'I thought I was setting Iraq on the right path,' says Jawad Rumi Daini, a retired soldier who joined the new force after the U.S.-led invasion, hoping to use his experience.
By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
From the Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-general16mar16,0,1584725.story
Late at night, when he can't sleep, the Iraqi general paces past the dimly lighted model homes and construction sites of his Cairo neighborhood. He avoids the main streets, crammed with shopping malls and restaurants. He doesn't want to run into other Iraqis. He has enemies.He slips back in after 1 a.m., careful not to disturb his wife, children and grandchildren. But still he can't drift off. It will be close to dawn when finally he shuts his eyes, after exhausting himself thinking about how he will protect his family, how long his money will last. How he fell so far and ended up banished by the Iraqi government and forgotten by the Americans.
The fate of Maj. Gen. Jawad Rumi Daini is more than the story of one man's disgrace.
On the fifth anniversary of the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein, he serves as a singular witness to the hopes and horrors of the last five years: a man haunted by his role in a terrible stampede on a Baghdad bridge that left nearly 1,000 people dead; a man targeted for his involvement in the discovery of a Shiite police torture chamber; a man devastated by the killing of his son.
Some call Daini an honorable officer who sacrificed for his country. Others brand him a coward who accommodated Shiite militias and Sunni fighters alike.In today's Iraq, where nothing is black and white and motives are inscrutable, the answer may be somewhere in between.
Even with fresh talk of reconciliation in his homeland, the 59-year-old has no hopes of returning: He saw too much as the country slid into civil war."I joined the old army and the new," he said, "and lost both."
Return to link to read the rest of the story.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
FOR ONE IRAQI GENERAL, A TALE OF LOST HOPE AND HONOR
UPDATE ON GI INJURED IN IRAQ: VIOLENCE MARKS FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF WAR
The fifth anniversary of the war with Iraq was marred by continuing violence in Baghdad and all across Iraq. However, we lead off this post on our blog with a report on Sgt. Claude O'Berry, Jr., Bismarck, North Dakota, who received a Purple Heart after his Humvee was struck by a rocket propelled grenade which left him with severe internal injuries and the loss of his right leg.
Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE.
Sgt. Claude O'Berry, Jr. earned his Purple Heart on Nov. 23, 2006, on a rough road in Afghanistan. One minute he was on patrol, and the next he was the target of a rescue mission, his armored vehicle torn up by a rocket-propelled grenade.The rocket shot into the Humvee through the door behind O'Berry. Shrapnel pierced his seat and his body armor, coming to rest inside his back, near his right kidney. Another man in the vehicle had his right leg severed in the explosion.A third man, a good man, was dead.
VIOLENCE IN BAGHDAD AND ACROSS IRAQ ON FIFTH ANNIVESARY OF WAR
Baghdad:#1: In other violence, a bomb stuck to a taxi exploded in central Baghdad, killing the driver and wounding a passenger and three pedestrians, police said.
#2: U.S. forces killed two suspected al Qaeda insurgents and detained 23 others during operations in central and northern Iraq on Tuesday, the U.S. military said.
#3: Gunmen threw a hand grenade at a checkpoint manned by neighbourhood security members, wounding three members and one civilian, police said.
#4: Gunmen stole $115,000 from a money exchange in Karrada and killed its owner and wounded an employee, police said.
#5: A bomb attached to a car killed a police colonel and wounded another in Karrada district in central Baghdad, police said.At 11:44 a.m. a magnetic bomb attached to Col. Midhat Ali, military intelegince, exploded in Karrada killing Midhat and injuring a colleague in the passenger seat.
Diyala Prv:Balad Ruz:#1: A woman suicide bomber killed four people, including two policemen, and wounded 12 others on Wednesday in restive Diyala province north of Baghdad, police said. The woman approached police guarding the premises of an organisation that arranges religious pilgrimages in the town of Balad Ruz, about 70 km (45 miles) northeast of Baghdad, before blowing herself up, police said.
Iskandariya:#1: A roadside bomb killed a woman and wounded two others in the town of Iskandariya.
#2: A roadside bomb exploded near a police patrol, killing one policeman and wounding two in the town of Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, on Tuesday, police said.
Mussayab:#1: Militants set fire to a fuel pipeline supplying a power station in the town of Mussayab, about 60 km (40 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
Basra:#1: Police said Wednesday 17 border guards have been shot dead by gunmen in different areas in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The killings occurred over the last 24 hours, police sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. The sources did not say whether the killings were carried out by the same gunmen and what the motive behind them was.
#2: A senior police officer from the Basra police survived an attempt on his life on Wednesday afternoon in northern Basra when an explosive charge went off near his motorcade, a police source said. “Colonel Mazen Abdul Wahed survived an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded targeting his motorcade on the commercial street in northern Basra,” the source, who preferred anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq. “The explosion injured one of his bodyguards and two passing civilians,” he added
Tikrit:#1: Gunmen attacked a checkpoint manned by neighbourhood security members, killing one and wounding two in the city of Tikrit, 175 km (105 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
Kirkuk:#1: US troops have shot dead three Iraqi policemen by mistake in the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk. A US military statement described the incident as a tragic accident, which was sincerely regretted. The soldiers are thought to have opened fire after feeling threatened when the police drove at high speed into an area which had been cordoned off.
#2: Two persons were injured on Wednesday by a roadside bomb blast in southwestern Kirkuk, a police source said. “An improvised explosive device went off targeting a car of the Digla constructions company in al-Senaaei neighborhood in southwestern Kirkuk, wounding two of the company’s workers,” the source, who asked for anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq
Mosul:#1: A suicide car bomb also struck an Iraqi army building in the northwestern city of Mosul, wounding 14 people, police said.A suicide car bomber targeted an Iraqi army checkpoint, wounding 11 soldiers and three civilians in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
Kurdistan:#1: Iran shelled Iraq's northern Qandil mountains, targeting PJAK Kurdish separatist guerrillas, but there were no casualties or any damage to property, said Azad Wassu, a local mayor in the area
Afghanistan:#1: U.S. forces searching for bomb makers raided Afghan homes near the border with Pakistan early Wednesday, exchanging gunfire with militants. Six people were killed, including two children and a woman, Afghan officials said. The U.S.-led coalition said its forces were searching compounds in Khost province for a militant named Bismullah who organized roadside bomb attacks and smuggled weapons. Militants shot at the troops, who returned fire and killed "several militants," including Bismullah and Rahim Jan, another man suspected of making bombs, the coalition said. The raid began just after midnight and lasted about an hour, said Mirza Gul, a villager from Hom in Khost province. Angry villagers had gathered at daybreak, chanting anti-U.S. slogans, he said.
#2: Taliban militants destroyed another tower of a telecommunication company in their former stronghold of Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, an official said Wednesday. “The enemies in their subversive activities attacked an antenna of a mobile company in Loya Wala area, five km north of Kandahar city Tuesday night and destroyed it completely,” city official Mohammad Ahsan said.
WHERE IS THE U.S. AND IRAQ AFTER FIVE YEARS OF WAR?
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a preventative war of choice whose purpose, according to President Bush, was "to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger."
Five years later, it is clear there were no weapons of mass destruction to disarm in Iraq and no grave danger from which to defend. In 2006, a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concluded that the war in Iraq had become "the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement" faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat.
The 2007 NIE concluded that "al-Qaeda [had] reorganized to pre-9/11 strength," largely as a result of the United States turning its attention away from Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to focus on Iraq. Also, al Qaeda's association with insurgents in Iraq helped "energize the broader Sunni extremist community, raise resources, and...recruit and indoctrinate operatives." Far from making the United States safer, the Iraq war has made the world much more dangerous.
A FAILED RECONSTRUCTION: A recent World Health Organization and Iraqi health ministry report estimated that 151,000 people were killed between the start of the invasion on March 20, 2003 and June 2006. In a March 17 report, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that millions of Iraqis are still deprived of clean water and medical care, describing Iraq's health care system as "now in worse shape than ever."
Iraqis endure intense heat in the summer and freezing cold in the winter because of a lack of electricity, even though more than $6 billion, mostly in American money, has been devoted to improving supply. The New York Times reported that "typical daily peaks are around 4,500 megawatts." According to a recent report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, "that's only about 500 megawatts more than what it was shortly after the start of reconstruction five years ago -- before the completion of thousands of American-supported projects."
Garbage collection is notoriously unreliable, with refuse often piling up "for days, sometimes weeks, emanating toxic fumes." In a new report, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees stated that, five years after the U.S.-led invasion, Iraqis are still fleeing in large numbers.
Iraqis topped the list of asylum seekers in industrialized countries for the second year running, accounting for more than 10 percent of the total with 45,200 applications last year. "It is important to bear in mind, however, that Iraqi asylum seekers in industrialized countries represent only one percent of the estimated 4.5 million Iraqis uprooted by the conflict," the report said. Amnesty International reports that Iraq continues to be "one of the most dangerous countries in the world, with hundreds of Iraqi civilians killed every month."
A FAILING POLITICAL RECONCILIATION: In the latest blow against progress toward political accommodation between Iraq's ethnic and sectarian factions, a conference to reconcile Iraq's political groups began to unravel even before it got under way on Tuesday, as members of the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front said "they would not participate in the conference until Shiite lawmakers address their political demands."
The Shiite bloc led by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and some smaller groups also boycotted the conference, revealing the deep and persistent divisions between and within Iraq's main sects. Over the past few months, several legislative accomplishments that were first seen as signs of progress turned out to be much less favorable on closer inspection, or were simply reversed.
In January, a de-Baathification reform law, initially "billed as the first significant political step forward in Iraq after months of deadlock," was "riddled with loopholes and caveats to the point that some Sunni and Shiite officials say it could actually exclude more former Baathists than it lets back in." In February, the passage of a package of three laws (addressing amnesty for detainees, budget allocations, and provincial powers) was hailed by conservatives as a significant political advance. Days later, the provincial powers law was struck down by Iraq's three-member presidency council, breaching the compromise that had enabled the passage of the three laws.
WAR ARCHITECTS STILL IN DENIAL: The individuals who devised and supported the Iraq war still refuse to admit error. President Bush insists that the war was worth the "high cost in lives and treasure." On separate surprise visits to Iraq this week, Vice President Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) seemed oblivious to the tragedy that their policy had unleashed upon the people of Iraq.
Cheney preposterously claimed that the Iraq war has been a "successful endeavor" and blithely "warned against losing the gains the surge has produced," even as Baghdad was again wracked by explosions.
On the same day that a suicide bomber killed over forty people in the Shia shrine city of Kerbala, McCain repeated his mantra that "the surge is working."
Here at home, the war architects frantically cast blame on each other, and even on the Iraqis themselves. American Enterprise Institute (AEI) scholar Richard Perle still maintains that invading Iraq was "the right decision," but blames Iraq proconsul L. Paul Bremer for "underestimat[ing] the task" of nation-building. Douglas Feith, the former director of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, has also blamed Bremer for "mishandling...the political transition" in Iraq. AEI analyst Danielle Pletka blamed the Iraqi people for not embracing the opportunity afforded them by the American invasion and occupation. Alas, Pletka laments, "there is no freedom gene."
A WAY FORWARD: The Iraq invasion has wrought a fractured, dysfunctional government, a disunified largely militia-controlled state closely allied with Iran to the east and in simmering conflict with Turkey to the north, an open-source training ground for terrorists and a cause around which global jihadists have rallied.
American standing is at a low point in the Middle East and Arab world, with Arab democrats and reformers isolated and frustrated. It not enough to simply stay the course. The United States must reset its strategy by looking beyond the deteriorating situation in Iraq in order to counter the threat from global terrorist groups and ensure stability in the entire Middle East and Gulf region, using the credible promise of withdrawal from Iraq to encourage Iraqi leaders to come to a sustainable political accommodation.
This is an essential first step in order to correct the tragic policy mistakes of the last years, of which the decision to invade Iraq is the most obvious and profound.
Copy provided by http://www.americanprogressaction.org/
PLAYGROUNDS HAVE BECOME CEMETERIES: HOPES FOR DEMOCRACY ARE DEAD IN IRAQ
The invasion and occupation of Iraq has been been the biggest foreign policy blunder in the history of the United States.
The Bush White House and their parrot FOX NEWS can boast about the success of "the surge" from now until the cows comes home, but Iraq will never become a democracy and that was the stated goal after Saddam Hussein was captured and executed.
Iraq is and will remain a nightmare for the 160,000 U.S. troops in country, and for the Iraqi people who have seen their lives shattered by the U.S. occupation of their country.
As a famous Chicago alderman put it half a century ago: "Chicago ain't ready for reform." The same could be said of Iraq. Iraq is not ready for reform, at least not a reform that is being forced down their throats by the Bush admiistration.
Commentary by Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE.
'We can't live like this'
Playgrounds have become cemeteries. Bridges have become battlegrounds. Hopes for freedom and the spread of democracy are dead. Our reporter returns to find a war-torn country fearful that rival Iraqi groups are holding back for the real fight to begin once U.S. troops leave
MARK MACKINNON
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
March 15, 2008 at 12:37 AM EDT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080313.wiraqmark0315/BNStory/International
BAGHDAD — Five years ago, there was a children's playground on the flat lot between the brown walls of the Abu Hanifa mosque and the even browner waters of the Tigris River, a rare place for families to escape the incessant turmoil that even then defined life in Iraq.
Residents still reminisce about how boys and girls from the surrounding north Baghdad neighbourhood of Aadhamiya would play on the ancient swing set and seesaw, while women would push strollers through a park shaded by palm trees. Older kids played soccer in a nearby field.
But like so much of the old Iraq, the playground is now gone, replaced by long, ragged rows of white tombstones marking the burial places of more than 4,000 Aadhamiya residents who have died since the war for their country began on March 20, 2003.
"I used to take my children here every Friday. It was a place to enjoy life," said Muayad Natiq, a 49-year-old resident who was strolling in the cemetery this week. "Not any more. Most of those buried here are teenagers. First, they came here to play games. Then they came here to shoot [at the Shia neighbourhood of Kadhamiya across the Tigris]. Now they lie dead here."
On April 9, 2003, the same day the United States Army arrived in Baghdad and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein, residents of mainly Sunni Aadhamiya quietly began burying their dead inside the walls of the Abu Hanifa mosque. But there was only room for 250 bodies.
By July of 2006, as the country descended into all-out sectarian war between the minority Sunnis and the majority Shiites, the neighbourhood's residents moved the now-unused swing set and seesaw aside and converted the playground into a cemetery. Almost every day since, 30-year-old Ahmed Akram has buried fresh corpses under the soil.
At first, the white tombstones were laid in orderly rows. But the rows have since disappeared almost completely as groundskeepers bury bodies wherever they can, sometimes up to two dozen dead each day.
Since the U.S. occupation began, more than 4,330 people — more than 1 per cent of Aadhamiya's pre-war population of 300,000 — are buried here. Now there's no more room, and the bodies keep coming, so the cemetery is expanding to the adjacent soccer field.
"Every time I bury someone here I remember that this was a place that we use to come for enjoyment," Mr. Akram said, leaning on his shovel during a break between digging two fresh graves. "Every time I bury a child, I imagine their face asking me why and for what all this happened."
The overflowing graveyard in Aadhamiya is a microcosm of what has happened across Iraq in the past five years. The lowest-end figure for how many Iraqi civilians have died violent deaths since the U.S. invaded is just over 82,000. Other studies, which include deaths indirectly caused by the war, put the figure as high as 1,185,000. Judging from the Aadhamiya graveyard — one cemetery in one neighbourhood of one city in Iraq — the latter number seems far closer to the mark.
The good news is that violence has fallen in recent months. Sometimes only two or three bodies arrive at the makeshift cemetery during the course of a week.
The bad news is that few here expect the calm to hold. While the U.S. government is taking advantage of the lull to sponsor a rapid-fire series of reconciliation conferences around the country, at street level there's little sense that Sunni and Shiite, Arab and Kurd are ready to patch up their vast differences.
When plans surfaced last month to reopen the Imams Bridge that connects Sunni Aadhamiya to the Shia neighbourhood of Kadhamiya on the other side of the Tigris, residents on both sides protested, demanding it stay closed.
Mr. Akram supported the decision. Last April he buried his 30-year-old cousin, Nabil, who had worked as a translator for the U.S. Army until he was kidnapped by Shia militiamen. The body Mr. Akram buried was mutilated almost beyond recognition. Among other indignities, Nabil's eyes had been torn out and his mouth filled with acid.
"We can never forgive them," Mr. Akram said, his eyes flashing with hate. "Even if we did, they would never forgive us."
JOY, INTERRUPTED
Five years ago, I stood in Firdaws Square in the centre of Baghdad with a small crowd of Iraqis who cheered as a U.S. military vehicle yanked the signature statue of Saddam Hussein off its plinth. It was hailed at the time by the Americans as the effective end of the war; U.S. President George W. Bush's famous "mission accomplished" speech came just three weeks later.
Standing at the edge of the crowd that April afternoon, I wondered whether it was the end, or just the end of a phase. While the Iraqis joyously beating Saddam's metal head with their sandals seemed genuinely pleased, I was just as struck by the faces of the Iraqis who instead watched the scene from the balconies of nearby apartment buildings. They clutched their children — relieved, perhaps, that the daily bombing by U.S. warplanes was over — but plainly nervous about what was still to come.
I took a drive around Baghdad that day and got an early taste of how the next few years would go for Iraq's new American conquerors. As we drove through the Shia slum that was then called Saddam City (it has since been renamed Sadr City, after the father of the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr), crowds of seemingly jubilant young men surrounded our car.
Having just come from the happy scene at Firdaws — and having bought into the mainstream wisdom that the Shiites, who had been violently oppressed by the Sunni Mr. Hussein, would be happy to see the Americans — we expected more of the same in Sadr City.
"Yes, Bush!" a few shouted as we scribbled in our notebooks. Just then, the back right window exploded, covering me in shattered glass and opening several cuts on my arm and hands. Someone had shot at us, our driver concluded, and we sped away. As we left Sadr City behind, some of the youths who had greeted us a moment before picked up stones and hurled them at our back window.
WAR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
Buried in the international news pages this week, behind the New York sex scandal and soaring oil prices, was the less-shocking revelation that American investigators have concluded — five years after the fact — that there was absolutely no link between Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
The exhaustive study of some 600,000 official Iraqi documents — everything from tedious cabinet memos to records from interrogations carried out by the dictator's feared mukhabarat secret service — found there was "no smoking gun (i.e. direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaeda." The Pentagon was so ruffled by the findings of its own report that it made sure the document was hard to obtain, only mailing CD copies to those who specifically asked for it, rather than holding a news conference or posting it online.
It may not seem like big news now, but it's worth pausing to reflect that no weapons of mass destruction were ever found and now there's no proof that the regime was ever linked to al-Qaeda. (Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the primary insurgency group, sprang up after the U.S. invaded.) Before the war, then U.S. defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed the evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq was "bulletproof." Vice-President Dick Cheney touted the risk that Saddam's WMD could find their way into the hands of "terrorists" interested in striking inside the United States, as al-Qaeda had on Sept. 11. It's clear now that none of those risks really existed.
The other, less-frequently stated justification for the war was the widely held belief among neoconservatives in the Bush Administration that invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein would start a chain reaction throughout the region, creating what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called a "new Middle East." The idea that liberating Baghdad would trigger a wave of democratic, pro-Western change was a powerful one with many adherents in the White House and the Pentagon.
Click on link to read full story.....
FIVE YEARS AFTER INVASION OF IRAQ: WHY DID WE DO IT?
So why, exactly, did the U.S. invade Iraq five years ago this week?
By Jim Lobe, IPS NewsPosted on March 19, 2008, Printed on March 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/80167/
The official reasons -- the threat posed to the U.S. and its allies by Saddam Hussein's alleged programs of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and the possibility that he would pass along those arms to al Qaeda -- have long since been discarded by the overwhelming weight of the evidence, or, more precisely, the lack of evidence that such a threat ever existed.
Liberating Iraq from the tyranny of Hussein's particularly unforgiving and bloodthirsty version of Ba'athism and thus setting an irresistible precedent that would spread throughout the Arab world -- a theme pushed by the administration of President George W. Bush mostly after the invasion, as it became clear that the officials reasons could not be justified -- appears to have been the guiding obsession of really only one member of the Bush team, and not a particularly influential one at that: Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
Then there's the theory that Bush -- whose enigmatic psychology, particularly his relationship to his father, has already provided grist for several book-publishing mills -- wanted to show up his dad for failing to take Baghdad in 1991. Or he sought to "finish the job" that his dad had begun in 1991; and/or avenge his dad for Hussein's alleged (but highly questionable) assassination attempt against Bush I in Kuwait after the war.
Because Bush was the ultimate "Decider," as he himself has put it, and because no one who ever served at top levels in the administration has ever been able to say precisely when (let alone why) the decision was made to invade Iraq, this explanation cannot be entirely dismissed as an answer.
Then there is the question of oil. Was the administration acting on behalf of an oil industry desperate to get its hands on Mesopotamian oil that had long been denied it as a result of U.N. and unilateral sanctions prohibiting business between U.S. companies and Hussein?
Given both Bush's and Vice President Dick Cheney's long-standing ties to the industry and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's assertion in his recent memoir that "The Iraq war is largely about oil," this theory has definite appeal -- particularly to those on the left who made "No Blood for Oil" a favorite mantra at anti-war protests in the run-up to the invasion, just as they did -- with much greater plausibility -- before the 1991 Gulf War.
Click on link to read full story.
BREAKING NEWS: FEMALE SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 3 IN BAGHDAD
The myth of the success of "the surge" continues as Wednesday morning a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a Baghdad bus terminal killing at three and injuring 12 others.
By BUSHRA JUHI, Associated Press Writer 57 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq;_ylt=ApyLZ_0CCC5YjVYp_3Iil4NX6GMA
BAGHDAD - Iraqi police say a woman suicide bomber has killed three people and wounded 12 in an attack near a bus terminal northeast of Baghdad.
A senior police officer says the attack occurred Wednesday morning in a commercial area of Balad Ruz in the Diyala province. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not allowed to release the information.
Extremists are making greater use of women as suicide bombers. Explosive belts are easier to conceal under women's clothing and they are often not treated with the same suspicion as men.
THE REAL REASON CHENEY WENT TO IRAQ
The real reason Vice President Dick Cheney went to Iraq was to firm up a plan that will keep U.S. forces in Iraq for decades to come.
‘Power broker’ Cheney gets Iraqi pledge for long-term agreement.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/18/power-broker-cheney-gets-iraqi-pledge-for-long-term-agreement/
The AP reports that “Vice President Dick Cheney played the part of backroom power broker” during his visit to Iraq and “came away” with “pledges from Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to firm up a new blueprint for U.S.-Iraq relations that will stretch beyond the Bush presidency” and keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the U.N. mandate:
Topics ranged from security in Iraq to Iran’s rising influence in Mideast, but a key item was about crafting a long-term agreement between the U.S. and Iraq, plus a narrower deal to define the legal basis for continued U.S. troop presence.
The deal would take the place of a U.N. Security Council resolution that expires in December, the same time Bush will be packing up to leave office.
The Bush administration contends that it has “constitutional authority” to “continue combat operations” in Iraq past December without Congress’s authorization.
Click on link to read full story.
SHOCK AND AWE: FIVE YEARS LATER IN IRAQ
The Washington Post offers a perspective on Wednesday of the Iraq War five years after the U.S. invaded Iraq.
Five Years In Iraqis and Americans Offer Perspectives on the War
By Karen DeYoungWashington Post Staff WriterWednesday, March 19, 2008; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/18/AR2008031803199.html?wpisrc=newsletter
For a majority of Americans, today marks the fifth anniversary of the start of an Iraq war that was not worth fighting, one that has cost thousands of lives and more than half a trillion dollars. For the Bush administration, however, it is the first anniversary of an Iraq strategy that it believes has finally started to succeed.
It has been about a year since Army Gen. David H. Petraeus arrived to command U.S. forces in Iraq, Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker took over as the chief U.S. diplomat, and the military deployed 30,000 more troops to protect and rebuild neighborhoods.
Officials now running the U.S. effort express frustration that the gains wrought by their new political, security and economic policies -- in particular, sharply reduced violence -- are continually weighed against the first four years of the war, when Iraq unraveled in insurgency and sectarian strife.
"I came to Washington to describe what we're doing," Charles P. Ries, Crocker's senior deputy in charge of reconstruction and the Iraqi economy, said during a visit last week. "At almost every meeting, somebody wants me to describe what we used to do. . . . I know why people raise these questions, but I don't feel it's something I can speak to. The times were different then."
Today's policy is fundamentally different from the impatient mind-set of 2003, in both lowered U.S. expectations and a less imperious approach to dealing with Iraqi authorities. "In those days," Ries said, "we decided what [the Iraqis] needed, and we built it." Today, he said, Iraqis are asked what they want, and then told that while the United States will help, they will have to pay for most of it themselves.
Yet as the administration requests additional war funding and calls for a pause in promised troop withdrawals, some question its right to a second chance. "Like a tourniquet," the troop increase "has stopped the bleeding," Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a former Army Ranger and senior member of the Armed Services Committee, reported last week after his 11th trip to Iraq. What he has not seen, Reed said, are the surgery and recovery that would begin to heal the wound that Iraq has become. And even U.S. officials acknowledge that the "surge" has not led to the political reconciliation the administration had hoped for.
Others see the past year's successes as fragile and reversible, and less consequential than the pain that preceded them. "I think they have it righter than they ever have before," Daniel P. Serwer, an Iraq expert with the U.S. Institute of Peace, said of the administration. "But the fact is that those four other years did exist, and they condition a lot of what can and cannot happen now. There's a history here, there's a lot of blood and guts on the floor -- literally."
The White House tends to dismiss such longer memories. While it recognizes the inclination to "relitigate the past" when a milestone such as the fifth anniversary is reached, National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, "our focus is on the way ahead and making sure that the current situation and the future situation gets better."
Click on link above to read full Washington Post story.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
RED CROSS SITUATION IN IRAQ IS CRITICAL
FIVE YEARS AFTER THE U.S. INVADED IRAQ, THE HUMANITARIAN SITUATION IS STILL CRITICAL ACCORDING TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS
www.chinaview.cn
Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq
GENEVA, March 17 (Xinhua) -- Five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the humanitarian situation there is still among the most critical in the world, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday.
Because of the conflict, millions of Iraqis now still have insufficient access to clean water, sanitation and health care, the Geneva-based agency said in a report.
"Better security in some parts of Iraq must not distract attention from the continuing plight of millions of people who have essentially been left to their own devices," said Beatrice Megevand Roggo, the ICRC's head of operations for the Middle East and North Africa.
"Among them are displaced and refugee families, and those who have returned to their homes, children, elderly people, disabled people, households headed by women and families of detainees," she said.
According to the report, although security has improved in some parts of the country, Iraqis continue to be killed or injured on a daily basis in fighting and attacks.
Civilians are often deliberately targeted, in complete disregard for the rules of international humanitarian law.
Health care, water and sanitation services and electricity supplies remain largely inadequate. Hospitals lack qualified staff and basic drugs, and therefore struggle to provide suitable care for the injured.
The water supply has continued to deteriorate over the past year. Millions of Iraqis have been forced to rely on insufficient supplies of poor-quality water and sewage systems suffer from a lack of maintenance and a shortage of engineers.
"To avert an even worse crisis, more attention must be paid to the everyday needs of Iraqis," said Roggo.
"Everyone should have regular access to health care, electricity, clean water and sanitation," she added.
The ICRC also called on those involved in the conflict and those who can influence them to do everything possible to ensure that civilians, medical staff and medical facilities are not harmed.
SHOCKED! SHOCKED! SHOCKED! FOX NEWS SPENDS TEN MORE TIMES ON CELEBS THAN IRAQ WAR
Fox News Featured Most Celebrity Coverage, Fewest Stories On Iraq War
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/18/2007-media/
The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) put out its annual report on the “State of the News Media.” While the 2008 presidential campaign and the debate over Iraq were overwhelmingly the top subjects of cable news, the networks still devoted a substantial amount of coverage to celebrity affairs. For example, the death of Anna Nicole Smith received more coverage than the Valerie Plame scandal, the U.S. attorney purge, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Fox News led the cable networks in the most amount of celebrity coverage and the least amount of Iraq war coverage.
PEJ notes: MSNBC, at least in terms of time spent, was indeed the place for politics in 2007 — by nearly double over its rivals in the percentage of time studied (28% vs. 12% on CNN and 15% on Fox News). Fox, in turn, spent less time on the war in Iraq than the others (10% vs. 18% on MSNBC and 16% on CNN). And FOX NEWS was more oriented to crime, celebrity and the media than its rivals (28% vs. 19% on MSNBC and 16% on CNN).
A look at the Iraq coverage of CNN, Fox, and MSNBC:
As ThinkProgress reported in March 2007, three weeks after Anna Nicole’s death, Fox News and MSNBC still devoted more time to the late celebrity than to the Walter Reed scandal. Fox gave Anna Nicole roughly 12 times more coverage.
Fox may not be ashamed of PEJ’s latest findings. Last year, Fox News’s John Gibson defended his celebrity coverage by accusing reporters — such as CNN’s Anderson Cooper — of “news-guy snobbery.” Gibson claimed that people were “a little weary” of war coverage” and wanted “a little something else.”
That stupid comment by FOX NEWS' JOHN GIBSON is one of the many reasons this former reporter and former United States Army Combat Engineer started this blog.
Gibson, like so many of his colleagues at FOX NEWS, never spent a day in the military and wearing a stupid little flag lapel pin is not the same as standing at attention as the Star Spangled Banner is played when you are in the United States Armed Forces.
Bill Corcoran, editor of CORKSPHERE http://corksphere.blogspot.com/
10 ANTI WAR GRANNIES ARRESTED FOR TRYING TO ENLIST IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY
This story about ten grandmothers, ranging in age from 58 to 80, who tried to enlist in the United States Army is hilarious, but it also makes a valid point.
The point is people are fed up with the Iraq war that has dragged on for five years and now even grandmother are willing to enlist to help stop the constant re deployments of many troops to Iraq.
(IPS) - As part of actions across the United States to mark the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, 10 "Grandmothers for Peace", ranging in age from 57 to 80, were arrested Monday while trying to enlist in the United States Army.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41625
Acts of civil disobedience are planned this week in at least 17 other U.S. cities.As exclusively observed by IPS, the Grandmothers for Peace entered the Army Recruiting Station at the Midtown Place Shopping Centre in Atlanta, Georgia at around 9:30 am. The women broke up into three groups, each approaching a different recruiter's desk to engage them in questions.
"When do you get the bonuses? Do you get them right away?" a Grandmother asked.
"You guys are on a fishing expedition to catch people in lies," declared one recruiter, who said her name was "Ms. Reed". "What we're doing is, we're very much against the Iraq war. We'd like for you to let us enlist," said Bobbie Paul, 58, executive director of Atlanta Women's Action for New Directions.
"We have to make sure people are physically pre-screened," said a recruiter named Kevin Wells. "Could we enlist today? So the youth don't have to go? Can you give us a list of jobs?" Paul persisted. "There are regulations we have to follow, set by the government, as far as entry and recruiting," Wells responded.
"Would you take me? I'm 80," said Doris Benit of Kennesaw, Georgia.
"Me personally? Absolutely! But as far as the Army, there is a process," Wells answered. "What's the first step?" Benit asked. "The first step is to have a seat," Wells said.
Then, the 10 grandmothers all took seats around his desk. Meanwhile, dozens of activists were beating drums and chanting outside under a banner that read, "Take Us, Not Our Grandchildren!"
"We need an application," said Gloria Tatum, 65, of the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, Atlanta. "I believe in action. You're doing what you can. I'm doing what I can. We're in the same direction. This country is the greatest in the world. There's many ways to do things. I'm very passionate about this country and worry where it's going. It needs you. It needs me. It needs that young man over there [IPS reporter]. It needs that kind of passion," Wells said. Then, "I want everybody outside!" Reed shouted, after calling for backup and talking with her supervisor.
Finally, the Atlanta Police Department showed up. "People have 10 seconds to get off the property because it's private property or else you'll be arrested immediately," one police officer said through a loudspeaker.
"We're grandmothers -- it takes us 10 seconds just to get our bones coordinated," commented Rev. Sylvia Carroll of the First Iconium Baptist Church, who was one of the 16 "support grandmothers" who did not get arrested
Grandmothers for Peace International was founded in 1981 when Barbara Wiender, the first Grandmother for Peace, was arrested protesting the presence of nuclear weapons near her home in Sacramento, California. Today, the group conducts a variety of protests and other actions, including civil disobedience, around issues of nuclear disarmament, peace, and justice.
It has offices in the U.S., Germany, Romania, South Africa, and Britain.
Click on link to read full story.
WATCH VIDEO OF IRAQ VET TALK ABOUT RACISM IN MILITARY
There has been a lot of talk about race on TV, especially on FOX NEWS which has used comments made by Democratic Presidential candidate Barak Obama's former pastor, as a reason to try and divide and conquer the United States along racial lines more than it is already.
In this report and accompanying video, an Iraq war veteran says "racism" is very much a part of the military and it starts at the top of command.
Iraq Vets: 'Racism Endemic; Comes from the Top of Command Chain' (VIDEO)
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/79865/ (click on this link to see video)
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted March 17, 2008.
At its core, the "War on Terror" is inherently racist. Its central tenet is that all Muslims are interchangeable.
To a significant degree, the invasion of Iraq was sold on that premise.
At the time of the invasion, a majority of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of 9/11 (a third still believe that, as did 90 percent of soldiers deployed in Iraq in 2006, according to a Zogby poll).
Only a populace that thinks all Arabs are the same could be convinced that it was possible to avenge Osama Bin Laden's attack -- carried out mostly by Saudis and Egyptians -- by invading Iraq.
Click on link above to read the full story about racism in the military.
DEEP DIVISIONS MAR ANY ATTEMPT AT IRAQ UNITY
While Vice President Dick Cheney boasts about the success of "the surge," on Tuesday major political blocs of Sunni and Shiites boycotted a national conference which was designed to bring reconciliation to Iraq.
Iraq is being torn apart by the warring factions and any success of "the surge" is of little importance to the overall stabilization of Iraq.
Divisions mar Iraq unity meeting
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 18 minutes ago
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq;_ylt=AmmPGBB2lizC8v1ZIdtzWwlX6GMA
Major Sunni and Shiite political blocs Tuesday boycotted a national conference aimed at reconciling Iraq's rival communities — underscoring the deep divisions tearing at the country despite a decline in violence.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, opened the two-day conference, pledging that no religious or ethnic group would suffer as Iraq tries to heal its internal rifts.
But the two major Sunni blocs — the Iraqi Accordance Front and the Front for National Dialogue — refused to attend, saying the Shiite-dominated government had failed to meet Sunni demands.
Members of the Shiite bloc loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr walked out following the opening ceremonies, which took place in the U.S.-protected Green Zone.
Nassar al-Rubaie, head of the pro-Sadr faction in parliament, said his group did not want to appear hostile to reconciliation but "we don't want our presence to be ceremonial or sit like guests of honor."
Sunni leaders have complained that al-Maliki has failed to release detainees not charged with specific crimes, has not disbanded Shiite militias and has not sufficiently included Sunni lawmakers in decision-making on security issues.
"How we can attend a reconciliation meeting?" said Saleem Abdullah, a spokesman for the Accordance Front. "There are many points that are still not fulfilled."
UPDATE ON GI WHO LOST BOTH LEGS IN IRAQ: SECURITY INCIDENTS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
When Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad Monday, he went from his plane to the Green Zone in a helicopter because the streets of Baghdad are too dangerous to drive down. Anyone driving through Baghdad has to zigzag down the streets and hope that someone has planted an IED or takes a shot at them from a window or door.
And these security incidents in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities is why Iraq remains a very dangerous place despite all the bravado about how well "the surge" is working.
We also have this casualty report on a U.S. soldier wounded in Iraq:
Casualty Reports: Army Sergeant James Hackemer, 26, of Gowanda lost his legs when the armored vehicle he was driving was blown up by an I-E-D in Baghdad Friday. Hackemer and 4 others were all in the vehicle when the blast occurred. All of them are listed in critical condition tonight. Hackemer is currently being treated at a hospital in Germany. He is said to be in a drug induced coma, and is expected to be transported back to the U.S. tomorrow or Wednesday.
Security incidents:Baghdad:#1: Two civilians were killed and four others wounded when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off in northeastern Baghdad on Tuesday morning, police said. An IED planted by unidentified gunmen went off near an outdoor souk (market) in al-Binouk neighborhood, northeastern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding four others," the source, who preferred not to be named, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq
#2: An IED unidentified gunmen stuck to a traffic facility on the main road in al-Shaab area, northeastern Baghdad, went off, killing two traffic policemen," Maj. General Qassem Atta, the spokesman for the command and the security plan Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (law imposing), told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq
#3: Around 3 p.m. a parked car bomb exploded near a checkpoint near Um Al Tubool mosque (Ibin Taimia mosque) at the entrance of the airport road, injuring three Iraqi army soldiers and injuring 4 civilians.
#4: U.S. forces killed seven suspected militants and detained eight others in operations targeting al Qaeda members in central and northern Iraq on Monday, the U.S. military said.#5: Police found five dead bodies throughout Baghdad, one in Zafaraniyah, one in Sinak, one in Ur, two in Dora.
Diyala Prv:#1: Three policeman were killed and three others wounded in a roadside bomb attack targeting their patrol in Abu Sayda village in northern Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.Karbala:#1: Update An Iraqi health official says the death toll in Monday's bombing in Karbala has risen to 52. About 75 people were injured in the blast.
Iskandariya:#1: A member of a neighbourhood security unit was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a checkpoint in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
Diwaniyah:#1: Twelve rockets targeted Al Diwaniyah city from three different directions and caused no casualties, Iraqi police said.Shatt al-Arab:
#1: Two Iraqi fishermen drowned and another wounded when their boat came under an Iranian patrol fire in the waters of Shatt al-Arab river channel, south of Basra, on Tuesday, police said."An Iranian patrol opened fire at an Iraqi fishing boat in al-Fao area, (110 km) south of Basra, causing two fishermen to drown and a third to sustain injuries," the source, who did not want his name mentioned, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq
Basra:#1: Gunmen using machineguns attacked sheikh Abdul Atheem Al Edani, a deputy of Sistani to Basra, in Al Taiaran square in central Basra, injuring him and killing his driver.
Isahaqi:#1: An officer in the rank of lieutenant was killed on Tuesday in clashes with an armed group in al-Anya village, (4 km) west of al-Isahaqi in a raid on gunmen's hideouts," the source told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq
Samarra:#1: Meanwhile, the same source said "unidentified gunmen kidnapped on Monday evening a policeman in a fake checkpoint they set up in Watban street, near Samarra. "The gunmen cut off the road for more than one hour, during which they stopped some civilian vehicles and kidnapped a policeman in civvies and led him to the area of al-Tharthar, southwestern Samarra," the source said.
Baiji:#1: Two members of a neighbourhood security unit were killed in a drive-by shooting at a checkpoint in Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
Kirkuk:#1: Unknown gunmen kidnapped a civilian in central Kirkuk on Tuesday, a police source said.
Mosul:#1: Two civilians were killed and 10 others wounded when a car bomb ripped through a crowded commercial street in central Mosul on Tuesday, police said. A car bomb went exploded by means or remote control on the shoppers-busy Khaled Ibn al-Walid street in central Mosul, killing two civilians and wounding 10 others," a police source in Ninewa, who refused to reveal his name, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq .
Three people were killed and 45 others wounded by a bomb in a parked car in Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said
Afghanistan:#1: Pakistan's state news agency says a roadside bomb has struck an oil tanker carrying fuel for U.S.-led coalition forces in neighboring Afghanistan. No one was hurt. The Associated Press of Pakistan says the truck "burst into flames" after the explosion Tuesday near Peshawar, a city near the Afghan border. The tanker carrying 11,624 gallons of fuel was destroyed.
#2: The health condition of the Czech soldier who was seriously wounded in a suicide attack in the south of Afghanistan on Monday remains unchanged and he continues being kept in induced sleep, Czech deputy chief of staff Josef Proks said.One of them has serious injuries. He has been transported to the U.S. hospital in Kandahar and is kept in induced sleep.
#3: Some of the 3,200 North Carolina-based Marines slated for a seven-month deployment to Afghanistan's volatile south have begun arriving at the region's largest base following a call from Canada for more troops there. About 2,200 troops from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., will be based in Kandahar, the Taliban's former power base.
#4: Afghan security forces killed two Taliban militants who were involved in a recent attack on a mobile phone tower in western Afghanistan, police said Tuesday. Five other rebels were captured following the clash in Obe district of Herat province late Monday, regional police spokesman Abdul Rauf Ahmadi told AFP. One of the captured men was wounded, he added.
PENTAGON CONFIRMS NAME OF ONE OF THREE GIS KILLED IN IRAQ
The Department of Defense (DoD) has confirmed the name of one out of three American soldiers killed in Iraq:
U.S. Deaths Confirmed By The DoD:
3988
Reported U.S. Deaths Pending DoD Confirmation:
2
Total
3990
DoD Confirmation List
Latest Coalition Fatality: Mar 17, 2008
03/17/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty
Spc. William D. O’Brien, 19, of Rice, Texas, died March 15 in Baghdad, Iraq, from wounds suffered when he was attacked by small arms fire during combat operations. He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment...
03/17/08 MNF: Two MND-B Soldiers attacked by IED
Two Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldiers were killed when an improvised-explosive device struck the Soldiers' vehicle at approximately 12:20 p.m. March 17.
Post Iraq Deaths Not Confirmed By the DoD
Name
Date
Wasielewsk, Anthony Raymond
08-Oct-2007
Cassidy, Gerald J.
25-Sep-2007
Richards, Jack D.
29-Jul-2007
Salerno III, Raymond A.
16-Jul-2006
Smith, John "Bill"
01-Oct-2005
Note: The soldiers listed above died from wounds received in Iraq, however, the DoD has not included their deaths in their official count.
VIDEO: BAGHDAD'S KILLING FIELDS REVEALED
This video of Baghdad's Killing Fields tells the story of thousands of Iraqis who have died since the United States invaded Iraq five years ago. For anyone looking for the real truth about life and death inside of Iraq, this video tells what the residents of Baghdad have gone through since the United States invaded Iraq five years ago: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/mar/18/baghdads.killing.fields
