[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 23 Dec 2004]

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GI dissent shakes up the Pentagon
John Catalinotto, Workers World
A series of events in early December signaled a major shift in political
consciousness within the U.S. Armed Forces. Together they struck fear in
the hearts of the general staff. A sailor, a soldier, a Marine, and two
National Guard soldiers committed acts of courage. They killed no Iraqis,
nor did they rescue wounded comrades under fire. This kind of courage took
a different form for each GI, from refusing to kill to confronting the
unpopular secre tary of defense...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8371&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8371


Three U.S. Marines killed in Fallujah fighting
Associated Press
Three U.S. Marines were killed in action in Iraq's volatile western Anbar
province on Thursday, a military spokesperson said. The spokesperson would
not say where the three were killed, but the deaths were reported as U.S.
troops fought insurgents in the city of Fallujah, which is in Anbar. F-18
fighter jets dropped several bombs in the city, sending up plumes of smoke,
while tank and machine gun fire could be heard to the south...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8373&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8373


Torture, l'Fbi chiama in causa Bush
il manifesto
... Ma ieri i fantasmi dei detenuti seviziati sono tornati a tormentare il
presidente degli Stati uniti, chiamandolo in causa direttamente. Uno dei
documenti che - grazie al Freedom of information act - sono stati resi
pubblici ieri dall'American civil liberties union (Aclu), è proprio un
ordine esecutivo, firmato da Bush, che autorizza sui detenuti della
prigione di Abu Ghraib (Baghdad) l'uso di tecniche come la privazione del
sonno, posizioni stressanti, cani con tro prigionieri e deprivazione
sensoria...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8353&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8353


War Crimes
Washington Post
THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human
rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this
month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign
detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush
administration implacably has refused to acknowledge...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8374&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8374


The Times v. The Journal
Robert Dreyfuss, TomPaine.com
If there was any doubt how the battle lines in Iraq are shaping up,
consider the following two items. First, writing in the Wall Street Journal
today is none other than Ahmed Chalabi, the liar and con man who helped the
Pentagon fake intelligence about Saddam's nonexistent WMDs and ties to Al
Qaeda. Now the naïve might be surprised. Wasn't Chalabi accused of being an
Iranian spy? Wasn't he arrested on murder charges earlier this year by the
Iraqi government? W ell, yes. But all along Chalabi has been a friend of
the neocons, and he is no Iranian spy. He is busily helping to forge the
Shiite dictatorship that Ayatollah Sistani and his fundamentalist ilk
want...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8367&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8367


Foreign observers planning to watch Iraqi elections in Jordan
JOEL BRINKLEY, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Representatives of seven nations met in Ottawa, Canada, this week to
recruit international observers for the Iraqi elections and agreed to watch
the vote, but from the safety of Amman, Jordan. They said it was too
dangerous to monitor the balloting in Iraq, meaning that international
observers are unlikely for the elections on Jan. 30 - making them the first
significant elections of this sort recently with no foreign presence, U.N.
officials say...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8369&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8369


Thinktanks slam US Iraq strategy
Aljazeera.net
Two influential thinktanks have roundly criticised US strategy in Iraq. The
Wasington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIC) said
on Wednesday that the US is facing increasingly deadly attacks in Iraq
because it has failed to honestly assess facts on the ground. And in a
report published on the same day, the Brussels-based International Crisis
Group said Iraqi hostility towards the US-led "occupation" means that
Washington can no longer achieve it s pre-war goals...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8368&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8368


Amid rationing, Iraqis face more shortages
Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters
Iraq is suffering a shortage of state-supplied wheat, sugar, and rice
because of logistics and security problems, officials and traders said
yesterday. Most Iraqis, already in the grip of a fuel and electricity
crisis, have depended on monthly rations since the Saddam Hussein era under
a system meant to lessen the impact of the 1990-2003 sanctions that helped
destroy the economy. "We have been warning Iraqi officials for months that
Iraq was h eading for shortages. They insisted on middlemen and companies
that cannot deliver," a market insider said...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8370&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8370


Fallujah-like invasion of Mosul cautioned
UPI
An Egyptian daily Thursday cautioned against the fallout of a possible U.S.
attack on Mosul following this week's suicide bombing that left 22 dead.
"The real concern after the attack that hit the U.S. base in Mosul is that
the U.S. forces would carry out an all-out military operation against that
city similar to the operation that took place against Fallujah," said the
mass-circulation daily al-Ahram...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8366&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8366


The New York Times manufactures support for the Iraq war in aftermath of
Mosul bombing
Rick Kelly, WSWS
In response to Tuesday's attack on a US base in Mosul, the New York Times
published an extraordinary front-page article yesterday, entitled "Fighting
is the only option, Americans say." The piece quoted a number of people who
expressed their full support for the ongoing occupation, and presented
their views as being representative of the US population as a whole. While
the article was presented as an objective characterization of the nation's
mood following the deaths of the US soldiers, it amounted to nothing more
than a crude propaganda piece, aimed at limiting any domestic political
fallout from the bombing in northern Iraq.

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8364&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8364


Fighting erupts in Fallujah
Associated Press
Clashes erupted Thursday between U.S. Marines and insurgents in Fallujah,
with warplanes dropping bombs and tanks shelling suspected guerrilla
positions, as the first 200 residents returned to the battered city. It was
unclear what caused the clashes, but Marine officers said that both sides
had suffered casualties (...) In Fallujah, U.S. F-18 fighter-bombers were
seen striking at targets in the city's outskirts. Tank and artillery fire
was also heard...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8365&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8365


US military begins retaliation for Mosul bombing
Jerry White, WSWS
US Army and Marine forces, backed up by armored vehicles, helicopter
gun-ships and jet-fighters, sealed off the northern Iraqi city of Mosul
Wednesday (...) Hundreds of US troops and Iraqi national guardsmen blocked
the five bridges that span the Tigris River in the city and conducted
house-to-house raids across the western and southeastern districts. The
city's governor, Duraid Kashmula, announced a ban on the use of the bridges
and said anyone br eaking the order would be shot (...) Residents described
the city of 1.8 million—Iraq's third largest—as a virtual ghost town, with
no one on the streets, not even traffic policemen at intersections...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8363&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8363


The power struggle in Ukraine and America's strategy for global supremacy
Peter Schwarz, WSWS
...The first Iraq war in 1991 already undermined to a large extent the
influence of Moscow in the Middle East. The same process took place in the
Balkans following the war on Serbia in 1999 in the Balkans. In 2001, in the
context of the Afghanistan invasion, the US established military bases for
the first time in former Soviet republics and emerged as a presence in
Central Asia (...) America's strategy for supremacy threa tens to plunge
mankind into a maelstrom that will make the current Iraq war appear
relatively benign...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8362&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8362


US casualties in Baghdad bomb attack
Aljazeera.net
A roadside bomb has killed a US soldier and wounded two others in Baghdad,
the military said. The attack occurred at around 8am (0500 GMT) on Thursday
in a western district of the Iraqi capital (...) In other incidents, a
police station in Mamun district, west of Baghdad, was hit by a projectile
on Thursday, an Iraqi police official said. One policeman was killed and
two others were injured, he said...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8361&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8361


Prison abuse by US troops widespread
Aljazeera.net
The largest US civil rights group has obtained documents that show prisoner
abuse since the beginning of the War on Terror as being widespread.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), court martials are
proceeding against dozens of soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo
Bay. Many of the cases have been handled discreetly since 2002, and some
soldiers have already been released with mere administrative sanctions
(...) Abuse examples: * Two soldiers who were ordered to kill a prisoner
named Yasir Ahmad Al-Haddi in Camp Bucca, a detention site in southern
Iraq, in April 2003. An investigation found the soldiers committed no
offence...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8360&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8360


Mosul attack evidence insurgents' intel better
John Diamond, USA TODAY
The implications of the audacious suicide attack in the center of a heavily
guarded U.S. military base in Mosul go beyond a failure of base security.
The attack is the latest evidence that Iraqi insurgents have better
intelligence about U.S. forces than U.S. forces have on the insurgents.
"The message that the attack on the base sends to average Iraqis is that if
the Americans can't protect their own soldiers on their own bases, how are
they go ing to protect you," said Andrew Krepinevich, a military analyst
with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8358&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8358


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Wednesday, 22 December 2004
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member editorial board The
Free Arab Voice.
US warplanes on Wednesday bombed several parts of al-Fallujah with
internationally-banned cluster bombs, Mafkarat al-Islam reported in a
dispatch posted at 10:25pm Mecca time Wednesday night. American aircraft
bombed specific areas in the neighborhoods of al-'Askari, al-Jawlan,
ash-Shuhada', al-Jubayl, and the industrial zone with more than 140
container bom bs, each full of hundreds of anti-personnel cluster bombs...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8359&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8359


An Open Letter to Our Leaders From a Concerned Iraq War Soldier
Monica Benderman, www.dissidentvoice.org
...Until America leaves Iraq to the Iraqis, and brings its soldiers home,
freedom cannot begin to materialize for the Iraqi people. Soldiers are
dying, civilians are dying, and America is the perpetrator. The only
support that we should be giving our soldiers now, is in bringing them all
home, where they can defend what is their duty to defend... their families,
their country, and their honor. Someone has to be strong enough to stand
against the illusion and tell the truth. And Americans have to be strong
enough to bear witness to what they are told...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8355&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8355


Torture at the Top
Ari berman, The Nation
Aggressive interrogation techniques in Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, many
tantamount to torture, were significantly more widespread than the White
House or the Pentagon has admitted. That's the startling hook based on a
trove of confidential documents from the FBI and Department of Defense
(DoD) released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and reported
yesterday by major newspapers (...) But many of the papers, including The
New York Times, regrettably omitted the stor y's biggest bombshell:
President Bush may have issued an Executive Order condoning these
techniques...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8357&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8357


Iraq insurgents ramp up attacks on U.S. troops in Samarra
Josh White, The Washington Post
Mortar rounds land outside Patrol Base Uvanni so often that soldiers inside
barely lift their heads when another deafening thump disturbs the clear
afternoon air. Anti-tank mines appear in the dust a few yards from the
entrance to the U.S. base, a brick building that was once part of a college
campus. Bullets from random machine-gun fire zip past, and a sunburst of
shrapnel scars remain on the outer wall from a rocket-propell ed grenade...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8354&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8354


Iraqna accuses Iraq government of impeding work
Middle East Online
The head of Egypt's telecom giant Orascom has accused the Baghdad
government of impeding the work of Iraqna, its subsidiary which operates
the largest mobile phone network in Iraq, in an interview published
Wednesday. Iraqi security forces have been harassing Iraqna staff and the
authorities hobbling the firm's operations to favour a Kuwaiti rival,
Naguib Sawiris told the London-based Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8356&s2=23>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8356




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information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts
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