Iraq (2 Viewers)

Nice one ..

on other not so nice news seems ramhadi has fallen agin to the insurgents.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1508573,00.html

kids playing football with heads in the main square. WTF?

If this is the U.S idea of peace and stability this far into the conflict then I am at a loss. I also read from bush flash that the total of US dead as recognised by the State Dept is 1700 after the 5 marines killed in ramhadi yesterday.However they are not counting troops injured that subsequently are flown out and then die on other soil such as kuwait/germany/U.S. so I guess no one will ever know the true toll. Imaginge playing those kinds of games to make the war seem in a better light? why the antiwar effort hasn't picked up more in the states would be a mystery to me if I hadn't been talking to a mate from washington there last night.He tells me that there is almost zero coverage on the main evening news these days unless it is a vist to the troops by Rumsfeld of some other high level nonce. People seem to have forgotten wht the hell is going on over there and now it is truely in the realm of a vietnam style conflict. I don't think that they will ever really be finished with the place in our lifetime unless they withdraw completely,(not going to happen) so I guess this is the situation for a long time to come.
A new generation of children are gowing up there that will only know hardship and war.
Drepressing in extrimis. :(
 
brilliant. more people in the states and the uk should get up to this sort of caper...
June 17, 2005

Mother whose son died in Iraq serves summons on Blair
By Michael Evans, Defence Editor
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1657757,00.html



TONY BLAIR has been summonsed by a county court to appear as a witness in a case involving the mother of a soldier killed two days after the war in Iraq began in 2003.
The summons has been sent to Downing Street, after the mother of Sergeant Les Hehir, of 29 Commando Regiment Royal Artillery, named the Prime Minister as a witness.



Pat Blackburn, the mother of the 34-year-old soldier who was killed in a helicopter crash south of the Kuwait border on March 21, 2003, is to appear at Weymouth County Court next week charged with non- payment of £15,000 income tax in a case brought by the Inland Revenue. Mrs Blackburn has withheld paying her tax bill in protest over the Iraq war.

She has refused to clear the debt until Mr Blair either discloses the details of Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction or resigns.

A spokeswoman for the court confirmed yesterday that a summons had been sent to Downing Street. She declined to reveal whether there had been any response.

She said that any named witness summonsed by a court had to “make an application to the judge not to attend”. Downing Street has refused to make any comment. Mrs Blackburn, from Dorchester, Dorset, said that she had offered Mr Blair £500 to cover his travel expenses and loss of earnings for the day if he turned up for the court hearing. She said: “If Tony Blair can visit Weymouth to campaign before the election he can return to appear in court. I fully expect to be standing in the dock with the Prime Minister in court.”

Mrs Blackburn plans to appear in the Dorset court without legal representation so that she can question Mr Blair directly if he turns up. Sergeant Hehir was one of the first British Service personnel to be killed in Operation Telic, the codename for Britain’s military campaign in Iraq. A total of 88 have now died. He and seven other British troops, all members of 3 Commando Brigade, were killed when a US Marine Corps CH46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed in Kuwait. Four Americans also died.

Sergeant Hehir, who lived in Poole, Dorset, was married with two young sons, Oliver, now aged 7, and William, 5.

Mrs Blackburn, a businesswoman, withheld her income tax payments after writing numerous letters to Mr Blair. She said that in a hand-written reply, Mr Blair told her that he was willing to send her the details of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. But the information never materialised.

She said: “Tony Blair has not kept his word. In the meantime, thousands of people are being murdered and our Prime Minister cannot do the honourable thing and resign.” She added: “I don’t want to go to jail over this but I feel this is the only thing I can do to get justice.”

Mrs Blackburn said that she was not for or against wars, and acknowledged that Saddam Hussein was “an odious and despicable person but his personality wasn’t the reason for us going to war”.
 
bastards..the vietnam comparisons just keep getting stronger and stronger..

US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
17 June 2005

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=647397


American officials lied to British ministers over the use of "internationally reviled" napalm-type firebombs in Iraq.

Yesterday's disclosure led to calls by MPs for a full statement to the Commons and opened ministers to allegations that they held back the facts until after the general election.

Despite persistent rumours of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm, Adam Ingram, the Defence minister, assured Labour MPs in January that US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq.

But Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. "The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you," he told Mr Cohen. "I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position."

Mr Ingram said 30 MK77 firebombs were used by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in the invasion of Iraq between 31 March and 2 April 2003. They were used against military targets "away from civilian targets", he said. This avoids breaching the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which permits their use only against military targets.

Britain, which has no stockpiles of the weapons, ratified the convention, but the US did not.

The confirmation that US officials misled British ministers led to new questions last night about the value of the latest assurances by the US. Mr Cohen said there were rumours that the firebombs were used in the US assault on the insurgent stronghold in Fallujah last year, claims denied by the US. He is tabling more questions seeking assurances that the weapons were not used against civilians.

Mr Ingram did not explain why the US officials had misled him, but the US and British governments were accused of a cover-up. The Iraq Analysis Group, which campaigned against the war, said the US authorities only admitted the use of the weapons after the evidence from reporters had become irrefutable.

Mike Lewis, a spokesman for the group, said: "The US has used internationally reviled weapons that the UK refuses to use, and has then apparently lied to UK officials, showing how little weight the UK carries in influencing American policy."

He added: "Evidence that Mr Ingram had given false information to Parliament was publicly available months ago. He has waited until after the election to admit to it - a clear sign of the Government's embarrassment that they are doing nothing to restrain their own coalition partner in Iraq."

The US State Department website admitted in the run-up to the election that US forces had used MK77s in Iraq. Protests were made by MPs, but it was only this week that Mr Ingram confirmed the reports were true.

Mike Moore, the Liberal Democrat defence spokes-man, said: "It is very serious that this type of weapon was used in Iraq, but this shows the US has not been completely open with the UK. We are supposed to have a special relationship.

"It has also taken two months for the minister to clear this up. This is welcome candour, but it will raise fresh questions about how open the Government wished to be... before the election."

The MK77 bombs, an evolution of the napalm used in Vietnam and Korea, carry kerosene-based jet fuel and polystyrene so that, like napalm, the gel sticks to structures and to its victims. The bombs lack stabilising fins, making them far from precise.
 
gah...

June 19, 2005

British bombing raids were illegal, says Foreign Office
Michael Smith
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1660300-523,00.html



A SHARP increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war “to put pressure on the regime” was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.

The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began “spikes of activity” designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.

The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was “not consistent with” UN law, despite American claims that it was.

The decision to provoke the Iraqis emerged in leaked minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and his most senior advisers — the so-called Downing Street memo published by The Sunday Times shortly before the general election.

Democratic congressmen claimed last week the evidence it contains is grounds for impeaching President George Bush.

Those at the meeting on July 23, 2002, included Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The minutes quote Hoon as saying that the US had begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime.

Ministry of Defence figures for bombs dropped by the RAF on southern Iraq, obtained by the Liberal Democrats through Commons written answers, show the RAF was as active in the bombing as the Americans and that the “spikes” began in May 2002.

However, the leaked Foreign Office legal advice, which was also appended to the Cabinet Office briefing paper for the July meeting, made it clear allied aircraft were legally entitled to patrol the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq only to deter attacks by Saddam’s forces on the Kurdish and Shia populations.

The allies had no power to use military force to put pressure of any kind on the regime.

The increased attacks on Iraqi installations, which senior US officers admitted were designed to “degrade” Iraqi air defences, began six months before the UN passed resolution 1441, which the allies claim authorised military action. The war finally started in March 2003.

This weekend the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Goodhart, vice-president of the International Commission of Jurists and a world authority on international law, said the intensified raids were illegal if they were meant to pressurise the regime.

He said UN Resolution 688, used by the allies to justify allied patrols over the no-fly zones, was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which deals with all matters authorising military force.

“Putting pressure on Iraq is not something that would be a lawful activity,” said Goodhart, who is also the Liberal Democrat shadow Lord Chancellor.

The Foreign Office advice noted that the Americans had “on occasion” claimed that the allied aircraft were there to enforce compliance with resolutions 688 and 687, which ordered Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction.

“This view is not consistent with resolution 687, which does not deal with the repression of the Iraqi civilian population, or with resolution 688, which was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and does not contain any provision for enforcement,” it said.

Elizabeth Wilmshurst, one of the Foreign Office lawyers who wrote the report, resigned in March 2003 in protest at the decision to go to war without a UN resolution specifically authorising military force.

Further intensification of the bombing, known in the Pentagon as the Blue Plan, began at the end of August, 2002, following a meeting of the US National Security Council at the White House that month.

General Tommy Franks, the allied commander, recalled in his autobiography, American Soldier, that during this meeting he rejected a call from Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to cut the bombing patrols because he wanted to use them to make Iraq’s defences “as weak as possible”.

The allied commander specifically used the term “spikes of activity” in his book. The upgrade to a full air war was also illegal, said Goodhart. “If, as Franks seems to suggest, the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority,” he said.

Although the legality of the war has been more of an issue in Britain than in America, the revelations indicate Bush may also have acted illegally, since Congress did not authorise military action until October 11 2002.

The air war had already begun six weeks earlier and the spikes of activity had been underway for five months.
 
the continuing terror that was fallujah. :mad: :(

http://electroniciraq.net/news/1991.shtml

Dahr Jamail, Asia Times, 3 June 2005

AMMAN, Jordan - After two devastating sieges of Fallujah in April and November of 2004, which left thousands of Iraqis dead and hundreds of thousands without homes, the aftermath of the US attempt to rid the city of resistance fighters in an effort to improve security in the country continues to plague the residents of Fallujah, and Iraq as a whole.

Simmering anger grows with time among Fallujans who, after having most of their city destroyed by the US military onslaught, have seen promises of rebuilding by both the US military and Iraqi government remain mostly unfulfilled.

"There are daily war crimes being committed in Fallujah, even now," said Mohammed Abdulla, the executive director of the Study Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Fallujah (SCHRDF). His organization works within the destruction of Fallujah, trying to monitor the plight of residents, bring them reconstruction aid, and document the war crimes and illegal weapons that were used during the November siege. "Now we have none of the rebuilding which was promised, which people need so desperately in order to get their lives back in order," said Abdulla during a recent interview with Asia Times Online in Amman.

Doctors working inside the city continue to complain of US and Iraqi security forces impeding their medical care. Along with the continuance of strict US military checkpoints, residents in the city say the treatment they receive from both the US military and Iraqi security forces operating inside Fallujah is both degrading and humiliating. This treatment is also being perceived by most as intentional. ...

...Dr Riyad al-Obeidy, who works in Ramadi, is also currently volunteering inside Fallujah. "Previously, the Ministry of Health was delivering aid into the city, but now this is prohibited, for unknown reasons," he said. "Thus, now there are shortages of external fixators, surgical sets for operations, and trauma equipment. There is really a humanitarian health problem. People are living as refugees inside their city, living in tents - so we have lack of clean water and hygiene, so there is rampant spreading of typhoid. With summer coming, this will all get worse."

Promises made prior to the siege by the Iraqi government and US military to assist in reconstruction of the city appear to have fallen flat.

According to SCHRDF's Abdulla, "There is some reconstruction, but this is only being done by Fallujans and because the government of Iraq is only helping just a little." ...
 
Mosul threats of rape to female detainees:

US Frees Iraqi Woman Detainees After Protests


Massive protests swept Mosul over the past few days to demand the immediate release of detained Iraqi women.


By Omar Salah Al-Din, Khalid Yassin El-Yassari, IOL Correspondents

MOSUL, June 19, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – US occupation forces completed on Sunday, June 19, the release of twenty one Iraqi women held as a bargain chip in the northern city of Mosul.

"The release came after massive protests organized by the Islamic Party and the Islamic organization for human rights over the past three days," Nour Al-Din Al-Hayalli, the Islamic Party's media officer in Mosul, told IslamOnline.net.

The Islamic party championed a massive demonstration following the Friday prayers on June 17 to press for the immediate release of all Iraqi women in the US custody.

Assembling outside the Sedek Rashan mosque, protestors denounced the American occupation for dishonoring the Iraqi people by detaining women.

They carried photos of detained women, demanding the government of Ibrahim Jaafari to live up to its responsibilities toward the Iraqi people.

The demonstrators also issued a statement calling for an immediate release of all Iraqi women detainees across the occupied country.

There is no available figures on Iraqi women in the custody of American occupation forces, including former regime officials and scientists.

Bargain Chip

Al-Hayalli said many Iraqi families have complained that the occupation forces were holding women as a bargain chip against relatives reportedly involved in resistance operations.

In a demonstration staged on Thursday, June 16, an Iraqi woman said her daughter-in-law was detained by US soldiers after they failed to find her husband.

"They stormed the house on May 24, searching for my son. When they failed to find him they detained his wife and threw his six-month-old child to the ground," she recalled.

Another Iraqi female detainee, who was released days earlier, recounted her own nightmare.

"The US forces attacked the house after midnight, blowing up the doors and killing my husband's brother and injuring me along with my husband and brother."

"They arrested me along with my husband and brother. We suffered horrible detention conditions."

Abuses

Harith Adeb, the head of the Islamic organization for human rights, said his group registered 21 cases of Iraqi women detained by the American occupation forces across the city.

"Five women, all of the same family, were detained in western Mosul, two in Al-Nour district and another from Mosul University in addition to others released few days ago," he said.

Abdeb lambasted American abuses of Iraqi women including open-ended detention without charges.

Amnesty International said in a report last month that several women detained by US troops had complained of beatings, threats of rape, humiliating treatment and long periods of solitary confinement.

Britain’s mass-circulation The Guardian revealed in May, 2004, that US soldiers in Iraq have sexually humiliated and abused several Iraqi female detainees in Abu Ghraib.

In its May 10-17 issue of the same year, Newsweek said that unreleased Abu Ghraib abuse photos include an American soldier raping a female Iraqi detainee.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1512597,00.html

A new breed of jihadi. Interesting point made here about a new breed of terrorist returning to their own contries from Iraq. What i don't understand is that there hasn't been any terrorist attacks on britain? I mean I know Its not a great comparison but In the 70's /80's the IRA were blowing the shit out of england and they had to go over there from here, with Irish accents and avoid detection while planting bombs..now if you'll indulge me, why can't the 200 or so terrorists that the U.K. gov. say are on their soil right now get it together to commit terrorist acts? (i'm not wishing they do mind) what I'm getting at is that it seems again to be a case of scare mongering and keeping people afraid.Where are these terrorists? what terror acts have the commited in England? are the security forces so good as compared to the 70's and 80's that they are now picking these guys up before they get a chance? a nice idea but I doubt it.The truth is getting harder to see then ever before.
 
Ah things are starting to fall apart here..remember "we don't do deals with terrorists...
http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0626/iraq.html
Rumsfeld confirms insurgent talks

26 June 2005 22:27
The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has confirmed that Pentagon officials have been involved in negotiations with Iraqi insurgents.

Mr Rumsfeld was reacting to media reports that face-to-face talks had taken place, in a bid to stem the violence.

The meetings reportedly took place at a villa near Balad in the hills 65 km north of Baghdad on two separate occasions in early June.


At least 35 people have been killed in the latest suicide attacks in Iraq.

The three blasts targeted Iraqi police or army bases in and around the northern city of Mosul.

In the space of a few hours a suicide car bomber killed 12 at a police headquarters and an attack on an Iraqi army base killed at least 18 people.

While five police were killed when a bomber walked into Mosul's General Hospital and blew himself up.

The third attack, on a police post inside the hospital, damaged the emergency ward where casualties had been brought from the previous incidents.

Six policemen and nine civilians were wounded.

Separately in Baghdad, six policemen were killed by a suicide bomber as they were pulling into their base. The deputy head of a city police department was also assassinated.
 
The begining of the end for bush?

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B94789A7-70FC-4D33-B0D7-21D4D688BF14.htm

with this type of approval at home the case for war against Iran might be a difficult pill to swallow. In reality for all their bravado and jingoistic behaviour I think the US dont have the stomach for war in the long term. Historically this has proven to be the case.They have sent the MTV generation to die in a land that is everything but where they live and they have figured out (slowly) that the resons for going there were bullshit. I reckon what with all the stories of recruiters having problems getting new guys to sign up there could be still a case for a draft in the next couple of years. I mean just because Bush's popularity is at an all time low..they are still going to have him for another 4 years. I'd say the last two will be humdingers.
 
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