[uruknet.info] - [daily information from occupied iraq] - [newsletter 03 Feb 2006 - Part One]

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Whatever happened to what’s-his-name?
William Bowles, I'n'I
'Scourge of Western civilisation’, 'leader of the insurgency’, 'al-Queda in
Iraq’, 'Usama’s right-hand man’, the Scarlet Pimpernel of 'Islamic
fundamentalism’, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. For the past couple of years we were
bombarded by the mythical man’s dastardly deeds, then all of a sudden-he
disappeared from the headlines. Well not entirely, in the month of January
2006 I collected 113 stories that mentioned his name of which about 40 are
in Western media! publications. Scanning the headlines however and we find
that the pickings are pretty slim, so slim in fact, most are hardly worth
mentioning as they contain nothing of any significance but I suppose they
keep some 'journalists’ employed...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20270&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20270


Anatomy of a Murder
Not only our enemies around the world scoff when Bush speaks of human rights
Nat Hentoff
...The corpse was Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, "a high-ranking Saddam
Hussein loyalist who was believed to have engineered insurgent attacks in
northern Iraq." Army officer Welshofer, interrogating the prisoner on
November 26, 2003, at Qaim, Iraq, shoved him into a sleeping bag and sat on
his chest before "waterboarding" him to simulate drowning. No information
was obtained, becaus! e the prisoner stopped breathing (...) Lest you think
Welshofer received only a reprimand for his "aggressive technique," the
Associated Press reported that he has been fined $6,000 with restrictions
to his barracks, work, and place of worship for 60 days. After the sentence
was pronounced, the AP continued, "soldiers in the gallery, many of whom
had worked with Mr. Welshofer and who had testified as character witnesses,
broke into applause." The son of the murdered prisoner, Mohammed Mowhoush,
did not applaud (...) The son also revealed that when he was 15 he and his
three brothers were snatched from their Qaim home on October 27, 2003,
during a raid by U.S. soldiers' helicopters and armed vehicles in search of
their father. The U.S. troops threatened that if the father didn't give
himself up, the boys would be sent to Guantánamo...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20263&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20263


Defending Saddam Hussein
KANWAL TARIQ HAMEED, Gulf Daily News
A BAHRAINI lawyer has joined the defence team of former Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein, but says he is boycotting court hearings until the trial is
held in an independent international court where safety is guaranteed to
all involved. Isa Faraj Burshaid agreed to represent the former Iraqi ruler
to fight what he called "modern-day imperialism" - accusing the US and UK
of deciding people are criminals and orchestrating legal proceedings to
prove it (...! ) He described existing court proceedings as a sham to
justify a verdict that has already been decided and alleged that the US and
UK promised to free Saddam if he stopped insurgents operating in Iraq -
which he said proved they are not interested in an "honest" trial. "The
British and Americans recently made an offer to Saddam Hussein," he said.
"They said: 'If you go and stop the (civil) war in Iraq we can release you
and we don't want anything from you.' "While he was in jail they made this
offer. "Up until now he has refused - he said that when he is on television
he will tell them to make more war because everything there is for Iraqi
people and not for outsiders who have stolen oil, stolen everything from
this people...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20276&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20276


Is Freedom Really Free Under Bush?
Ibrahim Ebeid
I was watching the State of the Union speech hoping that the President
might come up with something new but my hopes faded away as soon as he
started. He failed to show a new excuse for his war of aggression against
Iraq because he has no more excuses left in his sack. Alas! He still
pretends that he is God's messenger to spread "Liberty" and "Democracy"
around the World, especially in the Moslem and Arab Worlds. As an American
from Arab background, to be specific,! from Palestinian origin, I think I
am more aware of the Arab situation, hopes and aspirations and definitely I
am more privileged to know more than he does about Islam and Moslems...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20254&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20254


Washington's Iraq Blindness
Robert Dreyfuss
While Bush reinforces his Zarqawi myth and Dems call lamely for more armor,
the battle lines for civil war in Iraq are being drawn. The Iraq that
exists in President Bush’s imagination and the real Iraq, the one in which
160,000 U.S. troops occupy a nation sliding into civil war, have never
seemed further apart. Bush’s Iraq is a fantastical one in which American
forces are battling the enemy that struck us on 9/11. Yet on the ground, in
the real Iraq, more than six week! s have passed since Iraq’s election, and
battle lines for civil war are being drawn up. There are multiple parties
to that civil war: militant Iraqi fundamentalist Shiites tied to Iran,
well-armed Kurdish warlords planning to grab Kirkuk and its oil, powerful
Sunni tribal and religious forces bitterly opposed to the Shiite-Kurdish
bloc and a Baathist-military resistance movement that has strong support
among the Sunnis. None of those forces, however, want anything to do with
Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab Al Zarqawi...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20264&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20264


Tomgram: De la Vega on Why Rove Will Fall
Tom Engelhardt & Elizabeth de la Vega
For Karl Rove, no news from the Plame case -- Special Counsel Patrick
Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame
Wilson's identity as a CIA agent -- is definitely not good news. Seismic
activity is notoriously silent, so we may not be hearing any rumblings at
the moment. But speaking as a former prosecutor, I believe it highly likely
that, just below the surface, the worlds of Karl Rove and Special Prosecut!
or Patrick Fitzgerald, shifting like tectonic plates, are about to collide.
As was true with Vice President Cheney's top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby,
charged with obstruction of justice and lying to a federal agent as well as
to the grand jury, Rove might not be charged with the leak itself. I am
confident, however, that Rove will not leave this party empty-handed. He
will, at the very least, almost certainly be charged with making false
statements to an FBI agent. Here's why...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20273&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20273


Democracy Now! in Doha...The Story Behind the Other Downing Street Memo
Where Bush Told Blair He Wanted to Bomb Al Jazeera
Democracy Now!
We broadcast from the headquarters of Arabic TV network Al Jazeera in Doha,
Qatar - the place President Bush allegedly told Tony Blair he wanted to
bomb. The report came out last November in Britain’s Daily Mirror, citing a
secret British memo revealing that Bush told Blair in April 2004 of his
desire to bomb the news outlet. Bloggers have pledged to publish the memo
if it is l! eaked. We speak with British blogger Daniel Mason, who has been
tracking the story of the Downing Street Memo...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20271&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20271


GI Special 4B2: The Tipping Point - February 3, 2006
Thomas F. Barton
... Lancet, quoting documents uncovered by the ACLU in their ongoing FOIA
lawsuit with the Pentagon, also discovered incidents where U.S. Army
doctors: held detainees down during interrogations, provided interrogators
the medical records of detainees in order to facilitate an interrogation
strategy, or in some cases, literally looked the other way as detainees
were physically abused. According too both Soeke and M. Gregg Bloche, law
professor ! at John Hopkins University and co-author of the NEJM report,
these actions are clear violations of the Geneva Convention, the
Hippocratic Oath and Army Regulations...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20268&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20268


Iraq, Niger, And The CIA
Murray Waas, special to National Journal
Vice President Cheney and his then-Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
were personally informed in June 2003 that the CIA no longer considered
credible the allegations that Saddam Hussein had attempted to procure
uranium from the African nation of Niger, according to government records
and interviews with current and former officials. The new CIA assessment
came just as Libby and other senior administration officials were embarking
on an effort! to discredit an administration critic who had also been
saying that the allegations were untrue. CIA analysts wrote then-CIA
Director George Tenet in a highly classified memo on June 17, 2003, "We no
longer believe there is sufficient" credible information to "conclude that
Iraq pursued uranium from abroad...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20267&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20267


The Mother of All Downing Street Memos?
David Corn
Channel 4 News in England is reporting on the existence of a January 31,
2003 memo that recorded a discussion between Bush and Blair, during which
Bush raised the idea of orchestrating an incident in which Saddam would
fire on UN reconnaissance planes and, thus, give Bush and Blair cause to
attack Iraq (...) To my thinking, this is a rather big deal. The president
of the United States caught conspiring to create a modern-day version of
the sinking of the Maine?..! .

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20262&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20262


Bush/Blair War Provocation Memo Sends Warning To Iran
Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com
Today's revelations that Tony Blair and George W. Bush debated staging an
act of provocation to goad Saddam Hussein into war sends a very clear
warning as to how a pretext for a conflict with Iran could be manufactured.
It was reported today that Bush and Blair's 31 January White House meeting
was a rubber stamp on the decision to go to war, irrespective of whether
the United Nations had passed a new resolution authorizing ! the use of
force. However, this isn't the story. As far back as 1999, before he was
even elected, George W. Bush told his biographer that he thought it was his
political destiny to invade Iraq. The real story here is that Bush proposed
flying a U2 spy plane over Iraq and painting it in UN colors, therefore
goading Saddam to order the aircraft to be fired upon and resulting in a
widespread UN mandate for the war...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20275&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20275


Bush 'plotted to lure Saddam into war with fake UN plane'
Andy McSmith
George Bush considered provoking a war with Saddam Hussein's regime by
flying a United States spyplane over Iraq bearing UN colours, enticing the
Iraqis to take a shot at it, according to a leaked memo of a meeting
between the US President and Tony Blair. The two leaders were worried by
the lack of hard evidence that Saddam Hussein had broken UN resolutions,
though privately they were convinced that he had. According to the
memorandum, Mr Bush! said: "The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance
aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam
fired on them, he would be in breach."...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20269&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20269


Christiane Amanpour: Iraq is a disaster
Crooks and Liars
CNN's Chief Int'l Corresp. Amanpour has been taking some heat from the Bush
apologists because she interjected some truth into her reporting on Larry
King during a segment on the danger to journalists in Iraq (...) Amanpour:
And, it's really tough when you go out and do that and for sure every time
I go out with either the U.S. or the Iraqi Army I am very conscious that
this is a potentially life-threatening exercise and, you know, you
basically pray fr! om the minute you go out to the minute you come back and
you thank God when you've come back.... The war in Iraq has basically
turned out to be a disaster and journalists have paid for it, paid for the
privilege of witnessing and reporting that and so have many, many other
people who have been there..

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20272&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20272


Iraq war is costing $100,000 per minute
Mark Mazzetti and Joel Havemann, Los Angeles Times
The White House said Thursday that it plans to ask Congress for an
additional $70 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, driving
the cost of military operations in the two countries to $120 billion this
year, the highest ever. Most of the new money would pay for the war in
Iraq, which has cost an estimated $250 billion since the U.S. invasion in
March 2003. The additional spending, along with other war funding! the Bush
administration will seek separately in its regular budget next week, would
push the price tag for combat and nation-building since Sept. 11, 2001, to
nearly a half-trillion dollars, approaching the inflation-adjusted cost of
the 13-year Vietnam War...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20261&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20261


Military Denounces Newspaper for Cartoon
ROBERT BURNS, The Associated Press
Military leaders angrily denounced as "beyond tasteless" a Washington Post
editorial cartoon featuring a likeness of a severely wounded soldier and
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld as an attending doctor who says, "I'm
listing your condition as `battle hardened.'" The cartoon by Post artist
Tom Toles appeared in Sunday's newspaper. It reflected the view of some
that Bush administration officials do not recognize that U.S. forces are b!
eing worn out by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last month, in response
to a Pentagon-commissioned report that said the Army was stretched so thin
that it had become a "thin green line," Rumsfeld said the war-fighting
experience had made U.S. troops "battle hardened" _ stronger rather than
weaker...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20260&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20260


Pentagon database leaves no child alone
Mike Ferner
All over the country, organized citizens are fighting to restrict the
military’s presence in schools. But having recruiters troll high schools
cafeterias is just one way the Pentagon inundates our youngsters with
messages to "Go Army!" Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has
spent a half-million dollars a year creating a database it claims is
"arguably the largest repository of 16-25 year-old youth data in the
country, containing roughly 30 million ! records." In Pentagonese the
database is part of the Joint Advertising, Marketing Research and Studies
(JAMRS) project. Its purpose, along with additional millions spent on
polling and marketing research, is to give the Pentagon’s $4 billion annual
recruiting budget maximum impact. And it has lit a fire under civil
libertarians, privacy advocates and counter-recruiting activists across the
nation...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20266&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20266


Invitation to a Demonstration
The World Can't Wait
DANIEL ELLSBERG
I would not have thought of copying the Pentagon Papers, risking a possible
lifetime in prison, without the example of thousands of young Americans who
were doing everything they could--including non-violent disobedience to the
draft regulations--to oppose a wrongful, hopeless war. They showed civic
courage, and I can attest to its effectiveness; as a government consultant
and former official, I felt its power on my own life...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20253&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20253


One hundredth British military death in Iraq
Harvey Thompson, WSWS
...In both Afghanistan and Iraq the dangers for British troops have
increased substantially since the middle of last year. Commanders say
southern Iraq has become more dangerous over the past eight to nine months
as guerrilla fighters have developed deadlier forms of roadside bombs and
resistance to occupation has grown. Marriott said his troops now spend 60
percent of their time just defending themselves, limiting their ability to
train Iraqis to! take over their role...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20257&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20257


Special Report
Mordechai Vanunu Rings a Bell for Justice And Freedom
Delinda C. Hanley, Washington Report
AFTER years of following his tale of heroism and hardship in the pages of
the Washington Report, and writing about his release (see April 2004
Washington Report, p. 10), actually meeting Mordechai Vanunu at the
Christmas Hotel in East Jerusalem on Oct. 7 was like getting together with
an old friend. The former nuclear technician, who revealed details of
Israel’s nuclear weapons program to Britain’s! Sunday Times in 1986, spoke
to us across the street from the courthouse where, after a secret trial,
Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years in prison, 11 and a half of them in
solitary confinement. Pointing toward the floodlit building surrounded by
huge walls, Vanunu said, "That’s where I drove up in a closed car so no one
could see me and showed the words I’d written on my hand about being
kidnapped from Rome." Even though the Israeli whistleblower has served
every day of his harsh sentence, the government continues to hold him in
Israel against his will, denying him his freedom to speak to reporters as
well as his right to travel...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20265&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20265


A Letter to Neocons
Anwaar Hussain
...It is no secret that your ideological godfather, Israel, believes that
the key to the fight against the Iranian nuclear program is in your hands,
especially after the war in Iraq. On November 8, 2002, Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon in an interview given to the New York Post said that
the U.S. war on terror should not end with Iraq. He added, "as soon as Iraq
is dealt with, I will push for Iran to be at the top of the 'to do’ list .
. ."

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20256&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20256


Cartoons, consumed by hypocrisy, looses its humor
Imad Khadduri, Free Iraq
"Yesterday, a newspaper in France and another in Germany published the
cartoons, citing freedom of the press. But the issue goes well beyond the
old debate over whether freedom of expression has limits. It does in
countries like Canada, which have anti-hate laws. But regardless of the
presence or absence of legislated limits, every society has its own notions
of what is acceptable and what is not.
We can be certain that the editors publishing the Muhammad caricatures
would not smear their pages with anti-Semitic graffiti."...

<http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=20258&s2=04>Read the full article / Leggi
l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=20258




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