PARTY HOUSE, PROSTITUTES, PROFITEERING IN IRAQ: CHENEY TIES?

Who is KBR and what do they do in Iraq? And what was Vice President Dick Cheney's role in KBR and the contracts they landed for work in Iraq?

KBR, Inc. (formerly Kellogg Brown & Root) NYSE: KBR is an American engineering and construction company, formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton, based in Houston. After Halliburton acquired Dresser Industries in 1998, Dresser's engineering subsidiary, The M. W. Kellogg Co., was merged with Halliburton's construction subsidiary, Brown & Root, to form Kellogg Brown & Root. KBR and its predecessors have won many contracts with the U.S. military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as during World War II and the Vietnam War.

KBR is the largest [1] non-union construction company in the United States.

KBR employs more American private contractors and holds a larger contract with the U.S. government than does any other firm in Iraq. The company's roughly 14,000 U.S. employees in Iraq provide logistical support to the U.S. armed forces. [5]

The United States Army hired KBR to provide housing for approximately 100,000 soldiers in Iraq in a contract worth $200 million, based on a long-term contract signed in December 2001 under the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). Other LOGCAP orders have included a pre-invasion order to repair oil facilities in Iraq; $28.2 million to build POW camps; and $40.8 million to accommodate the Iraqi Survey Group, which was deployed after the invasion to find weapons of mass destruction.

The Army's actions came under fire from California Congressman Henry Waxman, who, along with Michigan Congressman John Dingell, asked the General Accounting Office to investigate whether the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Pentagon were circumventing government contracting procedures and favoring companies with ties to the Bush administration.

They also accused KBR of inflating prices for importing gasoline into Iraq.[6][7] In June 2003, the Army announced that it would replace KBR's oil-infrastructure contract with two public-bid contracts worth a maximum total of $1 billion, to be awarded in October. However, the Army announced in October it would expand the contract ceiling to $2 billion and the solicitation period to December.

As of October 16, 2003, KBR had performed nearly $1.6 billion worth of work. In the meantime, KBR has subcontracted with two companies to work on the project: Boots & Coots, an oil field emergency response firm that Halliburton works in partnership with (CEO Jerry L. Winchester was a former Halliburton manager) and Wild Well Control. Both firms are based in Texas.[8]

By Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/ a blog dedicated to bringing readers behind-the-scenes dealings and the latest unreported war news from Iraq and Afghanistan.

VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY'S TIES TO KBR

Following the end of the first Gulf War, the Pentagon, led by then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, paid Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root Services over $8.5 million to study the use of private military forces with American soldiers in combat zones.[4]

Cheney was chairman and chief executive officer of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000. He has been accused of supporting the 2003 invasion of Iraq and providing work to KBR under contingency contracts to financially benefit himself and his business associates.

KBR'S INVOLVEMENT WITH PROSTITUTES AND PROFITEERING IN IRAQ

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/02/party-house-pro.html

Stories of waste, fraud and abuse related to U.S. military contracts in Iraq are so "old news" that it takes something really awful to being shocking these days. Newly released court records related to the subcontractors operating under the KBR LOGCAP contract, provide just such shocking details. "On Wednesday, a federal judge in Rock Island sentenced the Army official, Chief Warrant Officer Peleti "Pete" Peleti Jr., to 28 months in prison for taking bribes," the Chicago Tribune reports. "One Middle Eastern subcontractor treated him to a trip to the 2006 Super Bowl, a defense investigator said."

Like all bribes, the payoffs ranged from the paltry to the outrageous:

In October 2002, five months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, [Tamimi operations director Shabbir] Khan threw a birthday party for Seamans at a Tamimi "party house" near the Kuwait base known as Camp Arifjan. Khan "provided Seamans with a prostitute as a present," Rock Island prosecutors wrote in court papers. Driving Seamans back to his quarters, Khan offered kickbacks that would total $130,000.

Some of the dirty dealing got downright dirty:

The Army LOGCAP contract required KBR to medically screen the thousands of kitchen workers that subcontractors like Tamimi imported from impoverished villages in Nepal, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

But when Pentagon officials asked for medical records in March 2004, Khan presented "bogus" files for 550 Tamimi workers, Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Lang said in a court hearing last year.

KBR retested those 550 workers at a Kuwait City clinic and found 172 positive for exposure to hepatitis A, Lang told the judge. Khan tried to suppress those findings, warning the clinic director that Tamimi would do no more business with his medical office if he "told KBR about these results," Lang said in court. The infectious virus can cause fatigue and other symptoms that arise weeks after contact.

And the list goes on ...

Click on link for the rest of the story.

DoD DATA ON LATEST U.S. CASUALTIES IN IRAQ

The Department of Defense website http://www.defenselink.mil/news/index.aspx contains the latest information of military deaths in Iraq.

SHELLS HIT BAGHDAD'S GREEN ZONE

At least 10 rockets and mortar shells were fired into Baghdad's Green Zone on Saturday in still another example that "the surge" is a myth and violence is on the rise all across Iraq.

The Green Zone is the home of Camp Victory where many of the 160,000 U.S. military forces deployed to Iraq are stationed.

It was not immediately known if there were any casualties to American military personnel.

In other developments in Iraq, suicide bombers struck both in Baghdad and Falluja the two cities supposedly a safe haven from insurgent attacks because of "the surge."

Adding to the chaos in Iraq, the Turkish Army has crossed into Kurdistan with 10,000 troops setting up a possible confrontation with American forces in that region of Iraq.

Meanwhile, the mainstream press in the United States continues to avoid reporting on developments in Iraq and when they do report on unfolding developments in Iraq they downplay them much like FOX NEWS does by saying these are isolated instances.

Nothing could be further from the truth and any news organization that claims what is happening in the Green Zone on Saturday and with suicide bombings in Baghdad and Falluja are "isolated instances" is not a new organziation but a propaganda branch of the Bush White House.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, the ONLY blog that dares to tell the truth about the war in Iraq and not the sloppy reporting going on by the likes of FOX NEWS.


Shells hit Baghdad's Green Zone

Story Highlights
Mortars or rockets rain on secure area in Iraq capital, Pentagon says
Attack comes day after extension of Mehdi Army cease-fire
U.S. posts in Baghdad targeted four times this week, military says
Iraqi Journalists Union chief wounded in gun assault

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/23/iraq.main.ap/index.html

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Rockets or mortars hit the U.S.-protected Green Zone early Saturday, the day after powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mehdi Army militia to extend its cease-fire by another six months.

Starting about 6:15 a.m., about 10 blasts could be heard in the sprawling area along the Tigris River that houses the U.S. and British embassies, the Iraqi government headquarters and thousands of American troops.

It was not immediately clear whether there were casualties.

Maj. Brad Leighton, a U.S. military spokesman, confirmed the Green Zone was hit by indirect fire -- the military's term for a rocket or mortar attack -- but could not immediately provide more details.

It was the fourth time this week that U.S. outposts in Baghdad appeared to be the targets of rocket or mortar attacks, killing at least six people and wounding both Iraqis and Americans, including at least two U.S. troops.

The flurry of attacks has followed a substantial lull in such assaults as security has increased and violence around the capital has dropped over the last half-year.

Earlier in the week, the U.S. military blamed Iranian-backed Shiite militias that have broken away from al-Sadr's block for the rocket attacks. Tehran denies that it sponsors extremists in Iraq.

THE MYTH OF "THE SURGE" IN IRAQ

There are two reasons why Americans are being misled by the so-called success of "the surge" in Iraq.

The first one is because the Bush Administration keeps putting out propaganda that "the surge" has been a big success in Baghdad and Falluja.

The second reason is because the mainstream media in the United States has bought into the Bush Administration smokescreen about "the surge" and no longer tells the truth about what is really happening in Baghdad, Falluja and other parts of Iraq.

National opinion polls in the United States reflect how the Bush Administration in concert with the mainstream media in the United States have shoved the Iraq War off the front burner and replaced it with the economy.

However, the success of "the surge" is all a myth and the people who are suffering most from the myth are the Iraqi citizens and 160,000 U.S. military stationed in Iraq who daily witness anything but a successful operation.

Rolling Stone sent a reporter into the heart of Iraq to get a firsthand look at the evolution "the surge."

What Nir Rosen of Rolling Stone reports is a shocking overview of how the U.S. military has been arming Iraqis who were once members of the insurgents fighting and killing U.S. forces.

But there is more. Much more. And it is a read that will leave you wondering what in the world is the Bush Administration and the U.S. military in Iraq thinking.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, the blog that dares to bring readers the REAL TRUTH about the war in Iraq and not Bush Administration hype pushed on the American public by the likes of FOX NEWS.


The Myth of the Surge

Hoping to turn enemies into allies, U.S. forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the insurgents. But it's already starting to backfire. A report from the front lines of the new Iraq

NIR ROSEN

Posted Mar 06, 2008 8:53 AM

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge

Page 1 2 3 4 5 6

Click here to see more photos taken by Danfung Dennis for this feature

It's a cold, gray day in December, and I'm walking down Sixtieth Street in the Dora district of Baghdad, one of the most violent and fearsome of the city's no-go zones.

Devastated by five years of clashes between American forces, Shiite militias, Sunni resistance groups and Al Qaeda, much of Dora is now a ghost town.

This is what "victory" looks like in a once upscale neighborhood of Iraq: Lakes of mud and sewage fill the streets. Mountains of trash stagnate in the pungent liquid. Most of the windows in the sand-colored homes are broken, and the wind blows through them, whistling eerily. House after house is deserted, bullet holes pockmarking their walls, their doors open and unguarded, many emptied of furniture. What few furnishings remain are covered by a thick layer of the fine dust that invades every space in Iraq. Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush's much-heralded "surge," Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood. Apart from our footsteps, there is complete silence.

My guide, a thirty-one-year-old named Osama who grew up in Dora, points to shops he used to go to, now abandoned or destroyed: a barbershop, a hardware store. Since the U.S. occupation began, Osama has watched civil war turn the streets where he grew up into an ethnic killing field. After the fall of Saddam, the Americans allowed looters and gangs to take over the streets, and Iraqi security forces were stripped of their jobs.

The Mahdi Army, the powerful Shiite paramilitary force led by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, took advantage of the power shift to retaliate in areas such as Dora, where Shiites had been driven from their homes. Shiite forces tried to cleanse the district of Sunni families like Osama's, burning or confiscating their homes and torturing or killing those who refused to leave.

"The Mahdi Army was killing people here," Osama says, pointing to a now-destroyed Shiite mosque that in earlier times had been a cafe and before that an office for Saddam's Baath Party. Later, driving in the nearby district of Baya, Osama shows me a gas station. "They killed my uncle here. He didn't accept to leave. Twenty guys came to his house, the women were screaming. He ran to the back, but they caught him, tortured him and killed him." Under siege by Shiite militias and the U.S. military, who viewed Sunnis as Saddam supporters, and largely cut out of the Shiite-dominated government, many Sunnis joined the resistance. Others turned to Al Qaeda and other jihadists for protection.

Now, in the midst of the surge, the Bush administration has done an about-face. Having lost the civil war, many Sunnis were suddenly desperate to switch sides — and Gen. David Petraeus was eager to oblige.

The U.S. has not only added 30,000 more troops in Iraq — it has essentially bribed the opposition, arming the very Sunni militants who only months ago were waging deadly assaults on American forces. To engineer a fragile peace, the U.S. military has created and backed dozens of new Sunni militias, which now operate beyond the control of Iraq's central government. The Americans call the units by a variety of euphemisms: Iraqi Security Volunteers (ISVs), neighborhood watch groups, Concerned Local Citizens, Critical Infrastructure Security. The militias prefer a simpler and more dramatic name: They call themselves Sahwa, or "the Awakening."

At least 80,000 men across Iraq are now employed by the Americans as ISVs. Nearly all are Sunnis, with the exception of a few thousand Shiites. Operating as a contractor, Osama runs 300 of these new militiamen, former resistance fighters whom the U.S. now counts as allies because they are cashing our checks.

The Americans pay Osama once a month; he in turn provides his men with uniforms and pays them ten dollars a day to man checkpoints in the Dora district — a paltry sum even by Iraqi standards. A former contractor for KBR, Osama is now running an armed network on behalf of the United States government. "We use our own guns," he tells me, expressing regret that his units have not been able to obtain the heavy-caliber machine guns brandished by other Sunni militias.

Click on link to ROLLING STONE: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18722376/the_myth_of_the_surge
to read the full story.

THE NEW INVASION OF IRAQ

Turmoil in the Middle East continues to boil over as 10,000 Turkish troops have crossed the border and invaded the Kurdish region of Iraq.

Earlier today suicide bombers struck in Baghdad and Falluja Iraq as U.S. forces gear up for what looks like an increase in violence all across Iraq.

Meanwhile, Condoleeza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State, is calling on the UN to do something about Iran and the increase in their nuclear production capability.

The mainstream press in the United States continues to ignore the growing crisis in the Middle East but instead focus entirely on the presidential race.

The new invasion of Iraq

Up to 10,000 Turkish troops launch an incursion which threatens to destabilise the country's only peaceful region

By Patrick CockburnSaturday, 23 February 2008

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-new-invasion-of-iraq-786142.html

The invading Turkish soldiers are in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas hiding in the mountains. They are seeking to destroy the camps of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) along the border between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan. "Thousands of troops have crossed the border and thousands more are waiting at the border to join them if necessary," said a Turkish military source.

"There are severe clashes," said Ahmed Danees, the head of foreign relations for the PKK. "Two Turkish soldiers have been killed and eight wounded. There are no PKK casualties." Turkish television said that the number of Turkish troops involved was between 3,000 and 10,000, and they had moved 16 miles inside Iraq.

But the escalating Turkish attacks are destabilising the Kurdish region of Iraq which is the one peaceful part of the country and has visibly benefited from the US invasion.

The Iraqi Kurds are America's closest allies in Iraq and the only Iraqi community to support fully the US occupation. The president of the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani, said recently he felt let down by the failure of the Iraqi government in Baghdad to stop Turkish bombing raids on Iraqi territory.

The incursion is embarrassing for the US, which tried to avert it, because the American military provides intelligence to the Turkish armed forces about the location of the camps of Turkish Kurd fighters. Immediately before the operation began, the Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan, called President George Bush to warn him.

The US and the Iraqi government are eager to play down the extent of the invasion. Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, a US spokesman for Iraq, said: "We understand [it] is an operation of limited duration to specifically target PKK terrorists in that region." The Iraqi Foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, claimed that only a few hundred Turkish troops were in Iraq.

But since last year Turkey has succeeded, by making limited incursions into Kurdistan, in establishing a de facto right to intervene militarily in Kurdistan whenever it feels like it.

Click on link above to read the full story.

SUICIDE BOMBERS STRIKE BAGHDAD, FALLUJA AS VIOLENCE ERUPTS IN IRAQ

The right wingers---especially the Bush Administration propaganda branch FOX NEWS---continue to LIE to the American public about the state of violence in Iraq.

If anything, violence is on rise all across Iraq and especially in Baghdad and Falluja, the two cities the Bush Administration and FOX NEWS claim are a sea of tranquility.

The right wing propagandists refuse to admit that conditions in Iraq are deteriorating as each day goes by, and in so doing the right wingers are not only insulting the American public but they are doing a great disservice to the brave young men and women serving in the United States military in Iraq.

Here is just a sampling of the VIOLENCE that took place Friday and early Saturday in Baghdad, Falluja and all across Iraq.

Does this look like Iraq is a "sea of tranquility?"

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the blog that will NOT become a part of the Bush Administration's LIES to the American public about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

BOMBS AND VIOLENCE HIT BAGHDAD, FALLUJA AND ALL OF IRAQ

http://warnewstoday.blogspot.com/

BAGHDAD - A car bomb blew up in Baghdad's central Karrada district, killing one person and wounding four.

BAGHDAD - A bomb killed at least one person and wounded four others in Karrada district, central Baghdad, police said. [From McClatchy: A donkey and cart abandoned in a market place behind the National Theater, near Hamurabi Hotel, central Baghdad were used to carry an IED which was detonated early this morning, killing one civilian, injuring four, and causing a lot of material damage to the surrounding stores.]

BAGHDAD - Five bodies were found in different districts across Baghdad on Thursday, police said.

Baghdad - Mahdi Army commander killed in Baghdad

NEAR BAQUBA - Three mortars landed in a village of Buhriz, 60 km (36 miles) north of Baghdad, killing one child and wounding eight people.

KHAN BANI SAD - U.S. forces killed six suspected al Qaeda militants and detained six others in Khan Bani Sad, 35 km (21 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Khan Bani Sad - Diyala Gunmen attacked a family working in a field in Khan Beni Saad, 15 km to the south of Baquba at around 03:15 pm killing Omar Mohammed, 12 years and his two sisters Budur and Seleema, 17 and 20 years old.

Balad – U.S. soldiers wounded, vehicle destroyed by blast in Balad
Anbar - 3 policemen and 1 civilian killed as a suicide bomber detonates targeting the motorcade of Ameriyah Chief of Police, Major Saadoun Subhi in Ameriyat al-Falluja neibourhood, a suburb of Fallujah after Friday prayers this afternoon. The major himself was severely wounded.

ANBAR PROVINCE - One U.S. Marine was killed in a battle with gunmen in Anbar province on Thursday, the U.S. military said.

NEAR FALLUJA - A suicide bomber killed at least six policemen and wounded nine others when he detonated a vest packed with explosives outside a mosque near Falluja in western Anbar province, police said.

NEAR FALLUJA - A roadside bomb killed Brigadier-General Abdul Jabbar al-Juboury, head of the Iraqi army's Falluja Brigade, and his driver on Thursday south of Falluja, police said.

NEAR FALLUJA - A parked car bomb killed one man and wounded two others on Thursday near a market in Falluja, police said.

Fallujah - Suicide blast in Falluja mosque leaves 12 casualties Four people were killed and eight others wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up amidst worshippers performing the Friday prayers at a mosque in southern Falluja, police said.

GARMA - A suicide bomber on foot attacked an Iraqi security checkpoint, killing two people and wounding three in Garma, near Falluja, 50 km (32 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.

Near Kirkuk - Truck driver wounded in explosion near Kirkuk

Diala Province – Gunmen kill three family members in Diala
TIKRIT - A suicide car bomber killed three policemen and wounded eight others at a police station in Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

Babel – Two corpses found in Babel

Mosul – 3 wounded in house bomb in Mosul

Mosul – 3 gunmen, suspect arrested in Mosul
ISKANDARIYA - Two bodies with gunshot wounds and signs of torture were found in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Basra – 4 British soldiers wounded in blasts in Basra

Basra – Basra airport closed because of Katyusha attacks

DOD RELEASES NAMES OF MORE U.S. CASUALTIES FROM IRAQ WAR

The Department of Defense has released the names of more U.S. casualties from the war in Iraq.

As usual, the mainstream press and the Bush White House puppet FOX NEWS continues to ignore the deaths of these brave young Americans despite the fact the names of U.S. casualties in Iraq are carried on the extremely reliable http://icasualties.org/oif/ web site.

Apparently FOX NEWS and others are too busy reporting on Drew Peterson, Britney Spears and the latest car chase somewhere in the United States to report on the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq.

Sad but so true the depths the media in the United States has sunk to, especially FOX NEWS, when celebrity gossip is more important than the deaths of young Americans in a war that never had to be fought in the first place.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the blog that isn't afraid to tell the TRUTH about what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and how the mainstream media in the United States has let down 160,000 young Americans in Iraq.

U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD:

3968
Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation:
2
Total
3970DoD Confirmation List

Latest Coalition Fatality: Feb 21, 2008
02/22/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Capt. Nathan R. Raudenbush, 25, of Pennsylvania, died Feb. 20 in Busayefi, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his vehicle encountered an improvised explosive device. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team...

02/22/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (3 of 3)
Sgt. Conrad Alvarez, 22, of Big Spring, TX...assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division... died Feb. 20 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an IED...

02/22/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (2 of 3)
Cpl. Albert Bitton, 20, of Chicago...assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division... died Feb. 20 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an IED in Baghdad...

02/22/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualties (1 of 3)
Spc. Micheal B. Matlock, Jr., 21, of Glen Burnie, Md...assigned to the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division... died Feb. 20 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when their vehicle encountered an IED...

02/22/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Staff Sgt. Bryant W. Mackey, 30, of Eureka, Kan., died Feb. 20 in Mosul, Iraq, of wounds suffered when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle. He was assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas.

02/22/08 MNF: MND-B Soldier dies of non-combat related illness
A Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldier died as the result of a non-combat related illness Feb. 21. The Soldier’s name is being withheld pending notification of next-of-kin and release by the Department of Defense.

IRAQIS VIEW "SURGE" AS A CATASTROPHE

The Bush Administration and their propaganda branch, FOX NEWS, have been shouting from the rooftops about the success of "the surge," but Iraqi citizens have a completely different view of "surge."

Suicide bombings and violence continue all across Iraq in stark contrast to the claims of the Bush Administration and Fox News.

Many of the killings have taken place in the heavily guarded area of Baghdad, and they are increasing on a daily basis.


In Tatters Beneath a Surge of Claims

Inter Press Service

Analysis by Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*

BAGHDAD, Feb 22 (IPS) - What the U.S. has been calling the success of a "surge", many Iraqis see as evidence of catastrophe. Where U.S. forces point to peace and calm, local Iraqis find an eerie silence

And when U.S. forces speak of a reduction in violence, many Iraqis simply do not know what they are talking about.

Hundreds died in a series of explosions in Baghdad last month. This was despite the strongest ever security measures taken by the U.S. military, riding the "surge" in security forces and their activities.

The death toll is high, according to the website http://icasualties.org/oif/which provides reliable numbers of Iraqi civilian and security deaths.

In January this year 485 civilians were killed, according to the website. It says the number is based on news reports, and that "actual totals for Iraqi deaths are higher than the numbers recorded on this site."

The average month in 2005, before the "surge" was launched, saw 568 civilian deaths. In January 2006, the month before the "surge" began, 590 civilians died.

Many of the killings have taken place in the most well guarded areas of Baghdad. And they have continued this month.

"Two car bombs exploded in Jadriya, killing so many people, the day the American Secretary of Defence (Robert Gates) was visiting Baghdad last week," a captain from the Karrada district police in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS.

"Another car bomb killed eight people and injured 20 Thursday (last week) in the Muraidy market of Sadr City, east of Baghdad.

Click on this link Inter Press Service to read complete story.

MARINE PROSECUTORS WANT UNAIRED CBS "60 MINUTES" FOOTAGE OF MARINE CHARGED IN DEATHS OF 24 IRAQI CIVILIANS IN HADITHA, IRAQ

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich , a United States Marine squad leader, “apparently admits in an unaired segment of the CBS "60 Minutes" program that he did, in fact, order his men to ‘shoot first and ask questions later,’” on November 19, 2005 when 24 Iraqi men, women and children were killed in Hadithah, Iraq.


CBS wants to quash a subpoena by military prosecutors requesting the unused footage claiming it would make the news gathering organization into an investigative arm of the government.


Wuterich is scheduled to be court-martialed March 3.


CBS seeks to quash subpoena for Hadithah interview


By Chelsea J. Carter - The Associated PressPosted : Friday Feb 22, 2008 7:23:43 EST


http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_cbs_hadithah_080222/


CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — Military prosecutors say unaired footage of a CBS “60 Minutes” interview given by a Marine squad leader contain admissions of crimes in an attack that killed 24 Iraqi men, women and children in 2005.


Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich “apparently admits in an unaired segment that he did, in fact, order his men to ‘shoot first and ask questions later,’” Capt. Nicholas Gannon said in response to a motion filed by CBS seeking to quash a subpoena seeking the footage.


CBS is set to ask a judge Friday to throw out the subpoena during a pre-trial hearing for Wuterich, who faces voluntary manslaughter and other charges in the Nov. 19, 2005, deaths in Hadithah, Iraq.


In its motion, CBS said the subpoena would be “unreasonable and oppressive,” and turn a news organization into an investigative arm of the government.


“This fishing expedition is particularly inappropriate given the numerous other sources of information concerning the events underlying this court-martial,” according to the motion obtained by The Associated Press.


The subpoena stems from an interview aired March 15, 2007, on “60 Minutes” entitled “The Killings at Haditha.”


In that interview, Wuterich recounted to CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley his recollection of the events that led to the deaths.


The deaths occurred after a roadside bomb hit a Marine convoy, killing the driver of a Humvee and wounding two other Marines. Wuterich and a squad member, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz, allegedly shot five men by a car at the scene. Wuterich then ordered his squad into several houses, where they cleared rooms with grenades and gunfire, killing unarmed civilians in the process.


The manslaughter charge against Wuterich, 27, of Meriden, Conn., includes specifications of a personal role in at least nine killings, naming seven victims plus one or more unknown people, and the allegation that he ordered a lance corporal to kill someone.


In the CBS motion, attorneys Lee Levine and Seth D. Berlin contend there have been multiple government investigations into the Hadithah incident, and numerous witnesses provided statements to investigators.


California has one of the nation’s most protective statutes shielding journalists from prosecutors’ inquiries. The law generally allows journalists to decline to divulge unpublished material to state authorities, but the protection does not extend to federal courts, which include military courts.


CBS says testimony is available from eyewitnesses, including members of Wuterich’s squad who are not being prosecuted.


But prosecutors, who have previously said squad members are “far from cooperative,” say it is apparent to them from Pelley’s narration that Wuterich made admissions in unaired footage.


In the response, Gannon writes that Pelley’s questions and his narration are apparently based on information Wuterich must have provided during the interview.


The network had no comment on the subpoena or the pending hearing, said Sandra Genelius, a spokeswoman for CBS News.


Four enlisted Marines were initially charged with murder in the case and four officers were charged with failing to investigate the deaths. Charges against four of the men have been dropped, and none will face murder charges.


Still facing court-martial are Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, who is charged with dereliction of duty and violation of a lawful order on allegations that he mishandled the aftermath of the Hadithah shootings; and 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson, of Springboro, Ohio, on charges of making false official statements, obstruction of justice and attempting to fraudulently separate from the Marine Corps.
Wuterich is scheduled to be court-martialed March 3.

UNEMPLOYMENT IS AN EPIDEMIC IN IRAQ

You don't read about it or hear about it on television or radio, but the unemployment situation in Iraq is at epidemic levels.

The Coalition Provisional Authority was supposed to arrange for jobs for Iraqi citizens after the United States invaded and occupied Iraq, but it never came to pass.

Many Iraqi citizens have moved from town to town and city to city looking for work, but the reconstructions projects have been stalled and little work is available.

A good number of the younger Iraqi men have joined the Iraqi security forces where they can at least earn a paycheck, but there is little or no enthusiasm for cracking down on insurgents and militias.

Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq, is without water and electricity for the better part of each day, and although many of the stores have reopened shopkeepers report there is little traffic because Iraqi citizens can't find jobs and consequently don't have the money to shop.

Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the blog for the untold stories about Iraq and Afghanistan.

Unemployment Too Becomes an Epidemic

Inter Press ServiceBy Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41284

BAQUBA, Feb 21 (IPS) - For a few, salaries have soared. For the rest, unemployment has.

Many Iraqi workers enjoyed huge salary increases following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. But unemployment rose more sharply under policies introduced by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA).

CPA head L. Paul Bremer decommissioned the Iraqi military, leading to overnight unemployment for hundreds of thousands of military personnel. And that was not all. The ministries of culture and information also saw drastic layoffs, some through privatisation.
Almost a year into the occupation, defence ministry employees, many of them ex-military, started to receive monthly payments of about 100 dollars as "donation of emergency".

"This payment does not meet 10 percent of the monthly needs of many families," ex-soldier in the previous Iraq army Muhsin Aboud told IPS in Baquba, 40 km northeast of Baghdad. "It's unfair to leave us without jobs."

Still, the unemployed are lucky. Many employees of the abolished offices were accused of being terrorists, and imprisoned.

"One day, a group of American soldiers stormed into my house while I and my family were sleeping," Abd al-Joburi, an officer in Iraq's former military told IPS. "They tied my hands and put a plastic bag on my head and forced me to lie with my face down. It was because I'm an ex-officer, and Sunni."

Al-Joburi was imprisoned for nine months after the raid that took place in March of last year. "Nobody asked whether my family have any salary or income. Since I was released, I have not had a job."

Now, the sectarian practices of politicians and the government are adding to unemployment for whole sections of people, particularly Sunni Muslims.

"I applied for a job in the directorate-general of police of Diyala province four times," a former intelligence officer told IPS. "All of my applications were rejected. All the Shia ex-officers' applications were accepted, regardless of their experience and specialisation. Now they are officers in the police and army."

The ex-officer added, "I am now working as a grocer."

Violence has made unemployment even worse; it has led large numbers of people to quit the jobs they had. Most people in Baquba are today either forced to stay at home, or to leave the city, and if they can, the country.

"I closed my restaurant," said a local businessman in Baquba. "Two militants came and killed the owner of the shop next to my restaurant. We had no choice."

"The owners of prominent shops, restaurants, car shops, rich people, heads of the offices, owners of buildings, traders, businessmen…all of them became targets of the militants," said a resident, who like many others, did not wish to give his name. "As a result, all of them quit. Just think how many people could be employed in all these fields."

Meanwhile, reconstruction and rehabilitation projects that could have employed some people have come to a standstill.

"I dismissed more than 50 employees in my company because of the stoppage of work," a manager with the Dolphin company for general contractors told IPS. "Work has stopped for more than two years."

The owner of a plastic pipes factory said threats forced him to close his factory. "I received a message asking me to pay 50,000 dollars, or I would be killed."

Unemployment in Iraq has been between 60-70 percent over the last two years, according to the government in Baghdad. This is nearly twice what it was in the period of the sanctions in the 1990s.

Most worrying is what is happening in the food business. The Diyala Food Company, the largest in the province, closed last year.

"A group of militants came to kidnap the owner's son," former employee Aziz Khamis told IPS. "The son and two of his bodyguards were killed, and the father was wounded. This big company has closed its doors, and thousands of employees are now stuck at home."

The reasons for losing jobs are endless. "I was fired for being a member of the Ba'ath party," Nasir Uwayid told IPS. "After a period of occupation, low ranking members were allowed to get their jobs again, but heads of offices who were members of the party were forced to retire or leave the city."

And sectarian displacement has brought its own unemployment. Tens of thousands of people have left their homes and jobs in Baquba because of the sectarian violence. Many have tried to start again in other cities, but few have been successful.

In 2002 Baquba had a population estimated at 280,000; in 2003, Diyala province had a population of roughly 1.2 million. Baquba is roughly 70 percent Sunni, while Diyala province is about 90 percent Sunni.

(*Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)

U.S. DEATHS IN IRAQ LISTED AS MULTI NATIONAL DIVISION BY DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

The Department of Defense now lists U.S casualties in Iraq as MND (Multi National Division) rather than what branch of the U.S. military they were assigned to.

It is all part of the Bush Administration's effort to hide from the American public as much as possible the deaths of young American men and women in Iraq.

Here is how the Iraq casualty reports are now being listed:

http://icasualties.org/oif/

U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD:

3963
Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation:
5
Total
3968DoD Confirmation List

Latest Coalition Fatality: Feb 20, 2008

02/21/08 MNF: Multi-National Division – Center Soldier attacked by IED
A Multi-National Division – Center Soldier was killed when the Soldier’s vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device Feb. 20. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of the next of kin.

02/20/08 MNF: MND-N Soldiers attacked in Ninevah Province - 1 killed, 3 wounded
A Multi-National Division - North Soldier was killed as a result of injuries sustained from a rocket propelled grenade attack while conducting patrols in Mosul. Three Soldiers were also wounded and transported to a Coalition medical facility...

02/20/08 MNF: MND-B Soldiers attacked by IED - 3 killed
Three Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers were killed at approximately 10:30 p.m. Feb. 19 when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in northwestern Baghdad.

CNN REPORTS IRAQ WILL ROUND UP HOMELESS, MENTALLY ILL IN ATTEMPT TO STOP SUICIDE BOMBINGS

Suicide bombings in Iraq are on the rise and the Iraqi government is going to take a draconian measure and round up all the homeless and mentally ill and place them in government institutions.

What is interesting is how the mainstream media in the United States has been avoiding coverage of the war in Iraq except for "puff pieces" on how well "the surge" has been doing.

The mainstream press in the U.S. are shunning coverage of the Iraq war, but the foreign press, especially the press in the Middle East, have been reporting daily on the increase of suicide bombers, many of them women and young girls who suffer from mental problems.

This CNN story, along with a list of suicide bombings in recent days, is being carried on CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, a blog by Bill Corcoran which covers the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan no longer covered by the mainstream press in the United States.

Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE

Iraq to round up homeless, mentally ill, to prevent bombings

From Mohammed TawfeeqCNN

http://tinyurl.com/2ycmnv

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi authorities plan to round up homeless and mentally ill residents on streets across the war-torn nation to prevent them from becoming used as suicide bombers, an Interior Ministry official said.

The move follows a pair of high-profile February 1 bombings that left almost 100 people dead.

The bombers, who hit a Baghdad pet market, were mentally handicapped women and the explosives strapped to their bodies were detonated by remote control, said U.S. and Iraqi authorities.

Police will hand beggars, vagrants and the mentally handicapped over to governmental institutions that can provide them with shelter and care, a high-ranking official in the interior minister's office said.

The campaign is scheduled to be launched Wednesday and is expected to last for at least a week, the official said.

"Militant groups, like al Qaeda in Iraq, have started exploiting these people in a very bad manner to kill innocents because they do not raise suspicions," Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told The Associated Press.

"These groups are either luring those who are desperate for money to help them in their attacks or making use of their poor mental condition to use them as suicide bombers."

The U.S. military reported last week that al Qaeda in Iraq recruited female patients from Baghdad's two psychiatric hospitals, with the help of hospital staff, for suicide missions. It is unclear whether the women understood what they were doing. Watch how using women may represent a new tactic »

American troops arrested the acting administrator of one of the hospitals after the February 1 attack, announcing an unspecified link between the man and the bombers.

And Sunday, three civilians died and 10 people, including a police officer, were wounded when a female beggar blew herself up inside an electronics store in central Baghdad, according to another Interior Ministry official.

The official said Iraqi police suspect the woman was wearing an explosive vest and tried to warn the people around her, but she ran into the store and detonated it.

Meanwhile, Iraqi authorities are investigating another deadly blast Tuesday.
A truck loaded with rockets exploded as Iraqi police tried to defuse them, killing at least 15 officers and wounding 27, an Interior Ministry official said.

Police found the truck parked in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of al-Obeidi, a Shiite Muslim district, after a rocket attack on a nearby U.S. military post, the official said.

A number of bomb disposal experts were among the dead and wounded, the official said.
Rocket and mortar attacks remain common in Baghdad despite a marked reduction in the level of sectarian killings over the past year.

Rocket attacks around Camp Victory -- a major U.S. base at Baghdad's airport -- left five Iraqis dead and 16 people wounded, including two U.S. soldiers and at least six children.

U.S. and Iraqi troops detained six people for questioning and recovered an unexploded rocket after the attack.

MAKING IRAQ DISAPPEAR: HOW THE MEDIA PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE

The mainstream media in the United States has been complicit in helping make the Iraq War disappear from the front pages and from television newscasts.

Tom Englehardt, http://www.tomdispatch.com/, accurately points out the mainstream media has gone along with the Bush administration and buried all the news coming out of Iraq except to sing the praises of "the surge."

The PR blitz by the Bush White House in concert with the mainstream media in the United States has been a roaring success because no longer is the Iraq War uppermost on the minds of the American public according to all national public opinion polls even though the U.S. still has 160,000 troops in Iraq.

So while the mainstream press, especially the Bush White House propaganda machine, FOX NEWS, have been hailing the success of "the surge," there have been countless suicide bombings and other acts of violence going on every single day in Iraq but nobody is covering it anymore.

The average American thinks Iraq is now a sea of tranquility because they don't read or see anything about Iraq in the media.

Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth as Engelhardt points out in his article.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the blog that reveals the truth about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan sans Bush White House and FOX NEWS spin.

Making Iraq Disappear

The Million Year War

How Never to Withdraw from Iraq

By Tom Engelhardt

http://www.tomdispatch.com/
Think of the top officials of the Bush administration as magicians when it comes to Iraq. Their top hats and tails may be worn and their act fraying, but it doesn't seem to matter.

Their latest "abracadabra," the President's "surge strategy" of 2007, has still worked like a charm. They waved their magic wands, paid off and armed a bunch of former Sunni insurgents and al-Qaeda terrorists (about 80,000 "concerned citizens," as the President likes to call them), and magically lowered "violence" in Iraq.

Even more miraculously, they made a country that they had already turned into a cesspool and a slagheap -- its capital now has a "lake" of sewage so large that it can be viewed "as a big black spot on Google Earth" -- almost entirely disappear from view in the U.S.

Of course, what they needed to be effective was that classic adjunct to any magician's act, the perfect assistant. This has been a role long held, and still played with mysterious willingness, by the mainstream media.

There are certainly many reporters in Iraq doing their jobs as best they can in difficult circumstances.

When it comes to those who make the media decisions at home, however, they have practically clamored for the Bush administration to put them in a coffin-like box and saw it in half. Thanks to their news choices, Iraq has for months been whisked deep inside most papers and into the softest sections of network and cable news programs.

Only one Iraq subject has gotten significant front-page attention: How much "success" has the President's surge strategy had?

Before confirmatory polls even arrived, the media had waved its own magic wand and declared that Americans had lost interest in Iraq. Certainly the media people had.

The economy -- with its subprime Hadithas and its market Abu Ghraibs -- moved to center stage, yet links between the Bush administration's two trillion dollar war and a swooning economy were seldom considered. It mattered little that a recent Associated Press/Ipsos poll revealed a majority of Americans to be convinced that the most reasonable "stimulus" for the U.S. economy would be withdrawal from Iraq. A total of 68% of those polled believed such a move would help the economy.

Anyone tuning in to the nightly network news can now regularly go through a typical half-hour focused on Obamania, the faltering of the Clinton "machine," the Huckabee/McCain face-off on Republican Main Street, the latest nose-diving market, and the latest campus shooting without running across Iraq at all. Cable TV, radio news, newspapers -- it makes little difference.

The News Coverage Index of the Project for Excellence in Journalism illustrates that point clearly. For the week of February 4-10, the category of "Iraq Homefront" barely squeaked into tenth place on its chart of the top-ten most heavily covered stories with 1% of the "newshole." First place went to "2008 Campaign" at 55%. "Events in Iraq" -- that is, actual coverage of and from Iraq -- didn't make it onto the list. (The week before, "Events in Iraq" managed to reach #6 with 2% of the newshole.)

True, you can go to Juan Cole's Informed Comment website, perhaps the best daily round-up of Iraqi mayhem and disaster on the Web, and you'll feel as if, like Alice, you had fallen down a rabbit hole into another universe. ("Two bombings shook Iraq Sunday morning. In the Misbah commercial center in the upscale Shiite Karrada district, a female suicide bomber detonated a belt bomb, killing 3 persons and wounding 10… About 100 members of the Awakening Council of Hilla Province have gone on strike to protest the killing of three of them by the U.S. military at Jurf al-Sakhr last Sunday, in what the Pentagon says was an accident… Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that officials in Baqubah are warning that as families are returning to the city, they could be forced right back out again, owing to sectarian tensions...") But how many Americans read Juan Cole every day... or any day?

On that media homefront, the Bush administration has been Houdini-esque. Left repeatedly locked in chains inside a booth full of water, George W. Bush continues to emerge to declare that things are going swimmingly in Iraq:

"…80,000 local citizens stepped up and said, we want to help patrol our own neighborhoods; we're sick and tired of violence and extremists. I'm not surprised that that happens. I believe Iraqi moms want the same thing that American moms want, and that is for their children to grow up in peace…

The surge is working. I know some don't want to admit that, and I understand. But the terrorists understand the surge is working. Al Qaeda knows the surge is working…"
Having pulled the "surge" rabbit out of his hat -- even stealing the very word out of the middle of "insurgent" -- Bush then topped that trick by making Iraq go away for weeks, if not months, on end. Talk about success!

Click on link to read full story.

IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN SEVERELY STRAINS U.S. MILITARY, OFFICER SAYS

There are only so many rotations our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan can take before it breaks the back of the military.

There are many officers who feel something has to be done about the strain that is being put on the military---especially the Army and Marines---who are bogged down in two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The time has come for the mainstream media in the United States to come out of their self-imposed exile on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and start telling the American public the truth about what is happening to our troops in both war theaters.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE.

US military severely strained, officers say

http://www.atimes.com

WASHINGTON - The US military is "severely strained" by two large-scale occupations in the Middle East, other troop deployments, and recruiting problems, according to a new survey of military officers published by Foreign Policy magazine and the centrist think-tank Center for a New American Strategy.

"They see a force stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the next fight," said the report, "The US Military Index", which polled 3,400 current and former high-level military officers.

Sixty percent of the officers surveyed said that the military is weaker now than it was five years ago, often citing the number of troops deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We ought to pay more attention to quality," said retiredLieutenant General Gregory Newbold, who retired from the Joint Chiefs of Staff in part over objections to the invasion of Iraq, at a panel during a conference to release the data.

Go back to link to read the full story.

USE OF WOMEN AND MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN AS SUICIDE BOMBERS INCREASES IN IRAQ

One thing that has the Iraqi and U.S. military worried is the use of women and mentally retarded people in a series of recent attacks carried out by al-Qaida in Iraq.

Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman, said Wednesday that two women used as suicide bombers in attacks against two pet markets in Baghdad earlier this month had undergone psychiatric treatment, though nothing in their records showed they had Down syndrome, as initially suggested.

He said the women had been positively identified as residents from the northeastern outskirts of Baghdad who were in their late 20s or early 30s.

The Iraqi claim that mentally disabled women were used in the Feb. 1 pet market bombings that killed nearly 100 people was met initially with skepticism.

The mainstream media in the United States continues to ignore the FACT that attacks are increasing in Iraq, especially those aimed at the United States Marines and United States Army.

The Marine Corps Times http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_Iraq_ceasefire_080220/
is reporting there is a great deal of concern among military commanders in Iraq that the bottom is falling out of the calm that has established by "the surge" in Iraq.

Also, firebrand anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the possibility Wednesday that he may not renew a six-month cease-fire widely credited for helping slash violence.

Earlier on Wednesday rockets were fired into U.S. positions around Baghdad injuring four U.S. Army soldiers and killing an Iraqi police chief and 15 Iraqi policemen.

The Bush Administration and their puppet mouthpiece are not doing the American public justice, nor are they being honest with the 160,000 American men and women stationed in Iraq, when they continually insist that Iraq is becoming more and more peaceful.

Suicide bombings are on the increase in Baghdad and all across Iraq and bodies of Iraqi citizens are found everyday in parts of Iraq.

Adding to the instability of Iraq is the fact the Iraqi government can't seen to come to any progress with the benchmarks that were putdown by the Bush administration and the Iraqi government, such as it is.

Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE, http://corksphere.blogspot.com/, the blog that captures what is REALLY happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and not "pep talks" by the Bush administration and FOX NEWS.

ATTACKS IN IRAQ ARE INCREASING ACCORDING TO THE MARINE CORPS TIMES

By Patrick Quinn - The Associated PressPosted : Wednesday Feb 20, 2008 14:31:40 EST

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/ap_Iraq_ceasefire_080220/

BAGHDAD — With deadly attacks against American targets increasing around Baghdad, firebrand anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the possibility Wednesday that he may not renew a six-month cease-fire widely credited for helping slash violence.

Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, a U.S. military spokesman, blamed a flurry of rocket attacks on Iranian-backed Shiites — including one on Monday against an Iraqi housing complex near the country’s main U.S. military base that killed at least five people and wounded 16, including two U.S. soldiers.

“These criminals launched 16 rockets in the direction of Baghdad International Airport, West Rashid and the Victory Base Complex,” he said, adding that they were “apparently unconcerned where these rockets would land and explode.”

He said that attack and others were carried out by “Iranian-backed Special Group criminals,” a term often used to describe groups that have either splintered away from al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army or refused to respect the cease-fire he declared last August.

Iraqi police held funerals for 14 officers killed Tuesday night as they responded to a rocket attack launched from a predominantly Shiite neighborhood against U.S. posts in the capital.

The U.S. military has angered some Sadrist factions by carrying out raids against what it describes as Iranian-backed breakaway factions of the Mahdi Army militia. There have been numerous calls from within the militia and its political wing to call off the cease-fire.

The cease-fire has been a key element in a three-piece puzzle that has come together to help reduce violence around by more than 60 percent since June — and by nearly 80 percent in Baghdad. The other two elements are the influx of thousands of U.S. troops last summer, and the creation of a Sunni-dominated force funded by the U.S. military to fight al-Qaida in Iraq.

“Al-Sayyid Muqtada al-Sadr’s cease-fire has been helpful in reducing violence and has led to improved security in Iraq. We would welcome the extension of the cease-fire as a positive step,” Smith told The Associated Press, using an honorific reserved for descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.

Sheik Salah al-Obeidi, a spokesman for al-Sadr in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, said that if the cleric failed to issue a statement by Saturday saying the cease-fire was extended, “then that means the freeze is over.”

On an Internet site representing al-Sadr, al-Obeidi said that al-Sadr “either will announce the extension or will stay silent and not announce anything. If stays silent, that means that the freeze is over.”

Al-Obeidi told The AP that message “has been conveyed to all Mahdi Army members nationwide.”

There are fears, especially among Sunnis, that any return to active service by the Mahdi Army could put Iraq back where it was just a year ago — in chaos and on the brink of a civil war.

“The drop in violence and the quiet which Baghdad witnesses is a clear evidence that this militia was behind all the chaos in the past,” Sunni parliament member, Asmaa al-Dulaimi, told the AP.

She said a lifting the cease-fire “will affect national reconciliation and will further deteriorate the security situation nationwide. Resuming their activities, whether against the government or civilians, will lead to a new confrontation with them.”

Smith said that under current conditions, violence was still dropping. He said the number of civilian deaths in Baghdad had fallen from 1,087 men, women and children killed in February 2007 to 178 in the first month of this year.

He also said the number of execution-style killings carried out by so-called sectarian death squads had dropped some 95 percent, from 800 in February 2007 to below 40 so far this month.

The number of suicide attacks, meanwhile, went from 12 a month last year to just four in January, and the number of roadside bombings was down more than 45 percent in the year since the U.S.-Iraqi operation began, he said.

“While the progress has been significant, we all know Baghdad is not safe from al-Qaida and other extremists,” Smith said.


Meanwhile, three Iraqi children were killed and seven others wounded when they were hit by an insurgent mortar attack while playing soccer outside a military supply area on Tuesday near Balad, the military said.

And in Diyala province north of Baghdad, where U.S. and Iraqi forces are working to push out al-Qaida in Iraq, a suicide bomber killed seven people and wounded 17, said an official in the provincial command operation center. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release the information.

FOUR U.S. SOLDIERS INJURED IN ROCKET ATTACK ON BAGHDAD

The insurgents in Iraq are stepping up their attacks on U.S. forces stationed in the "Green Zone" in Baghdad and at military outposts around Baghdad.

Four U.S. soldiers have been injured in the latest wave of attacks with insurgents using rockets and mortars which they fire into the heavily fortified U.S. military positions in and around Baghdad.

The attacks also killed an Iraqi police chief and and 15 other Iraqi policemen as well as injuring 30.

Reported by Bill Corcoran, editor of this blog dedicated to the 160,000 men and women serving in the U.S. military in Iraq.

http://tinyurl.com/2shbej

At least 15 Iraqi policemen have been killed and nearly 30 people injured after rockets that were set for launch exploded before they could be defused.

The explosions came after two rockets were fired at US outposts in Baghdad - the second such attack in as many days - injuring four US soldiers.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks but officials say they were apparently launched from Shia strongholds in the capital, raising concern about renewed activity ahead of a deadline for the anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to renew a ceasefire order.
Last august, al-Sadr ordered his al-Mahdi Army fighters to stand down for six months, but recently warned that he may not extend the ceasefire if raids against his supporters continued.

The US military has expressed hope that al-Sadr will extend the ceasefire but continues to target what it says are Iranian-backed breakaway factions in raids that have alienated his followers.

Tip-off

Iraqi police acting on a tip-off found the rockets primed for launch in the back of a truck in Obeidi in eastern Baghdad.

Explosives experts were trying to defuse the rockets when two of them detonated in quick succession.

Police confirmed that another two rockets had already been fired.

Iraqi government officials, police and medical workers said at least 27 people were wounded in the blast, but the US military gave a lower toll of three civilians killed and 17 wounded in the explosion.

A day earlier, at least five people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in a rocket attack on an Iraqi housing area near the Baghdad international airport and a nearby US military base.

Two US soldiers were also wounded in Monday's strikes, with US troops arresting six Iraqi suspects around the launch sites.

Iraqi police said the rockets were launched from Amil, a predominantly Shia neighbourhood southwest of the capital.