THE TRUTH ABOUT VIOLENCE IN IRAQ FOR CONSERVATIVE RADIO'S HUGH HEWITT

Conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt told a nation-wide ABC NEWS audience on Sunday's "This Week with George Stephanopolous" that Iraq is peaceful and quiet as the result of the success of "the surge."

If that is so, why is this happening in Iraq on Sunday and Monday?

Source: http://antiwar.com/
Click on BLUE for more details on each violent incident


Monday: 14 Iraqis Killed, 12 Wounded
An intimidation campaign against Iraqi judges resumed today when a series of bombs targeted a number of them at their homes in eastern Baghdad. Across Iraq, at least 14 Iraqis were killed and 12 more were injured during the latest round of violence.

The handover of security to Iraqi forces in the province of Qadisiyah was delayed due to bad weather. The Polish Press Agency reported that terrorism concerns were behind the delay as well.

In Baghdad, a series of five separate bombs targeted the homes of several Iraqi judges in eastern Baghdad, at least one of their wives was injured. Conflicting reports have noted more casualties.

A bomb in Waziriya injured one judge, his wife, and one of their sons. In what may be the same incident, another judge, his wife and his daughter were injured in Binouk. Another judge was injured when a bomb planted in his car blew up. A judge was gunned down only a few days ago.

Also in the capital, Iraqi forces killed two gunmen during a security operation.

A bomb in Kadhimiya killed one civilian and wounded three others. Gunmen raided a Minister's Council employee, but no casualties were reported. A car blew up in Adhimiya, then a body was discovered in it.

In Mosul, gunmen killed two Iraqi soldiers at a checkpoint. Two bodies, one belonging to a soldier, were discovered separately. Also, three Iraqi soldiers were wounded in an IED explosion.

A man was wounded in Mahaweel when gunmen opened fire on him.


Sunday: 39 Iraqis Killed, 20 Wounded
Updated at 6:09 p.m. EDT, June 29, 2008

A mass grave gave up 20 more bodies a day after its discovery near Lake Tharthar. Overall, at least 39 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 20 more were wounded in attacks. No Coalition deaths were reported.

Twenty more bodies were recovered from a mass grave discovered in the Lake Tharthar region. The total is now up to 50 dead.

A suicide bomber in Duluiya killed seven people and wounded three more.
Seven people were wounded in Kirkuk when a bomb targeting a police patrol blasted a minibus instead. Six of the dead were policemen and the seventh was an Awakening Council (Sahwa) member.

Gunmen wounded three farmers walking to their orchard in Khalis.

A female suicide bomber injured three Sahwa members in Muqdadiyah.

In Baquba, a roadside bomb injured the driver of a vehicle that struck it. Four dumped bodies were found.

An off-duty policeman was shot and killed outside his home in Mosul. Also, over 1200 detainees were released, but the time period in which the prisoners were freed was not reported. The majority of the prisoners were innocent of charges.

In Baghdad, gunmen killed the head of Basra intelligence department. A bomb planted on a vehicle in Habibiya was successfully defused. Three security personnel were injured during operations.

In Udhaim, a mortar shell killed two women and a child. U.S. forces discovered two buildings rigged to explode elsewhere. The buildings were safely brought down.

U.S. forces killed two suspects and arrested 15 more across central and northern Iraq.
In the Tigris River Valley, nine suspects were detained.

A curfew is in effect for Diwaniya as they prepare to accept responsibility for security from U.S. forces.

So, MR HEWITT, why don't you ask George Stephanopolous if you can go on his ABC NEWS "This Week" show next Sunday to spread more LIES.

BOMB ATTACKS TARGET IRAQ JUDGES: RIGHT WING RADIO HOST HUGH HEWITT MISLEADS ABC "THIS WEEK" AUDIENCE ABOUT IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

Last Sunday I watched in total disbelief as right wing radio host Hugh Hewitt told the ABC "This Week with George Stephanopolous" audience that both Iraq and Afghanistan have been brought under control.

I was stunned that Stephanolpolus or none of his guests challenged Hewitt's outlandish statement which was a flat out LIE.

Day after day on this blog I report acts of violence that are taking place every single day in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What bothers me the most about Hugh Hewitt's statement is that not ONE person on the ABC Sunday morning panel challenged him with facts which would show he was lying through his teeth.

Hewitt is like FOX NEWS, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Michael Savage and the rest of the right wing blowhards who continue to LIE to their audiences about conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When is the mainstream media going to point out people like Hugh Hewitt haven't got a clue what they are talking about?

COMMENTARY BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE

Bomb attacks target Iraqi judges in Baghdad

www.chinaview.cn 2008-06-30 16:12:07
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/30/content_8465617.htm

Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

BAGHDAD, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Three bomb attacks targeted Iraqi judges on Monday morning, wounding one of them while two others escaped unhurt, an Interior Ministry source said.
"Judge Ghanim Abdullah al-Shimmary, his wife and daughter were wounded when a bomb detonated inside his house in Baghdad's eastern neighborhood of Bunoog," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Shimmary is working in the court of the Sadr City neighborhood, the Shiite stronghold of Mahdi Army militia loyal to the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, the source said.
All the wounded, including Shimmary, were transported to a nearby hospital for treatment, the source said.
Another bomb attack occurred when a roadside bomb detonated outside the house of Judge Ali al-Allaf, near the Palestine Street in eastern Baghdad, the source added.
Allaf escaped unhurt, while the blast caused minor damages to his house, he said.
A third bomb blast occurred near the house of Judge Alla Hussein Salih in Baghdad's southern neighborhood of Ghadeer, causing damages to his house and several nearby civilian cars, he added.
It was the fourth attack in less than a week against Iraqi Judges when unknown gunmen shot dead judge Kamel al-Shewaily, head of the al-Rasafa court of appeal, on Thursday in eastern Baghdad.

U.S. IS PAYING $500.000 A MONTH TO LOCAL IRAQI TRIBESMAN TO KEEP PEACE

You will NEVER hear FOX NEWS or the rest of the right wing media talk about how the U.S. government is paying local Iraqi tribesman $500,000 a month to try and keep peace in Anbar Province and in Baghdad.

All the phony right wing "news organizations" like FOX NEWS do is talk about the success of the "surge" in Iraq.

If someone held a .45 to the head of every news editor, producer and anchor person at FOX NEWS they still couldn't tell the truth about IRAQ.

The FOX NEWS sycophants march in lockstep with Bush and Cheney never telling the TRUTH about what is REALLY happening in IRAQ.

Here is just one example of what we mean:

Program in Iraq against al-Qaida faces uncertainty

US program to sponsor fighters in Iraq against al-Qaida faces uncertain future

HAMZA HENDAWIAP News
Jun 29, 2008 14:50 EST
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=232119

Capt. David N. Simms wanted the tribal sheiks to have no doubts — the $500,000 his unit spends every month to pay and equip local tribesmen to keep peace here will soon run out and they had better be ready when it's gone.

Simms handed the sheiks 600 applications for a vocational school in nearby Baghdad. It's one option, he said, to prepare the men for life after he stops giving them salaries.

The "Sons of Iraq" are the estimated 80,000 fighters — mostly Sunni tribesmen and former insurgents — recruited and paid by the U.S. military to help fight al-Qaida and maintain security in neighborhoods, including this Sunni farming community west of Baghdad.

The program has been a remarkable success, helping reduce violence across the country by 80 percent since early 2007 at the cost of $216 million to date.

Nearly two years into the program, however, the U.S. is gradually handing over responsibility for the Sons of Iraq to the Shiite-led government. By January, the military hopes to turn the entire program over to the Iraqis.

But the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been reluctant to absorb large numbers of armed Sunnis into the Shiite-dominated security forces. American officials fear that many of the U.S.-backed fighters may turn their guns on the government unless jobs can be found for them.

"If we don't find work for the men, it will work against us," said Asaad Nawar al-Ameen, a retired general in Saddam's army who heads the Sons of Iraq in Radwaniyah. "Al-Qaida can get them."

The government already has accepted nearly 20 percent of Sons in Iraq members in the security forces and is pledging to find civilian jobs for most of the rest.

Meanwhile, it has introduced "support councils" made up of trusted tribal chiefs and their followers to support the security forces.

But that move is seen by leaders of the Sons of Iraq as an attempt to sideline them at a time when some of them are complaining that the Americans are abandoning them to a government they don't trust.

CNN REPORTS: U.S. "PREPARING BATTLEFIELD" FOR WAR WITH IRAN

This CNN report dovetails with the post just below this on my blog where I report on how Iran is digging 320,000 graves in preparation for war with the United States.

It is no longer a question of whether we will be going to war with Iran, but when.

President Bush and Vice President Cheney continue to reject every possible way to avoid war with Iran just as they did with Iraq and before leaving office in January Bush and Cheney are going to see to it that the United States goes to war with Iran.

CNN is reporting the following:

Report: U.S. 'preparing the battlefield' in Iran
Story Highlights
New Yorker article says Congress authorized up to $400 million for covert ops in Iran
Journalist Seymour Hersh says program is being staged from Afghanistan
U.S. officials decline comment, deny the U.S. is launching raids from Iraq
Iranian general says troops are building graves for invaders in the event of war

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/29/us.iran/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration has launched a "significant escalation" of covert operations in Iran, sending U.S. commandos to spy on the country's nuclear facilities and undermine the Islamic republic's government, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.
White House, CIA and State Department officials declined comment on Hersh's report, which appears in this week's issue of The New Yorker.

Hersh told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" that Congress has authorized up to $400 million to fund the secret campaign, which involves U.S. special operations troops and Iranian dissidents.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have rejected findings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has halted a clandestine effort to build a nuclear bomb and "do not want to leave Iran in place with a nuclear program," Hersh said.

"They believe that their mission is to make sure that before they get out of office next year, either Iran is attacked or it stops its weapons program," Hersh said.

The new article, "Preparing the Battlefield," is the latest in a series of articles accusing the Bush administration of preparing for war with Iran.

Click on link to read more....

IRAN IS DIGGING 320,000 GRAVES FOR INVADERS-MILITARY OFFICIAL

TEHRAN, June 29 (Xinhua) -- A senior Iranian military official said on Sunday the Islamic republic is digging some 320,000 graves in its border provinces for future slain invaders, Iran's English-language satellite channel Press TV reported.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/30/content_8459225.htm

Iran's Armed Forces headquarters has approved the plan to dig graves for enemy forces in case of any attack on its territory, said Brigadier General Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh, head of the Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holy Defense.

"We do not wish the families of enemy soldiers to experience what Americans had to go through in the aftermath of the Vietnam War," said Baqerzadeh, who is also head of Iran's search committee for missing soldiers.

The preemptive measures would decrease the time during which slain soldiers would be buried, the Iranian military official said, adding "the burial of slain soldiers will be carried out decently and in little time."

Click on link above to continue reading.

Thanks to Lori Price at http://www.legitgov.org/ for heads up on this story

WASHINGTON POST IS REPORTING SUNDAY IRAQ OFFICIALS FURIOUS WITH U.S. OVER RAID THAT KILLED RELATIVE OF PRIME MINISTER AL MALIKI

Reported U.S. Raid Triggers Outrage

By Ernesto Londoño and Saad SarhanWashington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 29, 2008; A13

BAGHDAD, June 28 -- Iraqi officials in the home town of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are calling for an investigation into a reported raid by the U.S. military early Friday that resulted in the death of a man identified by some Iraqi officials as a relative of the prime minister.

The raid was carried out shortly after midnight in the town of Hindiyah, 50 miles southwest of Baghdad in Karbala province. According to Iraqi officials in Karbala, a team of about 60 U.S. soldiers traveling in four helicopters descended on a sparsely populated area a few miles from the town, where the prime minister owns a villa.

"We are shocked by the news of the raid," Karbala Gov. Aqeel al-Khazaly said at a news conference Friday afternoon. "The aerial landing and subsequent operations led to the death of an innocent civilian and the arrest of another."

Karbala is one of nine Iraqi provinces where the U.S. military has handed over responsibility for security to local officials. Khazaly, who has been a U.S. ally, said Iraqi officials were not notified about the operation and called it a violation of the handover agreement.

WAR WITH IRAN IS GETTING CLOSER. U.S. STEPS UP COVERT OPERATIONS AGAINST IRAN

U.S. escalating covert operations against Iran: report

Sunday, June 29, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. congressional leaders agreed late last year to President George W. Bush's funding request for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran aimed at destabilizing its leadership, according to a report in The New Yorker magazine published online on Sunday.

The article by reporter Seymour Hersh, from the magazine's July 7 and 14 issue, centers around a highly classified Presidential Finding signed by Bush which by U.S. law must be made known to Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders and ranking members of the intelligence committees.

"The Finding was focused on undermining Iran's nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change," the article cited a person familiar with its contents as saying, and involved "working with opposition groups and passing money."

SUNDAY MORNING BREAKING NEWS: TRUCK BOMB KILLS 7 NEAR BAGHDAD

Truck bomb kills 7 in Iraq

The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 06/29/2008 01:29:34 AM PDT

BAGHDAD—Police say a truck bomb has killed seven people in Iraq.
Police Col. Mohammed Khalid says the truck was detonated by remote control Sunday when police and security guards went to check the vehicle. The truck had been parked along the side of a road in Duluiyah, about 45 miles north of Baghdad.
Six of the dead were policemen and the seventh was a member of the local awakening council—volunteers who have turned against the insurgents.

WASHINGTON POST: ARMY'S POST-SADDAM PLAN IS WRECKING ARMY NATIONAL GUARD AND ARMY RESERVES

Army's History of Iraq After Hussein Faults Pentagon

By Josh WhiteWashington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 29, 2008; A03
http://tinyurl.com/4ja8tm

A new Army history of the service's performance in Iraq immediately after the fall of Saddam Hussein faults military and civilian leaders for their planning for the war's aftermath, and it suggests that the Pentagon's current way of using troops is breaking the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.

The study, "On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign," is an unclassified and unhindered look at U.S. Army operations in Iraq from May 2003 to January 2005. That critical era of the war has drawn widespread criticism because of a failure to anticipate the rise of an Iraqi insurgency and because policymakers provided too few U.S. troops and no strategy to maintain order after Iraq's decades-old regime was overthrown.

Donald P. Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese, who authored the report along with the Army's Contemporary Operations Study Team, conclude that U.S. commanders and civilian leaders were too focused on only the military victory and lacked a realistic vision of what Iraq would look like following that triumph.

"The transition to a new campaign was not well thought out, planned for, and prepared for before it began," write Wright and Reese, historians at the Army's Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. "Additionally, the assumptions about the nature of post-Saddam Iraq on which the transition was planned proved to be largely incorrect."

The results of those errors, they add, were that U.S. forces and their allies lacked an operational and strategic plan for success in Iraq, as well as the resources to carry out a plan.

Continue reading story here: http://tinyurl.com/4ja8tm

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN IRAQ FRIGHTENED AS VIOLENCE INCREASES

Too bad FOX NEWS and the rest of the mainstream media don't try telling the college students of Iraq how violence is down.

They might get and earful or worse.

University students in Ninewa frightened as violence increases

Ninewa - Voices of Iraq
Saturday , 28 /06 /2008 Time 1:09:22
http://tinyurl.com/3u3ypu

Mosul, Jun 27, (VOI) – Operations conducted by gunmen or security forces that target university students in Ninewa province have recently increased.

This phenomenon made university professors, governmental officials, as well as students themselves fear the violence that target this social category.

Within 10 days, two students were killed inside the Mosul University's compound by security forces, claiming that the two were important wanted elements. On last Monday, another student was killed by unknown gunmen when he was on his way out of Mosul University.

Four students were kidnapped by unknown gunmen, when the students were on their way to take the final exams at Mosul University (al-Majmoaa al-Thaqafia neighborhood in northern Mosul).

Continue reading story here http://tinyurl.com/3u3ypu

U.S. PAYS RAG-TAG FORCE $300 A MONTH TO GUARD SADR CITY

Rag-tag force watches over Iraq militia hotspot

U.S.-funded patrols feature ex-militants, AK-47s, vodka-branded ball caps

The poor, east Baghdad slum of two million people has largely been outside the government's control for years.

U.S. forces are paying local residents $300 a month to guard their area and search vehicles for guns or explosives.

The neighborhood guard in Sadr City is the first attempt to set up such a force in the Baghdad stronghold of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia.

Reuters
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25384295/

BAGHDAD - A rag-tag band of men toting AK-47s at a checkpoint in Baghdad's Sadr City forms part of a plan to strengthen the Iraqi army's hold over a bastion of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The men, wearing tan uniforms and baseball caps with "Smirnoff" inexplicably blazoned across them, belong to one of the first groups of a new neighborhood guard to take to the streets of the sprawling district under a U.S.-funded program.

U.S.-backed neighborhood patrol units, sometimes called "Sons of Iraq", have spread in mainly Sunni Arab areas of Iraq to beef up security and combat al-Qaida insurgents.
The U.S. military says such groups helped cut violence in Iraq to its lowest level in more than four years in May.

WE HAD TO GO TO GREAT BRITAIN TO FIND OUT IRAQI PARLIAMENT IS NOT MEETING THE BUSH BENCHMARKS, AND WON'T BY THE TIME HE LEAVES OFFICE

As we have been reporting on this blog for months, the mainstream press in the United States has put the Iraq War on the back burner and in so doing they are covering for the Bush administration and the failure of the Iraqi Parliament to meet any of the benchmarks set down by President Bush months and months ago.

In fact, the Guardian U.K. newspaper is reporting in their Saturday edition that three of major benchmarks Bush wanted will not be met by the time he leaves office in next January.

The only time the media, especially FOX NEWS, gets around to reporting on Iraq is when some military action has liberated a town or city in Iraq, but the Iraq war is no longer a military action but one of reconciliation of the Iraqi government and that is still a pipe dream.

So FOX NEWS and the others can prattle on about how wonderful things are in Anbar Province, but none of that means a thing because the Iraqi government is a government in name only and has yet to accomplish anything significant.

The following story from the Guardian U.K. spells out the problems the next President of the United States is going to have because President Bush is going to leave in his lap a total mess in Iraq when it comes to reaching any of the benchmarks.

Iraqi MPs stall deals on Bush benchmarks

Provincial elections likely to be delayed until 2009 · Suspicion of foreign firms slows progress on oil

Jonathan Steele
The Guardian,
Saturday June 28, 2008
Article history

Three key US-backed measures on oil, provincial elections and the future of US troops are mired in the Iraqi parliament, raising doubts as to whether they can come into effect before George Bush leaves office.

Once listed as a crucial "benchmark" allowing the US president to claim success in Iraq, the provincial elections look likely to be delayed until next year. The oil law, which nationalist MPs blocked last summer over fears that foreign companies would take over Iraq's major resource, is facing the same problem again.

The pact to permit US troops to remain in Iraq is equally sensitive, and was described by the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, this month as being in stalemate. Intensive US-Iraqi talks on new drafts have resumed and, after meeting Bush in the White House this week, President Jalal Talabani tried to sound optimistic. "We have very good, important steps towards reaching to finalise this agreement," he said. Many MPs complain that it will give the US excessive rights.
David Satterfield, the US state department's senior adviser for Iraq, refused to put a date on finishing the talks. "No agreement will be reached unless it meets Iraq's requirements with respect to sovereignty, authority and decision, and unless Iraq's leaders believe this is an agreement they can defend to their people," he said.

He appeared to confirm Iraq's oil minister Hussain al-Shahristani's disclosure to the Guardian last week that Iraq was insisting on a veto of US military operations, including the arrest of Iraqis. "We respect, we acknowledge the primacy of that Iraqi sovereignty, that Iraqi national decision ... They certainly inform the context of the Iraqi positions."

The pact will allow US bases in the country, even though they may fly the Iraqi flag. Many Iraqis fear that the US wants a long-term presence. "We very much see these arrangements as transitional," Satterfield said.

Meanwhile, chances for the provincial polls to take place this year hang in the balance. Satterfield said: "The elections law really must be complete by the end of July because there's a specific timeframe for other steps that must be taken."

Unlike the closed lists used in 2005, which helped big parties, a consensus is emerging for a hybrid system. Voters will be able to elect independents and rather than selecting an entire party list, they will have to mark each preferred candidate so the top names have no advantage.

Elections in the disputed city of Kirkuk are likely to be deferred. Kurds, Arabs, and Turkomans cannot agree on registration lists because Saddam Hussein displaced thousands of Kurds and brought in Arab settlers. Each community claims to have a demographic majority. The Kurds control the council so deferral helps them.

The Kurds have reluctantly agreed to postpone again the referendum on self-determination, required by Iraq's constitution, in Kirkuk and other regions with large Kurdish populations. Iraq's Arab parties and western diplomats argue that a referendum could spark new inter-communal violence.

Rows between Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government, which has defied the federal government by signing oil deals with small foreign companies, are making the passage of a new oil law difficult.

About this articleClose
This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday June 28 2008 on p20 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:08 on June 28 2008.

BERLIN-TYPE WALL DIVIDES BAGHDAD IN HALF. RESIDENTS SAY THEY FEEL LIKE THEY ARE IN PRISON

The mainstream media in the United States has once again failed to explain fully why there is relative peace and quiet in Baghdad.

Huge concrete walls have been erected walling off parts Baghdad much like the Berlin Wall divided Berlin.

The United States military quietly constructed the Berlin-type wall as a means of holding down violence in Baghdad.

The residents of Baghdad are not happy with the walls and are now making their feelings known.


Baghdad's walls keep peace but feel like prison

By HAMZA HENDAWIAssociated Press Writer
http://www.thestate.com/372/story/445389.html

Baghdad hasn't been this quiet in years. But the respite from bloodshed comes at a high price.
Up to 20 feet high in some sections.

Rows after rows of barrier walls divide the city into smaller and smaller areas that protect people from bombings, sniper fire and kidnappings. They also lead to gridlock, rising prices for food and homes, and complaints about living in what feels like a prison.

Baghdad's walls are everywhere. They have turned a riverside capital of leafy neighborhoods and palm-lined boulevards into a city of shadows that separate Sunnis from Shiites.

The walls block access to schools, mosques, churches, hotels, homes, markets and even entire neighborhoods - almost anything that could be attacked. For many Iraqis, they have become the iconic symbol of the war.

"Maybe one day they will remove it," said Kareem Mustapha, a 26-year-old Sadr City resident who lives a five-minute walk from a wall built this spring in the large Shiite district.
"I don't know when, but it is not soon."

Indeed, new walls are still going up, the latest one around the northwestern Shiite neighborhood of Hurriyah, where thousands of Sunnis were slaughtered or expelled in 2006. They could well be around for years to come, enforcing the capital's fragile peace and enshrining its sectarian divisions.

Some walls are colorful, painted by young local artists with scenes depicting green pastures or the pomp and glory of Iraq's ancient civilizations.

Others are commercial, plastered with fliers advertising everything from the local kebab joint to seaside vacations in Iran or university degrees in Ukraine.

Still others are religious or political, with posters of popular clerics or graffiti hostile to the United States, Israel or - most recently - Iraq's prime minister.

Most are just bleak and gray, a reminder that danger lurks on the other side.

AP BREAKING NEWS: 30,OOO MORE TROOPS HEADING TO IRAQ IN 2009

The Pentagon is preparing to order roughly 30,000 troops to Iraq early next year in a move that would allow the U.S. to maintain 15 combat brigades in the country through 2009, The Associated Press has learned.

APNewBreak: Officials say Pentagon to order 30,000 troops to Iraq in 2009
LOLITA C. BALDOR AP NewsJun 27, 2008 20:05 EST

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=230626

The deployments would replace troops currently there. But the decisions could change depending on whether Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, decides in the fall to further reduce troop levels in Iraq.

Several officials familiar with the deployments spoke on condition of anonymity because the orders have not yet been made public.

According to the officials, three active-duty Army brigade combat teams, one Army National Guard brigade and two Marine regimental combat teams are being notified that they are being sent to Iraq in early 2009. Officials would not release the specific units involved because the soldiers and Marines and their families have not all been told.

The Guard unit, however, is the 56th Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division, from the Pennsylvania National Guard. Members of that unit — a large brigade with heavily armored Stryker vehicles — were told last October that they should be prepared to deploy to Iraq early in 2009.

The order this week is the formal notice that includes a more specific time frame.

Currently, the final brigade involved in the military buildup in Baghdad last year is pulling out of Iraq. That departure will leave 15 combat brigades there — compared to a high of 20 for much of the past year. Other smaller units are also there, including troops doing security, logistics, air assaults, intelligence and medical aid.

Overall, there are about 146,000 forces in Iraq, and that number is expected to dip to about 142,000 by mid-July when that last unit is all out. That total is at least 7,000 more than the number of troops in Iraq before the buildup began early last year.

Petraeus told Congress in May that he is likely to recommend further troop reductions in Iraq, but he did not provide any details. If he decides in the fall that fewer brigades will be needed in Iraq during the next year, there is the chance that brigades could simply be directed to the war in Afghanistan instead.

There is a broad consensus that more troops are needed in Afghanistan, to both train the security forces and fight the insurgents. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and President Bush, earlier this year, told NATO allies that they would increase troop levels in Afghanistan in 2009 in response to the growing violence.

CNN REPORTS: PENTAGON SAYS TALIBAN HAS REGROUPED IN AFGHANISTAN. 40 U.S. TROOPS KILLED SO FAR IN JUNE

Pentagon: Taliban 'resilient' in Afghanistan
Story Highlights
NEW: Taliban have regrouped and formed a "resilient insurgency," report says
Monthly death toll of U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan reaches 7-year high
40 troops have been killed in Taliban attacks in June
Gates hopes Pakistani crackdown will curb Taliban violence
From Mike MountCNN
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/27/afghan.fighting/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Nearly seven years after their defeat by U.S. forces, the Taliban have regrouped and have formed a "resilient insurgency," according to a new Pentagon report on security in Afghanistan.

On the same day the number of U.S. and allied troops killed in Afghanistan in June has reached 40, the highest monthly toll of the 7-year-old war.

"The Report Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan," the first progress report to Congress, says that although there has been some progress in battling the Taliban, setbacks are expected.

Although NATO and Afghan force operations kept the insurgency down in 2007 by killing or capturing key leaders and clearing out Taliban safe havens, the report predicted that the Taliban would be back in 2008.

"The Taliban is likely to maintain or even increase the scope and pace of its terrorist attacks and bombings in 2008," the report said.

The report looks at the progress through April, before the rise in violence seen over recent weeks.

On June 14, a suicide bomb at an Afghan prison in Kandahar freed hundreds of Taliban prisoners. There also have been numerous attacks on the restive Afghanistan-Pakistan border in recent weeks.

There are 32,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. About 14,000 serve as part of the larger NATO force, and 18,000 are separate, involved in training and on counterterrorism operations.

NEW LIST OF CONFIRMED DEATHS OF U.S. TROOPS

This is the latest list of confirmed deaths of U.S. troops.

Source: http://icasualties.org/oif/ Click on BLUE for more details re each casualty

U.S. Confirmed Deaths Reported Deaths:
4113 Confirmed Deaths:
4110 Pending Confirmation:
3 DoD Confirmation List

Latest Coalition Fatalities
06/27/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (2 of 2)
Maj. Dwayne M. Kelley, 48, of Willingboro, N.J., who was assigned to the 432nd Civil Affairs Battalion, Green Bay, Wis...died June 24 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from a bomb blast.

06/27/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (1 of 2)
Chief Warrant Officer Robert C. Hammett, 39, of Tucson, Ariz., who was assigned to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo...died June 24 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered from a bomb blast.

06/27/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (3 of 3)
Pfc. James M. Yohn, 25, of Highspire, Pa...died June 25 in Mosul, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device on June 24. They were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment...

06/27/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (2 of 3)
Spc. Joel A. Taylor, 20, of Pinetown, N.C... died June 25 in Mosul, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device on June 24. They were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment...

06/27/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (1 of 3)
Sgt. Alejandro A. Dominguez, 24, of San Diego, Calif... died June 25 in Mosul, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device on June 24. They were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment...

06/27/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Pfc. Bryan M. Thomas, 22, of Lake Charles, La., died June 23 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered in Salman Pak, Iraq, when his patrol encountered small arms fire during combat operations. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion...

06/27/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Spc. Joshua L. Plocica, 20, of Clarksville, Tenn., died June 25 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment...

06/26/08 MNF: Marines attacked by enemy force - 3 Marines killed
Three Multi-National Force - West Marines and two interpreters were killed in action against an enemy force in Anbar Province June 26.

LIST OF U.S. SENATORS WHO VOTED AGAINST GI FUNDING BILL

Senators Who Still Refuse to Support the Troops
Posted: 27 Jun 2008 10:56 AM CDT
http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1502

Six U.S. Senators maintained their refusal to support the troops by voting against the new GI Bill yesterday. One refused to support the troops by simply not voting.
Here's the list of those who voted against the bill--all of whom are Republicans who support a radical anti-troop, anti-veteran agenda:

Kyl (R-AZ)
Allard (R-CO
Craig (R-ID)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Coburn (R-OK)
DeMint (R-SC)

John McCain did not vote on the bill, thus proving, once again, that he is unwilling to support America's troops and veterans when they need it most. It's ironic that McCain would skip this vote, considering that just over a month ago, he said this:

Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim.

I guess that "admiration, respect and deep gratitude" doesn't extend to providing troops with an education once they've served out their commitment on the battlefield.

News and Open Thread
Posted: 27 Jun 2008 07:00 AM CDT
The GI Bill has now passed both houses of Congress. The President is set to sign it into law.
Go check out the OEF and OIF casualty pages. Troop deaths--both American and non-American--are going through the roof, especially in Afghanistan.

I'll have more about this next week.

VetVoice front page writers Richard Smith (RockRichard) and Alex Horton (ThisDudesArmy) will sit on a panel at Netroots Nation next month entitled "Milblogging: How the Troops' Writing Affects Our View of the War." I'll be on the panel too, and it will be moderated by AP reporter Kevin Maurer. If you remember, Kevin covered VetVoice when he worked for the Fayetteville (NC) Observer.

(And just in case you're wondering, LT Nixon is still on active duty and Chris LeJeune was not yet a front-pager when we had to lock in the panel.)

The Army is broken. Literally.

McCain and Obama both provided pieces to TIME Magazine on what patriotism means to them.

DESPITE BRAVADO FROM BUSH ADMIN AND FOX NEWS, IRAQI VP SAYS CONDITIONS IN MOSUL AND ANBAR ARE VERY FRAGILE

The Bush administration and their television parrot FOX NEWS have been bragging about how wonderful things are going in both Anbar Province and Mosul.

But now the Iraqi Vice President has issued a statement saying conditions in both Anbar and Mosul are much too fragile to do any boasting.

Security condition still fragile – VP

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Friday , 27 /06 /2008 Time 7:21:00
http://tinyurl.com/3jrm4h

Baghdad, Jun 27, (VOI)- Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said on Friday that the military operations in Mosul and Anbar yesterday proved that security condition still fragile.

“The recent operations in Mosul and Anbar proved that security condition still fragile and more measures are still needed to limit casualties in the war-ravaged Iraq,” Al-Hashemi said in a statement received by Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq (VOI).

“The situation also needs an immediate revision of security measures which prove they still incapable of facing challenges facing Iraq,” the statement added.Anbar and Mosul witnessed two armed attacks; the first took place in Anbar when a suicide bomber blew himself up amid a meeting of chieftains and Sahwa Council’s leaders, while a car bomb went off in Mosul.

The two operations killed more than 40 and injured more than 90.Al-Hashemi condemned the two operations

IRAQ COSTS $12 BILLION A MONTH---HUFFINGTON POST

The flow of blood may be ebbing, but the flood of money into the Iraq war is steadily rising, new analyses show. In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the "burn" rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book.

Studies: Iraq Costs US $12B Per Month
CHARLES J. HANLEY

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/10/studies-iraq-costs-us-1_n_90694.html

Beyond 2008, working with "best-case" and "realistic-moderate" scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion _ or more _ by 2017.
Interest on money borrowed to pay those costs could alone add $816 billion to that bottom line, they say.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has done its own projections and comes in lower, forecasting a cumulative cost by 2017 of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion for the two wars, with Iraq generally accounting for three-quarters of the costs.

Click here to read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/10/studies-iraq-costs-us-1_n_90694.html

FORMER UN AMBASSADOR JOHN BOLTON ARGUES WITH RADIO HOST OVER NEED FOR WAR WITH IRAN

Bolton Bristles When Challenged On Getting It Wrong On Iraq: That’s ‘An Ad Hominem Attack’

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton has been intensifying his calls for a war with Iran, telling Fox News last weekend that Israel may attack Iran before the inauguration of a new U.S. President.

LISTEN TO BOLTON ARGUE WITH RADIO HOST HERE: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/26/bolton-iraq-ad-hominem/

He added that Arab states “would be delighted” if this happened.
Bolton appeared on XM radio’s Potus ’08 earlier this week to talk about an Iran war. He argued this issue “goes fundamentally to your tolerance for the risk of radical Islamists holding nuclear weapons.” Host Tim Farley interrupted and asked, “It also goes, does it not, to the credibility of those making the argument?”

Bolton bristled at the accusation:

Absolutely not! And by the way, the credibility point is an ad hominem reference. … But to address the merits of the argument requires a response on the merits, not an ad hominem attack.

Farley tried to interject, but Bolton demanded, “Let me finish my answer!” The host later followed up by noting that the credibility of the argument is lacking when war advocates like Dick Cheney and President Bush “tell you one thing and the truth turns out to be something else.” Bolton responded by complaining to the host that you’re “debating with me.” Listen here:
George Monbiot, a columnist for the Guardian, has charged that Bolton was “instrumental in preparing and initiating the Iraq war by disseminating false claims through the State Department” while he was under-secretary of state for arms control.

Before the war, Bolton orchestrated the removal of the head of a global arms-control agency, Jose Bustani, because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. In Feb. 2003, Bolton orchestrated the removal of State Department official Rexon Ryu because Ryu “had been instrumental in getting the most controversial allegations” out of Colin Powell’s U.N. speech.

But Bolton would prefer all these acts are washed away with history so that he can have a clean slate to make his pitch for a new war.

HADITHA KIN OUTRAGED AS MARINES GO FREE

WATCH VIDEO AND READ FULL STORY HERE: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/41817.html
Leila Fadel McClatchy Newspapers

HADITHA, Iraq — Khadija Hassan still shrouds her body in black, nearly three years after the deaths of her four sons. They were killed on Nov. 19, 2005, along with 20 other people in the deadliest documented case of U.S. troops killing civilians since the Vietnam War.

Eight Marines were charged in the case, but in the intervening years, criminal charges have been dismissed against six. A seventh Marine was acquitted. The residents of Haditha, after being told they could depend on U.S. justice, feel betrayed.

"We put our hopes in the law and in the courts and one after another they are found innocent," said Yousef Aid Ahmed, the lone surviving brother in the family. "This is an organized crime."
No one disputes that Marines killed 24 men, women and children in this town in four separate shootings that morning. Relatives said the attack was a massacre of innocent civilians that followed a roadside bomb that killed one Marine and injured two. Marines say they came under fire following the bomb.

Nonetheless, military prosecutors filed charges that ranged from murder to covering up a crime. Three Marines were relieved of their duties then, and U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a former Marine, famously called the incident "murder" on television.

One by one, the cases fell apart. American and Iraqi witnesses provided conflicting accounts. The investigation began months after the incident, and many Iraqis who could have testified were unable to travel to the United States. Furthermore, several Marines were granted immunity.
Last week, a judge dismissed charges of dereliction of duty and failure to investigate filed against the highest ranking officer implicated, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani. The Marine Corps plans to appeal.

The dismissals have deepened the victims' relatives' grief. Many say they feel deceived after having collaborated with U.S. investigators who came into their homes, collected evidence, took testimony, and ultimately failed to hold the Marines accountable.

"Right now I feel hatred that will not fade," said Ahmed. "It grows every day." Charges against two Marines who allegedly killed his brothers were dropped in August 2007.

All charges of murder in this case were dropped and at least seven Marines were given immunity to allow them to testify against Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the squad leader. His charges now include voluntary manslaughter of at least nine people.

Wuterich has always maintained that he made the right decision, believing his Marines were under threat.

While other Marines' accounts have differed from his, Wuterich told the CBS News program 60 Minutes last year that he shot at five unarmed men outside a white car because he believed they were a threat when they started to move away from the car. At the first home they raided, where women and children were inside, he said he told his men to "shoot first and ask questions later", because he believed the Marines were coming under "sporadic" fire from the dwelling.

WATCH VIDEO AND READ FULL STORY HERE: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/41817.html

OHIO MARINE LANCE CPL ROBERT CRUTCHFIELD HOME ON LEAVE FROM IRAQ KILLED FOR $8

2 indicted in killing of Ohio Marine home from Iraq; prosecutors seeking death sentence

THOMAS J. SHEERANAP News
Jun 26, 2008 18:56 EST
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=229065

Two men arrested in the curbside killing of a Marine who was robbed of $8 while on leave from Iraq were indicted Thursday on aggravated murder charges and could face the death penalty if convicted.

Ean Farrow, 19, and Thomas Ray III, 20, of Cleveland, were indicted by a Cuyahoga County grand jury on charges of aggravated murder, murder, kidnapping, felonious assault and aggravated robbery in the Jan. 5 shooting of Lance Cpl. Robert Crutchfield.

The 21-year-old Crutchfield was crippled by a gunshot while waiting for a bus
in Cleveland and died of a related infection on May 18.

"It's sickening and appalling that this Marine, who put his life on the line fighting for our country, comes home only to face a deadlier enemy on our streets — a couple of thugs who have no regard for human life," prosecutor Bill Mason said.

Attorneys listed in court records for the defendants did not return phone messages left at their offices after business hours Thursday. Calls made to listings for both defendants were not returned.

Police tied the suspects to Crutchfield's shooting while investigating a robbery on the following morning across the street from the scene of the attack.

Crutchfield, warned by commanders that he could be a robbery target as a Marine on leave with a pocketful of money, was carrying only $8, his military identification and a bank card.

"They took it, turned his pockets inside out, took what he had and told him since he was a Marine and didn't have any money he didn't deserve to live," his aunt, Albert Holt, told The Associated Press last month. "They put the gun to his neck and shot him."

Holt described her nephew as a well-behaved, churchgoing individual who had enrolled in a suburban high school to escape his unruly Cleveland school and prepare for a career as an architect.

Mason's office received more than 60 e-mails and letters from across the country, almost all asking him to seek the death penalty.

The death penalty specifications in the indictment were based on the evidence in the case, and members of the grand jury were not aware of the outpouring of support for executing the suspects, Mason's staff said.

VIDEO: FEMALE JOHN HOPKINS GRAD STUDENT NICOLE SUVEGES FROM CHICAGO KILLED IN IRAQ

Watch this video about a female John Hopkins University grad student Nicole Suveges from Chicago who was killed earlier this week in Iraq.

Comment: Ignore the first few seconds which are an ad followed by the report. Also you can click on "enlarge" to enlarge the video.

Watch here: http://tinyurl.com/5shzk4

LIST OF U.S. CASUALTIES IN IRAQ AND VIOLENCE ALL ACROSS IRAQ THAT WE REPORT BUT FOX NEWS DOESN'T

We continue to bring to readers of my blog the truth about what is happening in Iraq and not the garbage FOX NEWS peddles to their viewers.

There have been multiple U.S. deaths in Iraq and there has also been a breakout of violence all across Iraq which FOX NEWS has conveniently decided is not worth reporting.

COMMENTARY BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE

Thursday, June 26, 2008
SOURCE: http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/
Click on BLUE for more details

War News for Thursday, June 26, 2008
MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier in a roadside bombing in eastern Baghdad. on Wednesday, June 25th. No other details were released.

The Santa Barbara News-Press is reporting the deaths of three U.S.-led coalition soldiers from an attack in Lagar Province on Thursday, June 26th. An Afghan interpreter was also killed in the attack.

The Santa Barbara News-Press is reporting the deaths of three Marines from a suicide bomb attack in Karmah, Al Anbar province, Iraq on Thursday, June 26th. Two Iraqi interpreters and at least 20 Iraqis were also killed in the attack.

Staff Sgt. Michael Kacer, Company B, 1st Battalion, 109th Infantry Regiment, lost his left arm and suffered unspecified hearing loss and internal injuries, as well as vision problems, said his father, Michael T. Kacer. He learned that his son was critically injured by a rocket or mortar. From Afghanistan, Sgt. Kacer was initially flown to Germany before being transferred to Walter Reed on Sunday.

June 24 airpower summary:Military facing $100 billion in equipment repairs

Reported Security incidents:Baghdad:#1: A car bomb also killed three people and wounded seven in Baghdad's Karradah district, witnesses and police said.

#2: update American soldiers fatally shot three Iraqi bank employees as their car passed a convoy near Baghdad International Airport, according to an Interior Ministry official and Yarmouk Hospital, where the bodies were brought. The attack was one of two bloody episodes Wednesday in which the American military and Iraqi officials offered sharply different accounts of what had happened.Iraqi authorities said at least eight civilians had been killed by American soldiers. American military officials said that in each case they opened fire after coming under attack, and that they were unaware of any civilian deaths. Officials at the hospital identified the bodies of the victims as those of Hafed Abdul Mahdi, director of the bank at the airport, and Surur Shadid Ahmed and Maha Adnan Yunis, women who worked at the bank.

#2: A number of students were wounded on Thursday in a shooting that took place in a tests center in northern Baghdad, eyewitnesses said."A number of students protested against bad services when Education Minister Khudier al-Khuzaaei paid a visit to their tests center in Sabaa Abkar region in northern Baghdad, the matter that made the ministry's bodyguards to start shooting, wounding five students," Qassem Hassan, a student, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq. "The test was cancelled after the intense shooting, which forced the students to leave the tests room," Hassan explained, noting that one of the wounded students is in critical condition.

Diyala Prv:Muqdadiya:#1: Four shepherds were wounded in a bomb blast in Muqdadiya on Thursday. "An explosive device was detonated in the main street in Shirween region in Muqdadiya, northeast of Baaquba, wounding three shepherds," a police source told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq. He did not give further details.

Karbala:#1: South of Baghdad, a bomb exploded on a minibus near one of the most revered Shiite shrines in the holy city of Karbala. At least two people including a young boy were killed, and 14 were wounded, police said.

Shirqat:#1: The two extremists were killed in Sharqat, about 135 miles north of Baghdad, after they refused to surrender to U.S. troops who had surrounded the building where the pair had taken refuge, the U.S. said in a statement. One of the dead was identified as a militant cell leader who was the target of the raid, the U.S. said. Three people were taken into custody.

Tikrit:#1: Hours earlier, an American helicopter fired missiles into a home near Tikrit, killing a family of five, local officials and a relative said. The episode began when Afar Ahmed Zidan thought he heard thieves prowling near his home, said a cousin, Hussain al-Azawi. Zidan fired at them, al-Azawi said.

Kirkuk:#1: An Iraqi army soldier was killed late Wednesday by unknown gunman in south of Kirkuk, and security forces managed to arrest the killer, an Iraqi army source said on Thursday."Iraqi army forces, backed by U.S. troops, waged a crackdown operation in Yankaga village in Touz Khormato district, south of Kirkuk," the source told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq.

Mosul:#1: A car bomb and a roadside bomb went off coordinately near a convoy of the governor of Nineveh province in the capital city of Mosul on Thursday, killing eight people and wounding 18 others, a provincial police source said. The double bombing took place after midday and apparently targeted the convoy of governor Duraid Kashmoulah in the Bab al-Toub area in central Mosul, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Kashmoulah narrowly escaped unhurt and five of his bodyguards were among the wounded, the source said.

A car bomb exploded near the provincial governor's office in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday, killing 18 people and wounding 62, Governor Duraid Kashmula said.The bomb exploded soon after two Katyusha rockets landed near Kashmula's office in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

#2: Three people were wounded, including a policeman,by a roadside bombing against police patrol in Mosul on Thursday ,a Ninewa police source said. This explosion is the second of its type in Mosul today, after a car bomb attack that killed 17 persons, and wounded 62 others. "A roadside bomb went off targeting a police patrol at al-Borsa neighborhood, western Mosul, wounding three persons including a policeman," a Ninewa police source , who requested anonmity, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.

Sulaimaniya:#1: Two gunmen were killed on Thursday while planting a bomb in eastern Sulaimaniya, a senior police source said. An explosive charge went off, killing the two gunmen who were trying to plant it in Sikawiz border village in Benjwin district in eastern Sulaimaniya," Hassan Nouri told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq. "The explosion killed one gunman and seriously injured the other, who later died of his wounds in the hospital," he explained.Al Anbar Prv:

Karmah:#1: A suicide bomber detonated an explosive belt Thursday inside a municipal government building west of Baghdad, killing at least 12 people attending a meeting of tribal sheiks, police said. Col. Fawzi Fraih, civil defense director of Anbar province, said the sheiks were members of a group opposed to al-Qaida in Iraq and were meeting with Americans when the attack occurred in Karmah, about 20 miles west of Baghdad. The U.S. military would not confirm whether Americans were inside the building during the attack, the third against a municipal government meeting in Iraq this week. Police said the bomber entered the building through a back door, but it was unclear how he managed to evade security for the meeting, which drew community leaders in the town where Sunnis have turned against al-Qaida in Iraq. The media office for Anbar province said the dead included the town's administrative director and at least two chiefs of major Sunni tribes in the area.

At least 20 people were killed Thursday when a suicide bomber targeted a meeting of clan chiefs and tribal leaders in a village to the west of Baghdad, media reports said. Al-Arabiya news channel said that the blast occurred when a suicide attacker detonated himself in the local council in Karma village in Anbar province. The attacker managed to enter through an unguarded gate, al- Arabiya said.Details of the bombing were sketchy, but U.S. officials confirmed that American service members were among the casualties in the Anbar explosion, which came just days before the United States was to turn Anbar security over to the Iraqis. That plan is now on hold, U.S. officials said.

Fallujah:#1: A mortar round targeted al-Faris Police Station in al-Amiriyah, Fallujah at 8 a.m. Thursday, killing one civilian and seriously injuring one policeman. Two police vehicles were completely destroyed.

Afghanistan:#1: A Coalition forces’ helicopter crashed Wednesday in Konar province. No Coalition forces’ Soldiers were seriously injured and all have been returned safely from the incident. The aircraft has been secured.A spokesman for the troops said there were only two soldiers on board and they had "minor injuries".

#2: A bomb hit troops from the U.S.-led coalition patrolling south of the Afghan capital on Thursday, causing an unspecified number of casualties, the coalition said. The bomb hit the coalition convoy on Thursday morning during a patrol in Wardak province, the coalition said in a statement. Coalition forces secured the scene, but that "the exact number and nature of casualties" was not immediately clear, it said.

#3: PAKISTANI Taliban have threatened to "brutally slaughter" any truck driver caught supplying oil and goods to NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, one of the country’s leading newspapers says. The Pakistani Dawn newspaper said the Taliban, who have given the drivers one week to comply with the ban, posted leaflets in a Mosque near Karachi warning hauliers against supplying equipment to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and US-led troops. One read: "After the deadline, if any truck or trawler is caught supplying diesel, petrol or goods, not only will the vehicle be set on fire but the driver will also be brutally slaughtered. "These attacks will be carried out starting from Karachi to Peshawar, Chaman, Kandahar and Bagram until such time that the supply line of the Christian army is severed."Pamphlets were also distributed among truck drivers in Mauripur. One truck driver told Dawn: "These threats have affected our work and supplies to Afghanistan have dropped to some extent. Not everyone is willing to go ahead with such a risky trip now."

NEW YORK TIMES REPORTS: SUICIDE BOMBERS KILL 30 IN 2 ATTACK IN IRAQ

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS Washington Bureau chief and host of "Special Report," earlier this week ran a story about how calm the city of Mosul, Iraq had become.

Today, two suicide bombings took place in MOSUL killing at least 30 people and wounding nearly 80.

The Bush administration and again FOX NEWS also reported on how ANBAR Province in Iraq was going to be handed over to the Iraqi Security forces, but on Thursday another suicide bombing took place in ANBAR where initial reports indicate 12 people were killed and another 27 wounded.

It should be clear to anyone looking for the truth about the IRAQ WAR, the last place you would want to go for information is FOX NEWS.

COMMENTARY BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE

Suicide Bombers Kill at Least 30 in 2 Iraq Attacks

By ALISSA J. RUBIN
THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://tinyurl.com/4zdzhm

BAGHDAD — Two suicide bomb blasts struck at pro-American Iraqi targets just west of Baghdad and in the northern city of Mosul on Thursday, killing at least 30 people and wounding nearly 80.

The bombings extended a pattern of multiple-casualty attacks in recent days that are clearly intended to kill local Iraqi leaders, in particular the Awakening Councils of Sunni tribal chieftains who have collaborated with American forces against Sunni insurgents.

The more significant of the two attacks on Thursday took place in the town of Garma in Anbar Province, where the Awakening Councils have achieved notable progress over the past few years in battling Sunni insurgents.

The American pacification of Anbar — once considered Iraq’s most dangerous province at the height of the Iraq war a few years ago — has been so successful that American forces there are preparing to hand control of the province back to the Iraqi government.l

The Garma attack was clearly aimed at participants at a weekly meeting of the leaders of the local Awakening Council, the Iraq police said. Initial reports from the police were that the bomb killed 12 people and wounded 27.

The other bombing, in Mosul, targeted the provincial governor and killed 18 and wounded 61, according to local security forces. The governor was unhurt.

Fifty people were at the Garma meeting which was attended by tribal sheiks, local dignitaries and members of the Awakening council in the area, who had been working with the Americans in fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, the homegrown extremist Sunni group which has support from outside the country, according to American intelligence.

The group was meeting in a tent when the bomb exploded at about 10 a.m. There were conflicting reports from people who were there about whether it was detonated by a man wearing a suicide belt or was an improvised explosive device.

“As usual we entered the tent at 9 a.m.,” said Hilal Abdullah Ali, a senior sheik from the Albu Alwan tribe. “At around 10:30 there was a big explosion. I heard the person sitting next to me say ‘he exploded himself on us.’ ”

The Garma bomb came on the eve of a ceremonial American handover of security responsibility for Anbar to the Iraqis. The anticipated handover had been announced a few days earlier.

The bombing in Mosul, which killed 18 people and wounded 61, occurred in a busy central area of the city, and was the second large bombing in the city in the past two days. One on Tuesday evening killed two people and wounded 73.

The clear target of the Mosul attacker was the provincial governor, Duraid Kashmola, who toured the site of the blast later.

Over the past week there has been a stream of attacks against local leaders both in small neighborhoods such as Abu Dshir on the southern edge of Baghdad and Madaen, which lies just southeast of the city, as well as an attack Tuesday on the Sadr City neighborhood council, which killed six Iraqis and four Americans and their Iraqi—Italian translator.

REUTERS: BLAST KILLS 8TH U.S. SOLDIER THIS WEEK IN IRAQ

Armor-piercing roadside bomb used in attack may have links to Iran

Reuters
updated 4:05 a.m. CT, Thurs., June. 26, 2008

From MSNBC Blast kills 8th U.S. soldier this week in Iraq: A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier

http://tinyurl.com/6lre9f

(COMMENT: AS OF 5 AM CDT NOT ONE OF THE CABLE NEWS STATIONS HAVE MENTIONED THIS STORY. THE IRAQ WAR IS NOW THE "FORGOTTEN WAR II" RIGHT ALONG WITH THE KOREAN WAR)

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Thursday, bringing to eight the number of American troops killed in Iraq this week.

A military statement said the soldier was killed on Wednesday by an armor-piercing roadside bomb called an explosively formed projectile, or EFP.

U.S. officials say components of EFPs are made in neighboring Iran and supplied to Shiite militias fighting U.S. troops. Tehran denies the charge.

The latest death raises the number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq in June to 26, according to the independent Web site iCasualties.org, which tracks U.S. military casualties.

That is up from 19 American soldiers killed in May, the lowest monthly total since the 2003 invasion.

More than 4,100 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.

SPIKE IN DEADLY VIOLENCE KILLS 4 MORE U.S. SOLDIERS IN IRAQ

The Pentagon had no sooner released their report claiming violence was down all across Iraq when a spike in violence erupted which so far has claimed the lives of nine U.S. soldiers this week alone.

US forces face spike in deadly violence in Iraq
Roadside bombs kill 4 US soldiers in spike of violence against American forces

KIM GAMELAP News
Jun 25, 2008 17:58 EST
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=227402

Roadside bombs killed four U.S. soldiers in northern Iraq, the military said Wednesday, in a spike of violence that pushed to at least nine the number of Americans who have died here this week.

In the latest attack, one soldier was killed by an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, about 9 a.m. Wednesday in the predominantly Shiite eastern half of Baghdad, the military said. The armor piercing bombs are believed to come from Iran and have been used by Shiite extremists to kill hundreds of American forces.

The U.S. military said three other U.S. soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter were killed late Tuesday by a roadside bomb in the northern Ninevah province, where al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni extremist groups remain active.

The four U.S. fatalities brought the monthly death toll for American troops in Iraq to at least 26 — well below figures of last year but an increase over the 19 who died in May, the lowest monthly tally of the war.

In all, at least 4,110 U.S. military service members have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

The U.S. military says violence in Iraq has dropped to its lowest level in more than four years, but attacks are continuing as Sunni and Shiite extremists try to regroup and undermine security gains.

"The level of violence has dropped dramatically," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, spokesman for the U.S. command in Baghdad. "It has gotten quieter. But that doesn't make these losses any easier."

He said militants "are constantly thinking of ways that they can undermine us, undermine the government, undermine the Iraqi security forces."

The bombing in Nineveh occurred a day after a bombing in a district council office in the Baghdad Shiite district of Sadr City killed four Americans — two soldiers and two government employees.

The government employees were identified as Steven L. Farley of Guthrie, Oklahoma, a member of a provincial reconstruction team, and Nicole Suveges, a 38-year-old political scientist from Wauconda, Illinois, who was working with the military.

The Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman suggested that the four Americans were not the main targets of the attack. Five Iraqis and an Italian-Iraqi interpreter for the Americans also were killed.

Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari, the spokesman, said a preliminary investigation indicated that internal Shiite rivalries among the council members were to blame.

"The presence of the American forces and embassy employees was by chance," al-Askari said. "Chance played a role in the casualties among the Americans."

On Monday, a Sunni gunman waiting in a car killed two U.S. soldiers and an interpreter as they emerged from a meeting with municipal officials in Madain, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad.

The U.S. military said American soldiers on Wednesday killed three suspected militants, including two women, after they came under small-arms from a vehicle near the Baghdad International Airport — one of the most heavily guarded areas in Iraq.

The soldiers, who were part of a convoy that was stopped on the roadside, returned fire. That caused the vehicle to run off the road and explode, killing the three people inside, the military said.

But a security official at the hospital that received the bodies said the three people killed were bank employees and not militants. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he said he was not authorized to release information.

U.S. soldiers acting on tips also found nine rockets in the back of a truck ready to be fired at a joint American-Iraqi base in the Shiite militia-dominated neighborhood of Hurriyah in northwestern Baghdad.

Col. William Hickman, the commander of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division that operates in the area, said the attack most likely would have "hurt many of our soldiers but it easily could have killed many innocent civilians also."

A car bomb also killed three people and wounded seven in Baghdad's Karradah district, witnesses and police said.

South of Baghdad, a bomb exploded on a minibus near one of the most revered Shiite shrines in the holy city of Karbala. At least two people including a young boy were killed, and 14 were wounded, police said

CNN REPORTS: ANGELINA JOLIE AND BRAD PITT DONATE $1 MILLION TO KIDS AFFECTED BY IRAQ WAR

Jolie, Pitt donate $1 million to kids affected by Iraq war
Story Highlights
Money goes to groups that help children in Iraq and in U.S.
$1 million will be divided among four groups

Jolie-Pitt Foundation gave $300,000 last year to help Darfur refugees


http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/06/25/jolie.pitt.ap/index.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's love for children is by no means limited to their own: The couple has donated $1 million to help kids affected by the war in Iraq, the Education Partnership for Children of Conflict announced Wednesday.

The organization will distribute the donation, made through the couple's Jolie-Pitt Foundation, to four organizations working on behalf of children who have lost parents, homes and schools in Iraq. Children in the U.S. who have lost parents in the conflict will also benefit.

"These educational support programs for children of conflict are the best way to help them heal," said Jolie in a statement from Education Partnership for Children of Conflict, which she co-chairs.

"We hope to encourage others to give to these great organizations," Pitt added in the statement.

The money will be divided between the Armed Services YMCA Operation Hero Program, which provides military children with counseling and educational support; Women for Women International, which will provide books, school supplies and other basic necessities to Iraqi women and children; the International Rescue Committee, which will repair three schools and offer classes for more than 2,500 students; and NineMillion.org, which will give school uniforms and learning materials to more than 2,000 displaced Iraqi kids.

Last year, the Jolie-Pitt Foundation gave more than $300,000 to support the International Rescue Committee's relief program for Darfur refugees.

Jolie, who's expecting twins, has said the babies are due in August. She and Pitt have four children: Maddox, 6; Pax, 4; Zahara, 3; and Shiloh, 2.

LOS ANGELES TIMES REPORTS: IRAQ AUTHORITIES SAY U.S. SOLDIERS KILLED 9 CIVILIANS

Nine Iraqi civilians were killed Wednesday in two armed clashes involving U.S. soldiers, local authorities reported. The military said U.S. soldiers were fired upon first in both incidents.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq26-2008jun26,0,680763.story
From the Los Angeles Times
By Doug SmithLos Angeles Times Staff WriterJune 26, 2008BAGHDAD
Thanks to Citizens for Legimate Government http://www.legitgov.org/ for heads up on this story.

In the capital, three people were killed in a fiery crash after gunfire erupted as their vehicle passed U.S. soldiers with a convoy stopped near the Baghdad international airport to recover a stalled vehicle.Officials at Yarmouk Hospital identified the dead as a manager and two female employees from a bank at the airport.

Iraqi police also reported that two bodyguards were injured.A statement from the U.S. military characterized the three as criminals who opened fire on the military convoy about 9 a.m.

The statement said that the assault left bullet holes in the U.S. vehicles and that a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.The conflicting information in the two reports could not be immediately reconciled.

Return to link for full story.

WASHINGTON POST AND FOX NEWS DIFFER ON WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED IN IRAQ

FOX NEWS continues to tout the military success of "the surge" in Iraq, but the military success, although very fragile, has absolutely NOTHING to do with the overall goals of the Bush administration for Iraq according to the Washington Post.

Most of the benchmarks set down by the Bush administration in 2007 for Iraq have not been met according to a General Accounting Office report issued the other day.

However, FOX NEWS pulled out ONLY the military successes and conveniently overlooked the fact that the government in Iraq has accomplished little or nothing.

The Bush administration lacks an updated and comprehensive Iraq strategy to move beyond the "surge" of combat troops President Bush launched in January 2007 as an 18-month effort to curtail violence and build Iraqi democracy, government investigators said Monday.

http://tinyurl.com/3mon9b

While agreeing with the administration that violence has decreased sharply, a report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office concluded that many other goals Bush outlined a year and a half ago in the "New Way Forward" strategy remain unmet.

The report, after a bleak GAO assessment last summer, cited little improvement in the ability of Iraqi security forces to act independently of the U.S. military, and noted that key legislation passed by the Iraqi parliament had not been implemented while other crucial laws had not been passed.

The report also judged that key Iraqi ministries spent less of their allocated budgets last year than in previous years, and said that oil and electricity production had repeatedly not met U.S. targets.

Bush's strategy of January 2007, the GAO said, "defined the original goals and objectives that the Administration believed were achievable by the end of this phase in July 2008." Not meeting many of them changed circumstances on the ground and the pending withdrawal of the last of the additional U.S. forces mean that strategy is now outdated, the report said.

The GAO recommends that the State and Defense departments work together to fashion a new approach.

The GAO report contrasted with a Pentagon report, dated June 13 but not released until Monday. The Defense Department's quarterly assessment to Congress, "Measuring Security and Stability in Iraq," said that "security, political and economic trends in Iraq continue to be positive, although they remain fragile, reversible and uneven."

In many respects, the two reports seemed to assess wholly different realities. The 74-page Pentagon document emphasized what it called the "negative role" in Iraqi security that Iran and Syria have played. The 94-page GAO report did not mention Iran and referred to Syria only in the context of Iraqi refugees who had settled there.

REUTERS REPORT ON SECURITY PROBLEMS IN IRAQ DIFFERS FROM FOX NEWS GLOWING REPORTS

This REUTERS NEWS report flys in the face of FOX NEWS glowing reports about how well things are going in IRAQ.

FACTBOX-Security developments in Iraq, June 25
REUTERSReuters North American News Service
Jun 25, 2008 12:48 EST
June 25 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Iraq at 1745 GMT on Wednesday:
Source: http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=226890

* Denotes new or updated item

* KERBALA - A bomb attached to a parked minibus killed two people and wounded three others outside a restaurant in Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, police said
.
* KIRKUK - A roadside bomb targeting a police patrol killed one civilian in southern Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

TIKRIT - A U.S. air strike on a house killed a family, including four children aged between four and 11, in the village of Samra, near the northern town of Tikrit, police said. The U.S. military said its troops had been fired at, then had seen an armed man enter the building. They called in the air strike after he did not respond to calls to come out, it said.

SAMARRA - U.S. forces said they killed two suspected al Qaeda members near Samarra, about 110 km (70 miles) north of Baghdad.

BAQUBA - An Iraqi soldier was killed and three were wounded in an explosion when they entered a booby-trapped house in Mullaeid, a reputed al Qaeda stronghold near Baquba 65 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - U.S. forces said a military convoy was fired on from a civilian vehicle near Baghdad airport. U.S. soldiers destroyed the vehicle, killing three occupants, they said.

MOSUL - A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers and an interpreter late on Tuesday in Nineveh province, in northwestern Iraq, the U.S. military said.

MOSUL - Gunmen killed Mosul city council's public service director, Khalid Mahmoud, and his driver in a drive-by shooting in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

KIRKUK - A roadside bomb targeting Kirkuk's health director exploded in the city 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. The health director escaped unhurt but his driver was wounded, they said. (Compiled by Khalid al-Ansary)

WHAT FOX NEWS AND MAINSTREAM PRESS DON'T REPORT ABOUT BASRA, IRAQ

FOX NEWS and the mainstream press are bending over backwards these days to bring "feel good" stories to the American people about how things are going in Iraq.

The city of Basra is a perfect example of how FOX NEWS and the media are praising how "the surge" has brought peace and tranquility to Basra and how the Iraq security forces have run the Mehdi Army out of town.

There is one glaring problem with this kind of reporting. It tells only half the story.

There are huge water and electricity shortages in Basra and many of the residents fear a return to violence if something isn't done soon about the daily living conditions.

You can read more about the REAL BASRA in the story below and not the truncated version given to the American people by FOX NEWS.

COMMENTS BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE

Freed of militias, Basra has new problems
But electricity, water shortages pose new challenges in Iraqi city

The Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25334420/

BASRA, Iraq - Men and women can openly study for the first time in years at Basra University, free from the threat of Shiite gunmen enforcing extreme Islamic views.

To get to class, however, the students must navigate traffic jams and ubiquitous checkpoints that the Iraqi military calls the price of peace in this sweltering, oil-rich southern city where temperatures soar above 120 degrees.

It often doesn't get any cooler indoors. Basra is suffering widespread electricity shortages that residents blame on Iraqi authorities, who in turn point the finger at neighboring Iran. And then there's the lack of clean tap water.

From students to merchants, people here say they are happy and hopeful about their new freedoms three months after the Iraqi military wrested control of the country's second-largest city from Shiite militiamen. But frustration is rising over the failure of the Iraqi government to follow through on its promises to improve basic services, provide jobs and distribute enough food to citizens.

"The government gives us food rations, but it is not enough. We are all tired," Chitaya Mashhan Madloon said as she pushed through the crowd at a market, using her black robe to wipe sweat from her forehead.

Possibility of more violenceMany worry the neglect could ignite more violence.
"The services are getting worse, they're not getting better. This is creating ill will toward the government," said Mustafa Mahdi Hussein, the dean of Basra University's college of administration and economics.

BREAKING: THREE U.S. SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ AS VIOLENCE ESCALATES

No sooner had the Pentagon issued their glowing report on how violence was down all across Iraq than a series of bombings have killed three more U.S. soldiers in Iraq on Wednesday.

FOX NEWS' anchors BRIT HUME and LAURA INGRAHAM have been misleading their audiences and the familes of American soldiers in Iraq by claiming security conditions in Iraq have improved.

They haven't as this report (see story below) indicates violence is on the upswing all across IRAQ.

Three US soldiers killed in Iraq bombing

http://tinyurl.com/4bhhdu


A roadside bomb killed three US soldiers and an interpreter in northern Iraq, the US military said today.

A military statement gave no further details about last night's attack in Nineveh province, where US and Iraqi forces have been waging a crackdown against al Qaeda insurgents.

It brings the US military death toll to 25 so far in June. US troop deaths are up from May when they fell to 19, the lowest monthly total since the 2003 invasion. More than 4,100 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.

Two US soldiers and two US government employees were among 10 people killed yesterday when a bomb exploded at a council meeting in the Baghdad stronghold of Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

On Monday, a gunman killed two US soldiers and wounded three as they left a council building southeast of Baghdad.

The US military said violence in Iraq fell to a four-year low in May following crackdowns by US and Iraqi forces on Shia militias in Baghdad and the south of the country, and on al Qaeda in Mosul, capital of Nineveh province. US officials say Mosul is the last major urban stronghold of the Sunni Arab insurgents. Despite the crackdown, security forces have reported frequent shootings and bomb attacks around the city.

The head of Mosul city council, Khalid Mahmoud, and his driver were killed in a drive-by shooting today, police said.

Late yesterday, a car driven by a suicide bomber exploded near a police station in Mosul, killing a policeman and a child and wounding 73 people, including seven policemen, police said.

The US military said as many as 90 civilians were wounded in the bombing, which it blamed on al Qaeda.

WILL BRIT HUME AND LAURA INGRAHAM OF FOX NEWS APOLOGIZE TO THEIR AUDIENCE FOR MISLEADING THEM ON CONDITIONS IN IRAQ?

LISTEN UP BRIT HUME AND LAURA INGRAHAM OF FOX NEWS: CAR BOMB IN MOSUL INJURES 90-WASHINGTON POST

Both BRIT HUME and LAURA INGRAHAM of FOX NEWS have been cheering about how stabilized MOSUL, Iraq has become.

What are HUME and INGRAHAM going to say NOW?

90 Wounded in Mosul; Sunnis Blamed
Wednesday, June 25, 2008; A07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/24/AR2008062401340.html

BAGHDAD, June 24 -- A car bomb wounded 90 civilians in the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, the U.S. military said in a statement. The military said the attack was carried out by the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Capt. Khalid Ibrahim Salman, a police official, said the Khazraj police station in downtown Mosul was the target of the bombing. The city is one of the last urban strongholds of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

CBS NEWS REPORTS: ISRAEL PRODDING U.S. TO ATTACK IRAN: CHENEY IS ALL FOR LAUNCHING A STRIKE ON IRAN

It appears as though Israel isn't going to be happy until they get the United States to strike Iran and this is just what the Bush Administration and their propaganda puppet FOX NEWS have been waiting to hear.

CBS is reporting Wednesday that Israel is working all the channels in an effort to get the United States to launch an air strike on Iran.

The Bush administration has already setup contingency plans for an air strike on Iran, but sources close to the administation claim they want to do it right after Labor Day so it will have more impact on the Presidential election.

Vice President Cheney is said to favor a strike, but both Joint Chife of Staff Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates are opposed to an attack which could touch off a third war in the region.

The following is how CBS News will be reporting Israel's request to the U.S. on Wednesday.

Israel Prodding U.S. To Attack Iran
June 24, 2008
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/24/eveningnews/main4206201.shtml

(CBS) Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen leaves Tuesday night on an overseas trip that will take him to Israel, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin. The trip has been scheduled for some time but U.S. officials say it comes just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran's nuclear complex.

CBS consultant Michael Oren says Israel doesn't want to wait for a new administration. "The Israelis have been assured by the Bush administration that the Bush administration will not allow Iran to nuclearize," Oren said. "Israelis are uncertain about what would be the policies of the next administration vis-à-vis Iran." Israel's message is simple: If you don't, we will.

Israel held a dress rehearsal for a strike earlier this month, but military analysts say Israel can not do it alone. "Keep in mind that Israel does not have strategic bombers," Oren said. "The Israeli Air Force is not the American Air Force. Israel can not eliminate Iran's nuclear program."

The U.S. with its stealth bombers and cruise missiles has a much greater capability.

U.S. intelligence estimates Iran won't be able to build a weapon until sometime early in the next decade.

But Israel is operating on a much shorter timetable. "The Iranians, according to Israeli security sources, will have an operable nuclear weapon by 2009. That's not a very long time," Oren said.

For now, the Bush administration is counting on new economic sanctions which took effect Tuesday to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program.

But nobody's counting on it.

HISTORY IS REPEATING ITSELF IN IRAQ

Two Caliphates in Baghdad: U.S. Paying High Cost for Ignoring History's Lessons

By Ben Tanosborn, Middle East OnlinePosted on June 24, 2008, Printed on June 24, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/89142/

The Brits made an imperial mess of Iraq back in 1930, now it is America's turn!

We followed the fate of the French in Vietnam; are trying hard to imitate the Russians in Afghanistan; and now, our emulation-in-progress is of our beloved European cousins.

Who would ever think that it was an American philosopher (by way of Spain), George Santayana, who stated just a century ago, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." And American government leaders always seem to be the forgetful ones, although as it happens in all these cases, it is the American people who are condemned to pay the consequences in both blood and dollars.

We are not even speaking of millennia ago, or even centuries; only the recent past. How can we be so forgetful as to how the British bamboozled a timid Iraqi Parliament, where the true nationalists lacked a voiced, into signing an agreement in 1930 that would have Iraq in turmoil with coup after coup until Saddam Hussein came to power in 1979? And we all know what has happened since then. Seventy-eight years later here we are, cramming down their throats an illegal "strategic alliance" that is similar in both content and tone to that Great Britain "imposed" on Iraq almost eight decades ago.

And I say illegal for both Iraq and the United States. For Iraq, it's a non-valid agreement since it will be contracted under duress from an occupier's demands, whatever excuses are brought forward to obtain legitimacy. For the US, it's also an invalid pact unless it is subsequently ratified by the US Senate. We are told that the wording in this strategic alliance has been crafted so as to "avoid such ratification." Nonsense, if the provisions in such agreement or alliance have the underlying intent of a treaty, it is a treaty; and as a treaty, constitutionally, it must be ratified.

Go back to link to read full story.

FOX ANALYST: IRAQIS 'OWE US' 100 YEAR LEASES ON THEIR OIL

Fox Analyst: Iraqis ‘Owe Us’ 100-Year Leases On Their Oil, ‘We Ought To Take It’»

Last week, the New York Times reported that four Western oil companies — Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total, and BP — are in the final stages of negotiating no-bid oil contracts “to service Iraq’s largest fields.” These contracts would run for one to two years, and give the oil companies a “foothold” in bidding on future contracts.

But one-to-two year service contracts aren’t enough for analyst Bob Beckel, a Fox News liberal. On the O’Reilly Factor last night, Beckel said that “what we ought to do is get Iraq to give us a 100 year lease” for exploring their oil fields:

BECKEL: OK, now, what we ought to do is get Iraq to give us 100 year lease on their unexplored — they’re the second largest source of oil in the world. Known reserves. Give the United States oil companies 100 year leases. Let us explore. We can get it quickly. It’s through sand. It’s the fastest way to get oil.

Beckel justified giving U.S. oil companies a century of business in Iraq by claiming, “The Iraqis owe us, Bill. We ought to take it.”

Watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/24/beckel-oil-iraq/

As the New York Times notes, such no-bid contracts play into the suspicions of those who believe that the U.S. invaded Iraq “precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract.” It’s uncertain what role the U.S. played in negotiating the four no-bid contracts.
If U.S. companies were given 100-year leases like Beckel wants, more people would likely agree with former Centcom Commander John Abizaid’s 2007 claim about the war in Iraq: “Of course it’s about oil.”

THE COMING CATASTROPHE? CONTINGENCY PLANS TO STRIKE IRAN

The Coming Catastrophe?The finishing touches on several contingency plans for attacking
Iran

By David DeBatto24/06/08
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20164.htm

Global Research Editor's noteWe bring to the attention of our readers David DeBatto's scenario as to what might occur if one of the several contingency plans to attack Iran, with the participation of Israel and NATO, were to be carried out.

While one may disagree with certain elements of detail of the author's text, the thrust of this analysis must be taken seriously.

"Israel has said a strike on Iran will be "unavoidable" if the Islamic regime continues to press ahead with alleged plans for building an atom-bomb." (London Daily Telegraph, 6/11/2008)
"Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany joined President Bush on Wednesday in calling for further sanctions against Iran if it does not suspend its uranium enrichment program." Mr. Bush stressed again that "all options are on the table," which would include military force. (New York Times, 6/11/2008)

We are fast approaching the final six months of the Bush administration. The quagmire in Iraq is in its sixth painful year with no real end in sight and the forgotten war in Afghanistan is well into its seventh year. The "dead enders" and other armed factions are still alive and well in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan again controls most of that country. Gas prices have now reached an average of $4.00 a gallon nationally and several analysts predict the price will rise to $5.00-$6.00 dollars per gallon at the pump by Labor Day.

This, despite assurances by some major supporters of the decision to invade Iraq that the Iraq war "will pay for itself" (Paul Wolfowitz) or that we will see "$20.00 per barrel" oil prices if we invade Iraq (Rupert Murdoch).

Continue reading here: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20164.htm

WE HAVE NAMES AND INFO ON LATEST U.S. CASUALTIES IN IRAQ

The following is a list of names or information on U.S. casualties from the Iraq war as confirmed by the Department of Defense (DOD). Click on name or details for more information:

Latest Coalition Fatalities
Source: http://icasualties.org/oif/

06/24/08 MNF: 3 Soldiers killed by attacked by IED in Ninewah Province
Three Multi-National Division - North Soldiers and an interpreter were killed in an improvised explosive device attack in Ninewah Province at 10:45 p.m., June 24.

06/24/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Staff Sgt. Du Hai Tran, 30, of Reseda, Calif.,died Jun. 20 in Baqubah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit while on patrol during combat operations. He was assigned to the Fires Squadron...

06/24/08 MNF: Two Soldiers, 2 civilians killed in Sadr City explosion
Two Coalition forces soldiers and two civilians serving with Coalition forces were killed after an explosion inside the District Advisory Council building in a southern neighborhood of Sadr City district at approximately 9:30 a.m. today.

06/23/08 MNF: Second soldier dies from small arms fire attack near Salman Pak
A Multi-National Division - Center Soldier was killed as a result of a small arms fire attack near Salman Pak, Iraq June 23...The Soldier was the second of two killed by the same attack.[url pending]
06/23/08 AP: American soldier killed, 5 others wounded in Iraq
The U.S. military says an American soldier has been killed and five others wounded southeast of Baghdad. The military says the soldiers were hit Monday by small-arms fire in an attack near Madain.

CNN REPORTS: U.S. TRAINS IRAQI WOMEN TO FIND FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBERS

U.S. trains Iraqi women to find female suicide bombers
Story Highlights
Halfway through 2008, the number of female suicide bombers is 20
"Daughters of Iraq" trains Iraqi women to find female suicide bombers
Women will work two or three days a month, making up to $300

http://tinyurl.com/4xzg5h

YUSUFIYA, Iraq (CNN) -- Female suicide bombers, who often slip through security checkpoints untouched because of cultural norms, are taking a more deadly toll than ever across Iraq.
But the U.S. Army has created a solution with "Daughters of Iraq," a program that trains Iraqi women to find female suicide bombers.

Women carried out eight bombings in all of 2007, according to the U.S. military. Halfway through 2008, the number of female suicide bombers is 20. A suicide attack carried out by a woman on Sunday in Baquba killed at least 16 people and wounded another 40.

"Daughters of Iraq" is a spinoff of "Sons of Iraq," which employs Iraqi men to run checkpoints and is credited with taking much of the steam out of the insurgency.

The goal of the women's program is twofold: to protect against female suicide bombers, and to provide much-needed income to Iraqi women with few chances for employment.

In the town of Yusufiya, southwest of Baghdad, some 30 women are being trained to search other females at security checkpoints -- something men are forbidden to do under Iraqi cultural norms.

In mid-May, a female suicide bomber killed an Iraqi army officer in this town.
"When he came out to meet her to help her with a problem she was having, she detonated the vest and killed him and injured some of his soldiers," said Michael Starz, a U.S. Army captain.
The women will work two or three days a month, making up to $300, an Iraqi military officer explained to applicants. In a community, where families struggle to survive, that's good money. Watch how "Daughters of Iraq" works »

The women come from small farming communities. Many of them are widows with numerous children and almost no income.

Click here http://tinyurl.com/4xzg5h for full CNN story.

ATTN: FOX NEWS' BRIT HUME AND LAURA INGRAHAM: SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 2 AND INJURES 70 IN MOSUL

Both BRIT HUME and LAURA INGRAHAM of FOX NEWS are still singing about how well things are going in MOSUL, IRAQ while at the same time denying on Tuesday a suicide bomber killed two and injured 70 in MOSUL (see story below)

Also, the following incidents took place in MOSUL and were again somehow overlooked by BRIT HUME and LAURA INGRAHAM who kept bragging about how well things are going in MOSUL:

Mosul:#1: U.S. soldiers killed three people of the same family and arrested two other members in a raid on a house in western Mosul on Tuesday, police said. "The house raided by the U.S. forces was in al-Uraibi neighborhood, western Mosul. The raiding troops killed three and detained two, all members of the same family, without any apparent reason," the source, who asked not to be named, told Aswat al-Iraq.

#2: Unidentified gunmen kidnapped four Mosul University students while heading for their final exams in the western part of the city on Tuesday, police said. "Unknown gunmen boarding two civilian vehicles kidnapped four University Mosul students, residents of al-Anbar province, in al-Shifaa neighborhood, western Mosul, on Tuesday," the source, who asked not to have his name mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq. "The kidnappers released two of the four a short while later."

#3: Militants shot dead an off-duty police lieutenant studying law in the University of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, as he left the campus, police said.

#4: Police found the body of a tax department employee, who had been shot, in western Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

And the breaking news on Tuesday that BRIT HUME and LAURA INGRAHAM of FOX NEWS apparently missed in their "extensive research" on MOSUL, IRAQ was this:

Breaking News: Iraq: Suicide car bomber kills 2 people, wounds 70 in Mosul http://tinyurl.com/3q3h56

Breaking News: Iraq: Suicide car bomber kills 2 people, wounds 70 in Mosul

http://tinyurl.com/3q3h56 or this link http://www.gmanews.tv/story/103094/Iraq-Suicide-car-bomber-kills-2-people-wounds-70-in-Mosul

Even with ALL this documented evidence that things are not that "rosy" in MOSUL, IRAQ, both FOX NEWS BRIT HUME AND LAURA INGRAHAM continue to LIE, LIE, LIE to the Americian public through their respective shows, "FOX NEWS SPECIAL REPORT" and "FOX NEWS JUST IN."

CNN BREAKING NEWS: TWO U.S. SOLDIERS KILLED IN SADR CITY AND TWO AMERICAN CIVILIANS:VIOLENCE ERUPTS IN MOSUL AFTER "ROSY" REPORT BY BRIT HUME

U.S. Embassy staff, soldiers killed in Baghdad blast

One American soldier was killed and three more were wounded during a small arms attack just outside Baghdad in Madaen on Monday. One gunman was killed and an Iraqi interpreter was wounded. The soldiers were attending a local council meeting when a disgruntled official opened fire on them.

In Mosul, gunmen killed a policeman and a woman; two civilians were also wounded. A university student was killed in a drive-by shooting. An off-duty policeman was shot dead while at a market. Three Iraqi soldiers were wounded as they were trying to defuse a bomb. A bomb exploded near an army patrol, wounding an Iraqi soldier and five civilians. Also, two suspects were arrested and a weapons cache was confiscated.

The Mosul attacks came on the same day FOX NEWS' BRIT HUME ran a report on his "SPECIAL REPORT" claiming violence had been brought under control in MOSUL.

Story Highlights
Official: Civilians include U.S. State and Defense Department employees
Military says it caught fleeing suspect who "tested positive for explosive residue"
Blast comes day after gunmen kill local political leader in Baghdad Shiite enclave
U.S. military will transfer security responsibilities in Anbar province to Iraqi military

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- An explosion rocked a municipal building Tuesday in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, killing six Iraqis, two U.S. soldiers and two civilian U.S. Embassy employees, officials said.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/24/iraq.main/index.html

The U.S. military said troops detained a suspect in connection with the attack. The person was captured "fleeing the scene and tested positive for explosive residue," the military said.

The embassy official said the American civilians include "a direct hire civilian employee of the Department of State and a Department of Defense civilian employee."

The blast occurred during a meeting of the district advisory council in Sadr City, and U.S. troops were in the area, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said. The groups are neighborhood councils that assess local needs and pass on their assessments to the provincial government.

"We believe the target of the attack was a high-ranking [district advisory council] member as well as the U.S. soldiers," said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman.

An Interior Ministry official said six Iraqis were killed and 10 were wounded in the attack, including the deputy head of the council -- who was seriously injured.

The U.S. military confirmed the deaths, saying an American-led coalition soldier and three council members also were wounded. There have been 4,106 U.S. service members killed since the Iraq war began.

The military blamed Iranian-backed militants that U.S. officials call Special Groups for Tuesday's attack.

"We believe the Special Groups criminals were upset that the DAC member was working with coalition forces to improve the quality of life for the southern Sadr City residents," Stover said.

The explosion follows a Pentagon report issued Monday that touted a sharp decrease in violence in Iraq in recent months.

Sadr City is the stronghold of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and has seen some of the capital's most intense fighting between Shiite militia members and security forces.

Al-Sadr recently announced his intention to develop a fighting force that would battle U.S.-led forces in Iraq.

A truce was reached last month between the government and al-Sadr's followers, ending weeks of fighting and allowing the Iraqi army to enter Sadr City, but violence persists.

Tuesday's blast comes after gunmen stormed the house of the head of Abu Dsheer City Council on Monday night and fatally shot him.

Mehdi Alwan was an al-Sadr supporter. Abu Dsheer is a Shiite enclave in southern Baghdad's predominantly Sunni Dora district.

NEW VIDEO: TV NETWORKS SPEND ONLY TWO MINUTES A WEEK ON IRAQ WAR: CBS' LARA LOGAN AND THE REAL NEWS NETWORKS' PEPE ESCOBAR REPORT

Iraq story buried by US networks

Major networks spend only 2 minutes per week on Iraq war coverage; Lara Logan of CBS joins critiqueIraq story buried by US networks

The Real News Network's Pepe Escobar and CBS' Chief Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan are seen on this NEW video talking about how the television networks in the United States spend only TWO MINUTES A WEEK on the IRAQ WAR.

Watch VIDEO here: http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=1770

SHOCKING VIDEO: IRAQ FOR SALE: BLACKWATER USA

Most of us have heard about BLACKWATER,USA the security firm that has millions of dollars in contracts to carry out security services in Iraq.

This video provides an insiders look at just how BLACKWATER, USA operates and how they have turned an illegal war into a huge profit making venture.

While the mainstream media focuses on whether we should drill for oil off the coast of U.S. or in Alaska, or whether health care should be provided to ALL American citizens, the U.S. government is shelling out millions of dollars to BLACKWATER, USA to provide security for U.S. contractors like Halliburton and KBR who already are making big bucks off the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is also important to remember Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO for HALLIBURTON and its subsidiary KBR before returning to politics.

Watch this eye-opening VIDEO here: http://www.youtube.com/v/N83BdpNPvgw&hl=en

GUNMAN IN IRAQ KILLS 2 U.S. SOLDIERS, WOUNDS 4

BAGHDAD - A disgruntled local official opened fire Monday on U.S. soldiers attending a municipal council meeting southeast of Baghdad, killing two of them and wounding four other Americans, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

Gunman in Iraq kills 2 American soldiers, wounds 4
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer Mon Jun 23, 4:18 PM ET
http://tinyurl.com/3sgycg

The assailant died in a hail of gunfire after the attack, which occurred in the town of Madain, also known as Salman Pak, about 15 miles south of Baghdad in an area with a history of Sunni-Shiite tension.

U.S. officials confirmed two American soldiers died and that four Americans, including a civilian interpreter, were wounded.

Iraqi police and witnesses said the attack took place in front of the Madain municipal building where the Americans had come to confer with local authorities.

U.S. officials said the Americans were leaving the building when the assailant opened fire about 1 p.m. However, the U.S. officials released no further details except that the assailant was killed.
"The attacker came out of his car with an AK-47 rifle in his hand and started firing on the American soldiers until he was killed by the return fire," said Hussein al-Dulaimi, 37, who owns an agricultural machine shop across the street.

Al-Dulaimi, other residents and a police official said the attacker had been a Sunni member of the municipal council until he was ousted by Shiites during sectarian violence following the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine north of Baghdad.

But the Interior Ministry said the gunman was still an active council member.
The motive for the attack was unclear, and ministry officials were investigating whether the gunman had ties to Sunni insurgents.

The Madain area was a center of Saddam Hussein's biological and chemical weapons program. It also includes the tomb of Salman al-Farsi, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad.
The tomb has been the source of sectarian tension in recent years, with both Sunni and Shiite religious organizations competing for control of the shrine, which used to draw pilgrims from across the Muslim world.

Click here for rest of story: http://tinyurl.com/3sgycg

CBS' LARA LOGAN TELLS "DAILY SHOW" SOLDIERS IN IRAQ FEEL FORGOTTEN: PLUS VIDEO OF LOGAN RIPPING INTO FOX NEWS' LAURA INGRAHAM. DON'T MISS THESE 2 VIDS

Lara Logan is the Chief Foreign Correspondent for the CBS News and she recently appeared on the Comedy Central "Daily Show" hosted by John Stewart. Logan, who has spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan, talks about how the bosses at the network try to avoid putting on anything that has to do with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Logan told Stewart the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan "feel forgotten."

Logan's appearance on the "Daily Show" received a good deal of media attention because she used a expletive deleted word to describe how the network bosses treat stories coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Logan, who is stunningly beautiful, describes how she breaks the ice with troops when she climbs into a Humvee to go out on patrol in a war zone.

Watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/v/M8skwVT6jWk&hl=en

And watch the video of Lara Logan dish it out to Howard Kurtz of CNN's "Reliable Sources" by explaining to Kurtz how she can't report stories about Iraq rebuilding because it will bring on attacks on the project.

Logan also rips into Laura Ingraham, who now has her own show on FOX NEWS called "Just In," for saying reporters like Logan sit on a balcony in Iraq and report on the war. I doubt if Ingraham would ever have Logan on her idiotic show after hearing what Logan has to say about her.

Watch the video here:

http://www.youtube.com/v/6I420_fPM2E&hl=en

BREAKING NEWS: MORE DEATHS OF U.S. TROOPS AND MORE VIOLENCE IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

The mainstream media doesn't want you to know about any of this, but we feel it is our duty to the thousands of young Americans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan to tell the TRUTH about what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. For more information on each U.S. death and each incident of violence, click on the name or subject highlighted in BLUE.

War News for Monday, June 23, 2008
MNF-Iraq is reporting the death of a Coalition Force soldier (Multi-National Division – North) in three roadside bomb attacks on Coalition force patrols in Diyala province.. Five other soldier were wounded in the attacks.

IC Publications is reporting the death of a U.S. soldier from small arms fire in Madain Iraq on Monday, June 23rd. Five additional soldiers were wounded in the attack as reported by the U.S. military.CJTF-101 is reporting the deaths of four coalition soldiers from an IED attack in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan on Saturday, June 21st.

Two other soldiers were wounded in the attack.NATO is reporting the death of one ISAF soldier from an IED attack in Paktika Province, Afghanistan on Saturday, June 21st. Four additional soldiers were wounded in the attack.

Nowe Media is reporting the soldier is from the Polish contingency was an officer and the attack was 40 kilometres from Wazi Khwa base.CJTF-101 is reporting the death of a coalition soldier in an IED attack while conducting combat operations in Farah province, Afghanistan on Friday, June 20th. Two other soldiers and one Afghani civilian were wounded in the attack.CJTF-101 is reporting the death of a coalition service member in a suicide attack and small arms fire in Helmand province, Afghanistan on Friday, June 20th. One Afghani civilian was killed in the attack.

The DoD is reporting a new death previously unreported by CENTCOM. Hospitalman Dustin Kelby Burnett. He died while conducting combat operations in Farah Province, Afghanistan on Friday, June 20th. No other details were released.

PNC News is reporting the death of a civilian security company personal. Christopher Quitugua died in a convoy accident in Iraq on an undisclosed date. No other details were released. According to Pacific Daily News Christopher Quitugua's grandparents, Albert A. Quitugua and Maria C. Quitugua, their grandson and three others were in a vehicle in a convoy when a tire blowout caused the vehicle to flip.OIF/OEF fatalities.

PDFJune 20 airpower summary:June 21 airpower summary:A Sunni legislator said on Monday that the security agreement to be signed between Baghdad and Washington would allow the latter to attack any country from Iraqi territories. "The Iraqi-U.S. agreement contains several items that impinge upon the sovereignty of Iraq, including the right of the U.S. forces in Iraq to attack any nation and raid any Iraqi house and arrest people without prior permission from the Iraqi government," Khalaf al-Alyan, a member of parliament from the Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.

Reporters Say Networks Block War Reportsvideo: Afghanistan: Lost in translation

Reported Security incidents:Baghdad:#1: A roadside bomb targeted a National Police patrol in Waziriyah, near the cotton wool plant intersection at 11.30 a.m. Monday, injuring three policemen.
#2: A roadside bomb targeted a US military convoy in Qahira, near the water reservoir at noon. No casualties were reported.
#3: A roadside bomb targeted a US military convoy in Salahuddin Square, Kathimiyah neighbourhood at around noon. No casualties were reported.
#4: A roadside bomb targeted a US military convoy in Adil neighbourhood at around 1 p.m. No casualties were reported.
Diyala Prv:#1: At least 10 people were killed when insurgents fired off a spate of mortar rounds which fell on houses in Iraq's restive province of Diyala, officials told AFP on Monday. The projectiles, fired during the night in the town of Al-Adhaim, were apparently aimed at the police headquarters and the mayor's office but fell instead on people's homes, a government security official said. The mortars killed at least 10 people and wounded around 20, the official added. The attack was confirmed by Abdul Jabbar al-Obeidi, mayor of Adhaim, which is about 70 kilometres (43 miles) north of the provincial capital Baquba.

Kut:#1: A woman was wounded when a mortar shell landed in the heart of al-Nasr neighborhood, western Kut, on Monday, police said. "The woman was rushed to a hospital from the mortar shell of 120 mm., which also damaged a civilian vehicle," a security source, who requested anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq. "The shell perhaps targeted the Delta base, where the Multi-National Force (MNF) troops are stations in Wassit," the source said, adding the police started to investigate the incident.The Delta base is 15 km western Kut city.

Mosul:#1: A suicide car bomb attacked a police patrol in the city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province, wounding 14 people, including 4 policemen, a provincial police source said on Monday. The attack occurred late on Sunday in the al-Wihda neighborhood in southern Mosul, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

#2: Three Iraqi army servicemen, including an officer in the rank of major, were wounded while trying to dismantle an improvised explosive device (IED) in northern Mosul on Monday, an official army source said. The IED went off while a bomb squad was trying to defuse it in al-Rashidiya neighborhood, seriously wounding Maj. Fakher Braori, the commander of the Iraqi army's 3rd contingent, 8th Brigade, and two other soldiers," the source told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq. "Maj. Braori lost a hand and a leg," the source said, adding the wounded were rushed to a hospital for treatment. He did not give further information on the incident.

#3: A policeman and a woman were killed and two civilians were wounded in an armed attack in western Mosul, a security source said on Monday. "Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a police checkpoint in Mosul al-Jadida region in western Mosul, killing one policeman and a woman and injuring two more, including a child," the source told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq.

#4: Gunmen killed a university student in a drive-by shooting in northern Mosul, police said.#5: Gunmen killed an off-duty policemen at a market in western Mosul, police said.

Al Anbar Prv:#1: The U.S. military will transfer control of security in Iraq's Anbar province to Iraqi forces this week.

Afghanistan:#1: The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan says it has killed 55 militants in the east of the country.A coalition statement said the battle took place on Friday in Paktika province, which borders Pakistan. It said militants ambushed a patrol with rocket and gun fire, prompting troops to fire back and call in warplanes.
#2: Suspected pro-Taliban Militants kidnapped 17 Pakistani policemen from posts on the road through the Khyber Pass, the latest insecurity on the vital supply route for Western forces in Afghanistan. Militants attacked four checkposts on the winding road through the pass that leads to the Afghan border on Sunday night, kidnapping the policemen and wounding one in a brief exchange of fire, a senior government official in the region said. "Our 17 khasadar are missing," said the official in Landikotal, the main town in the Khyber region, referring to members of special police forces raised in ethnic Pashtun tribal agencies.
#3: An Afghan official says police and U.S.-led forces attacked militants planting a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan and one insurgent and two civilians were killed. Zalmay Dadak, mayor of Khogyani district of Nangarhar province, said police shot dead one suspect shortly before midnight Sunday and gave chase to the others. Dadak said a helicopter from the U.S.-led coalition fired at the militants but also hit a house in a village, killing a man and a young child.
#4: At least 11 Shia Muslims were executed by a rival Sunni group in Pakistan's Kurram agency, a volatile north-western tribal district, a tribal leader said Monday. The beheaded bodies of eight people from the Shia tribe Toori were found dumped in Arawali and three in the Sadda area of the district, tribal chief Ali Akbar told the Geo news television channel. All those killed were abducted Friday when a food convoy they were travelling with came under attack in the Sunni-dominated area of Pir Qayyum, about 30 kilometres south-east of Kurram's central town of Parachinar.
#5: Four people, including a security guard, were killed in the ambush. Later, government forces, backed by helicopter gunships, chased the attackers, killing five of them.
#6: NATO forces struck back with two artillery attacks across the border into Pakistan after attackers hiding there fired a barrage of rockets into Afghanistan that killed three children, officials said Sunday. NATO said five rockets were fired at one of its bases in Khost province overnight. At least one hit a house in Kunday, a small village that sits between two military bases, killing the three children. Another hit a NATO base, wounding an Afghan man, the alliance said. NATO said its forces responded "in self-defense" to the attack "with artillery fire on the launch site located about 300 meters (yards) inside Pakistan." In an earlier attack Saturday afternoon, three rounds of "indirect fire" — which often refers to mortar or rocket attacks — landed near a NATO outpost in neighboring Paktika province, the alliance said. Three more landed in an Afghan army compound. No casualties were reported. NATO said those rounds also came from inside Pakistan and responded with artillery fire. NATO reported that another overnight barrage of rockets aimed at a base in Khost — this time from inside Afghanistan — killed another civilian. It responded with an airstrike as well as artillery fire, it said.
#7: Record duo face Taliban rocket attack with Scots forces. (this is worth reading)
#8: TALIBAN fighters have ambushed a food convoy intended for foreign soldiers, killing one truck driver and wounding another, a local police chief said. The militants claimed four security guards hired to protect the convoy had been killed and several trucks were burned in Sunday's attack. But a police spokesmen in the province said only one driver was killed and another wounded in the ambush, which happened in the Showak district of Paktia province. Two vehicles were set on fire during the attack, the spokesman said. The convoy was on its way from Gardez to Khost city to carry food to US-led troops based in Khost province.
#9: A Canadian soldier remained in serious condition Sunday following a traffic accident Saturday afternoon when an RG-31, or Nyala, armoured vehicle rolled over in Kandahar City. Three soldiers were injured in the incident, which occurred at approximately 5:30 p.m. local time. One soldier was flown by helicopter to the multinational medical unit at Kandahar airfield. The two others were treated for minor injuries and did not require hospitalization.
#10: U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops killed several Taliban insurgents in an air and ground assault in Sangin district of southern Afghanistan on Sunday, a U.S. military statement said on Monday.
#11: Several militants were killed during U.S.led coalition operation in the southern Afghan province of Helmand of Sunday, U.S. military said in a statement on Monday.
#12: Police say a suspected suicide car bomb has killed four civilians in western Afghanistan.Police official Abdul Shuqur says the sports utility vehicle exploded at a market in the town of Shindand on Monday afternoon. Shuqur says witnesses told him that seconds before the blast the vehicle approached a convoy of foreign troops and that the troops opened fire on it. He says 12 other people were wounded.
Source: http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/

HOTTEST VIDEO ABOUT IRAQ WAR EVER POSTED ON THIS BLOG. A MUST SEE FOR EVERY RED-BLOODED AMERICAN MALE

The video of a country western girl singing about her boyfriend in Iraq is the hottest video we have ever posted on this blog in the six months this blog has been up and running. The "hits" to my blog are coming in from all over and from what we hear the video is the talk of many of the GIs deployed to Iraq. You can watch it here. WOW!

http://www.youtube.com/v/6cAChVVVZaM&hl=en

CNN BREAKING NEWS: FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 16 IN IRAQ

Female bomber kills 16 near government complex

Story Highlights
Attack took place on a street authorities had sealed off last week
Police officers, women, children among casualties, officials say
Authorities say women are increasingly offering themselves up for suicide missions
Officials: Al Qaeda preys on women who are illiterate, religious, in financial straits

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/22/iraq.main/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A female suicide bomber killed 16 people and wounded 40 Sunday when she detonated her explosives in a crowded area of central Baquba, police there said.
Police, women and children were among the casualties, according to the Diyala Military Operations command.

The attack happened near the main government complex in Baquba on a street that security officials had sealed off last week. Only official vehicles were being allowed in the area; civilian vehicles without special clearance were prohibited.

More than 20 female suicide bombers have carried out attacks in Iraq this year, a number much higher than in previous years. According to the U.S. military, women carried out eight bombings in 2007.

Authorities said that al Qaeda in Iraq is recruiting women and that increasing numbers of women are volunteering for missions.

The women are desperate and hopeless, officials said, and most have pre-existing ties to the insurgency. Their primary motive is revenge for a male family member killed by U.S. or Iraqi forces, the officials said.

"We do see certain members of cells attempting to persuade women -- specifically, in many cases, wives of those who have been killed as terrorists -- to conduct suicide operations," U.S. Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling said recently. His area of operations includes the volatile Diyala province.

Hertling's troops in Diyala have launched operations targeting relatives of suspected female bombers, as they attempt to break up the rings that are recruiting the women and girls.
Intelligence gathered from detainees indicates that al Qaeda in Iraq is looking for women with three main characteristics: those who are illiterate, are deeply religious or who have financial struggles.

Women in the last category often have money problems because they've lost the male head of the household, officials said.

Females always have played a role in the insurgency in Iraq, helping feed militants, hiding them in their homes and helping sneak weapons around the country.

They have proved to be effective in their operations because women are not to be searched by men for cultural and religious reasons.

The U.S. military has created a program called the Daughters of Iraq, similar to the U.S.-backed Sons of Iraq, across the Sunni regions of the country. The Daughters of Iraq are being trained to conduct searches of women.

In the northern city of Mosul, a suicide car bomber detonated near a police checkpoint, wounding at least 14 people -- including four policemen -- according to police.

Mosul is the capital of Nineveh province where Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki launched an ongoing offensive against al Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni extremists last month.

Sunday's violence comes ahead of a U.S. report that will say violence in Iraq declined in the early part of this year, according to officials familiar with the report. (COMMENT: PERHAPS THE PENTAGON BETTER HOLD OFF ON THEIR GLOWING REPORT ABOUT HOW VIOLENCE IS DOWN IN IRAQ)

The Pentagon's upcoming report to Congress, which could be released as early as Monday, will cover events in Iraq from mid-February to mid-May.

COMMENT: THIS IS ALSO WHY SEN. JOHN McCAINS STATEMENT ABOUT PULLING OUT OF IRAQ WHEN THE VIOLENCE IS OVER MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOVER BECAUSE THE VIOLENCE WILL NEVER BE OVER IN IRAQ.

U.S. MARINES IN IRAQ. REAL WAR VIDEO: WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC

The United States Marine Corps have always distinguished themselves in battle and in Iraq they continue to display the type of courage and honor they deserve as seen in this VERY GRAPHIC video showing U.S. Marines in battle in Iraq.

http://www.youtube.com/v/enm9Dhp79Vk&hl=en

IRAQ WAR. (THE GREATEST WAR VIDEO EVER)

This video is hailed as the greatest war video ever made about the Iraq war. It is one you won't want to miss and perhaps even keep for future reference.

http://www.youtube.com/v/iRb7XxuxH_o&hl=en

VIDEO: HOT COUNTRY GIRL HAS MUSICAL MESSAGE FOR TROOPS IN IRAQ. WOW!

Wow is right. No wonder this video is a big hit with our guys in Iraq. And the message isn't bad either.

http://www.youtube.com/v/6cAChVVVZaM&hl=en

CNN REPORTS: ROCKETS LAUNCHED INTO AFGHANISTAN

Afghanistan is becoming the new "hot spot" in the Middle East and there are more and more signs the Taliban is getting stronger.

Last week more American GIs were killed in Afghanistan than were killed in Iraq.

As usual the mainstream media in the United States except for CNN is reluctant to report the increase in Taliban attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.

COMMENTS BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE

Rocket attacks hit ISAF bases in Afghanistan
Story Highlights
Four Afghan civilians killed by attacks on NATO-led bases in southern Afghanistan
ISAF: One barrage was launched from across the border in Pakistan
Pakistan informed, ISAF troops responded with attack aimed at the launch site

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/22/afghanistan/index.html

(CNN) -- Four Afghan civilians were killed by rocket attacks on NATO-led bases in southern Afghanistan Sunday, including on barrage launched from across the border in Pakistan, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

Three of the deaths happened near dusk Sunday when five rockets fired from about 300 yards inside Pakistan hit the village of Kundai, ISAF said. One rocket landed inside the ISAF base and wounded an Afghan male, ISAF said.

ISAF troops responded with an artillery attack aimed at the launch site, ISAF said.
"The Pakistan military was immediately notified when ISAF forces came under fire," ISAF said.

One Afghan civilian was killed early Sunday when 13 rockets were launched toward an ISAF base in the Khowst province, ISAF said.

The launch site, which was inside Afghanistan, was then targeted by ISAF artillery and an airstrike, ISAF said.

On Saturday, several rockets were launched from inside Pakistan toward an ISAF base in Afghanistan's northeastern Paktika province, ISAF said. There were no casualties reported.

BOMB IRAN? WHAT'S TO STOP BUSH?

Unlike the attack on Iraq five years ago, to deal with Iran there need be no massing of troops. And, with the propaganda buildup already well under way, there need be little, if any, forewarning before shock and awe and pox -- in the form of air and missile attacks -- begin.

By Ray McGovern, Consortium NewsPosted on June 20, 2008, Printed on June 22, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/88786/

This time it will be largely the Air Force's show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy. Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details.

Emerging from a 90-minute White House meeting with President George W. Bush on June 4, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the two leaders were of one mind:
"We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. I left with a lot less question marks [than] I had entered with regarding the means, the timetable restrictions, and American resoluteness to deal with the problem. George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on that matter before the end of his term in the White House."

Does that sound like a man concerned that Bush is just bluff and bluster?

A member of Olmert's delegation noted that same day that the two countries had agreed to cooperate in case of an attack by Iran, and that "the meetings focused on 'operational matters' pertaining to the Iranian threat." So bring 'em on!

A show of hands please. How many believe Iran is about to attack the U.S. or Israel?
You say you missed Olmert's account of what Bush has undertaken to do? So did I. We are indebted to intrepid journalist Chris Hedges for including the quote in his article of June 8, "The Iran Trap."

We can perhaps be excused for missing Olmert's confident words about "Israel's best friend" that week. Your attention -- like mine -- may have been riveted on the June 5 release of the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee regarding administration misrepresentations of pre-Iraq-war intelligence -- the so-called "Phase II" investigation (also known, irreverently, as the "Waiting-for-Godot Study").

Better late than never, I suppose.
Oversight?
Yet I found myself thinking: It took them five years, and that is what passes for oversight? Yes, the president and vice president and their courtiers lied us into war. And now a bipartisan report could assert that fact formally; and committee chair Jay Rockefeller could sum it up succinctly:
"In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent. As a result, the American people were led to believe that the threat from Iraq was much greater than actually existed."
But as I listened to Senator Rockefeller, I had this sinking feeling that in five or six years time, those of us still around will be listening to a very similar post mortem looking back on an even more disastrous attack on Iran.

My colleagues and I in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) issued repeated warnings, before the invasion of Iraq, about the warping of intelligence. And our memoranda met considerable resonance in foreign media.

We could get no ink or airtime, however, in the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) in the U.S. Nor can we now.

Click on link above for full story.

SUNDAY IN IRAQ: 35 IRAQIS KILLED, 62 WOUNDED, SQUATTERS TOLD TO LEAVE THEIR HOMES IN BAGHDAD

At least 35 Iraqis were killed and another 62 were wounded in the latest attack. A female suicide bomber attacked a government center in Baquba at the end of the work day, leaving behind dozens of casualties. No Coalition deaths were reported.

http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=13028

A female suicide bomber blew herself up outside the Baquba governmental center, killing 17 people and wounding 42 others. A number of policemen were among the casualties The explosion occurred as the courthouse was winding down proceedings for the day. In an unrelated incident, three gunmen were detained in connection with the kidnapping and murder of three family members this week.

In Baghdad, three dumped bodies were recovered. U.S. forces killed six suspects and wounded another in several incidents on Friday; they had been observed trying to plant roadside bombs in various locations around the New Baghdad neighborhood.

A roadside bomb near Kirkuk killed three and wounded two more. Two women were among the dead. Another bomb, this one in al-Wasiti, left no casualties. In nearby Fashka village, a roadside bomb killed four people.

In Mosul, one policeman was killed and another was wounded in a drive-by shooting. Fourteen people were wounded during a suicide car bombing at a checkpoint in Wihda.

A bomb hidden in a bag injured two people at a market in Hilla.

Also, Iraqi courts have ordered that 20,000 detainees be freed. This includes people convicted of petty crimes but does not potentially innocent inmates held in Coalition prisons. Amnesty laws have been a point of contention between Sunni Arabs, who feel they have been unjustly targeted, and the Shi'ite majority government. Tens of thousands more out on bail or otherwise accused of crimes have had their warrants dropped as well.

Squatters in Baghdad have been given a deadline to leave occupied homes so that their owners may return home to claim them. They will be forcibly evicted after the deadline. Between four and five million Iraqis are thought to have left the country or been internally displaced due to sectarian attacks, the U.S. invasion, or other violence.

FRANK RICH: NOW THAT WE'VE WON THE WAR, LET'S COME HOME

THE Iraq war’s defenders like to bash the press for pushing the bad news and ignoring the good.

Maybe they’ll be happy to hear that the bad news doesn’t rate anymore. When a bomb killed at least 51 Iraqis at a Baghdad market on Tuesday, ending an extended run of relative calm, only one of the three network newscasts (NBC’s) even bothered to mention it.The only problem is that no news from Iraq isn’t good news — it’s no news.

Source: New York TimesNow That We’ve ‘Won,’ Let’s Come HomeBy FRANK RICHJune 22, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/opinion/22rich.html?h

The night of the Baghdad bombing the CBS war correspondent Lara Logan appeared as Jon Stewart’s guest on “The Daily Show” to lament the vanishing television coverage and the even steeper falloff in viewer interest. “Tell me the last time you saw the body of a dead American soldier,” she said.

After pointing out that more soldiers died in Afghanistan than Iraq last month, she asked, “Who’s paying attention to that?”Her question was rhetorical, but there is an answer: Virtually no one.

If you follow the nation’s op-ed pages and the presidential campaign, Iraq seems as contentious an issue as Vietnam was in 1968.

But in the country itself, Cindy vs. Michelle, not Shiites vs. Sunnis, is the hotter battle. This isn’t the press’s fault, and it isn’t the public’s fault. It’s merely the way things are.

In America, the war has been a settled issue since early 2007. No matter what has happened in Iraq since then, no matter what anyone on any side of the Iraq debate has had to say about it, polls have consistently found that a majority of Americans judge the war a mistake and want out.

For that majority, the war is over except for finalizing the withdrawal details. They’ve moved on without waiting for the results of Election Day 2008 or sampling the latest hectoring ad from moveon.org. . .http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/opinion/22rich.html?h...
Continue reading at link above.

EXPLOSION NEAR GREEN ZONE KILLS 4 INJURES 12

Baghdad - At least four people were killed and 12 wounded in separate incidents across Iraq, police and media reports said Saturday.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/214021,four-killed-12-injured-in-iraq-violence--summary.html

Police told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency that three people were killed and 10 wounded when an explosive device was detonated in Baghdad's Harithiya district in the late hours of Friday.

Sources said that the vehicle was parked on the side of a road leading to Baghdad's Green Zone.
The Green Zone is located in central Baghdad where the British and the US embassies are located as well as several governmental offices and ministries.

In another incident, militants shot dead an Iraqi taxi driver who worked in Baghdad's Baiaa area, security sources told VOI.

Meanwhile police discovered three bodies of members of the same family in the Tahrir area of the city of Baquba, some 60 kilometres north of the capital, sources told VOI.

Sources said the three, who had been shot, were abducted by militants after refusing to follow their orders.

CORRUPTION PROBE HALTS REBUILDING IRAQI CITY WITH YOUR TAX DOLLARS

It is isn't bad enough the Iraq war has cost the U.S. taxpayer over 3 TRILLION dollars, but now there are more and more reports coming out showing all kinds of corruption with the rebuilding of Iraqi cities we destroyed and a waste of U.S. taxpayer money.

Once again, the media in the United States plays CYA for the Bush administration and reports such as the one below get little or no attention in the mainstream media.

This is YOUR MONEY folks and it is being squandered in Iraq while our bridges and highways are in terrible shape, schools need renovation and we have a medical system that has left 47 MILLION Americans without any health care.

And on top of the total mess we have created in Iraq with our invasion and occupation, the Bush administration is rattling the sabre and threatening to come to the defense of Israel if Israel decides to attack Iran.

If you think gas prices are high now, just wait until you see what happens if we end up going to war with IRAN.

COMMENTARY BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE

Probe halts rebuilding of Iraqi city
Mayor, police chief investigated in scam to sell stored oil on black market
The Associated Press
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25287847/

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S.-funded reconstruction in a one-time Sunni insurgent stronghold has been suspended because of a corruption probe, including allegations that the mayor and police chief were involved in a multimillion-dollar oil smuggling ring, The Associated Press has learned.
The problems in Hit, a dusty, ramshackle western town along the Euphrates River, provide a glimpse of the challenges in rebuilding a country where years of war and misrule have destroyed the social fabric.

Reconstruction is a key part of the U.S. military strategy against both Sunni and Shiite extremists, but many projects have long been dogged by mismanagement and allegations of corruption.

The U.S. government suspended its efforts in Hit this month after the police chief, Col. Salah Rasheed al-Gaoud, was fired for his alleged role in the scheme, U.S. and Iraqi officials familiar with the investigation told the AP.

Officials also confirmed that the mayor, Hikmat Jubair al-Gaoud, was under investigation. Marine Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Anbar province, said the mayor's current whereabouts were unknown and that it was unclear whether he fled the country.

But a man identifying himself as the mayor told the AP when contacted on al-Gaoud's mobile phone that he was still in Hit and "still in my job as the mayor."
"There is a committee that it is investigating the case of stealing oil and its work has not finished yet," he said Thursday.

Among the reconstruction projects that have been suspended are repairs to the town's dilapidated infrastructure, including street repairs, sewerage upgrade and school construction.
U.S. military officials said reconstruction projects in Hit would remain on hold during the investigation, which Iraqis said was being conducted by the Ministry of Interior.

Click on link http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25287847/ to read full account.

137 U.S. SOLDIERS BECOME ILL FROM CHEMICALS GUARDING KBR OIL PLANT IN IRAQ

Witness says U.S. soldiers ill after exposure to chemical

Workers allege contractor knew risks

By FARAH STOCKMANTHE BOSTON GLOBE
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/367940_chemical21.html

WASHINGTON -- U.S. soldiers assigned to guard a crucial part of Iraq's oil infrastructure became ill after exposure to a highly toxic chemical at the plant, witnesses told a Democratic Policy Committee hearing Friday on Capitol Hill.

"These soldiers were bleeding from the nose, spitting blood," said Danny Langford, an equipment technician from Texas brought to work at the Qarmat Ali Water treatment plant in 2003. "They were sick."

"Hundreds of American soldiers at this site were contaminated" while guarding the plant, Langford said, including members of the Indiana National Guard.

Langford is one of nine Americans who accuse KBR, the lead contractor on the Qarmat Ali project and one of the largest military contractors in Iraq, of knowingly exposing them to sodium dichromate, an orange, sandlike chemical that is a potentially lethal carcinogen. Specialists say even short-term exposure to the chemical can cause cancer, depress an individual's immune system, attack the liver, and cause other ailments.

Friday's hearing -- one among several organized to hold contractors accountable for alleged malfeasance in Iraq -- was chaired by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. "Hundreds of U.S. troops, who may not even know of their exposure to sodium dichromate that could one day result in a horrible disease, cancers, and death," he said.

Roughly 250 American soldiers were believed to have come in contact with the chemical, according to Defense Department documents. Sodium dichromate is the same substance that poisoned residents in Hinkley, Calif., an episode made famous by the movie "Erin Brockovich" in 2000.

In Iraq, the chemical was used as an antirust coating for pipes that supply water to the oil fields. After the 2003 U.S. invasion, looters raided the Qarmat-Ali facility; afterward, the chemical was found strewn around the facility and its grounds.

Langford and his former colleagues have said KBR supervisors initially told them the chemical was a "mild irritant." The company, however, eventually acknowledged that sodium dichromate was a potentially deadly substance and moved to clean up the site.
KBR has denied any wrongdoing.

After KBR began cleaning up the site, it tested its workers for exposure. The U.S. military took blood and urine samples from 137 soldiers and civilians who were at the plant.

BREAKING NEWS: LATEST DEATHS OF U.S. AND COALITION TROOPS IN IRAQ, AND FLAREUP OF VIOLENCE ACROSS IRAQ

There has been no letup in the violence and deaths of U.S. soldiers and coalition troops as Friday draws to a close in Iraq.

Naturally, the mainstream media and especially FOX NEWS don't mention the deaths of U.S. troops in Iraq of the number of acts of violence in provinces all across Iraq.

Source: http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/

UPDATE: One Soldier was killed and five wounded in three roadside bomb attacks on Coalition force patrols in Diyala province June 20. All the injured were medically evacuated. No further details given at this time, including the affiliation of the casualties.

CJTF-101 is reporting the death of a coalition service member from gunfire in Helmand province on Thursday, June 19th. No other details were released.

CJTF-101 is reporting the death of a second coalition service member gunfire in Helmand province, Afghanistan on Thursday, June 19th. In this updated release there were two soldiers killed in the same incident and another soldier was wounded. No other details were released.

The Washington Post (Reuters) is reporting the death of a soldier from a suicide bomber attack in the Girishk district, Helmand province, Afghanistan on Friday, June 20th. An Afghan interpreter and five civilians were also killed in the attack. No other details were released.

In an updated article, The Daily Record reports that David McCullie was a United Nations troubleshooter who died of a heart attack at his living quarters in Baghdad. he was the UN's chief of general services in Iraq, Kuwait and Jordan. He was a grade seven field officer - the equivalent of a brigadier general in the army.June 18 airpower summary:

Baghdad:#1: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States and its allies of plotting to assassinate him during a visit to neighbouring Iraq in March, state radio reported on Friday. "Based on reliable intelligence, our enemies had plans to kidnap and kill your servant (Ahmadinejad). But we intentionally made last minute changes in our schedule," the radio quoted Ahmadinejad telling a meeting of clerics in the Shi'ite holy city of Qom on Thursday.

#2: U.S. forces killed four militants and detained 18 others on Thursday and Friday during operations around Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

#3: Thursday Two unidentified bodies were found in Baghdad today; one in Ur neighbourhood and one in Kasra wa Atash.

#4: A roadside bomb targeted a US military convoy in Beirut Square, northeast Baghdad at 10 a.m. No casualties were reported.

#5: A roadside bomb targeted a US military convoy in Doura, south Baghdad at 11 a.m. No casualties were reported.

Diyala Prv:#1: An Iraqi soldier was killed Friday and three more, including a police officer, were wounded when an explosive device targeted their patrol in the northern city of Baquba, media reports said. Security sources told the Voices of Iraq (VOI) news agency that the bomb went off in the main road leading to Naqib area, southern Baquba.

#2: Gunmen blew up two houses in Ashti neighbourhood, al-Saadiyah district , to the northeast of Baquba Thursday evening. Both houses were empty as they were blown up by remote control, but a civilian passer by was in the vicinity and was injured by the blast.

Bahraz:#1: Unidentified gunmen killed a university student in southern Diala late Thursday, a police source said. "Suspected al-Qaeda gunmen opened fire on a university student in al-Abara region in Bahraz district, south of Baaquba, killing him instantly,” he source, who asked for anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.

Kut:#1: The al-Zahraa hospital’s morgue in Kut received on Friday an unidentified female body, a medical source said.“The 40-year-old body bore signs of stabbing and torture,” the source, who asked to be unnamed, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq.

Iskandariya:#1: Police found two decomposed bodies inside a mosque two years after they were kidnapped in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Dalouiya:#1: Three policemen were wounded on Friday when an improvised explosive device went off targeting their patrol in Dalouiya, said a police source. “An explosive charge was detonated near a police patrol in Dalouiya, wounding three policemen. Who were rushed to the city’s hospital for treatment,” Colonel Mohammed al-Juburi told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq, noting that their health condition is stable.

Balad:#1: U.S. troops killed four suspected al-Qaida militants and detained 18 others in raids north of Baghdad targeting al-Qaida bombing networks in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Friday. In a series of operations on Friday near the town of Balad, some 80 km north of Baghdad, U.S. troops, at one location, were attacked by small arms fire from a nearby rooftop, prompting the troops to fire back, killing four attackers, a military statement said.

Mosul:#1: Five policemen were wounded on Friday afternoon in a suicide car bomb attack on a checkpoint in southeastern Mosul, a senior security source said. “A car rigged with explosives driven by a suicide bomber, went off at 12:00pm on Friday targeting a police checkpoint in al-Wehda neighborhood in southeastern Mosul, injuring five policemen,” the source, who wished to remain anonymous, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq. “Police forces opened fire at the driver, killing him instantly before hitting the checkpoint,” he explained.

ONE U.S. SOLDIER KILLED, FIVE WOUNDED IN ROADSIDE BOMB BLAST NEAR BAGHDAD

US military: American soldier killed in Iraq

US military: 1 American soldier killed, 5 wounded by roadside bombs northeast of Baghdad

StaffAP News
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=220640

Jun 20, 2008 09:36 EST

The U.S. military says an American soldier has been killed and five others wounded by roadside bombs northeast of Baghdad.

A statement says the soldiers were struck Friday in three bombings on U.S patrols in the volatile Diyala province.

At least 4,102 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003. That's according to an Associated Press count.

The names of the soldiers have not been released pending notification of relatives.

CNN REPORTS: SUCIDE BOMBER KILLS 5 IN AFGHANISTAN

Children among dead in Afghan suicide blast

Three children among the dead, according to local police chief

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A suicide bomb exploded near a U.S.-led coalition military convoy in Afghanistan on Friday, killing 5 civilians, a coalition soldier and an Afghan soldier, military and police officials said.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/20/afghanistan/index.html

Three children were those killed, Police Chief Mohammed Hussein Andiwal of the southern Helmand province said. Another five civilians were wounded.

The number of casualties was lower than initially reported.

A man with explosives strapped to his body jumped on to the convoy from a roof above the road in the town of Gereshk at about 9am, Andiwal said.
A Taliban spokesman claimed one of his group's fighters carried out the attack in front of the Afghan government's intelligence office.

A coalition spokesman confirmed the soldiers' deaths but did not give the nationality of the coalition soldier who was killed.
Another U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Paul Fanning, said the convoy was part of the coalition's mission to train Afghan police officers.

Read full story here http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/06/20/afghanistan/index.html

CBS NEWS: FEMALE WOUNDED WARRIORS THRIVE TOGETHER

(CBS)As my producer, Tony Maciulis, and I were on our way to cover the first camp exclusively for wounded women veterans for tonight’s piece on “The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,” I remember thinking, “Am I ready for this?”

Female Wounded Warriors Thrive Together
Posted by Kelly WallaceKelly Wallace is a CBS News correspondent based in New York.
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/06/19/couricandco/entry4195938.shtml

I wanted to prepare myself for what I expected would be an emotionally difficult shoot, spending time with women who’ve lost limbs and arms and women who were told they would never walk again.

I couldn’t imagine what they have been through and were still going through. I assumed some would be bitter and feeling sorry for themselves, others angry. How wrong I was. Consider this – the five women we met, brought together by the Wounded Warriors Project and the Adaptive Sports Foundation, were asked to demonstrate anger during a motion therapy exercise. They all looked at each other and laughed.

That’s right.

They laughed because they didn’t know what anger looked or felt like. They weren’t angry.

“I think it’s because you love life more when you stare it in the face,” said retired Army Sgt. Diane Cochran, a mother of three who spent three years in the hospital after her humvee rolled over in Afghanistan. Doctors never expected her to walk again. “We couldn’t even fake it and express it in some form or fashion. It’s that powerful,” said retired Army Capt. Leslie Smith, who lost part of her leg to a blood disorder while serving in Bosnia. No anger, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been tough times, especially adjusting to life, no longer as a soldier, but as a woman with scars everyone can see. “It’s that American society for women is so visually oriented and what you see on the outside is what you get,” said Leslie. “And I know for myself, I struggled very much with that in the beginning because I didn’t feel like a whole person anymore.”

Retired Army Spec. Danielle Green-Byrd, a former college basketball star at Notre Dame, lost part of her left arm to a rocket-propelled grenade in Iraq. She told us everyday things, like putting her hair in a ponytail, are still difficult. “Even putting on a bra, a bra, that can be a challenge but I do it. A skirt. I’m starting to wear skirts now. That’s a challenge. You figure out ways. And I think this has taught me how to be very, very patient with myself. Very patient,” she said.

By 2020, one out of every five veterans under the age of 45 will be a woman like Danielle, Leslie and Diane.

The question we raise in our story is whether the Department of Veteran’s Administration is prepared to deal with an influx of women returning from war. Can VA hospitals which have provided care for men for decades give women the same level of care?

The women we met were new to the VA system and were for the most part satisfied with the care they had received but were concerned about the future, wondering whether the VA will truly be able to handle women’s needs. "I think everything is a learning process,” said Nancy Schiliro, a retired Marine Lance Cpl. who lost her right eye after an attack in Iraq. “It’s just a shame that we have to use this conflict as a learning process for them.”

The VA is convening a summit this weekend, bringing together hundreds of women veterans to discuss what’s working and what more needs to be done, in the areas of health care, military sexual trauma and readjusting to civilian life. We sat down with a panel of women leaders at the VA and the message was – we are gearing up, we are on the case. We learned the VA is surveying facilities around the country to find out what’s needed, providing sensitivity training to doctors on how to deal with women and even helping doctors re-learn skills such as how to give gynecological exams.

What I found most amazing about the wounded women veterans we met is that, besides not being angry, each of them says they are doing more with their lives now than they did before they were seriously injured. “I’m very proud to be a wounded warrior, amputee, and it makes life so much better,” said Leslie.

What we also saw firsthand is how weekends like the retreat we were lucky enough to attend really help heal the wounds you see and the wounds you don’t. “When you are serving, you are with all men,” said Nancy. “So you think that you’re alone in this little journey of yours and think, ‘God, I am the only female and I am injured. How is anyone going to understand me?’,” she said. “And when you meet women like this, it makes you feel better that you’re in great company and you’re not alone out there.”

Bravo Wounded Warriors and the Adaptive Sports Foundation for giving these women a chance to be women again.

Thanks to Emily Lamont for giving me the heads up on this story.

BREAKING: MIDDLE EAST ONLINE: IT'S CRAZY, BUT U.S IS GOING TO BOMB IRAN

Bomb Iran? What's to Stop Us?

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=26545


Unlike Iraq, which was prostrate after the Gulf War and a dozen years of sanctions, Iran can retaliate in a number of dangerous ways, launching a war for which our forces are ill-prepared, says Ray McGovern.

It’s crazy, but it’s coming soon – from the same folks who brought us Iraq.

Unlike the attack on Iraq five years ago, to deal with Iran there need be no massing of troops. And, with the propaganda buildup already well under way, there need be little, if any, forewarning before shock and awe and pox – in the form of air and missile attacks – begin.

This time it will be largely the Air Force’s show, punctuated by missile and air strikes by the Navy. Israeli-American agreement has now been reached at the highest level; the armed forces planners, plotters and pilots are working out the details.

Emerging from a 90-minute White House meeting with President George W. Bush on June 4, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the two leaders were of one mind.

Meanwhile, Iranian Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims the United States planned to kidnap him and kill him when he visted Iraq recently.

Continue reading here http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/opinion/?id=26545

SO IRAQ WAR WAS ALL ABOUT OIL. 4,100 AMERICAN LIVES LOST FOR BIG OIL COMPANIES IN U.S. REMEMBER WHO WAS A CEO OF A BIG OIL COMPANY? YEP, CHENEY

As Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow discussed Thursday night on MSNBC's "Countdown," after all the blather about WMDs, capturing Saddam, democracy for Iraq, the invasion and occupation of Iraq was really all about oil and establishing an American colony in the Middle East with Shell, Exxon, Mobil and others in charge of the country.

Americans knew this all the time, but the mainstream media kept lying to the American public and over the course of five years 4,100 Americans have been killed and another 30,000 wounded and all Washington EVER cared about was allowing big oil companies from the United States to takeover the oil rich fields of Iraq.

And guess who is one of the biggest honchos in the oil industry in the United States. None other than Dick "Darth Vader" Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton, who do oil exploration.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

Yes, 4,100 DEAD Americans to save the ass of Dick Cheney who used six deferments to avoid military service for himself during the Vietnam War years.

When, as Lou Dobbs said Thursday night, is it time to bring up President Bush and Vice President Cheney on WAR CRIMES?

I'd say RIGHT NOW!

BILL CORCORAN, CORKSPHERE EDITOR


4 western oil companies in final stages of signing deals in Iraq

Baghdad - Voices of Iraq
Thursday , 19 /06 /2008 Time 11:16:42
http://www.aswataliraq.info/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=82976&NrIssue=2&NrSection=1


Baghdad, Jun 19, (VOI)- Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, the International Herald Tribune newspaper said on Thursday.

"Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP - the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company - along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat," the paper added.

"The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations," it also said.

"The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India.

The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production," the newspaper explained."There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract.

The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq's Oil Ministry," according to the paper.

Click on this link http://www.aswataliraq.info/look/english/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrArticle=82976&NrIssue=2&NrSection=1 to continue reading.

WASHINGTON POST: GENERAL ACCUSES BUSH WHITE HOUSE OF WAR CRIMES OVER DETAINEE TORTURE

The two-star general who led an Army investigation into the horrific detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of war crimes and is calling for accountability.

By Dan FroomkinSpecial to washingtonpost.comWednesday, June 18, 2008; 12:44 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/06/18/BL2008061801546.html

In his 2004 report on Abu Ghraib, then-Major General Anthony Taguba concluded that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees." He called the abuse "systemic and illegal." And, as Seymour M. Hersh reported in the New Yorker, he was rewarded for his honesty by being forced into retirement.

Now, in a preface to a Physicians for Human Rights report based on medical examinations of former detainees, Taguba adds an epilogue to his own investigation.

The new report, he writes, "tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individual's lives on their bodies and minds. Our national honor is stained by the indignity and inhumane treatment these men received from their captors.

Click on link above for full story.

NOT EXACTLY WHAT FOX NEWS' LAURA INGRAHAM REPORTED: CHARGES DISMISSED IN MARINE HADITHA CASE---KINDA

Laura Ingraham, who now hosts the "Just In" show on FOX NEWS and her guest Michelle Malkin, the Conservative blogger, were ecstatic over the news a military Judge dismissed the charges against a Marine officer who had been charged with allowing his troops to murder innocent Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq.

Ingraham neatly sidestepped one very important point in the court ruling. Namely, the one Marine who led the assault on the Iraqi civilians is still facing charges.

To set the record straight, here is the COMPLETE story of the trial and what was not reported by Ingraham and her guests on FOX NEWS' "Just In."

The bottom line is there were 24 Iraqi civilians killed and they didn't kill themselves.

So before Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin and the FOX NEWS "Just In" producers breakout the champagne they might want to wait until they hear what is the determination of the military court regarding the one Marine, who led the squad involved in the Haditha incident, that resulted in the death of a number of 24 Iraqi civilians.

COMMENTARY BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE
Former Cpl. (E-4) United States Army Combat Engineers, Korean War veteran

Charges dismissed in Haditha case
Judge finds that a general overseeing the case was improperly influenced

The Associated Press
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25211958/

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A military judge dismissed charges Tuesday against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis.

Col. Steven Folsom dismissed charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani after finding that a four-star general overseeing the case was improperly influenced by an investigator probing the November 2005 shootings by a Marine squad in Haditha.

"Unlawful command influence is the mortal enemy of military justice," Folsom said. "In order to restore the public confidence, we need to take it back. We need to turn the clock back."

Chessani, of Rangely, Colo., was the highest-ranking officer to face a combat-related court-martial since the Vietnam War.

The charges were dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be refiled, but Folsom barred Marine Forces Central Command from future involvement in the case.

One Marine still faces prosecutionOf eight Marines originally charged in the case, only one is still facing prosecution in the biggest U.S. criminal prosecution involving Iraqi deaths to come out of the war.

The incident occurred after a Marine was killed by a roadside bomb.

Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who faces voluntary manslaughter charges, and a squad member shot five men by a car at the scene. Investigators say Wuterich then ordered his men to clear several houses with grenades and gunfire, leaving women and children among the dead.

Wuterich has pleaded not guilty.

Folsom's ruling comes two weeks after Gen. James Mattis took the stand — a rare courtroom appearance for such a high-ranking officer — to address the judge's initial finding that there was evidence of unlawful command influence in the case.

Investigator became adviserCol. John Ewers, the military lawyer who investigated the killings and took Chessani's statement, later became a top legal adviser to Mattis and sat in on briefings that helped Mattis decide who would be charged.

Mattis testified he never talked with Ewers about Haditha, although Ewers was present during a number of legal meetings where Haditha and Chessani were discussed.

Military policy prohibits Ewers from offering legal advice because he also was an investigator in the case.

Mattis approved the filing of charges against Chessani when he was both commander of the Marine Corps Forces Central Command and the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton. He has since been promoted and serves as commander of both NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Transformation and commander of U.S. Joint Forces.

Four enlisted Marines were originally charged with counts related to the killings and four officers were charged in connection with the investigation, including Chessani.

CNN REPORT: EXAM REVEALS IRAQI DETAINEES WERE TORTURED

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former terrorist suspects detained by the United States were tortured, according to medical examinations detailed in a report released Wednesday by a human rights group.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/18/gitmo.detainees/index.html

The Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights reached that conclusion after two-day clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees, who had been held at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan.

The detainees were never charged with crimes.

"We found clear physical and psychological evidence of torture and abuse, often causing lasting suffering," said Dr. Allen Keller, a medical evaluator for the study.

In a 121-page report, the doctors' group said that it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses.

The report is prefaced by retired U.S. Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Army's investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in 2003. Watch why a rights group says there's evidence of torture »

"There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes," Taguba says. "The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account."

Over the years, reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib and allegations of torture at Guantanamo prompted the Bush administration to deny that the U.S. military tortures detainees.

Since only 11 detainees were examined "the findings of this assessment cannot be generalized to the treatment of all detainees in U.S. custody," the report says.

However, the incidents documented are consistent with findings of other investigations into government treatment, "making it reasonable to conclude that these detainees were not the only ones abused, but are representative of a much larger number of detainees subjected to torture and ill treatment while in U.S. custody."

Four of the men evaluated were arrested in or taken to Afghanistan between late 2001 and early 2003 and later were sent to Guantanamo Bay, where they were held for an average of three years before being released without charge, the report says. The other seven were detained in Iraq in 2003 and released within a year, the report says.

All the subjects told examiners that they were subjected to multiple forms of torture or ill treatment that "often occurred in combination over a long period of time," the report says.

Click on http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/18/gitmo.detainees/index.html to read full account

THE UNTOLD STORY OF IRAQ WAR LOSERS: WIDOWS

IRAQ: Home to Too Many Widows

By Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*BAQUBA, Jun 18 (IPS)
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42858

Just about everyone in Iraq is a loser as a result of the occupation, but none more than women.

One of the more obvious signs of that is the very large number of widows.

The Asharq al-Awsat Arab media channel estimated in late 2007 there were 2.3 million widows in Iraq. These include widows from the 1980-1988 war with Iran in which half a million men were killed, the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, and from 'natural' causes. The news outlet cited the Iraqiyat (Iraqi women) group as a source for their figure. For a widow, all things are the same, dark. "Being a widow means being dead in Iraq today," a professor from Diyala University, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "This is because of the tremendous responsibilities cast upon her."

The widows have become victims of the occupation, but also of social codes. Women are not supposed to commit mistakes, and when they do, their mistakes are rarely forgiven. Women are easily accused of doing 'bad things', regardless of proof. Widowed women have a tough struggle on their hands, beyond the loss they have had to live through. They are not easily allowed to work, or even to carry out normal daily activities. "When a woman breaks these rules, she loses the respect of others, or might be spoken of badly," a local trader told IPS. "This is because much of rural Iraqi society is primitive and undereducated." Like most others, the trader did not want his name used, for fear of retribution. "Islam gives respectable freedom to the woman when she loses her husband," a religious cleric told IPS. "But because of their ignorance, people place severe restrictions on the woman."

Millions of lives have been shattered during the occupation. Two groups, Just Foreign Policy in the U.S. and the Opinion Business Research group in Britain estimate the total number of Iraqis who have died due to the occupation to be at least 1.2 million.

Click on link http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42858 to continue reading story.

THIS IS WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING IN IRAQ: GIRL 8 USED AS SUICIDE BOMBER

The U.S. military in Iraq has confirmed a story about an eight-year old Iraqi girl who was strapped with explosives and blew herself up and killed an Iraqi Army Captain in Mosul last month.

There is no solution to the occupation/war the United States is fighting in Iraq other than to pull ALL U.S. troops out of Iraq ASAP.

Sen. John McCain keeps saying he would pull our troops out of Iraq when the killing of Americans stops.

When will that be? Can McCain guarantee no more U.S. troops are going to be targeted by insurgents?

Of course not.

There are far too many different factions in Iraq and there is no ONE group that speaks for all of Iraq so if one insurgent group were to "surrender" there are ten or twenty more groups who won't surrender and the war will continue as long as U.S. forces are in Iraq.

If the Iraqis are willing to sacrifice an eight-year old girl as a suicide bomber, then any hope of hammering out some kind of "surrender" is totally out of the question.

COMMENTARY BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE


Girl, 8, used as bomber kills Iraqi captain

http://www.iraqinews.com/security/girl-8-used-as-bomber-kills-iraqi-captain.html?Itemid=126#top

Spokesmen for both the US and Iraqi military have confirmed that a girl strapped with explosives was the cause of a blast that killed an Iraqi captain and injured four soldiers south of Baghdad.

Iraqi Army Lt Ahmad Ali said the explosives were detonated yesterday as the girl approached the Iraqi commander in Youssifiyah.

Ali said from the scene that "the bomb was detonated by remote control, killing Capt Wassem Al Maamouri and injuring four soldiers."
He said authorities imposed a curfew and American troops are searching for those responsible.
Maj John Hall said US reports indicated one Iraqi solider was killed and seven wounded.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki ordered a new assault on Al Qaida in the main northern city of Mosul yesterday, the jihadists' last urban bastion in Iraq according to US commanders.
Al Maliki travelled to Mosul with top aides to take command of the US-backed drive against Al Qaida in the province, defence ministry spokesman Maj Gen Abdul Kareem Khalaf said.
"Operation Umm Al Rabiain (Mother of Two Springs) has just started against those threatening the civilian population and attacking Iraqi forces in Mosul," defence ministry spokesman Khalaf told AFP.
"This operation is targeting terrorists and criminals," he said, alluding to Al Qaida, which has been accused of a string of major attacks across Nineveh province of which Mosul is the capital. Earlier this week, security forces announced a "new phase" in their operations in Nineveh, which borders both Syria and Turkey.
Officials said they advanced from the preparatory stage of the campaign to a full-scale offensive on Wednesday in a bid to flush out Al Qaida in Iraq.

TUESDAY: 75 IRAQIS KILLED, 120 WOUNDED

The mainstream media in the United States could barely brings themselves to mention the spate of suicide bombings in Iraq that claimed the lives on 75 Iraqis as well as wounding 120 others.

Tuesday: 75 Iraqis Killed, 120 Wounded
Updated at 11:57 p.m. EDT, June 17, 2008
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=13003

At least 75 Iraqis were killed and 120 more were wounded in a spate of bombings and other attacks. The heaviest toll occurred at a Baghdad bus stop around dinnertime. No Coalition deaths were reported today. Meanwhile, Turkey claimed to have stopped a force of PKK rebels from entering the country via northern Iraq.
In Baghdad, 51 people were killed and over 80 more were wounded when a bomb exploded next to a two-story building containing shops and residential apartments in Hurriya; the blast ignited a fire that killed many of the victims. In Ghadeer, a roadside bomb blasted a police commando patrol, wounding three policemen and one civilian. Gunmen on motorcycles shot dead a policeman in Jamiya. In Mansour, gunmen killed a civil servant and wounded a companion. In Zaafaraniyah, a roadside bomb injured a civilian. Also, three dumped bodies were found.
An arms cache was found in Sadr City.
A suicide bicycle bomber attacked an Awakening Council (Sahwa) checkpoint, killing four of the U.S-backed fighters and wounding two civilians in al-Saba Abkar, which is just north of Baghdad.
A car bomb outside police headquarters in Baquba left one policeman dead and 21 others wounded.
In Mosul, U.S. forces killed four people they claim were al-Qaeda militants, but police and mourners say the four were three brothers and their father; four other family members were arrested. Gunmen stormed a home and shot a woman dead. An off-duty policeman was shot and killed in a separate incident in Bab al-Toub. Also, a local TV anchor was shot dead.
A roadside bomb exploded near Kut in Aziziya killed a police colonel and two bodyguards. Four other policemen were wounded in the blast and as many as six other people were also injured. Six people were abducted in the incident that lured the police to that location.
Police commandos fired upon a group of police recruits in Samarra. One of the recruits was killed and another was wounded.
Gunmen killed the brother of a commissioner near Udhaim.
Three brothers were abducted from a fake checkpoint near Mandali.
Police detained five people and confiscated weapons in Basra.
In Missan province, 38 IEDs were defused ahead of a security crackdown.
An arms cache was seized in Karbala.
A municipal worker was killed during a drive-by shooting in Tuz Khormato.

WE HAVE VIDEO OF DEADLY CAR BOMB THAT KILLED 51 IN BAGHDAD ON TUESDAY

This video shows the after effects of the car bomb that killed 51 Iraqi civilians in a market in Baghdad on Tuesday and plans that are going to be launched against the Mahdi militia.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/multimedia/video.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10517003&content_media_id=5005600

PENTAGON: SHOOTING OF REUTERS JOURNALIST IN IRAQ JUSTIFIED

Pentagon: Shooting of Reuters journalist in Iraq justified
Pentagon finds that US soldiers were justified in shooting of Reuters journalist in Iraq

LOLITA C. BALDORAP News
Jun 17, 2008 13:54 EST
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=216199

The 2005 shooting death of a Reuters journalist in the midst of a firefight in Baghdad was justified because U.S. soldiers believed the camera protruding from an unmarked car was a rocket propelled grenade, the Pentagon's internal watchdog has concluded.

In an 82-page report, the Defense Department's inspector general also said that Reuters safety practices contributed to the death of sound technician Waleed Khaled, and the wounding of cameraman Haider Kadhem.

While the report was critical of how the initial investigation was conducted — saying the military unit's investigating officer did not follow correct procedures — it nevertheless concluded that a "preponderance of evidence establishes that the cameraman and driver took actions during the incident that reasonably led U.S. soldiers to believe they were confronting hostile intent."

Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger said he believes the inspector general took the case seriously and came up with positive recommendations.

"We are never satisfied when a journalist is killed in the course of covering a story," he said. "I welcome the recommendation that the military and media engage together to better ensure the safety of journalists on the front line."

MAINSTREAM MEDIA FAILS AMERICAN PUBLIC AGAIN ABOUT IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN

Day after day the mainstream media, and especially FOX NEWS, hide from the American public what is REALLY going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is the ONLY war to my knowledge which has received so little attention in the American press.

By reading newspapers or watching TV you would never have any idea we have 160,000 troops in Iraq and another 30,000 in Afghanistan.

And to add insult to injury, many of the cable news stations, and again FOX NEWS, allow Republican politicians and pundits to go on the air and boast about how well things are going in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is our job as a blogger reporting on what is really taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan to post information which proves the mainstream media in the United States is LYING to the American public, and most of all letting down the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and their families back in the United States.

The following is a list of incidents that took place on Tuesday alone in both Iraq and Afghanistan which prove the mainstream media has been LYING to the American public.

The stories have been sourced by http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/ and additional information on each event can be obtained by clicking on the part in BLUE.

COMMENTARY BY BILL CORCORAN, EDITOR OF CORKSPHERE.


Reported Security incidents:Baghdad:#1: A suicide bomber on a motorcycle has struck