Iraq (2 Viewers)

[Latex lizzie]

never happen methinks. to many strings will be pulled behind the scenes to prevent it. anyway remind me again why they invaded afganhistan? !bog

 

[Latex lizzie]

News & Analysis
http://electroniciraq.net/news/1684.shtml

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No longer unknowable: Fallujah's April Civilian Toll is 600


Press Release, Iraq Body Count, 26 October 2004

Today the Iraq Body Count (IBC) website has published its analysis of the civilian dealth toll in the April 2004 siege of Falluja. This analysis leads to the conclusion that betweeen 572 and 616 of the approximately 800 reported deaths were of civilians, with over 300 of these being women and children.

A Falluja Archive carrying relevant and related excerpts from nearly three hundred contemporary news reports is also being made available on the website, and constitutes the largest publicly-available resource for investigators researching the human consequences of the siege. IBC's number for the civilian dead emerges from detailed and exhaustive analysis of these reports as well as others more recently published.

Press spokesman, John Sloboda said "Data recently released to the public by the Iraqi Health Ministry has allowed IBC to resolve a problem we have been struggling with for months: how to reconcile casualty figures reported by local doctors of 800 total dead with a much lower estimate (280 dead) produced in short order by the Iraqi Health Ministry (IHM), soon after US Gen. Mark Kimmitt told the press that the CPA would ask the Ministry to 'get a fair, honest and credible' figure. Details of our analysis are provided on the website, but it now appears incontrovertible that the IHM estimate was quietly withdrawn once media attention moved away from Falluja, leading us to conclude that their estimate was acknowledged to be flawed".

The IBC totals are based on multiply-cited reports from doctors and eyewitnesses that no less than 308 of those killed were women and children. This number demonstrates the huge impact of US attacks on civilian areas, and allows the conclusion to be drawn that many of the males killed must also have been non-combatants.

There are clear reports of 600 people killed in total up until April 12th, most of them killed before US forces began to permit women and children to be evacuated from the town. Civilian totals have been derived by assuming a conservative ratio of one civilian adult male killed for every woman killed prior to April 12th, and by using the minimum-maximum range to account for differing possible numbers of women and children remaining in the targeted areas after the exodus had begun.

The project's Principal Researcher, Hamit Dardagan, commented "The unique IBC Falluja Archive allows members of the public to examine for themselves the multiple violations which yielded this shocking toll. These include attacks on ambulances and sniper fire at children as well as the aerial bombardment of residential areas. Talk of "precision strikes" is mere techno-babble when these are part of military campaigns causing thousands of civilian deaths and injuries.

"The failed US attempt to "pacify" Falluja via "overwhelming" military means was first and foremost a disaster for its civilian population. The fact that it also embarrassed those who ordered it is of little sigificance in comparison, except in one regard. Current US plans to launch a "final assault" on Falluja, supported by back filling from UK troops, suggest that we can expect another human catastrophe whose scale no one can judge in advance but which will certainly result in the destruction of innocent lives. The question planners in Washington, London and Baghdad - and the public at large - need to consider is this: are the next attacks being planned as a true measure of last resort? If not, it is not just mass slaughter that is being contemplated here, but mass murder."

 

[Latex lizzie]

..and a reminder..
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

 

[Latex lizzie]

Pentagon suppresses details of civilian casualties, says expert
By Raymond Whitaker
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=577793&host=3&dir=75
31 October 2004
Key US army official slams Bush over Halliburton Iraq contracts

Eight US marines killed around Fallujah while airstrikes intensify

Pentagon suppresses details of civilian casualties, says expert

Report on unguarded weapons 'ignored'

Black Watch soldier's death mourned

The Pentagon is collecting figures on local casualties in Iraq, contrary to its public claims, but the results are classified, according to one of the authors of an independent study which reported last week that the war has killed at least 100,000 Iraqis.

"Despite the claim of the head of US Central Command at the time, General Tommy Franks, that 'We don't do body counts', the US military does collect casualty figures in Iraq," said Professor Richard Garfield, an expert on the effects of conflict on civilians. "But since 1991, when Colin Powell was head of the joint chiefs of staff, the figures have been kept secret."

Professor Garfield, who lectures at Columbia University in New York and the London School of Hygiene and Public Health, believes the Pentagon's stance has confused its response to the latest study. "The military is saying: 'We don't believe it, but because we don't collect figures, we can't comment," he said.

"Mr Powell decided to keep the figures secret because of the controversy over body counts in Vietnam, but I think democracies need this information."

The first scientific study of the human cost of the Iraq war, published last week in The Lancet, showed a higher level of casualties than previous estimates. Iraqbodycount.net, a website which collects accounts of Iraqi civilian deaths reported by two separate media sources, said yesterday the toll was between 14,181 and 16,312, but admits that the spreading violence in Iraq, which has made it all but impossible for journalists to move around safely, has undermined its method. That did not prevent the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, from using its figures to cast doubt on the academic survey.

The Government would examine the results "with very great care", Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4's Today programme last week. "It is an estimate based on very different methodology from standard methodology for assessing casualties, namely on the number of people reported to have been killed at the time or around the time." Previously the Government has dismissed the findings of the Iraqbodycount website.

The study by US and Iraqi researchers, led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, surveyed 1,000 households in 33 randomly chosen areas in Iraq. It found that the risk of violent death was 58 times higher in the period since the invasion, and that most of the victims were women and children.

"Making conservative assumptions, about 100,000 excess deaths have happened ... Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths, and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths," said Les Roberts of the Baltimore institution. The researchers excluded Fallujah, the most violent area of Iraq, from their results, which would have made the toll higher. But the finding that air strikes caused the highest casualties casts doubt on US claims that air attacks allow pinpoint precision.

Iraq's interim government has also suppressed casualty figures. Dr Nagham Mohsen, an official at the Iraqi Health Ministry, was compiling data from hospital records last year. In December she was ordered by a superior to stop. The Health Minister denied that the order was inspired by the Coalition Provisional Authority.

 

[Latex lizzie]

Another suspicious death in the British forces. Seems that Deepcut is not the only place this is happening..tragic.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13244579,00.html

 

[broken arm]

an email from HRW

Iraq: U.S.-Led Forces Failed to Secure Key Evidence
Official Documents Looted, Mass Graves Left Unprotected

(Amman, November 4, 2004) - U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq failed
during last year's invasion to safeguard official documents and the
remains of victims in mass graves, Human Rights Watch said in a report
released today. As a result, crucial evidence for the upcoming trials of
Saddam Hussein and other former Iraqi officials has likely been lost or
seriously tainted.

The 41-page report, "Iraq: The State of the Evidence," details what
happened to some of the key archival and forensic evidence that the U.S.-
led coalition and, more recently, the Iraqi interim government failed to
secure.

In April 2003, former Iraqi officials left behind volumes of official papers
documenting criminal policies and practices. In the past year and a half,
more than 250 mass graves have been identified, some of which contain
the remains of thousands of victims of Saddam Hussein's rule.

"Given what's at stake here, the extent of this negligence is alarming,"
said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North
Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. "U.S. and Iraqi authorities were
aware that these documents and remains would be crucial to the
prosecution of Saddam Hussein and other former officials, but they did
little to safeguard them."

Human Rights Watch said that in the weeks and months following the
invasion of Iraq, U.S.-led coalition forces failed to prevent people from
freely looting thousands of official documents, or to keep relatives of
"disappeared" persons from digging up remains found in some mass
gravesites. Coalition forces subsequently failed to put in place the
professional expertise and assistance necessary to ensure proper
classification and exhumation procedures. As a result, it is very likely that
key evidentiary materials have been lost or tainted.

In the case of mass graves, these failures have also frustrated the ability of
families to know the fate of thousands of missing relatives who
"disappeared" during Saddam Hussein's rule.

Human Rights Watch urged Iraq's interim government, with international
assistance, to set up a joint Iraqi and international Commission for Missing
Persons to establish effective procedures for protecting mass graves and
conducting exhumations, and a similar body to oversee the handling of
documents of the former government.

"This material needs urgent attention. The evidence will be critical to any
upcoming trial proceedings," Whitson said. "And it will also be crucial for
Iraqis as they attempt to construct an accurate record of the atrocities they suffered under Ba`th Party rule."

 

[Latex lizzie]

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-1158481,00.html

another waste.

 

[Latex lizzie]

..so the ground war has started again..

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DA2FE7D7-FA3C-473B-B094-AC7AF29E392B.htm

..evertime I think of Bush standing on that aircraft carrier saying this is the end of major combat operations (effectively the war is over) I get a pain. 10,000 troops moving in here for a scrap today. If that aint a major combat opperation then I dont know what is. Assholes. I think it's time the military started telling them to fight their own oil wars. Give it another year and you will start to see more and more soldiers ending up in the brig for refusing to fight or go to Iraq. That's if the media bother their lazy shameless holes to report it in the states.

 

[Latex lizzie]

..update. Fighting is the worst since Iran / Iraq war. This is gonna be a blood bath you will never see the truth of..

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D6E6534F-75E3-4830-B5ED-827BF5094113.htm

 

[pete]

'Watching tragedy engulf my city'
US and Iraqi forces are locked in desperate street battles against insurgents in the Iraqi city of Falluja. The BBC News website spoke by phone to Fadhil Badrani, a journalist in Falluja who reports for the BBC World Service in Arabic.


I am surrounded by thick black smoke and the smell of burning oil.
There was a big explosion a few minutes ago and now I can hear gunfire.

A US armoured vehicle has been parked on the street outside my house in the centre of the city.

From my window, I can see US soldiers moving around on foot near it.

They tried to go from house to house but they kept coming under fire.

Now they are firing back at the houses, at anything that moves. It is war on the streets.

The American troops look like they have given up trying to go into buildings for now and are just trying to control the main roads.

I am sitting here on my own, watching tragedy engulf my city.

Looks like Kabul

I was with some of the Falluja fighters earlier. They looked tired - but their spirits were high and they were singing.


Recently, many Iraqis from other parts of the country have been joining the local men against the Americans.
No one has had much sleep in the past two days of heavy fighting and of course, it is still Ramadan, so no one eats during the day.

I cannot say how many people have been killed but after two days of bombing, this city looks like Kabul.

Large portions of it have been destroyed but it is so dangerous to leave the house that I have not been able to find out more about casualties.

Mosques silent

A medical dispensary in the city centre was bombed earlier.

I don't know what has happened to the doctors and patients who were there.

It was last place you could get medical attention because the big hospital on the outskirts of Falluja was captured by the Americans on Monday.


A lot of the mosques have also been bombed.
For the first time in Falluja, a city of 150 mosques, I did not hear a single call to prayer this morning.

I broke my Ramadan fast yesterday with the last of our food - two potatoes and two tomatoes.

The tomatoes were rotten because we have no electricity to run the fridge.

My neighbours - a woman and her children - came to see me yesterday. They asked me to tell the world what is happening here.

I look at the devastation around me and ask - why?



Translation from Arabic by Jumbe Omari Jumbe of bbcarabic.com

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/3996111.stm

 

[pete]

Meanwhile...

FALLUJA, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. and Iraqi troops reached the heart of Falluja on Tuesday as the second day of battles continued in the militant-controlled city west of Baghdad.

The Pentagon reported six U.S. troops died in Falluja fighting and 10 were wounded.

Nevertheless, U.S. and Iraqi forces have faced less resistance than expected, said Lt. Col. Pete Newell with Task Force 2-2 of the 1st Infantry Division.
Soldiers have dodged sniper fire and destroyed booby traps, but not as many as anticipated.

Insurgent casualty numbers have mounted. Newell said his Army unit has killed or wounded 85 to 90 insurgents.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/11/09/iraq.main/index.html

 

[spiritualtramp]

Breaking news - Three members of Iraqi PM Ayad Allawi's family have reportedly been kidnapped by gunmen.

 

[Latex lizzie]

HOLY COW.!!!
http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30000-13247602,00.html

 

[avernus]

Operation Phantom Fury

Its all just a video game really.

 

[Ex-User (250)]

interesting article on falluja here...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1347354,00.html

 

[avernus]

interesting article on falluja here...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1347354,00.html

yeah..pretty disturbing really.

 

[ITalkShite]

[font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]From Hag's link:

[/font][font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]

Iraq's history, reaffirmed by events since the US-led occupation, shows that its people's unity is stronger than differences based on religion, sect, ethnicity or national identity. That was demonstrated on Sunday when a senior Kurdish officer with the token US-commanded Iraqi force besieging Falluja deserted within half an hour of being shown the plans to occupy the city.

[/font][font=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif]That's the first I've heard about that. Does anyone know any other details about this?[/font]

 

[ITalkShite]

http://www.underthesamesun.org/content/2004/11/attention_atten.html

"Come and kill us. Plant small bombs on roadsides."

Unintentionally funny.

 

[Latex lizzie]

Update from aljazeera. Half the mosques in the city have been attacked/destroyed. If aljazeera is reporting this to the arab world then this is gonna go down very badly...

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/6E722418-6B50-4D2A-93E1-77C9A8FC6DAC.htm

a very different view...

 

[avernus]

U.S. To Send 30,000 Mall Security Guards To Iraq

"We found that mall security guards are as well-trained and ready to face danger as the coalition-trained military police," Archibald said. "They may not have the power of arrest, but real authority is only a walkie-talkie call away."

http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4045&n=1



hehe ah dear.