[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 24 Dec 2004]

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Merry Christmas
and
Best Wishes for a Happy 2005
in Iraq and all Around the World
from
the Staff of Uruknet






<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=90001&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=90001


Fortress Iraq
Abdul-Ilah Al-Bayaty and Hana Al-Bayaty, Al-Ahram Weekly
The United States has been multiplying plans and proposals to divide up
Iraq and destroy its unifying Arab-Muslim identity. The latest of these
plans is to organise elections based on ethnical and confessional
affiliations. The US clearly also wants to use the country in order to
attack neighbouring states. In what way does this strategy coincide with
the interests of the Iraqi people?...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8387&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8387


Insurgents operate at will in Mosul, US says
Michael Howard, The Guardian
Insurgents have been able to "operate at will" in Mosul, where 22 people
died in a bomb attack this week, because the US forces and the Iraqi
authorities have failed to tackle them, an intelligence assessment by
senior US officials in northern Iraq concludes. The report, seen by the
Guardian yesterday, was drafted before this week's suicide attack on the
mess tent at Camp Merez...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8386&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8386


"Boycott The Election Game...."
The Great Iraq!
There has been increasing numbers of Iraqi organisations boycotting the
forthcoming elections. Recently, a meeting of political, religious and
community groups together with intellectuals, joined in their opposition to
the occupation, met on 17 November in Um El Qura Mosque, Baghdad. Following
the meeting there was a unanimous agreement and an announcement to boycott
the planned elections in January 2005 promoted by the occupation...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8383&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8383


Oil-for-Food
The UN's Real Disgrace was the Sanctions Regime
DAVID SMITH-FERRI, CounterPunch
...A more balanced and accurate analysis would acknowledge that the
Oil-For-Food Program, while obviously no substitute for a complete lifting
of sanctions, did succeed in halting the precipitous deterioration in the
health of Iraqi children. It accomplished this by piggy-backing on, and
supplementing, an existing Iraqi government program of food rationing (...)
Its successes notwithstanding, the Oil-For-Food Pro gram was doomed to
failure, not because of corruption among employees, not because Saddam
Hussein was "siphoning" money out of the Program as people are fond of
misstating, not because the Iraqi government wouldn't cooperate with it,
but for structural reasons...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8377&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8377


Mosul will be Fallujah-ized
Kurt Nimmo
...According to State Department—safely in the hands of the Strausscons now
that the "moderate" Colin Powell has submitted his resignation—Ansar
al-Sunna is an off-shoot of Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Islam "is believed
to have ties to al Qaeda." In short, the deadly attack against the mess
tent at Camp Ghazlaani is an al-Qaeda operation, or so the corporate media
will claim, thus excusing any brutality against the residents of Mosul. In
Fallujah the pattern was similar: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ("Iraq's new
Bin-Laden") and his "terrorist network" were said to be the target, even
though, after the city was destroyed, it was claimed al-Zarqawi had
escaped. Of course he did: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as a U.S.-Israeli
intelligence construct, must live on to provide a pretext for further
brutality and violations of international law. No doubt this pattern will
repeat itself in Mosul...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8381&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8381


New York Times Betrays America, Again
Sam Hamod
Showing that they are no longer a newspaper to be trusted, following the
bombing in Mosul, the Times went berserk in order to wave the flag of false
patriotism, pushing to get more American troops killed in Iraq. The NY
Times, already involved in getting America into the war in Iraq through
such columnists as Judith Miller and Tom Friedman, again tried to pull
America into its trap of lies...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8395&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8395


Saddam Aide Aziz Denies Iraq Role in UN Scandal
Lin Noueihed and Zaid Fahmi, Reuters
Tareq Aziz, deputy prime minister under Saddam Hussein, denies Iraq
exploited the scandal-hit U.N. oil-for-food program to make billions of
dollars, his defense lawyer said on Friday. A day after his first meeting
with the former public face of Saddam's administration, Badih Aref
dismissed speculation that Aziz might testify against his former colleagues
or give evidence on alleged corruption at the United Nations...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8396&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8396


The Devil's Christmas
Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com
I don't believe in God, but the Devil is another matter entirely. Proof of
the Malevolent One's existence is all around us, and he's been pretty busy
lately - filling the military hospitals with the wounded (30,000-plus so
far), torturing and otherwise abusing helpless prisoners of war (the Devil
never signed the Geneva conventions), and slowly but surely shrinking the
parameters of freedom in this country by pretending to expand them abroad.
All the blood spilled on Iraqi soil is not enough to quench his devilish
thirst, and old Lucifer is constantly seeking out new venues for his
traveling horror show: Islamofascism, after all, is quite a weak reed on
which to hang a new world war (...) Lying is a major Luciferian trait. Just
as members of certain Buddhist sects aspire to pray constantly, so the
neocons - uh, er, I mean, Luciferians - lie almost without interruption...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8397&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8397


Documents reveal systematic torture by US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan
Joseph Kay and Rick Kelly, WSWS
... In response to the revelations, the Washington Post published an
extraordinary editorial on December 23, under the heading "War Crimes."
(...) The Post declares that there exists no viable avenue to put a stop to
government-sanctioned crimes, let alone bring the criminals to justice. In
other words, we have reached the point of a complete breakdown of rule by
law and constitutional democracy in the United S tates. Having arrived at
this conclusion, the Post somehow manages to maintain the pretense that the
torture and killings carried out by the government can be separated from
the war in Iraq as a whole. The abuse and killings committed by US forces
were not the result of individual transgressions, but rather flowed from
the very nature of the war...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8394&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8394


US Crackdown Brings Life in Mosul to Standstill
Amer Saleh & Khaled Yassin El-Yassari, IOL Correspondent
Following a deadly attack on its military base in Mosul, US forces launched
a massive house-to-house search campaign in several parts of the northern
Iraqi city and sealed off bridges linking it to the rest of the country.
American troops were heavily deployed at crossroads and near mosques with
snipers taking positions on the roofs of buildings (...) Several city
residents said that the number of US soldiers k illed in the attack is more
than was previously declared. Eyewitnesses told IslamOnline.net that
another powerful explosion rocked a military base inside Mosul airport
early on Wednesday, December 22.

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8392&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8392


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Thursday, 23 December 2004
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member editorial board The
Free Arab Voice.
In a report posted at 12:55am Friday morning Mecca time, Mafkarat al-Islam
reported that Iraqi Resistance forces mounted several attacks on US troops
in al-Fallujah on Thursday night. Casualties were inflicted on the American
invaders and 24 Resistance fighters, including 19 fraternal Arab
volunteers, were martyred. The Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent reporte d
that intermittent fighting took place for half an hour in the Nuwwab
ad-Dubbat neighborhood and in particular on 40 Street...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8390&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8390


Powell to Bush: More troops needed in Iraq
UPI
The U.S. secretary of state told President Bush and British Prime Minister
Tony Blair they had too few troops in Iraq to accomplish their goals. Colin
L. Powell made his remarks Nov. 12, just 10 days after the end of a
presidential campaign in which Bush's opponent repeatedly criticized him
for trying to subdue and stabilize Iraq "on the cheap," a reference to
troop levels, the Washington Post reports...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8398&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8398


A hard week in a long Iraq mission
Increasingly, US military experts say Americans need to prepare for a
decades-long counterinsurgency campaign.
Dan Murphy | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
...But Hammes says the most important change to be made now is in the way
that American leaders talk to the people about what's going on in Iraq. He
says history shows that most insurgencies, whether the Vietnamese against
the French and later the US, or the Afghans against the Soviets, last fr om
10 to 30 years. He says he sees no reason why Iraq is any different, but
worries the American public was ill-prepared for this by the rosy
Administration pronouncements for most of the war...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8389&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8389


Falluja Returnees Angry, 'City Unfit for Animals'
Fadil al-Badrani, Reuters
Iraqis reacted with anger, frustration and resentment Friday after many
returned to Falluja to discover their homes in rubble and their livelihoods
ruined following last month's U.S. offensive. "I saw the city and
al-Andalus destroyed," said Ali Mahmood, 35, referring to the district of
the city he returned to briefly Thursday but now plans to leave after
seeing the mess. "My house is completely destroyed. There is nothing left
for me to s tay for," the teacher said, adding that he would rather live in
the tented camp outside Falluja that has been his family's home for the
past two months.

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8388&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8388


US bombing marks return of Fallujah's displaced people
Borzou Daragahi, The Independent
Iraqis who fled last month's US offensive on Fallujah began to trickle back
into the city yesterday to check whether the homes they left were still
standing. But most are staying away as a fresh round of violence claimed
the lives of three US Marines in fighting near the city yesterday...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8385&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8385


Tareq Aziz refuses to testify against Saddam: lawyer
AFP
Former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz is unwilling to testify
against Saddam Hussein at a future war crimes trial, his lawyer told AFP
after a four-hour meeting with his client Thursday at a US base near the
capital. "Tareq Aziz told me that he will not take the witness stand
against Saddam," said Badi Aref Izzat. The lawyer said that Aziz, who has
been in US custody since his surrender in the immediate aftermath of last
year's US-led invasion, had h ad no opportunity to see the ousted
president. The 11 senior aides currently in custody were being held
together and were able to see each other for three hours a day but Saddam
himself was being held separately, Izzat said...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8380&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8380


Interview with Saddam's lawyer
Aljazeera.com
...What did Saddam want to know and what message did he want to deliver
through you? He asked many questions about the Iraqi people and their
condition under occupation. I told him the situation and he praised the
resistance in Iraq and he said the Iraqi people should resist the U.S.
occupation in Iraq. He also asked about the Palestinian people and the
conditions of Arab people in general. Does Saddam know about the first
Iraqi elections to be held in January ? He did not know; and even when I
told him he does not believe in the legitimacy of the elections. He does
not believe in these elections. He still believes he is the true president
of Iraq and the elections are illegal (...) I have received many death
threats and less than two weeks ago, there was an assassination attempt on
my life in one of the Baghdad districts. I was in a car when I came under
fire from just 50 meters away. The car took 12 bullets but no one was hurt.
As an Iraqi and a lawyer, I believe it's my duty to defend President Saddam
Hussein. He is and always will be my president...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8379&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8379


Iraqi Resistance hits the Paper Tiger at Camp Ghazlaani
Kurt Nimmo
Is there a reason the corporate media is ignoring reports that a truck
loaded with explosives "inflicted significantly higher casualties than
officially claimed" on the US base Camp Ghazlaani in Mosul? General Richard
Myers told Times Online "it looks like it was an improvised explosive
device worn by an attacker" that killed the 22 soldiers and contractors
officially acknowledged. "We have had a suicide bomber, apparently, strap
something to his b ody and go into the dining hall," Myers said. "We know
how difficult this is, to prevent people bent on suicide." Other reports,
however, dispute this...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8375&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8375


NASSIRIYA. L'affaire Contini
Giuliana Sgrena, Il manifesto
«Dove sono finiti i soldi per la ricostruzione di Nassiriya?» E' la domanda
rivolta al presidente del consiglio Silvio Berlusconi con una
interrogazione parlamentare presentata ieri alla camera dal presidente dei
verdi Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio. L'interrogativo nasce da una intervista al
governatore di Nassiriya, Mohammed Sabri Hamid al Rumayad, trasmessa
martedì sera durante la trasmissione Ballarò e già anticipata dal Corriere
della sera il 13 dicembre sco rso. Il governatore di Nassiriya solleva
gravi sospetti sulla destinazione dei 15 milioni di dollari a disposizione
della ex governatrice Barbara Contini...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=8384&s2=24>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=8384




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