Free Iraq

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Tears were shed in the Congressional hearing on Toyota's five confirmed five "collaterally damaged".

No tears are to be shed and no corporation is to be investigated on their "precision bombs" that had caused and are still causing the constantly mounting numbers of "collaterally damaged" in democratic and sovereign Iraq and Afghanistan over the past years in this decade.

"Oh, sorry" sometimes are uttered, and that suffices for these non-U.S. non-entities.

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The murder of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh (video, 30 minutes)

إغتيال المبحوح

What about the two Palestinians that were also implicated in this murder? (See fourth Comment by Michael Jansen)

حماس: الفلسطينيان المتورطان ينتميان إلى السلطة (رابع خبر في الصفحة)ـ

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"The top American commander in Iraq says the U.S. has "direct intelligence" that two senior Iraqi officials in charge of keeping Saddam Hussein loyalists out of the Baghdad government have ties to Iran.
Gen. Raymond Odierno says Ali al-Lami and Ahmed Chalabi "are clearly influenced by Iran" and have attended senior-level meetings with members of the hardline Shiite regime there.
Al-Lami, detained in 2008 because of alleged ties to a Baghdad bombing, now heads an Iraq commission that has blacklisted hundreds of political candidates. Chalabi, who is blamed for supplying the U.S. faulty intelligence on Iraq's weapons program prior to the 2003 invasion, also is a member of the panel."
US General Cites Direct Intel Linking Iraq's al-Lami, Chalabi To Iran, February 16, 2010

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Further to our previous posting: "Dowsing $85 million (including $$ commission) .. تكنولوجبا الأزلام لكشف الألغام ", January 26, 2010, rarely do I quote verbatim the New York Times. Not this time:

"The full history of war profiteering in Iraq may never be known, but it will be hard to top the magic wand known as ADE 651 as a symbol of corruption. The hand-held wand, wielded by Iraq’s security teams at hundreds of checkpoints, is supposed to detect car bombs and weapons. But the battery-free device — supposedly powered by the static electricity of a soldier’s body — turns out to be a very expensive hoax, no more reliable than a coin flip or a Ouija board.
After widespread doubts, including warnings by American military officials who never used ADE 651s, Britain finally banned the devices’ export and arrested the manufacturer for fraud. But not before Iraq bought more than 800 wands, which cost $250 each to make but drew up to $60,000 each from the Baghdad government. (emphasis added)
Iraqi officials expressed fury, noting the recent series of deadly bombings despite ubiquitous use of the wands in the capital. Nevertheless, the devices were still being waved last month after Britain confirmed the scandal. Iraqi soldiers complained that corrupt superiors kept them in use. In a test in November, a Times driver was allowed through nine checkpoints as the wands failed to detect two rifles stored in the car.
American military testers pronounced the device no more useful than pure chance, its core an electronic merchandise tag designed to foil shoplifters.
The junk science should have been obvious: the slender wand is topped by what looks like a radio antenna on a swivel that the manufacturer guaranteed to point to weapons or bombs hidden up to a half-mile away, underwater or in planes three miles high. “We are working on a new model that has flashing lights,” the manufacturer told The Times of London last year, when first challenged about ADE 651.
Any satisfaction that United States forces avoided this particular sting should be tempered by the fact that American blood and treasure have underpinned the Iraq government across the war’s many expensive follies."
Shock, Awe and Abracadabra January 31, 2010

"Jim McCormick, the managing director of ATSC Ltd, a former Merseyside police officer, developed the device ten years ago despite having no scientific or technical background.
He insists that ATSC “only” received $12 million, and the price paid was inflated by commissions and training courses for the operators". Iraqis spent $80m on ADE651 bomb detectors described as useless, November 28, 2009

. Jim McCormick

....Jihad Al-Jabiri (A true believer in the $$$ADE651)