06 Bush administration's bogus "exit strategy" for Iraq: http://antiwar.com/pena/?articleid=8344 1/14/06 Cost of Iraqi war: a "budget-buster": http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HA14Ak01.html 1/14/06 U.S. seeks "coalition of willing" in reconstruction of Iraq, larger State Department, lesser Pentagon role: http://www.antiwar.com/ips/fisher.php?articleid=8387 1/14/06 Military "suffering" in Iraq: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0113-23.htm 1/11/06 American rules of engagement in air war: striking civilian targets if suspected of "harboring" insurgents: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0111-30.htm 1/11/06 U.S. strategy of pacifying Iraq as withdrawal strategy: Tom Hayden's insurgency sources: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0111-22.htm 1/11/06 U.S. abandoning Iraq to violence and non-reconstruction: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=31714 1/10/06 Economic costs of Iraqi war: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11495.htm 1/10/06 Texas congressman, close to Bush, says there's an "exit strategy" for Iraq: withdrawal after a friendly Iraqi President installed, U.S. will leave "equipment" there and "support" Iraq the way it has in Israel: http://web.theparisnews.com/story.lasso?wcd=24524 1/10/06 Civilian casualties in Iraq: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11508.htm 1/10/06 Problems of Iraqi survivors of war deaths: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BAB438952.htm 1/10/06 U.S. pressures Dutch for Afghani operation support: http://www.expatica.com/source/site_story_id=26643&name=Bremer+warns+Dutch+to+back+Afghan+mission 1/3/06 Chalabi as new Iraqi Minister of Oil signals U.S. plan to have multi-national companies gain control of Iraq's oil: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MEY20051231&articleId=1690 1/3/06 Pentagon orders U.S. soldiers to speak positively about Iraq mission while home on leave: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=THO20051230&articleId=1682 1/2/06 Peace talks in Iraq, U.S. involvement: http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10662 1/2/06 Zinn: time to think about ending war for good: http://www.progressive.org/mag_zinn0106 1/2/06 U.S. in Iraq permanently, to protect bases there: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1230-33.htm 1/1/06 Investigations of election irregularities in Iraq: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1230-03.htm 12/31/05 US intimidation and manipulation of Iraqi media**: http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20051219&s=willilams 12/5/05 U.S. media ignoring air war in Iraq: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1205-23.htm 12/5/05 Iraqi media being paid by U.S. military to do U.S. favorable stories: http://www.commondreams.org/ http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1205-33.htm
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