[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 26 Feb 2005]





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SADDAM'S LOOKING BETTER ALL THE TIME
Malcom Lagauche
...No media mentioned that Saddam Hussein would probably have won the
recent Iraqi election if he was on the ballot. He gained many votes as a
write-in candidate, yet this was not reported. Even many previous naysayers
now wish Saddam was back. But, this is the unspoken subject to which I
consistently refer. My first on-line column on September 25, 2003 discussed
the same issue. In it, I said no peace would come to Iraq until the grave
injustices of de-Ba'athif! ying the country were reversed. Lagauche was
right. After Desert Storm, Schwarzkopf was asked what kind of military
leader Saddam Hussein was. He laughed. Today, Schwarzkopf, if he is an
honest individual and military expert, would take back that laugh. The
current resistance was planned in advance by Saddam Hussein. It is strong
and will last for a long time...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10005&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10005


Nearly 50 more British soldiers may face charges on abuses in Iraq
AP
A British newspaper reported Sunday that secret military documents it has
seen indicate that nearly 50 British servicemen could face prosecution for
murder, assault and other crimes committed in Iraq. The documents, which
informed ministers about police investigations in the cases, indicate that
the 50 servicemen include at least 12 British soldiers who face charges of
murder, manslaughter or assault in Iraq, The Sunday Telegraph reported.
That! includes two cases in which Iraqi civilians were allegedly
deliberately drowned by British soldiers, the paper said...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10017&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10017


Kurdish declared official language of Kirkuk
Turkish Daily News
The Kurdish governor of Kirkuk has issued a circular declaring Kurdish the
official language in the disputed oil-rich city in northern Iraq, said a
news report yesterday. Kirkuk Governor Abdurrahman Mustafa's order came as
Osman Korutürk, Turkey's special envoy to Iraq, was visiting northern Iraq
for talks with Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK)...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10012&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10012


Fierce fighting in Iraq's Ramadi
Jim Muir, BBC News

It has been a day of scattered violence in Iraq, with at least 10 people
reported killed in incidents, mainly in Sunni areas west and north of
Baghdad. Reports said three died in a gun battle in Ramadi, as US and Iraqi
forces try to clear insurgents from key areas in the so-called Sunni
Triangle. People in Ramadi said there was a prolonged exchange of fire...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10015&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10015


British court martial whitewashes abuse of Iraqis
Mike Ingram, WSWS
The court martial of three British soldiers accused of abusing Iraqi
civilians in May 2003 has ended in a whitewash. Though a total of four
soldiers have now been jailed and dismissed from the army, the trial
exonerated the higher command at the so-called Camp Bread Basket in
southern Iraq. The broader context in which the abuses were carried
out—involving at least 70 other soldiers—was all but ignored in order to
make the case that a few individ! uals had gone too far in the heat of the
moment...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10011&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10011


Halliburton Wins in Iraq
t r u t h o u t
Halliburton, under scrutiny for its contracts in Iraq, would receive an
extra $1.5 billion as part of the Bush administration's additional war
spending proposal for fiscal 2005, a senior US Army budget official said.
Halliburton, once led by Vice-President Dick Cheney, is the largest
corporate contractor in Iraq and has drawn fire for its no-bid contracts
there, with auditors charging its Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) unit
overcharged for some work...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10016&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10016


The crisis of the US Army in Iraq
Amanecer
While Iraqi insurgents expand their ranks and operations in the occupied
Iraq, the US Army is fighting desertion, open criticism, recruitment
shortfalls and lawsuits from its own troops (...) Many soldiers who are not
willing to take part in the war and its horror have decided to abandon the
Army. According to several sources, the army of 150,000 in Iraq has
experienced 5,000 desertions -an astonishing rate of 3.3%- up to now. Some
of these deserters have fled to Canada.! ..

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10008&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10008


Heroes
Stephen Gowans
...From Abu-Ghraib to Bagram, from Kandahar to Gauntanamo, see US forces
"engage in widespread abuse" "taking 'trophy photographs' of detainees and
carrying out rape and sexual humiliation." See Hussain Adbulkadr Youssouf
Mustafa explain how US soldiers "forcibly rammed a stick up my rectum"
after he was "blindfolded, handcuffed, gagged and forced to bend down over
a table by two soldiers." See Wesam Abdulrahman Ahmed al-Deemawi placed in
a cage and hung from a hook after being photographed ! in "shameful and
obscene positions." See prisoners forced to live in their own filth at
Gauntanamo Bay. See blood and cartilage explode from the nose of an Iraqi
detainee as he's hit by a baseball bat swung by an American interrogator...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10007&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10007


The Law of Empire?
H. RAJAN SHARMA, Frontline.
... From the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq itself, to its brazen
and unconstitutional claims about wartime authority to detain even U.S.
citizens indefinitely without charge or trial, let alone access to counsel,
to the carefully nuanced ambiguities about the applicability of the Geneva
Conventions, culminating in the blatant disregard of the prohibition
against torture in international law as well as "refoulement" and the
unlawful practice of transferring ! prisoners to "friendly" third countries
with the knowledge of probable torture during interrogations, the Bush
administration has displayed a self-serving distaste for the rule of law
that borders on contempt. Not surprisingly, the trial of Saddam Hussein and
other former members of the Baathist regime shows little evidence of any
departure from prior practice...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10013&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10013


Objectivity in Independent Media
Part 2: "What You See is What Exists"
Kim Petersen & B. J. Sabri, www.dissidentvoice.org
... Just as the U.S. government created the myth that Iraq had huge
stockpiles of WMD, it might also have produced fictional bin Laden tapes,
and conjured up Zarqawi's defiant resistance in Iraq. An element of doubt
pierces the purported authenticity of the bin Laden tapes. Since countless
individuals around the world have discovered many inconsistencies and
contradictions in those tape! s then, "Why did bin Laden never refer to the
contradictions or expose them as fabrications?" A logical answer would be,
"He could not. He is dead." (...) As for Zarqawi, why is it that a
Jordanian speaks Arabic without a Jordanian accent? Most experts on the
Middle East would also impart that Zarqawi is a Kurd who was leading the
Islamic organization of Ansar Al-Islam (partisans of Islam) that operated
in the American controlled Iraqi-Kurdistan during the 1990s...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10003&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10003


Torture's Our Business ... and Business is Good
Ken Sanders, www.dissidentvoice.org
Who could forget President Bush's repeated invocations of liberty, freedom,
and human rights in his second inauguration speech? It warmed the cockles
of the heart to hear our beloved President wax poetic about the grand
ideals for which America stands. It chills the soul to contrast Bush's
lofty rhetoric with the awful truth perpetuated by our government. The
truth is, our government condones, promotes and even celebrates torture.! ..


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10002&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10002


COMPLAIN TO THE DAILY MAIL OVER IRAQ ABUSE!!!
Arab Media Watch
Please complain to the Daily Mail and reporters Nick Craven and Michael
Seamark over an offensive article in the newspaper's February 25 edition
entitled Revealed: The 'abuse' five. Subheading: And guess what, all the
Iraqis at the centre of the Army brutality case plan to cash in on their
'ordeal' by suing the Government Note that the words abuse and ordeal are
in quote marks, and the article talks of "their alleged ordeal". Why? Are
th! ey in any doubt?! The soldiers were convicted and there is ample
photographic evidence...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10001&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10001


War advice came from me, says Goldsmith
Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor, Independent
The Attorney General fought for his political survival last night by
denying he had been leant on by Downing Street over his advice on the
legality of the war on Iraq. Lord Goldsmith issued the denial in the face
of growing demands for the Government to publish in its entirety the
Attorney General's advice to the Cabinet on the legality of the war...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9999&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9999


Will The Real Tony Blair Stand Up, Please?
Anwaar Hussain, Axis of Logic
The Neocons are Neocons. For years their agenda was clearly spelled out.
They were shouting themselves hoarse with how they would shape the world
given a chance. Only nobody was taking them seriously. The world at large
and the Muslim world in particular, found out the deadly earnestness of
their ominous intent much later while digging the graves of a hundred
thousand odd innocent human beings. But what about Tony Blair? What were
his compul! sions? Why did he join this monstrosity? What was it that drove
the man to telling the lies that he told his nation to get them to allow
him to join the Neocons' sick adventure?...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9998&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9998


The U.S. Will Lose the War in Iraq -- Material Necessity and Divining What
is True
Dr. Gerry Lower, Axis of Logic
...Consider the public backlash when the people come to realize that they
have been led astray into an immoral war, largely in the interest of
preserving a greed-driven corporate aristocracy and the most corrupt
socioeconomic system among the western democracies. "The social truth of
capitalism is smothered in a blanket of lies to promote individual
confusion; people are to act personally responsible ! while supporting a
social order that is, by its very nature, socially irresponsible and
murderously so"...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9997&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9997


The Resistance Will Not be Televised
Kurt Nimmo
Iyad Allawi's occupational government has launched a new TV show, sort of
an Iraqi version of reality television. "Terrorists in the Hands of
Justice" runs several times a day in Iraq and features the confessions of
beaten up "insurgents" who admit to terrible crimes, for instance serial
murder(...)Blaming Syria and portraying the resistance as a gaggle of
serial murderers and animal torturers will not put an end to the violence
against "security forces" and foreign! occupation troops. More than
anything, it would seem, "Terrorists in the Hands of Justice" is an idea
devised for American consumers, although the show is not run in the United
States...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9995&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9995


What if Iran is a ruse to provide an excuse for the real target?
Xymphora
...So what is the next big target? Scott Ritter says Iran, in June. Ritter
was right in everything he wrote about Iraq, so he has a great deal of
credibility. I wonder. The Americans could certainly bomb Iran - air out
some of those new bunker-busting nukes! - but even the neocons must realize
that such an attack would only solidify, and enrage, the current Iranian
leadership, which would seek revenge by making Iraq even more of a mess
than! it is today. 'Regime change' would require hundreds of thousands of
troops on the ground - Iran will be a much more formidable target than the
heavily weakened, and much smaller, Iraq - and the Americans simply don't
got 'em. They've been quietly removing troops from Iraq, and have pulled
back the tsunami troops, but in the absence of a draft they can't fight a
proper war in Iran. If Iran is not the target, who is?...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9994&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9994


Iraq war documents must stay secret, insists PM
JAMES KIRKUP
THE pressure on Tony Blair to publish the legal advice that the government
says justified the war in Iraq intensified last night as a growing chorus
of voices called for the document to be made public. Lord Mackay of
Clashfern, the former Lord Chancellor and a widely respected legal figure,
entered the fray, backed by Michael Mates, the senior Tory MP who sits on
the House of Commons' joint intelligence committee...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9993&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9993


Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Friday, 25 February 2005
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board,
the Free Arab Voice < http://www.freearabvoice.org/ >
...The bomb had been planted in the middle of the road on which the puppet
guards were traveling with the intent of observing Friday prayer sermons in
the city as is their habit every Friday. The US-installed Iraqi puppet
government issued decrees several months ago ordering that sermons be
supervised and that any preacher o! r imam who "incites" worshippers to
what it called "violence" or fighting the occupation troops would be
punished with imprisonment for not less than six months. Such preachers
would also be expelled from their mosque. After this order was issued Iraqi
puppet forces and sometimes US troops themselves would listen to Friday
sermons in Sunni mosques to watch the preachers and see if they were
inciting worshippers to jihad or fighting the occupation...


<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9991&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9991


Top U.S. General Sees Lasting Iraq Insurgency
Reuters
The insurgency in Iraq is not likely to be put down in a year or even two
since history shows such uprisings can last a decade or more, the United
States' top military commander said on Friday. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers
said that in the past century, insurgencies around the world have lasted
anywhere from seven to 12 years, making a quick fix to the problem in Iraq
unlikely...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=9992&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=9992


Powell criticises Iraq troop levels and rift with Europe
Robin Gedye
Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, has for the first time
publicly criticised troops levels in Iraq and spoken of the rifts between
himself and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, that undermined his
role as architect of American foreign policy. Mr Powell, in his first
interview since resigning last November, also told The Telegraph of his
"dismay" at the deterioration in relations between America and Europe and
of his "disappoi! ntment" with France...

<http://uruknet.info?s1=1&p=10000&s2=27>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: www.uruknet.info?p=10000




<http://www.uruknet.info>www.uruknet.info: a site gathering daily
information concerning occupied Iraq: news, analysis, documents and texts
of iraqi resistance available in Italian and English.





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