CNN LATE BREAKING NEWS: 48 KILLED IN IRAQ ON TUESDAY

While President Bush was yukking it up at the Gridiron Dinner in Washington, and Fox News continued their "blackout" on any bad news coming out of Iraq, CNN is reporting late Tuesday that 48 people have been killed in scores of bombings and shootings from Baghdad to other cities in Iraq.

"The Surge" is a pathetic joke framed by the Bush administration and General David Petraeus in Iraq and sold to the American public by the Bush public relations machine Fox News.

The true facts are "the surge" was only accomplished by Sunni warlords in ONE province, Anbar, but the rest of Iraq is a cauldron of violence and mayhem.

Here is a rundown of what took place Tuesday in Iraq. If this is an indication "the surge" is working, then the person reading this needs a new pair of glasses, or perhaps they should make an appointment with a "shrink."

In one day, bombings, battles and shooting kill 48 in Iraq

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/03/11/iraq.main/index.html

Story Highlights

Authorities find 20 bodies in mass grave in Iraq, police say Tuesday

Grave has women and children, likely kidnapped 2 months ago by al Qaeda

10 killed, 28 wounded in clashes between Iraqi security and Shiite militiamen

9, including 4 police, killed during fighting between insurgents and Iraqi police

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Bombings, clashes and a shooting in Iraq Tuesday left at least 48 people dead, and another 20 bodies were found in a mass grave, police officials told CNN.
Police and a local citizens group found five children, six women and nine men in the grave, just northeast of Samarra
.
Authorities said the victims were kidnapped at least two months ago by al Qaeda in Iraq. The victims were blindfolded, bullet-riddled and bound, with some showing signs of torture, officials said.

Families working with the Iraqi government or security forces have been targeted by militants.
A weapons cache containing mortar rounds, rocket-propelled grenades, explosives, suicide vests and car bombs was found near the grave.

Those events came a day after eight U.S. soldiers died in two separate bombings in Baghdad and in Diyala province, and a leading sheikh in a Diyala province town was killed by a female suicide attacker, officials said.

Tuesday, at least 10 people were killed and 28 wounded when clashes erupted between Iraqi security forces and Shiite militiamen in the central Iraq city of Kut, according to an official with the nation's Interior Ministry.

The clashes happened while Iraqi police and army were raiding three neighborhoods in the city searching for wanted militants, the official said. The neighborhoods are known strongholds of militants loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. A vehicle curfew was imposed in the city after the skirmishes, as sporadic gunfire could still be heard, the official said.

U.S. Special Forces, responding to a request for support from Iraqi security forces, destroyed a vehicle carrying weapons and explosives and also gunned down several enemy fighters, the U.S. military said.

Kut is about 160 km (about 100 miles) southeast of Baghdad in Wasit province.
Seven Iraqi citizens were killed Tuesday and 11 injured near Balad in a car bombing at the headquarters of the awakening group Sons of Iraq, the U.S. military said.

"A Sons of Iraq member fired his weapon at the driver of the explosive-laden pickup truck after realizing his intent, but the driver was still able to detonate the bomb," a military statement said.

Also Tuesday, nine people, including four police officers, were killed when clashes broke out between insurgents and Iraqi police in Mosul, about 420 km (about 260 miles) north of Baghdad, according to an official with Mosul police. Four gunmen and a civilian also were killed, according to police. The Interior Ministry confirmed the information.

In other Iraq violence Tuesday:

• Sixteen people died and 22 were wounded Tuesday when a roadside bomb in southern Iraq struck a passenger bus.

• Five people were killed and 14 were wounded when a suicide bomber slammed into a police-security volunteer checkpoint in Dhuluiya in northern Iraq's Salaheddin province. The bomber, driving a small pickup truck, struck a checkpoint manned by police and members of the local Awakening Council, the U.S.-backed security volunteers.

• A gunman in northeastern Baghdad shot at a minibus carrying employees from Iraq's Electricity Ministry, killing one person and wounding eight.

• Other mass graves have been found recently, including one discovered Saturday with up to 100 bodies just north of Baquba in Diyala province.

And after all this in just one day, President Bush and Fox News claim "the surge" is working and Iraq is returning to normality. One wonders what Bush and Fox News would consider abnormal in Iraq.

IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR MARCH FOR WINTER SOLDIERS (SEE THE VIDEO)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wh4XGmfJo4

On Thursday, March 13 and for the next three days, hundreds of Iraq Veterans Against the War will descend on Washington, D.C. to tell members of Congress about the atrocities they witnessed with their own eyes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last week some of the Iraq Veterans Against the War staged a march to Valley Forge and we have the video. It is a compelling and you get to hear what some of what the Iraq veterans, and even some active duty Iraq veterans, plan to say when they meet with lawmakers in Washington on March 13-16, 2008.

If you care about our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, you should watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Wh4XGmfJo4

HOW COULD ANYONE SAY "THE SURGE" IS WORKING WHEN ALL THIS IS HAPPENING IN IRAQ?

Either President Bush is being kept in the dark about what is happening in Iraq today (Tuesday, March 11), or he simply is too stubborn to admit it, but the following is a list of killings, suicide bombings, shootings, mayhem and violence stretching from Baghdad to every province in Iraq.

Bush's pet mouthpiece, FOX NEWS, is no better. The so-called news organization continues to LIE to their viewers that all is going well in Iraq despite the fact they can access the same information as we are providing our readers here:

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

War News for Tuesday, March 11, 2008

MNF-Iraq is reporting the deaths Three Coalition Force Soldiers and an interpreter in a roadside bombing in an eastern Diyala province on Monday, March 10th. One other soldier were wounded in the attack.Security incidents:

Baghdad:#1: One Iraqi soldier was wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near his patrol in western Baghdad's Mansour district, police said.

#2: A car bomb went off near the building of al-Mahmoudiya local council, south of Baghdad, on Tuesday, leaving an unidentified number of civilians killed or wounded, a security source said. "A car bomb went off near a local council building in the district of al-Mahmoudiya, leaving unidentified number of civilian casualties," the source, who declined to have his name mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.

#3: Around 4:30 a.m. gunmen attacked the juveniles’ prison in Tobchi neighborhood in west Baghdad injuring three policemen, three prisoners and releasing five prisoners.

#4: Around 8:05 a.m. an IED exploded on the airport street in west Baghdad. No casualties were reported.

#5: A member of the local council of Yousifiyah town was killed and eight other members were injured when an IED exploded inside the building of Yousifiyah town local council south of Baghdad around 1:00 p.m.

#6: Gunmen also sprayed another bus with machine gunfire shortly after it hit a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad. One person was killed and four others were wounded, police said. The bomb was apparently targeting a nearby police patrol.

#7: U.S. forces have killed five insurgents and detained 11 suspects in the past two days during operations to disrupt al Qaeda networks operating in central and northern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

#8: Police found five unidentified bodies in Baghdad. Three bodies were found in Rusafa, the eastern side of Baghdad in the following neighborhoods (2 bodies in Jisr Diyala and 1 body in Kubra al Ghizlan neighborhood). The other two bodies were found in Amil neighborhood and Shurta the 4th in the western side of Baghdad.

Diyala Prv:#1: Three Coalition Force Soldiers and an interpreter were killed by an improvised explosive device attack in eastern Diyala province, March 10. Another Soldier was wounded and transported to a Coalition medical facility for treatment.

Karbala:#1: In another development, four police officers and a child were injured in Karbala, south of Baghdad, when a bomb went off near a downtown hospital, Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency said

Kut:#1: At least five people were killed in fierce clashes between Iraqi police and Shiite militia forces in the central city of Kut on Tuesday, police said. Iraqi forces raided three Kut neighbourhoods to nab wanted Shiite militiamen, a local police officer who did not give his name for security reasons told AFP. "The clashes are still going on. Five people have been killed including two brothers when their house was struck by a rocket," the officer said. Another eight people were wounded, including a woman and a policeman. The clashes broke out as the security forces were attacked during the raid, he said, adding that US warplanes flew in to provide aerial support to the Iraqi forces.

At least 10 people were killed in clashes between security forces and the Mehdi Army militia loyal to anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Kut, 170 km (105 miles) southeast of Baghdad, a source at Kut's al-Zahraa hospital said.

Nasiriyah:#1: In southern Iraq, meanwhile, a roadside bomb hit a bus that was traveling from Basra to Nasiriyah, killing at least 16 civilians on board, according to a Nasiriyah policeman who spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to release the information. At least 22 others were wounded in the attack, which took place about 50 miles south of Nasiriyah. No other details were immediately available.

A roadside bomb missed a passing U.S. convoy and ripped into a bus on a highway south of Baghdad today, killing 16 passengers and injuring 17 others, Iraqi security officials said.

Tikrit:#1: At least three civilians were killed during a US air raid targeting a western part of Tikrit in northern Iraq, police sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. People had told police they had heard air strikes and explosions hitting areas near their houses, sources said. When police came, three men were found dead.

Dhuluiya:#1: In a separate incident during the day, at least eight people were killed when a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a checkpoint manned by Iraqi soldiers and a local group. Colonel Mohammed Khalid, the local police officer said: "The suicide attack took place in Dhuluiya, 70 km from north of Baghdad, in Salaheddin province, at around 3:15pm (1215 GMT)."

Samarra:#1: A GRAVE containing 20 bodies has been found by Iraqi security forces near Samarra, just days after 100 decomposed bodies were found at another site. The most recent mass grave, containing the bodies of men, women and children, was found in a dry riverbed in an area called Al-Jillam, north-east of Samarra. The bodies appeared to be killed a long time ago, Lieutenant Muthanna al-Shakir said.

Thar Thar:#1: A suicide car bomb killed two members of a U.S.-backed neighbourhood police patrol and wounded three others when it hit their checkpoint in Thar Thar, 80 km (50 miles) northwest of Baghdad, police said.

Hawija:#1: In Kirkuk, some 250 kilometres north of Baghdad, three more members of the Awakening Councils were injured when an explosive device was detonated targeting their patrol in the main road between Howeija and Abbasy districts, sources told VOI. Two police officers were also wounded when a bomb went off targeting an Iraqi patrol in the military district in central Kirkuk.

Kirkuk:#1: Two policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near their patrol in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

#2: A policeman was injured when an IED exploded that targeted a police patrol in al Askari neighborhood in downtown Kirkuk city on Tuesday morning.

#3: Three policemen were wounded in an IED explosion that targeted emergency police patrol in al Tis’een neighborhood in downtown Kirkuk city Monday evening.

#4: A policeman was injured when an IED exploded on Kirkuk- Reyadh Street on Monday evening.#5: The head of Sahwa council of Abbasi district Oda Khalaf Zidan was injured when an IED exploded targeting his convoy west of Kirkuk city.

#6: "A U.S. helicopter shelled a vehicle carrying gas cylinders in the main street in Wana district, north of Mosul, killing three civilians," Brig. Khaled Abdul Sattar Saadon told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq

#7: "Another chopper spotted two gunmen while planting a bomb in al-Iqtessadeyeen region in western Mosul, killing one and injuring the other," the officer noted.

Mosul:#1: In Mosul, gunmen clashed Tuesday morning with police near a security checkpoint in eastern Mithaq district, the Voices of Iraq news agency cited a security official as saying. Four policemen, four gunmen and a civilian were killed in the clashes.

#2: Gunmen also opened fire on a car carrying the deputy head of Mosul University, another police officer said on condition of anonymity. The academic escaped unharmed.Al Anbar Prv:

Fallujah:#1: Two Sahwa (Awakening) tribal fighters were killed and three others wounded when a suicide bomber crashed his explosive-rigged vehicle into a Sahwa checkpoint north of the city of Falluja on Tuesday, police said. "A suicide bomber detonated his explosive vehicle near a checkpoint of the Sahwa forces in al-Tharthar, (25 km) north of Falluja, killing two and wounding three," a security source, who requested anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq

Afghanistan:#1: On Monday, police clashed with Taliban fighters in Dihrawud district of the southern Uruzgan province, leaving 10 militants dead and two officers wounded, provincial police chief Gen. Juma Gul Himat said.

BLOCKBUSTER HEARINGS BEGIN THURSDAY. IRAQ/AFGHANISTAN WAR VETS TO TELL ALL ABOUT ATROCITIES

On Thursday, March 13, at least 300 Iraq and Afghanistan war vets will descend on the nation's capital to tell lawmakers what they saw with their own eyes about atrocities committed by U.S. military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The gathering will be reminiscent of the famous "Winter Soldiers" hearings during the Vietnam War when 100 Vietnam vets, including former Presidential candidate John Kerry, talked about what they had witnessed in Viet Nam.

The question is whether the press will cover it. It is a foregone conclusion that FOX NEWS, the Bush administration press lapdog, will pretty much ignore the hearings.

Hopefully, the mainstream media will not turn their back on the Iraq and Afghanistan vets as they have done lately in covering the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

AlterNet Editorial: Iraq Vets Will Detail U.S. Atrocities in Winter Soldier Hearings

By Editorial Staff, AlterNetPosted on March 11, 2008, Printed on March 11, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/79286/

This week, on March 13-16, a new generation of "Winter Soldiers" -- veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq -- will descend on the nation's capitol to tell America in their own words what they saw during their service in the "war on terror," the Bush administration's signature policy.

They'll give a ground's eye perspective on the occupation's toll on the people of those countries and the costs to the military, and they'll tell stories of what it was really like in places like Fallujah and Ramadi -- places that are just names on a map to most of the people back home.

They'll be following large footsteps. In the early months of 1971, a group of Vietnam vets, organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), gave two days of testimony about the Vietnam that they had seen, up close and all-too-personally, in the original "Winter Soldier" investigation.

While largely dismissed by the political establishment, their wrenching testimony redoubled the peace movement's efforts to end that war.

In his opening statement 37 years ago, William Crandell, a 26 year-old lieutenant who served in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division -- the division that committed the infamous My Lai Massacre -- told the hushed room, "The Winter Soldier Investigation is not a mock trial. There will be no phony indictments; there will be no verdict against Uncle Sam." He promised "straightforward testimony -- direct testimony -- about acts which are war crimes under international law. Acts which these men have seen and participated in. Acts which are the inexorable result of national policy."

And they did just that.

Over two days, more than a 100 vets of the Vietnam conflict bore witness to the horrors that they had seen with their own eyes -- "the inexorable result of national policy." One panel examined the question, "What are we doing to Vietnam?" and another asked "What are we doing to ourselves?"

Click on link above to read the full AlterNet editorial.

MORE PROOF "SURGE" IS A FAILURE: 9 KILLED IN MOSUL IRAQ

The success of the so-called "surge" is nothing more than a smokescreen as violence rips across Iraq.

The Voices of Iraq is reporting nine Iraqis were killed Tuesday morning in clashes at a Mosul, Iraq checkpoint.

Earlier on Tuesday, the U.S. Military confirmed thee more U.S. soldiers were killed in Diyala Province.

On Monday, five U.S. soldiers were killed in bomb attack in Baghdad.

9 killed in Mosul clashes

Ninewa - Voices of Iraq
Tuesday , 11 /03 /2008 Time 1:35:12

http://www.aswataliraq.info/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=72442&NrIssue=2&NrSection=1

Ninewa, Mar 11, (VOI) – Nine people, including one civilian, was killed in clashes that erupted on Tuesday morning between policemen and unidentified gunmen near a checkpoint in the eastern part of Mosul, police said.

"Unidentified gunmen clashed with Iraqi police near a checkpoint in the neighborhood of al-Mithaq, eastern Mosul, on Tuesday.

Four policemen, four gunmen and one civilian near the scene were killed in the crossfire," the source, who asked not to be named, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI)."Policemen also seized a vehicle belonging to the gunmen," the source added.Mosul, the capital of Ninewa province, lies 402 km north of Baghdad.

ROADSIDE BOMB KILLS 3 MORE U.S. SOLDIERS: 5 U.S. SOLDIERS KILLED MONDAY IN BAGHDAD

The indictment of New York Governor Elliot Spitzer on prostitution charges on Monday all but wiped off the mainstream press any coverage that five U.S. soldiers were killed in Baghdad on Monday.

On Tuesday a roadside bomb killed three more U.S. soldiers in Diyala province.

The death and violence continues to escalate in Iraq, but so far the mainstream media in the United States has chosen to ignore it.

Roadside bomb kills three U.S. soldiers in Iraq

By Mohammed Abbas 53 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iraq_dc;_ylt=AoLeJ5TdBsIaDXHkQdutSUZX6GMA

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers and an interpreter in Iraq's Diyala province on Monday, the same day a suicide bomber killed five U.S. soldiers in the capital Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.

Ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala is one of four provinces north of Baghdad where U.S. and Iraqi forces have mounted offensives this year to fight al Qaeda militants who have regrouped in the region.

The bombing in Baghdad, which the U.S. military had confirmed on Monday, was the worst single attack on U.S. forces in the capital in nearly nine months.

Also in Iraq's north, police said four Iraqi policemen, four gunmen and one civilian were killed on Tuesday in an attack on a security checkpoint in the city of Mosul, which the U.S. military says is al Qaeda's last major urban stronghold.

Monday's deaths took to at least 3,982 the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. Ten soldiers have been killed this month, compared to 81 in the whole of March 2007.

Violence across Iraq has dropped 60 percent since 30,000 extra U.S. troops became fully deployed in June, and a decision by Sunni tribal leaders to turn on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda.

But recent attacks demonstrate that Iraq is far from safe, and a suicide car bomb in Sulaimaniya on Monday showed that even Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish north, considered the most stable region of in the country, is vulnerable.

The U.S. death toll is approaching 4,000 at a time when setting a timetable for withdrawing troops has become a central issue in the presidential election campaign.

Some 2,000 U.S. soldiers are being withdrawn from Baghdad under a Pentagon plan to pull out five brigades by July 31.

U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith used his telepathic powers on Sunday to say a recent increase in bombings was not the start of a wider trend and that violence was down overall.

Click on link above to read the full story.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE IRAQI CHILDREN GONE?

A report from the non-governmental relief organisation Save the Children shows Iraq continues to have the highest mortality for children under five. Since the first Gulf War, this has increased 150 percent.

It is estimated that one in eight children in Iraq dies before the fifth birthday: 122,000 children died in 2005 alone. Iraq has a population of about 25 million.

According to a UN Children's Fund report released this month, "at least two million Iraqi children lack adequate nutrition, according to the World Food Programme assessment of food insecurity in 2006, and face a range of other threats including interrupted education, lack of immunisation services and diarrhoea diseases."

Omar Khalif is vice-president of the Iraqi Families Association (IFA), an NGO established in 2004 to register cases of the missing and trafficked. He told reporters in January that on average at least two Iraqi children are sold by their parents every week. In addition, another four are reported missing every week.

CHILDHOOD IS DYING IN IRAQ

Inter Press Service

By Dahr Jamail and Ahmed Ali*BAQUBA, Mar 10 (IPS) -

Iraq's children have been more gravely affected by the U.S. occupation than any other segment of the population.

The United Nations estimated that half a million Iraqi children died during more than 12 years of economic sanctions that preceded the U.S. invasion of March 2003, primarily as a result of malnutrition and disease.

But childhood malnutrition in Iraq has increased 9 percent since then, according to an Oxfam International report released last July.

Kidnapping of Iraqi children is common now, and many are believed to have been sold as child labourers or as sex workers.

Iraqi officials and aid workers have recently expressed concern over the alarming rate at which children are disappearing countrywide in Iraq's unstable environment.

"The numbers are alarming," Khalif said. "There is an increase of 20 percent in the reported cases of missing children over a year."

According to the UN, 17 percent of Iraqi children are permanently out of primary school, and an estimated 220,000 more are missing school because they and their families have been displaced.

That adds up to 760,000 children out of primary school in 2006.

These are in-country figures, and do not include the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and youth whose education is interrupted or ended because their families have fled to other countries.

UNHCR estimates that at least 2.25 million Iraqis have fled their country.

Click on link to read the full story.