Photo: A policeman (L) and a medic help a boy, wounded in a car bomb attack, in a hospital in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, December 18, 2007. A suicide car bomber killed one policeman, one civilian and wounded 15 people, including three policemen and three children, at a police checkpoint in western Baquba, police said. REUTERS/Stringer (IRAQ)
REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ
Iraq to slash food rations
Apart from the cut in subsidies, Baghdad also wants to reduce the number of people dependent on the rationing system by five million by June 2008. Yet up to eight million Iraqis still require immediate emergency aid, with nearly half this number living in "absolute poverty", according to the latest report by Oxfam and a coalition of Iraqi groups, including the NGO Coordination Committee of Iraq. Najet Muhammad, 27, a mother of two and a Baghdad resident, said baby milk was unavailable for three months because the distribution system had fallen into the hands of rival militias. She said her already impoverished family was forced to divert money meant for house rent to buy milk at market prices. "If they reduce the quantity of the ration we will be displaced as the money to pay bills will have to be used for food," Najet said. "If we are considered a poor family today, tomorrow, we will be considered absolutely desperate."
Iraqis demand better life amid new calm
With security improved in the Iraqi capital, the BBC's Crispin Thorold meets Iraqis who want to see other things get better, and meets the man charged with getting it done. Now that bombs are relatively rare, and the gunfire is sporadic, the gentle whirring of generators have become the sound of Baghdad. Electricity supply in the Iraqi capital is scarce at best. People have to make do with just a few hours of power every day, and sometimes there is none.
British hand over Basra in disarray
A largely symbolic ceremony was held in Basra Sunday marking the transfer of security in the province to Iraqis from British forces, who had previously withdrawn from the city in September. The event shines the spotlight on the willingness – and ability – of the central government and the Iraqi Army to exert their authority over Iraq's most strategic and resource-rich city, which is now in the grips of feuding militias. Some of those militias are beholden to Iran, or are criminal gangs and religious fundamentalists who have stepped up in recent weeks their campaign of killings against women, minorities, and secular figures. Just last week, a Christian brother and sister were shot on a Basra street by gunmen posing as police. The Basra hand-off to Iraqi forces (they can still call on multinational forces for help), would be the sixth and most significant so far among the nine predominantly Shiite provinces of central and southern Iraq. Counting the three Kurdish provinces, Iraqi forces are now in charge of nine of 18 provinces. "The British legacy in Basra is criminal gangs, a corrupt and infiltrated police force, and borders open to all," says a senior Iraqi Army official in the province, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his remarks. "We are planning an operation to pursue these death squads."
Hold the Cheers
Reports of Iraqi refugees returning to Baghdad fill Adnan and Noora Awadi with envy and nostalgia. The young couple--whose names have been changed, since they fear reprisals if quoted in the media--fled to the Jordanian capital, Amman, in the summer of 2006 and are yearning to go back to their leafy street in al-Yarmouk, a middle-class neighborhood in Baghdad. Noora, 28, misses their modest one-story home so much, she is sentimental even about its defects. "The sink in the kitchen is cracked, there are termites everywhere, and sometimes in the summer we can smell our neighbor's toilet from our living room--but I swear I would go back there this minute," she says wistfully. "If we had hope of some kind of life in Baghdad, I would walk all the way." Adnan, a physician, feels the tug of home too, but he keeps a check on his emotions. "If we had hope ..." he repeats after his wife. "But do we have hope?"
…..Humanitarian agencies reckon that there are 750,000 Iraqis in Jordan and 1.5 million in Syria. Fewer than 30,000 have returned, and many of them will simply join the ranks of the 2.4 million who are classified as "internally displaced persons"--living in Iraq but unable to return to their old neighborhoods because they are now run by sectarian militias. That hasn't stopped the Iraqi government from declaring that peace is at hand. Welcoming one recent batch of returnees, Ali Dabbagh, spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said, "We are eager to have Iraqis return and live a normal, safe life."
In truth, Baghdad is nothing like normal and still some distance from safe. The number of sectarian killings is down, but few Sunnis dare to venture into Shi'ite neighborhoods, and vice versa. U.S. military commanders, whose efforts have led to the sharp reduction in violence, have been cautioning against reading too much into the statistics. "Nobody says anything about turning a corner, seeing lights at the end of tunnels, any of those phrases," General David Petraeus told journalists on Dec. 6. "There's nobody in uniform who is doing victory dances in the end zone."
Back to Baghdad
The one disappointing thing that I noticed and heard about was the poor public services, including electricity, water, fuel and health care. I spent my first night getting our home generator to work because the power was completely cut. Things generally seem better in Baghdad, but there are many painful stories and memories here. I was shocked to discover that many of my neighbours had either been killed or displaced, and I wondered how we ever came to this. We lived together peacefully for decades, thinking nothing of our different backgrounds. I still remember a lively little boy called Tariq whose body was discovered in a dump. I still remember old man Naji whom we dubbed the mayor of our neighbourhood because he attended all the local events, everything from weddings to funerals. He was pushed out and was not allowed to take a single item of furniture or valuables. I heard many sad stories that broke my heart and made me cry. But there are happy stories too: stories of displaced families who have returned since the downturn in the violence.
Halabjans Bemoan Pace of Development
Conditions for victims of Saddam’s brutality have little improved, despite efforts to improve local services. Even with its striking mountainous backdrop, Halabja is not a pretty place. The town’s roads, most of them dirty and bumpy, have been compared to Africa’s. Houses are in decrepit state. Famished cows, their ribs visible from their thin frames, munch on garbage along the side of the road - just as they have for decades. But while the poverty and underdevelopment remains clear for all to see, there are some signs of progress. Within the last year, new sewage and water systems have been built, and a few roads have been paved. It’s part of a multi-million US dollar initiative by the Kurdistan Regional Government to improve services in Halabja - a process that has moved at a snail’s pace, say both residents and officials. Nearly two years ago, Halabjans staged a big protest over the lack of services, which ended with the town’s famed memorial to the victims of Saddam Hussein’s brutality being set on fire.
FEATURE-Shi'ites return to Iraq Sunni stronghold Falluja
Back at work in the truck chassis repair shop where gunmen murdered his brother for being a Shi'ite, Yasir Yacoub says he is glad to be home 18 months after fleeing with his family. Yacoub is part of the small Shi'ite Muslim minority in Falluja, an overwhelmingly Sunni Arab city west of Baghdad that just last year was notorious as a stronghold of al Qaeda militants who declared war on Shi'ites and Americans alike. His family fled the city but returned last month, reassured after local tribes largely turned against the guerrillas. The return of displaced Shi'ite families to Falluja and the rest of western Iraq's Anbar province is one of the clearest signs that the sectarian conflict in this part of Iraq is ending, local authorities say. Families say they now feel safe.
Gays retreat to shadows in new Iraq
But being openly gay is not an option in the new Iraq, where the rise of religious extremism has left Mohammed and his gay friends feeling especially vilified. In January, a United Nations report described the increased persecution, torture and extrajudicial killing of Iraqi lesbians and gay men. In 2005, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling for gay men and lesbians to be killed in the "worst, most severe way." He lifted it a year later, but neither that nor the recent ebb in violence has made Mohammed or his friends feel safe. They yearn to leave Iraq, but do not have the money or visas. They agreed to be interviewed on the condition that their last names not be used. They described an underground existence, eked out behind drawn curtains in a dingy safe house in southwestern Baghdad. Five people share the apartment — four gay men and one woman, who says she is bisexual. They have moved six times in the last three years, just ahead, they say, of neighborhood raids by Shiite and Sunni death squads. Even seemingly benign neighborhood gossip can scare them enough to move.
Rivers of Basra... Pollution and unfulfilled promises
What once resembled Venice for the abundance of waterways and Gondola-like-boats, Basra, largest city in southern Iraqi, could no longer offer people the joy of travel via boats or fishing in its waters! In August 2007, Khajak Vartanian, an environmental radiation measurement specialist from Basra told a conference on pollution in the city that radiation levels in selected regions of Iraq's southern province of Basra warn of imminent danger to thousands of local residents who might be more prone to cancer and birth deformities. "It is all started with hostilities and wars. The lovely waterways, rivers, and streams either denied their role of providing joy, travel and fishing or dried up and lost their function of providing water for irrigation and drinking," Dr. Jabbar Ali al-Kamel, a geographer at Basra University, said. The old Basra professor added "The hostilities with Iran contributed to the destruction of the city's network of rivers and streams." "Deterioration started in the 1969 flood which was a spontaneous result of the hostility between the then Iran regime and Iraq," explained al-Kamel noting that the situation worsened after the eight-year-long war between the two countries in 1980.
IRAQ: "Bad" Women Raped and Killed
Women who do not wear the hijab are becoming prime targets of militias, residents say. Many women say they are threatened with death if they do not obey. "Militiamen approached us to tell us we must wear the hijab and stop wearing make-up," college student Zahra Alwan who fled Basra for Baghdad recently told IPS. "They are imitating the Iranian Revolution Guards, and we believe they receive orders from the Islamic Republic (of Iran) to do so." Graffiti in red on walls across Basra warns women against wearing make-up and stepping out without covering their bodies from head to toe, Alwan said. "The situation in Baghdad is not very different," Mazin Abdul Jabbar, social researcher at Baghdad University told IPS. "All universities are controlled by Islamic militiamen who harass female students all the time with religious restrictions.
IRAQ: Women MPs, activists call for more support for widows, divorced women
Iraqi women parliamentarians and activists are pressing for a new law to help the increasing number of widows and divorced women in their war-torn country. "We are in the process of presenting a new draft law which portrays the tragedy of the women who have no one to support them, like widows and the divorced," said member of parliament (MP) Nadira Habib, deputy head of Iraq's parliamentary committee for women's and children's affairs. Nadira explained that there were no fewer than one million Iraqi widows who had lost their husbands in wars or as a result of internal violence over the past three decades. She said only 800 billion Iraqi dinars (about US$664 million) is allocated in the 2008 budget to the country's social protection programme. Created to cope with increasing social problems after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the social protection programme provides widows, divorced women, orphans, the handicapped and the unemployed with a monthly allowance of 50,000 Iraqi dinars each (about US$50). "This is not enough. With the government's food rations, these allowances only take such families up [to] near the poverty line," Nadira said.
eBay halts auction of Iraqi relic
A 4,000-year-old clay tablet suspected of being smuggled illegally from Iraq was pulled from eBay just minutes before the close of the online auction. The tablet, bearing wedge-shaped cuneiform script, had been put up for sale on the online auctioneer's Swiss site. It was spotted by a German archaeologist, who alerted the German police. They passed the information to their Swiss counterparts. The authorities have launched criminal proceedings against the seller, who has been identified only as a resident of Zurich, Switzerland. eBay stopped the auction just minutes before the bidding deadline on December 12, said Yves Fischer, the director of the Swiss federal office of culture's department on commerce in cultural objects. Zurich police confiscated the business card-sized tablet from a storage facility. Officials said the tablet, which dates from around 2000 BC, was "with great probability" smuggled out of Iraq.
Iraqi Teams Unearth 1,000 Antiquities
Iraqi archaeologists working in a city south of Baghdad unearthed more than 1,000 antiquities and delivered them Monday to the National Museum, which has struggled to rebuild its collection since it was looted in the U.S.-led invasion. The museum has been closed to the public since 2003, but curators have been trying to recover some of the 15,000 stolen relics and piece together a collection. Qais Hussein, who directs Iraqi archaeological digs, said the antiquities were discovered by three teams at the beginning of the year in the Shiite city of Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad.
Iraq launches 1st oil tanker in 27 years
The Iraqi Oil Tanker Co. launched its first new ship in 27 years Monday, and delivery of two more tankers is expected within three months. The Dijlah — the name for the Tigris River in Arabic — was inaugurated in the southern port city of Basra, officials said. The 14,000-ton capacity, Chinese-built ship will help ease export problems Iraq has encountered as its beleaguered but vital oil industry begins to recover from years of war and neglect, officials said.
Iraq marks 80th anniversary of first oil strike
The Northern Oil Company marked the 80th anniversary of the drilling of the first oil well in the country in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. The drilling began in 1927 and oil began gushing forth in a dramatic fashion, reaching 50 feet above the derrick, drenching the surrounding countryside and threatening nearby villages. It was only brought under control after 90 days. The well is believed to be one of the most prolific in the world, producing 95,000 barrels a day. Some Kirkuk wells still enjoy this gigantic capacity and one of them is said to be capable of producing more than 100,000 barrels a day if properly developed. Since then Kirkuk has been the most prized city in the country and currently has turned into a bone of contention between the disparate ethnic and religious groups.
12 new universities to be established
The Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research is opening 12 new universities in the country with the start of the academic year 2008-2009. The new universities will be established in provinces which still lack higher education institutions. With the establishment of these universities each of Iraq’s 18 provinces will have at least one university. Major cities like Baghdad, Mosul in the north and Basra in the south have several universities. With the new universities the ministry would have realized its target of having at least one university in each province in Iraq. Despite violence, killing and kidnapping of students and professors, joining a university is still a cherished dream for many in Iraq.
Baghdad University mourns yet another professor it lost violence
The University of Baghdad has lost another of its bright scientists, Professor Ali al-Naimi. Naimi was killed in cold blood and the university, in a mourning ceremony, has declared him a ‘martyr’. He was 51. Naimi had obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Wales in Britain in 1992 and had published more than 20 research papers in prestigious international journals, according to Baghdad University chancellor, Mousa al-Mawsawi. “Our university has offered the largest number of martyrs when compared with other Iraqi universities,” said Mawsawi. He said his university has lost 64 professors since the 2003 U.S. invasion. “This represents one third of the professors Iraq has lost to violence so far,” he added.
REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS
Top Iraqi Kurd refuses to meet Rice
The president of Iraq's Kurdish region is refusing to meet US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was in Iraq Tuesday, because of the US position over Turkey sending soldiers into northern Iraq, a top Kurdish official said. President Massud Barzani, who had been due to fly to Baghdad to meet Rice, will not do so in protest, Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said. "It was decided that Massud Barzani would go to Baghdad to take part in a meeting with Condoleezza Rice and other officials, but he will not go now as a sign of protest against the American position on the bombings by Turkey."
Iraq urges halt to Turkish attacks
The presidency of Iraq's Council of Representatives -- which includes parliamentary speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani and two deputies -- deplored the bombardment and urged Turkey to use "dialogue and wisdom in resolving its internal issues" Their statement said Turkey should respect Iraq's sovereignty and it called on the U.N. Security Council to put a stop such military operations inside Iraq's border. Hours after the strike was reported, Iraq's government summoned Turkey's ambassador and told him that the country's bombing mission in northern Iraq killed a woman, wounded four other people, and destroyed a health clinic, a school and bridges. Iraq's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that Mohamad Hajj Hmoud, its undersecretary for legal affairs and multilateral relations, asked the envoy to tell the Turkish government "to halt such military actions that effect innocent and causes panic which may affect the friendly relations existing between the two peoples and governments of the two neighbors." Hmoud gave the ambassador a memorandum "about the Turkish military aircraft's bombing a group of Iraqi villages" in northern Iraq. He said along with the woman's death and the four injuries and the structural damage, "many families" were displaced. A press attache at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara told CNN on Monday that the United States had been told about the plans for the strikes and reiterated that it is Turkey's decision on whether to carry out such actions. Since early November, the United States and Turkey have been sharing intelligence on the PKK, she said. Abdullah said the KRG has no official information confirming reports that the United States OK'd the airstrikes. "We have no official information on this, but it is obvious and expected that Turkish planes have to get prior clearance to enter the Iraqi Kurdish region's airspace," he said, adding that President Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed last month to share intelligence on the matter.
FACTBOX-Main players in Iraq's Basra province
SADR MOVEMENT - Loyalists of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are widely seen as the most influential group on the streets of Basra. Sadr's political movement and Mehdi Army militia have popular support. Critics accuse them of using violence to impose strict Islamic rules, a charge Sadrists deny. The Sadrists recently signed a truce with other major Shi'ite parties, agreeing that militia members would not carry guns openly as long as security forces do not target them.
SUPREME ISLAMIC IRAQI COUNCIL - The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) has a strong following in Basra and, like the Sadrists, has built up support by running charities to help the poor. The party, engaged in a power struggle with Sadr's followers across much of the south, joined Sadr in opposing the governor of Basra, who belongs to the smaller Shi'ite Fadhila Party.
FADHILA PARTY - The Fadhila Party is a small Shi'ite Islamist party which has little clout in other parts of the country but controls the position of governor in Basra. Fadhila is believed to have influence in the Southern Oil Company, which through exports from Basra supplies nearly all of the government's funds.
SECURITY FORCES - Iraq has 30,000 soldiers and police to keep the peace in Basra. They are commanded by army Lieutenant-General Mohan al-Furaiji and police chief Major-General Abdul-Jalil Khalaf, both of whom were appointed in June as part of the central government's plan to combat militia influence.
Imperialism and Kurdish self-determination
On Nov. 25, the commander of U.S. forces in Europe, Gen. Bantz Craddock, became the third U.S. general to travel to Turkey in one week. Two other two generals, including Patreaus, went to Turkey on Nov. 20. The purpose of the visits is to reassure the Turkish government of U.S. support against the Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK. The visits followed a decision by Turkey’s parliament to authorize its military to go over the border to Iraq’s Kurdistan and attack PKK camps. Turkey then launched "limited" cross-border artillery strikes into Iraq on Dec. 1. If a larger-scale military incursion occurs, it will constitute a blow to U.S. interests in the region, which strives for stability in both Turkey and the Iraqi part of Kurdistan while it continues to occupy Iraq. Kurdistan is a region divided between four countries, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Of the approximately 30 million Kurds, more than half live in Turkey. Kurdish people comprise the largest nationality in the world that lacks its own state. From a Marxist perspective, every oppressed nation has the right of self-determination, including the right to secede and form an independent state. But imperialism, through a constant policy of divide and conquer, has intensified national oppression. Imperialism perpetuates national oppression not just between imperialist countries and oppressed ones, but also amongst different nationalities of oppressed countries.
….. The United States and the European Union officially classify the PKK as a terrorist organization. A wing of the PKK, the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan or the PJAK, has been engaged in attacks against Iran’s military inside Iran. These attacks are very similar to attacks carried out by the PKK against the Turkish military. According to the Oct. 23 New York Times, the PKK and the PJAK "appear to a large extent to be one and the same." They have the same overall goal and guiding leadership. However, the United States and European imperialists do not consider the PJAK a terrorist organization. In fact, they support the PJAK. In August, the PJAK’s leader, Rahman Haj-Ahmadi, visited Washington, D.C. and appealed for U.S. military and financial support for the group’s campaign to overthrow the regime in Iran. Support for the wing of PKK in Iran while (openly) opposing the PKK in Turkey is only one aspect of the imperialist manipulation of the Kurdish cause.
From Missing Links blog: Cantonization: A key concept
Harith al-Dhari repeated in an AlJazeera interview on Sunday his warning to the Iraqi tribes about the implications of the so-called awakening movement, summarized as follows at Islamtoday.net and picked up by other Islamist sites: "[T]he war being waged by the American occupation forces and the forces that are called 'awakening against AlQaeda' is tantamount to a war against the Iraqi resistance as a whole". After repeating other points earlier included in al-Dhari's open letter to the tribes of Iraq, including the point AQI membership being overwhelmingly Iraqi and not foreign, this summary adds: “He invited the tribes of Iraq to not become part of the American plans, which aim at weakening and dismantling Iraq and turning it into Cantons and armed regions.”
Sadrist calls to restrict weapons to govt. agencies in Basra
A leading figure from the movement of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Tuesday called for restricting weapons to govermental agencies in the southern Iraqi city of Basra now that the city's security file was transferred to the Iraqis. “All political parties and factions must seek restriction of weapons to the governmental agencies only in order to protect the city's people, after the handover of the security file from the British troops to the Iraqis in Basra”, Sheikh Muhannad Al-Gharawi of Al-Sadr movement said in a joint conference, convened in Basra, with the city's governor Mohammed Musabih al-Waili and Basra’s security operation commander General Mohan Hafidh. He added “We, Sadr's movement, express our readiness to cooperate with police and army forces to gain security, to keep order and to establish peace in Basra.” Al-Gharawi considered “the withdrawal of British troops a victory to all Iraqi people and all must contribute to make these national gains a success”.
REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ
US Helps Turkey Hit Rebel Kurds In Iraq
The United States is providing Turkey with real-time intelligence that has helped the Turkish military target a series of attacks this month against Kurdish separatists holed up in northern Iraq, including a large airstrike on Sunday, according to Pentagon officials. U.S. military personnel have set up a center for sharing intelligence in Ankara, the Turkish capital, providing imagery and other immediate information gathered from U.S. aircraft and unmanned drones flying over the separatists' mountain redoubts, the officials said. A senior administration official said the goal of the U.S. program is to identify the movements and activities of the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), which is fighting to create an autonomous enclave in Turkey. The United States is "essentially handing them their targets," one U.S. military official said. The Turkish military then decides whether to act on the information and notifies the United States, the official said. "They said, 'We want to do something.' We said, 'Okay, it's your decision,' " the official said yesterday, although he denied that the United States had explicitly approved the strikes.
Turkish troops cross into Iraq to pursue PKK
Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq overnight in the latest in a series of small-scale raids against Kurdish separatists, the Turkish army said on Tuesday. The raid was launched after a group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants was spotted near the border, and the troops "hit a heavy blow" at the PKK after advancing a few kilometres into Iraq, a statement on the army Web site said. "Two PKK groups were spotted just across the border, it was determined that they were planning attacks and a battalion of soldiers intervened," a Turkish military official said.
EU calls on Turkey to halt strikes in northern Iraq
The European Union today called on Turkey to show restraint after it launched the biggest attack on Iraq since the US invasion in 2003, sending more than 50 warplanes to bomb suspected Kurdish insurgent bases inside Iraqi territory. ….. The EU expressed its concern to Ankara in a statement from the Portuguese presidency: "The presidency calls on the Turkish authorities to exercise restraint, to respect the territorial integrity of Iraq and refrain from taking any military action that could undermine regional peace and stability," it said, according to the AFP news agency. "The presidency reiterates the importance of reinforcing the dialogue and cooperation between the governments of Turkey and Iraq in order to ensure that the Iraqi territory is not used for any terrorist actions against Turkey." The Iraqi parliament condemned the bombing, calling it an "outrageous" violation of Iraq's sovereignty that killed innocent civilians.
Turkey committed horrific crime against Kurds
Iraq's Kurdistan President Massoud al-Barazani said that Turkey committed a "horrific crime" against the Kurdish people when it bombed their villages in pursuit of Kurdistan Workers Party's (PKK) fighters in northern Iraq two days ago. "Turkish troops committed a horrific crime against unarmed civilians and violated Iraq's sovereignty…," Barazani said during a joint press conference with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in Salah al-Din at a late hour on Monday evening. "I want to remind everyone that Kurdish blood is not cheap," the president indicated, adding, "The issue of the Kurdistan Workers Party cannot be solved without dialogue." A Peshmerga spokesman told VOI earlier today that Turkish troops crossed into the triangle where the borders of Iraq, Turkey and Iran meet at an early hour on Tuesday morning, two days after Turkish military bombarded several Kurdish villages in pursuit of PKK fighters in northern Iraq.
Case Lays Bare the Media's Reliance on Iraqi Journalists
The e-mail message did not say whether the photograph in question is the one that Mr. Hussein took in Falluja on Nov. 8, 2004, of Iraqi insurgents firing a mortar and small arms, which was among the 20 from The Associated Press that collectively won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography. The military spokesman said further: “The Associated Press was informed that the sources had reported Mr. Hussein’s knowing and willing offer to provide a false Iraqi national identification card to an alleged sniper, whom Mr. Hussein knew was wanted” by the military, “in order to assist the sniper in eluding capture.” For its part, The Associated Press hired a New York lawyer and former prosecutor, Paul Gardephe, to investigate the situation. He published a 46-page report that concluded “there is no evidence — in nearly a thousand photographs taken over the 20-month period — that his activities ever strayed from those of a legitimate journalist.” Mr. Gardephe was in Iraq last week defending Mr. Hussein. The role of Iraqis as front-line reporters, and the dangers they face working for Western news organizations, is well known. In a few recent examples, in October a journalist for The Washington Post, Salih Saif Aldin, was shot dead in a Baghdad neighborhood rife with sectarian violence. That death occurred three months after a local journalist working for The New York Times was killed in the same area. Of the 124 journalists killed in Iraq since the war began, 102 have been Iraqi, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Locals saw troops as conquerors, not saviours
And there was relief it had been achieved with very little loss of British life. Friendly fire from American forces was then the largest cause of British casualties. The first priority was to establish a city base. Saddam's massive, sprawling presidential palace complex on the banks of the waterway was an easy choice. A "redistribution" of the palace's plumbing began. Bathroom fittings were gold-plated so gilt shower rails, loo brushes and taps were "reassigned" by the city's new conquerors. That was how the locals saw the allied troops: not saviours but conquerors. Graham Binns, the two-star general who handed the city over yesterday was then a one-star brigadier. He remembers his first meeting with local sheikhs. "We came to them to ask what they wanted us to do for them," he recalled. "But before we could speak they asked us what they must do for us. It was a complete reversal of what we wanted to project."
US Army loses another 12,000 guns and trucks
The US military in Iraq has lost track of another 12,000 weapons, including more than 800 machine-guns, and everything from 2100 new electricity generators to half a dozen garbage trucks. The latest gap in record-keeping follows a report by the US government's accountability office in the summer which revealed that 190,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles and automatic pistols earmarked for Iraqi government forces had gone astray in 2004 and 2005 and could be in insurgent hands. The US Defence Department said an audit between March and May this year could trace only £41m-worth of armoured vehicles and other equipment worth more than £500m which was supposed to be part of Iraq's police and army training and outfitting package. Items which had disappeared without leaving a paper trail included 2300 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 7000 pistols and 18 heavy recovery vehicles worth £5m. [And then there is all that explosive material looted in the beginning of the occupation – not used so far, and not found either. – dancewater]
UN Extends US-Led Force in Iraq
The UN Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to extend the US-led multinational force in Iraq for one year, a move that Iraq's prime minister said would be his nation's "final request" for help.
US uncovers network of tunnels of al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters
US forces uncovered a network of underground tunnels used by al-Qaeda insurgents in central Iraq to store weapons and launch attacks, the US military said on Tuesday. The tunnels were unearthed during a US search operation in an area northwest of Iskandariya, south of Baghdad, on December 15, a military statement said. 'Inside the tunnels were several DSHKA rounds, leading troops to speculate the tunnels may have served as enemy firing positions for anti-aircraft guns, as well as hiding places for AQI fighters after they launched attacks,' the statement noted.
COMMENTARY
The night I learned which side I was on
According to the Lieutenant, there was a long line of cars waiting to pass through his checkpoint. Towards the end of the line, a car that had been waiting pulled out and turned around, driving away from the checkpoint. This act was proof to the Lieutenant that the driver of the vehicle must be guilty of something and trying to escape, so he raised his rifle and fired into the night. When I walked in to the cell where he was being kept, it was dark, and I couldn’t see him but I could hear him breathing. He was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating, and his breaths were interrupted by shaking and sobbing. As we followed the sounds, I was able to make out a figure lying on a stretcher against the wall. We approached the man and clicked on our flashlights. The first thing I saw was the gauze wrapped around his neck, caked in blood, where he had been shot. My first thought was that he was lucky to be alive, but I could tell that he was not thinking the same thing.
I could see streams of tears along the sides of his face, leading to the stretcher that was too small for his large body. He was shaking furiously, his bare feet sticking out from under a thin blanket that was not large enough to cover him. I knew that he was not only shaking from the cold, but from the fear of death, torture, or life in prison. Every Iraqi knows that people get snatched up in the middle of the night; some never seen again, some returning with stories of intense interrogation techniques. We told our translator to ask him why he had run away. He responded, struggling through gasping breaths and flowing tears. He said he was tired of waiting in the long line in the middle of the night, and decided to just go back home. Nothing suspicious was found in his car. Instead of making it back home he ended up in that cell, alone in the dark with only blood soaked bandages to keep him warm. This was the price he paid for being impatient. He cried as he pleaded with us, repeating over and over that he had never done anything wrong. He said he was in pain and begged to be taken to a hospital. I have never seen a man so weakened, terrified, and defeated.
Iraqi Blowback
Let's point out the obvious about Iraq--violence has been reduced (such as it is, which isn't that great) for three main reasons. First--as coalition forces pull out of an area direct attacks against the coalition die down. Pull them all out, and no attacks. Second--ethnic cleansing has gotten to such a stage that many communities are now solely of one group, and as that occurs the amount of violence declines because there are less people to kill for factional reasons. Third--the US has hired its enemies and armed them and set them loose to control various areas. This is especially true in Anbar. Ex-insurgency warlords are happy to do this, because the ultimate fight for the Sunnis isn't against the US, it is against the Shia and the Kurds. Being armed and paid to gain control over their own areas, prior either to a civil war when the US pulls out, or to give them a better bargaining position at the negotiating table is acceptable. And it's not as if the entire insurgency has halted, indeed it continues and most likely will go on, because there are enough people in Iraq who really want the US out that just hiring some warlords isn't going to be enough. (One notes the irony that the only people ever able to defeat al-Qaeda were insurgency forces, something this page has long held would be the case.)
…..So at the end, the current strategy seems to be to be buying some time, and some peace, by arming people who are fundamentally America's enemies. In the 1980s America did this in Afghanistan and Israel did it with Hamas, to undercut the PLO. Hopefully it'll work out better this time, or at least take as long for blowback to occur.
Mirage of Improvement in Iraq
The New York Times Nov 19 announces, "Baghdad’s Weary Start to Exhale as Security Improves." The Washington Post Nov. 23 reports, "Returnees Find a Capital Transformed." People in the US are willing to believe the establishment media telling them that refugees are returning to their homes in Baghdad in an environment of improved security and new hope. It is true that there have been fewer American soldiers killed in Baghdad and the number of Iraqis fleeing to Syria has declined. However, this relatively quieter security situation needs to be placed in its proper context, something the Western media steadfastly refuses to do. We are proudly informed that buying off Sunni militias and resistance fighters at $300 per month is among the latest U.S. military tactics, but we are conscientiously kept uninformed about the implications of such a move. Nor is there any mention of the growing antagonism it has generated in the US-backed Iraqi Government under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. By its own admission, the U.S. military has paid over $17 million, so far, to recruit 77,000 Sunni fighters, many of whom were launching attacks against the Americans a few weeks ago (International Herald Tribune). Post purchase, the US military has rechristened them "Concerned Local Citizens," or "Awakening Forces." The target is to procure another 10,000.
Quote of the day: "We are so disappointed with the loss of what there was of Iraqi women's achievements under a regime (of former president Saddam Hussein) that we saw as retarded," Salim Mahmood of the Iraqi Communist Party in Baghdad told IPS. "The Americans promised they would make Iraq a symbol of liberty and prosperity. Now it has neither."
Photo: A policeman (L) and a medic help a boy, wounded in a car bomb attack, in a hospital in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) northeast of 
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