Free Iraq

I f*@#ingly do hope so!
 

Is the s**t starting to hit the fan?

Dear Imad,
We sure do hope it IS!

Sincerely,
Linda
 

Key Obstacle in Forming Iraq Govt Resolved: Nouri al-Maliki said representatives of the country's political parties had agreed on who will head the main posts and that just a few ministries remain unfilled. Discussions were still under way on the nominees for the oil, trade and transportation ministries, he said.

The incoming prime minister did not say who would get the key ministries of interior, which controls police, and defense, which runs the army. U.S. and British officials have insisted those posts go to people without ties to sectarian militias, believed responsible for many of the revenge killings of Sunnis and Shiites.

As for the prominent Foreign Ministry, lawmakers have repeatedly said that this portfolio will remain in the hands of the Kurds, who also hold the presidency.


Eleven bodies, including the headless corpse of a 10-year-old boy, found in Tigris near Baghdad


Tensions run high on Iraq-Iran border


Pentagon Won't Send Brigade to Iraq as Planned: The decision was made by Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and was "conditions based," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

"Obviously, there has been a degree of political process … in the past couple weeks," he said.

The brigade could still be deployed to Iraq at a later date, ...


POWER CUTS, RISING HEAT
 

Kurt Nimmo, Neocons Dismember the CIA: ... in favor of the Pentagon conducting “paramilitary operations” (i.e., subverting governments around the world). [ . . . ]

Once upon a time, the Secretary of Defense was limited to tasks associated with imminent combat, but no more. Now the Pentagon, grabbing up “reprogrammed funds” that fall outside the oversight of congressional appropriations, is in the process of waging its own covert operations minus congressional oversight—or rather the covert operations of the neocons ensconced in the dark and deep recesses of the Pentagon. According to the holy warrior William G. Boykin, Rumsfeld “actually has more responsibility to collect intelligence [and subvert other countries] for the national foreign intelligence program … than does the CIA director,” thus rendering the CIA an anachronism.

Some may call all of this a new and creative way to fight terrorism—never mind that the terrorism in question was created by a fetid panoply of intelligence organizations.

I’d call it a Straussian coup d’état in slow motion.
 

Recruiting Abuses Mount as Army Struggles to Meet Goals
 

Rumsfeld denies making claims Iraq had WMDs: 'Never said that ... never did,' defense secretary now asserts ("Quick. Destroy the tapes!")


Brits will go in to clear up militias if required: BRITISH troops could be sent to clean out extremist militias in Basra who orchestrated the rioting at the site of the Lynx helicopter crash if the Iraqi army fails to do the job, the most senior British officer in the country said yesterday.

General Fry said: “Iran probably wants to inconvenience the coalition, to detain us militarily, cause us a certain amount of military attrition, and blunt any appetite that the West might have for further military adventures in this area. But what it doesn’t want is a long-term American presence here, or a state in turmoil on its borders.”

He said that the events of the weekend will not disrupt plans for withdrawal of British troops from southern Iraq.
 

VIDEO: Rumsfeld is a Liar: the Secretary of Defence confronted by former CIA Agent Ray McGovern: Complete Transcript


Sabah Ali, 109 Iraqi Journalists killed in Iraq Under Occupation: Bellow are the names, profession, occasion, and date of killing of each Iraqi journalist. [ . . . ]

*The list was published in Al-Zawra' newspaper (the IJU paper) no.469 on Thursday May4, 2006, in Arabic.


Dirk Adriaensens, Foxes in the hen-house. Iraqi puppet government submits candidacy for the UNHRC and other tales: Did you know that the government of Iraq submitted its candidacy for the newly formed UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC)? Until a few days ago, its written pledge was not online. Now it is. Look at the document underneath.

In that document you can read some incredible things. Iraq presents itself as being deeply committed to human rights.

Elections take place in New York on Tuesday, 9 May. If elected, Iraq would be subject to the new "universal review," mandatory on all members of the UNHRC. Note the pledge (point #24 of the voluntary commitments) to consider ratifying all Optional Protocols of key human rights instruments. ...

Organisation for Follow-up and Monitoring

30 April, 2006

In Dutch:

Na nauwkeurige telling en verzameling van bewijzen heeft de Iraakse Organisatie voor Opvolging en Observatie bevestigd dat 92 % van de 3498 lichamen die in verschillende streken van Irak werden gevonden door troepen van het Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken waren gearresteerd. Er was niets over het lot van de slachtoffers bekend tot hun lichamen doorzeefd en vreselijk gefolterd werden teruggevonden. Het is beschamend en betreurenswaardig dat deze misdaden worden verzwegen en dat verscheidene staten vertegenwoordigers ontvangen van een regering die geen onderzoek naar deze misdrijven voert.

Organisatie voor Opvolging en Observatie

30 april 2006


Original article in Arabic: http://www.iraq-amsi.org/news.php?action=view&id=6598&

بموجب احصاء وتوثيق متقن، فقد تأكد لدى المنظمة العراقية للمتابعة والرصد وبعد اجراء احصاء شمل 3498 جثة وجدت ملقاة في مناطق متفرقة من العراق ان 92 بالمائة من هذه الجثث قد تم اعتقال اصحابها من قبل وزارة الداخلية وتشكيلاتها، ولم يعرف عنهم اي شيء لحين العثور عليهم جثث ممزقة تعرضت لتعذيب بشع.

انه من المؤسف والمخجل ان يتم السكوت على هذه الجرائم وترضى عدة دول باستقبال مسؤولين بحكومة لا تحقق في هذه الجرائم.


المنظمة العراقية للمتابعة والرصد

30/4/2006

Recently an initiative to "save" Iraq's academics has been initiated, with the help of the Iraqi puppet government and UNESCO.

According to spokespersons of this initiative, "These men have been killed at the hands of criminals and terrorists, who have prevented them from working towards the rebuilding and the prosperity of our beloved country." “I call on the international community,” the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, declared, “to show solidarity with Iraqi academics and intellectuals who are subjected to a heinous campaign of violence.” Of course not a word about Iraq being occupied,
 

Ray McGovern, Truth and the Closed Mind; My Encounter with Rumsfeld: All in all, my encounter with Rumsfeld was for me a highly instructive experience. The Center's president, Peter White, singled out Rumsfeld's "honesty" in introducing him, and 99 percent of those attending seemed primed to agree. Indeed, their reaction brought to mind film footage of rallies in Germany during the '30s. When Rumsfeld replied to my first question about his false statements on Iraq 's WMD, the applause was automatic. "I did not lie then," he insisted.

This was immediately greeted with what Pravda used to describe as "stormy applause," followed immediately by rather unseemly shouts by this otherwise well-disciplined and well-heeled group to have me summarily thrown out. At the end, as we all filed out slowly, I could make eye contact with only one person--who proceeded to berate me for being insubordinate.

Scary. No open minds there. A graphic reminder for those wishing to spread some truth around that we have our work cut out for us. We have to find imaginative ways to use truth as a lever to pry open closed minds.
 

Video, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media: How government and big media businesses cooperate to produce an effective propaganda machine in order to manipulate the opinions of the United States populous
 

Music Video, Dear Mr. President, By PINK

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

[ . . . ]

How do you sleep at night
How do you walk with your head held high
Dear Mr. President
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you
 

Associated Press Falsely Portrays Chavez as Seeking 25-Year Term
 

More than half of Israelis want gov't to help Arabs emigrate
 

Senior Hamas sources said Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh met several times with Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance Committees commanders and pleaded with them to stop Qassam fire into Israel, out of fear that Israel will send ground troops to the Gaza Strip should Qassam attacks persist.
 

IRAQ: UN report cites vast under-nutrition among children
 

Iraqi judge shot dead in western Baghdad
 

Iraq suicide bombing kills 17 after a suicide truck bomber hit an Iraqi market in Tal Afar
 

Wayne Madsen, International neocon ploy to discredit anti-U.S. politicians
 

Remi Kanazi, Call a spade a spade: How long is a sane man expected to sit on his hands while his enemy slaps him in the face? The Palestinian people have endured a prolonged aggression by a pariah state, and yet the world not only expects them to sit on their hands, the world blames them for it.

Why are the Palestinian people expected to take the blame? Apparently, the world is infuriated by their democratically electing Hamas, a “terrorist organization.” Setting aside the word terrorism and the West’s perversion of the definition, would one not have to engage in “terrorism” or even attempt to engage in “terrorism” to be a “terrorist?”

According to Shin Bet, Hamas’ military wing has not been responsible for a suicide bombing in nearly two years. Israel has not blamed a single Israeli death on Hamas in 2006. Furthermore, hard-line Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz reluctantly admitted that Hamas did not coordinate any of the rocket attacks fired from the Gaza Strip in recent months. ...

In the large sea of global politics, minnows like the Palestinians cannot survive without protection and fresh water. The disappearance of voices that once cried out for the rights of the Palestinian people is leading those in the Occupied Territories down a very narrow path. Many in the European Union are now towing the line for Israel’s demands and policies, while most of the Arab states have been “forced” to join the ride due to US pressure and sanctions.

The world's turning its back on democracy and the Palestinian people is an intolerable breach of humanity. ...

So let’s call a spade a spade. Israel is engaging in state-sponsored physical, economic, and political terrorism—in an attempt to choke to death a people that have been deprived of air for nearly 60 years. The question remains: will those who value peace have enough sense to object or will they wait until it’s too late?
 

Ghali Hassan, Reshuffling the cards in Iraq
 

Robert Parry, Rummy Logic & Enduring Lies: “You know, that charge [of lying] is frequently leveled against the President for one reason or another, and it’s so wrong and so unfair and so destructive of a free system, where people need to trust each other and government,” Rumsfeld told a crowd of international affairs experts. (Barf!)
 

Aljazeera.com, Mossad murdered 530 Iraqi scientists: According to the report, which was referred to the U.S. president George W. Bush, Mossad agents had been operating in Iraq with the aim of liquidating Iraqi nuclear and biology scientists, among other scientists, and prominent university professors.

That was after the U.S. failed to persuade those scientists to cooperate with or work for it.
 

The President's New Helicopter ($6.1 billion toy for our imperial highness)
 

U.S. Marines Go Hungry; Beg Iraqis For Food
 

Ramzy Baroud, Time to redefine the Middle East: Too often people of the Middle East have been defined by their conquerors, first the Europeans and then the Americans. Not surprisingly, the region and its people were depicted as violent, fractious, uncivilized. It is time that the people of the region define themselves according to their own terms and aspirations.
 

Hawaii Legislature Takes Steps to End Iraq War: Senate Resolution here.
 

Blair 'to hold talks over exit' (His own)
 

U.S. in UN hot seat over torture: Official says Army will ban submerging of detainees' heads (But what if they have valuable information?)
 

EU plans to go it alone with aid for Palestinians
 

U.S. gives in on Palestinian aid: Quartet powers agree to limited temporary assistance skirting Hamas
 

David Swanson, Ray McGovern Is Going to Rumsfeld's House: On Thursday, May 18, a large coalition of groups is planning to deliver to the White House all the signatures and comments posted on a petition at http://www.DontAttackIran.org As the name of the site suggests, the petition simply asks the President and Vice President not to launch another aggressive attack on foreign soil – an attack that would necessarily be promoted with lies, lies that are already being spread by the Bush administration.

Numerous peace groups that have promoted the petition will join together with a "Pray-In" in Lafayette Square Park, in front of the White House, an event being held by the Network of Spiritual Progressives. Remarks made by various leaders between 1 and 3 p.m., possibly including Members of Congress, will focus on a positive vision of how our nation might promote peace and justice rather than the destruction and suffering our policies currently generate.

Toward the end of the event, at approximately 2:30 p.m., Cindy Sheehan will lead us in delivering the petition and signatures and comments to the White House. And at 3 p.m. we will head off on a march to Donald Rumsfeld's house, with Ray McGovern leading the way.

Our demand to Rumsfeld: Why did you lie?
 

The time to pull out of Iraq draws near: It is difficult to imagine a more unedifying sight than the scenes that greeted British soldiers as they sought to recover the bodies of five colleagues after their helicopter crashed in Basra. [ . . . ]

The sole aim, let us not forget, of the British military deployment in Iraq is to facilitate the establishment of a stable government in Iraq. But if, as now seems increasingly likely, that goal is unobtainable, then the sooner that they pack up and come home, the better.
 

Gunmen kill 11 Iraqis in attack on minibus: police


Over 1,000 killed last month in Baghdad sectarian bloodshed: Talabani: The latest bout of violence came as Iraqi lawmakers began on Wednesday a parliament session only for the fourth time since it was elected in December, with prime minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki expected to unveil the first permanent post-Saddam era cabinet.

The session was briefly interrupted as the speaker Mahmud Mashhadani stormed out of the hall following an argument with a female Shiite MP Ghofran al-Saadi.

Otherwise the entire session consisted of the reading out of the new internal regulations which will be debated over the next few sessions. Parliament will reconvene on Sunday.

Maliki on Tuesday said the cabinet was "90 percent" ready and predicted the long awaited cabinet would be unveiled by Wednesday.


Walkout, mobile ringtone row disrupt Iraq assembly: Gufran al-Saidi, from the Islamist movement of fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, stormed out and told reporters that a bodyguard for speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani had attacked one of her aides on Monday because her phone played a Shi'ite chant.

Other members joined the walkout and complained that the speaker had acted improperly by switching off Saidi's microphone and ordering television cameras to be switched off.

Saidi, appearing veiled in a traditional black robe, said her aide was holding her phone for her in the lobby when it rang -- with a Shi'ite religious harmony. A bodyguard for speaker Mashhadani came over and told him to switch it off, she said.


Five Iraqis escape US military prison: "They escaped in the early morning hours May 9," spokesman Keir-Kevin Curry said. "The incident is under investigation."

The remaining inmates were all accounted for.

It was the first such escape from Fort Suse, one of three main prisons for "security detainees" suspected or convicted of rebellion, Curry said. ...

Fort Suse, built by Soviet engineers as a military base in 1977, lies near the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya. It holds about 1,300 inmates. U.S. personnel have been training Iraqis there to take over guard duties.

U.S. guards have thwarted escape attempts at other jails, including a bid to tunnel out of Camp Bucca, the biggest such detention center, close to the southern border with Kuwait.
 

Q&A: Basra helicopter crash


How We Lost Iraq: THE BOOK THAT BROKE GERMANY'S "CIA SCANDAL"


Car bombings down in Iraq, U.S. military says


Aiming for a More Subtle Fighting Force: General says U.S. troops can counter insurgency best by preserving Iraqis' lives and honor (Three years later)
 

C-SPAN Asks Web Sites to Pull Colbert Clip: The cable network asked two Internet video providers, YouTube and IFILM, to pull clips of Stephen Colbert's April 29 performance at the White House Correspondents Association dinner from their Web sites.

C-SPAN said it contacted the companies because the copyrighted material was posted online without its permission.

Both YouTube and IFILM complied with the request.

YouTube posted the Colbert video shortly after the dinner ended and received the letter to remove it May 3, according to Julie Supan, senior director of marketing. The Colbert video was viewed 2.7 million times in less than 48 hours, she said.
 

Full Text: The President of Iran's Letter To President Bush

(The American media and government war-babble had left me - surprisingly - quite unprepared for the sheer intelligible decency of this letter.)
 

Christian Science Monitor, US, Iran standoff grows tenser: Despite rare letter, Washington sees no reason to engage Tehran as the UN considers action.


Experts: U.S. Hasty in Brushoff of Iran


Rice admits she responded to Iran letter before US had translated missive
 

Kurt Nimmo, Ahmadinejad Sends a Futile Letter: Iran’s president Ahmadinejad never said Israel should be “wiped off the map,” although Shimon Peres did say “the president of Iran should remember that Iran can also be wiped off the map.” As Anneliese Fikentscher and Andreas Neumann note, Ahmadinejad was deliberately misquoted as part of an ongoing propaganda campaign against Iran by the neocons, in particular the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), founded by Yigal Carmon, who served time in Israeli military intelligence, ...

... “US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice dismissed Iranian President’s surprise letter to President George W Bush, saying it did not seriously address the standoff over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program,” ...

In short, the shock and awe campaign against the people of Iran—a beginning fusillade in the process of balkanizing Iran into several more easily digestible pieces—is on. ...
 

HAVE 200,000 AK47S FALLEN INTO THE HANDS OF IRAQ TERRORISTS?
 

The Daily Star, Arab regimes have to take action before Iraq's nightmare spreads
 

(A-t-t-e-n-t-i-o-n: Juan Cole!!! Sorry, folks. If you haven't been following along, you'll be lost here. You, too, Juan.)
Wayne Madsen, World leaders suspect the Bush administration of involvement in the 911 attacks: The first skeptics to question what role the Bush administration played in the 9-11 terrorist attacks were a few cabinet ministers in the governments of America's NATO allies. They included German Science and Technology Minister Andreas Von Bulow and British Environment Minister Michael Meacher. They were joined by Belgian European Parliament Member Paul Lannoye. [ . . . ]

As more and more governments are wrested from the control of the global neocons -- Italy, Britain, Mexico, and others -- additional intelligence may be obtained from various espionage agencies that will prove that the Bush administration was not an idle bystander in the events that led up to 9-11.
 

May 18th at the White House, Join Cindy Sheehan & Ray McGovern: March on DC / Then to Rummy's House
"Stay til the Nightmare is over"
 

Ramzy Baroud, Nuclear Standoff or Realpolitik? Iran and the US
 

Oil ministry dispute delays Iraqi government
 

Amira Hass, When Even "Hyssop and Oil" is Too Expensive; Hungry and Shell-Shocked: Where will the next blow land? That is the question. Not if it will come, but rather when, and on whom will it land, and what kind will it be?

Five-year-old L. believes the solution is to sleep every night in his parents' bed, and in that way to be protected from the shelling. But even there he is not able to fall asleep because he is so worried and afraid. In the kindergarten in the yard outside the house, the children speak all the time about the "booms" that fill their day. Booms from the sea and booms from the land. Day and night. Sometimes three per minute, sometimes three per hour. Sometimes simultaneously from the land and from the sea. The air quivers, a flock of birds takes off in fear, and for a minute the silence of terror reigns. Are there casualties? Who, where, how many? If the parents succeed in hiding from their children pictures of the other children who have been killed or wounded by the shells, the older children fill in the gory details from what they saw on TV or read in the papers. They strengthen each other's fears.

In an agricultural neighborhood near the border in the northern Gaza Strip, north of Beit Lahiyeh, the fears are made concrete by the shrapnel that has fallen countless times on the asbestos roofs. The parents have sent the children to relatives in Gaza city, so they may go to school far away from the shells. "In our neighborhood, people have not yet been killed," Z. says cynically. But the shells have taken their toll: two donkeys, a few sheep and a handful of chickens. [ . . . ]
 

Kevin Zeese, Looting By Another Name; The Corporate Takeover of Iraq's Economy
 

Shikha Dalmia, Defend America, Buy More Iranian Oil
 

Israelis Stop Fuel Supply to Palestinians (Surely making the Palestinians as miserable as possible will knock some peace into them.)


Israel Gives Palestinians Deadline on Deal
 

es geht kein weg zurueck.
 

Und . . . ?