NAMES OF LATEST GIS KILLED IN IRAQ

Up to the minute statistics on deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq including names and hometowns.

U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD:
3991
Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation:
1
Total
3992

DoD Confirmation List

Latest Coalition Fatality: Mar 19, 2008
03/19/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (2 of 2)
Spc. Christopher C. Simpson, 23, of Hampton, Va...died Mar. 17 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device during combat operations. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion...

03/19/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (1 of 2)
Staff Sgt. Michael D. Elledge, 41, of Brownsburg, Ind...died Mar. 17 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device during combat operations. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion...

03/19/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Spc. Lerando J. Brown, 27, of Gulfport, Miss., died March 15 in Balad, Iraq, from injuries suffered in an incident currently under investigation. He was assigned to the 288th Sapper Company, 223rd Engineer Battalion, Mississippi Army National Guard

03/19/08 MNF: Coalition Force Soldier killed in vehicle rollover
A Coalition Force Soldier was killed as a result of a vehicle rollover in Diyala, March 19. The incident is currently under investigation.

CORPORATE MEDIA'S VIRTUAL BLACKOUT ON IRAQ ATROCITY HEARINGS

Dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland last weekend for the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan hearings (3/13/08-3/16/08), where they offered harrowing testimony about atrocities they had witnessed or participated in directly.

By FAIR Posted on March 20, 2008, Printed on March 20, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/80410/

The BBC predicted that the event, organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, "could be dominating the headlines around the world this week" (3/7/08). The hearings were covered as far afield as the U.K. (Guardian, 3/17/08), Australia (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 3/14/08), Croatia (Javno, 3/16/08), and Iran (Press TV, 3/14/08). Yet there has been an almost complete media blackout on this historic news event in the U.S. corporate media.

Despite being noted in the New York Times' Paris-based International Herald Tribune (3/13/08), Winter Soldier has yet to be mentioned in the New York Times itself. No major U.S. newspaper has covered the hearings except as a story of local interest; the few stories major U.S. newspapers have published on the event have focused on the participation of local vets (Boston Globe, 3/16/08; Boston Herald, 3/16/08; Newsday, 3/16/08, Buffalo News, 3/16/08).The Washington Post, too, published their account in the metro section (3/15/08).

In contrast, the paper published an article about pro-war demonstrators protesting the Winter Soldier hearings in the A section (3/16/08), despite the fact that they were, according to the Post, "small in number."

Dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland last weekend for the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan hearings (3/13/08-3/16/08), where they offered harrowing testimony about atrocities they had witnessed or participated in directly.

The BBC predicted that the event, organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, "could be dominating the headlines around the world this week" (3/7/08). The hearings were covered as far afield as the U.K. (Guardian, 3/17/08), Australia (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 3/14/08), Croatia (Javno, 3/16/08), and Iran (Press TV, 3/14/08).

Yet there has been an almost complete media blackout on this historic news event in the U.S. corporate media.

Despite being noted in the New York Times' Paris-based International Herald Tribune (3/13/08), Winter Soldier has yet to be mentioned in the New York Times itself. No major U.S. newspaper has covered the hearings except as a story of local interest; the few stories major U.S. newspapers have published on the event have focused on the participation of local vets (Boston Globe, 3/16/08; Boston Herald, 3/16/08; Newsday, 3/16/08, Buffalo News, 3/16/08).
The Washington Post, too, published their account in the metro section (3/15/08). In contrast, the paper published an article about pro-war demonstrators protesting the Winter Soldier hearings in the A section (3/16/08), despite the fact that they were, according to the Post, "small in number."

None of the major broadcast TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) have mentioned the hearings in their newscasts. PBS has been silent as well.

But for a couple of exceptions (Time, 3/15/08; NPR, 3/16/08), the hearings have been virtually ignored by all but the independent media (Democracy Now!, 3/14/08; 3/17-19/08; In These Times, 3/17/08; Alternet, 3/14-3/18/08) and military publications (Stars and Stripes, 3/15/08 and the four Military Times newsweeklies, 3/15/08, 3/17/08), in a pattern reminiscent of the near complete corporate media blackout on the first Winter Soldier hearings. FAIR founder Jeff Cohen (Huffington Post, 3/16/08) traces the beginning of his career as a media critic back to his experience of watching as “one of the rare mainstream camera crews showed up at Winter Soldier ... and then abruptly packed up to leave in the middle of particularly gripping testimony.”
While the testimony of soldiers who had served multiple tours of duty was broadcast on Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now!, Free Speech TV, and the Real News network, the major broadcast networks and PBS instead devoted airtime to the pro-war assessments of Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain, both of whom have only made brief visits to Iraq (NBC Nightly News, ABC World News, CBS Evening News, PBS NewsHour, all 3/17/08).

Given the common media rhetoric of "supporting the troops" to ignore these same troops when they speak out about the horrors of the war is unconscionable. On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, it is particularly important that the media reverse this silence, and include the voices of the vets who are speaking out about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan in national news coverage.
Read more at Fair.org.

12 GIS ELECTROCUTED IN IRAQ BY FORMER HALLIBURTON SUBSIDIARY UNDER INVESTIGATION

Vice President Dick Cheney was once CEO of Halliburton and one of Halliburton's former subsidiaries, KBR, is at the center of a probe that at least a dozen soldiers and Marines have been electrocuted in Iraq since the war began due to the improper grounding of electrical wires.

KBR was recently in the headlines for supplying contaminated water to troops in Iraq.

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/

IRAQ -- KBR CITED IN PROBE OF ACCIDENTAL ELECTROCUTIONS IN IRAQ: The Houston Chronicle reported last night that "[a]t least a dozen soldiers and Marines have been electrocuted in Iraq over the five years of the war" and that "investigators now are trying to learn what role improper grounding of electrical wires played in those deaths."

At the center of the probe is private contractor KBR, a company that not only dodged $500 million in Medicare and Social Security taxes but also provided "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water to U.S. troops in Iraq.

A soldier who was electrocuted last January while taking a shower prompted the investigation. The Army originally said he "had a small, electrical appliance with him in the shower" but further investigation by the soldier's mother revealed his death resulted in faulty wiring and that KBR had been contracted to provide maintenance on the building. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) recently wrote Defense Secretary Robert Gates seeking details of the investigation. Noting a 2004 Army-issued safety warning regarding improper grounding of electrical wires, Waxman asked, "You wonder how it even could happen one time. But if a tragedy does occur once -- because of a mistake -- how could it possibly occur 12 times?"

U.S. ARMY KILLS 6 IRAQI CIVILIANS

Samarra, Mar 20, (VOI)- Six civilians were killed when the U.S. army shelled their vehicle near Samarra, while U.S. forces said that they targeted a number of suspected gunmen in southwest Samarra, a police source said on Thursday.


Salah al-Din - Voices of Iraq Thursday , 20 /03 /2008 Time 10:20:26

http://www.aswataliraq.info/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=73595&NrIssue=2&NrSection=1

“A U.S. aircraft on Wednesday opened fire on a civilian vehicle on the main road linking between Samarra and Tikrit, killing six civilians,” the source, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq –(VOI).“Coalition forces targeted several suspected improvised explosive deviceemplacers southwest of Samarra Wednesday,” Abdullatif Rayan, the media advisor for the Multi-National Force (MNF) in Iraq, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).

“During the operation, Coalition forces engaged two terrorists observed planting an IED in the road, killing them. The assault force also engaged a vehicle believed to be associated with the group,” he added.“Coalition forces were engaged by small-arms fire by one of the occupants.

Responding in self-defense, Coalition forces returned fire, killing four terrorists,” Rayan explained.“The vehicle, which contained rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, land mines, homemadeexplosives, and other IED-making materials, was destroyed by a fixed-wing aircraft to prevent further use for terrorist activity,” he noted.Samarra, Salah al-Din province, lies 120 km north of Baghdad.

"A WAR OF UTTER FOLLY"---HANS BLIX: FORMER UN WEAPONS INSPECTOR

Iraq: Five years on
A war of utter folly

Responsibility for this spectacular tragedy must lie with those who ignored the facts five years ago

Hans Blix

The Guardian,

Thursday March 20 2008

This article appeared in the Guardian on Thursday March 20 2008 on p41 of the Comment & debate section. It was last updated at 00:15 on March 20 2008.

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a tragedy - for Iraq, for the US, for the UN, for truth and human dignity. I can only see one gain: the end of Saddam Hussein, a murderous tyrant. Had the war not finished him he would, in all likelihood, have become another Gadafy or Castro; an oppressor of his own people but no longer a threat to the world. Iraq was on its knees after a decade of sanctions.

The elimination of weapons of mass destruction was the declared main aim of the war. It is improbable that the governments of the alliance could have sold the war to their parliaments on any other grounds. That they believed in the weapons' existence in the autumn of 2002 is understandable. Why had the Iraqis stopped UN inspectors during the 90s if they had nothing to hide? Responsibility for the war must rest, though, on what those launching it knew by March 2003.

By then, Unmovic inspectors had carried out some 700 inspections at 500 sites without finding prohibited weapons. The contract that George Bush held up before Congress to show that Iraq was purchasing uranium oxide was proved to be a forgery. The allied powers were on thin ice, but they preferred to replace question marks with exclamation marks.

They could not succeed in eliminating WMDs because they did not exist. Nor could they succeed in the declared aim to eliminate al-Qaida operators, because they were not in Iraq. They came later, attracted by the occupants. A third declared aim was to bring democracy to Iraq, hopefully becoming an example for the region. Let us hope for the future; but five years of occupation has clearly brought more anarchy than democracy.

Increased safety for Israel might have been an undeclared US aim. If so, it is hard to see that anything was gained by a war which has strengthened Iran.

There are other troubling legacies of the Iraq war. It is a setback in the world's efforts to develop legal restraints on the use of armed force between states. In 1945 the US helped to write into the UN charter a prohibition of the use of armed force against states. Exceptions were made only for self-defence against armed attacks and for armed force authorised by the security council. In 2003, Iraq was not a real or imminent threat to anybody. Instead, the invasion reflects a claim made in the 2002 US national security strategy that the charter was too restrictive, and that the US was ready to use armed force to meet threats that were uncertain as to time and place - a doctrine of preventive war.

In the 2004 presidential election campaign, Bush ridiculed any idea that the US would need to ask for a "permission slip" before taking military action against a "growing threat". True, the 2003 Iraq invasion is not the only case in which armed force has been used in disregard of the charter. However, from the most powerful member of the UN it is a dangerous signal. If preventive war is accepted for one, it is accepted for all.

One fear is that the UN rules ignored in the attack on Iraq will prove similarly insignificant in the case of Iran. But it may be that the spectacular failure of ensuring disarmament by force, and of introducing democracy by occupation, will work in favour of a greater use of diplomacy and "soft power". Justified concerns about North Korea and Iran have led the US, as well as China, Russia and European states, to examine what economic and other non-military inducements they may use to ensure that these two states do not procure nuclear weapons. Washington and Moscow must begin nuclear disarmament. So long as these nuclear states maintain that these weapons are indispensable to their security, it is not surprising that others may think they are useful. What, really, is the alternative: invasion and occupation, as in Iraq?

· Hans Blix was head of UN inspections in Iraq in 2003 secretariat@wmdcommission.org

DEATHS OF MORE GIS IN IRAQ: VIOLENCE CONTINUES THROUGHOUT IRAQ

Now that the Fifth Anniversary of the Iraq War has come and gone, the mainstream media---especially FOX NEWS---can get back to their main stock in trade, race baiting. In fact, FOX NEWS has devoted almost ALL of their programming to the dust up over Barak Obama's former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Jr. The so-called news organization expresses their outrage at Rev. Wright's previous statements, but once you scrape away the phony veneer it is obvious FOX NEWS is only putting on display their own brand of RACISM as a way of further dividing Americans along racial lines.

This former reporter and columnist and a former member of the U.S. Army Combat Engineers and a Korean War veteran believes there are far more important issues to report than going over and over the same tapes of Reverend Wright's rants from the pulpit even though they were totally inappropriate.

DEATH is not taking a holiday in Iraq and we have a list of GIs killed in the past few days as well as a laundry list of violence in Iraq and Afghanistan which makes anything President Bush, Vice President Cheney and General Petraeus say sound like they have lost their minds.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of this blog.

War News for Thursday, March 20, 2008

MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Coalition Force Soldier in a vehicle rollover in an Diyala Province on Wednesday, March 19th. The incident is currently under investigation. No other details were released.

The DoD is reporting a new death previously unreported by CENTCOM. Spc. Lerando J. Brown died from injuries suffered in an incident currently under investigation in Balad, Iraq on Saturday, March 15th. No other details were released. World Now/WLOX TV 13 is reporting that he died of a gunshot wound to the chest according to his family.

NATO is reporting the death of an ISAF soldier from a workplace accident in Nawa District, Ghazni Province.on Wednesday, March 19th. No other details were released. We assume this to be an American soldier.

Security incidents:Baghdad:#1: A roadside bomb exploded in Zafaraniyah, southeast Baghdad at around 10 am today. No casualties were reported.

Diyala Prv:#1: A booby trapped house at a water treatment plant killed an Iraqi Army soldier and wounded another in Diyala yesterday, March 19, said a US military release today.The Iraqi soldiers were conducting a clearing mission in the water treatment plant when one of the soldiers triggered a booby-trapped wardrobe door.

Diwaniya:#1: Two policemen were wounded in an attack by unidentified gunmen on an Iraqi security center in Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, while two suspects were arrested on alleged connection to the attack, a police source said. A security centre came last night under an attack with RPGs by unidentified gunmen in al-Wahda quarter, southern Diwaniya, wounding two policemen," Colonel Ghassan Mohammed told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq.

#2: Meanwhile, the same source told VOI that a police vehicle patrol came under small-arm fire lat night in al-Zuhur neighborhood, southeastern Diwaniya, with no casualties.

Kut:#1: One policeman was killed on Thursday by gunfire from unknown armed men at the center of Kut city."Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a policeman, near to Al-Batol Hospital – city center, killing him immediately," a security source at Wassit police told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI) on condition on anonymity.

Samarra:#1: Six civilians were killed when the U.S. army shelled their vehicle near Samarra, while U.S. forces said that they targeted a number of suspected gunmen in southwest Samarra, a police source said on Thursday.

Baiji:#1: Unknown gunmen abducted a senior official of an Iraqi ministry near a town in Salahudin province, a provincial police source said on Thursday. "Ra'ad Shallal al-Hadithi, an advisor for the electricity minister, was kidnapped on Wednesday afternoon when armed men set up a faked checkpoint and intercepted his car in a desert area on the main road west of the town of Beiji, some 200 km north of Baghdad," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Kirkuk:#1: An authorized source from Kirkuk's police said that an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded on Thursday near to the Turkman's Front's Headquarter in the city, without causing any casualties. Police forces arrested one man suspected of conducting this incident that took place near a gasoline station, at the center of the city. "The explosion was remotely controlled, and it took place near Oqba bin Nafi'a gasoline station, on the highway that leads to Baghdad, and near to the Turkman's Front HQ, without causing any casualties, but shops nearby were damaged," the source said to Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq –

Mosul:#1: A parked car bomb exploded in al-Khansaa neighbourhood, Mosul at 2 pm killing 3 civilians, injuring 7.

#2: An improvised explosive device went off in al-Nabi Younes region in eastern Mosul targeting a police vehicle patrol, killing a cop,” the source, who asked not to be named, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq

#3: Another policeman was wounded when a police force detonated a car bomb, parked in al-Sukar neighborhood, northern Mosul,” he added.“The police detonated the car remotely, however the cop was wounded,” he explained.

Sulaimaniyah Prv:#1: Sulaimaniyah Police found an unidentified body at the foot of Goezha Mountain Thursday morning. The body was of a young male wearing black garments.

Kurdistan:#1: Turkish television says Turkish warplanes have bombed Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq. Private NTV television says the planes flew reconnaissance flights over the border area before bombing targets of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. NTV says there were no reports of injuries to civilians. The station was citing Iraqi Kurdish officials.

Afghanistan:#1: NATO-led troops killed a police officer and wounded another in southern Afghanistan, a police chief said Thursday. The policemen were patrolling in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, when NATO troops opened fire on them late on Wednesday, said provincial police chief Mohammad Hussein Andiwal. Shooting left one police dead and another wounded, Andiwal said.

#2: A suicide car bomb killed five Pakistani soldiers Thursday near the Afghan border, the military said. Another nine soldiers were wounded in the attack in South Waziristan's main town of Wana, Pakistan's military said in a statement.

IRAQ SURGE HAS FAILED IN ITS MAIN PURPOSE

Here we are in the final throes of the Bush administration and someone has foolishly let Darth Cheney off his leash again.

Joseph L. Galloway McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/30998.html

He immediately set off on a celebratory visit to Baghdad to praise the “huge accomplishment” of increased security wrought by the now-ending surge in the number of American troops. A large “BOOM” or two marked his pronouncements and another 40 Iraqi civilians died at the hands of a suicide bomber.

The vice president swiftly got down to repeating one of the old lies he loves so well, telling us how Iraq and the late dictator Saddam Hussein were connected to the events of 9/11.

Next door in Jordan the putative Republican nominee for president, Sen. John McCain, on his way home from his own personal tour of Baghdad, repeated for the second day in a row a charge that Iran was training al Qaida terrorists and then sending them back to Iraq. At the urging of fellow senator Joe Lieberman he quickly corrected that to say that Iran was training Iraqi insurgents.

But for the traveling politicians and this week’s fifth anniversary of our invasion and occupation of Iraq the war would have continued to be missing in action from network and cable television and the front pages of our newspapers, as well as from the attention of most Americans.

After all, who has time to think about our wars when we have the ongoing road show as the last two Democrats still standing in their party’s nomination process do personal battle, the state of New York struggles to find a governor who can keep his zipper closed and the nation’s economy is melting down quicker than Chernobyl’s reactors.

Everyone seems content to think about anything but Iraq until Gen. David Petraeus journeys back to Washington in April to give a report on the surge’s successes and how they must be guarded by keeping 130,000 U.S. troops on the ground indefinitely — an idea embraced by President George W. Bush, Cheney and McCain.

None of those worthies took note, in their praise of the surge, about the failure of its main purpose. The surge was intended as a short-term escalation of troop strength to buy a bubble of better security so the Iraqi government and parliament could make progress toward reconciliation among its own warring, revenge-minded communities.

They got their improvements in the Baghdad security environment thanks in part to the surge, but also thanks to the completion of ethnic cleansing in some of the worst neighborhoods in the capital and tactical decisions taken by Sunni tribal insurgents and Shiite cleric Moktada al Sadr and his murderous Mahdi militia.

The weak central government of Prime Minister Nour al Maliki has achieved little or nothing in reassuring the Sunni minority — newly and temporarily aligned with the American forces they once attacked and killed — that they will have a future and a fair shake in the new Iraq.

For the Shiite majority and their various factions running the government it’s been business as usual, siphoning off billions of dollars of domestic oil earnings and American aid intended to pay for rebuilding basic services like clean water and electricity for more than a few hours each day.

In the Shiite south of the country, with its vital oilfields and oil shipment facilities, an internecine struggle for control quietly rages and agents of the Iranian ayatollahs expand their influence and capacity for making real trouble.

In the north, where the country’s other oilfields and refinery are located, Kurds maneuver for control of the city of Mosul and those oil facilities while keeping a nervous eye on neighboring Turkey which recently mounted large cross-border raids against Kurdish guerrillas.

Meantime, some in our military worry that the Iraqi insurgents may use Gen. Petraeus’ high profile visit to Washington next month to launch coordinated attacks timed for maximum damage, maximum embarrassment and maximum impact on the American election campaign.

Some may find cause for celebration in the partial successes achieved in Iraq but I have a nervous feeling that those celebrating are the same people who are comforted by the knowledge that President Bush and his appointees are working overtime to contain the damage done by that little setback in our economy.

SHOCKING VIDEO FROM REUTERS OF THE HORRORS OF IRAQ WAR ON THE CHILDREN OF BAGHDAD

http://iraq.reuters.com/ (click on this link to play video)

BEARING WITNESS is the gut-wrenching video account of the Iraq War as seen through the eyes of Reuters foreign correspondents. Following the introduction segment, there is a video listed under "profile" that graphically shows the horrors of war, especially on Iraqi children. One 12-year old Iraqi boy is shown with both his arms blown off and severe burns on his body and as the camera zooms in you can see a tear running down his cheek.

The video does not hold back relating how American gunships missed their target in Baghdad and instead fired into civilian homes. You see the bodies of the dead Iraqi civilians strewn all over the street and one Iraqi women saying all three of her sons were killed when the American gunships missed their intended target.

As you look at this video, I suggest you think of what Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday in Baghdad when a reporter asked him how he felt about how Americans are opposed to the war. Cheney's flip answer was; "SO?"

Or perhaps as you see the death and devastation in Baghdad, you can think of President Bush boasting yesterday about how well things were going in Iraq, or maybe you can think of him clowning around and doing his version of a soft-shoe dance as he waited for Republican Presidential candidate John McCain to arrive at the White House.

And finally, as you watch the "profile" section of this video think of how FOX NEWS has dismissed virtually all coverage of the Iraq war, and when they do cover the Iraq War they come up with puff pieces that are a total insult to anyone with an IQ over 75.