Filed under: Afghanistan, army, Baghdad, civilian casualties, civilian death toll, dehumanization, Dictatorship, Empire, Fascism, George Bush, human rights, Iraq, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, occupation, Oppression, Pentagon, Troops, u.s. soldiers, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, wikileaks
Wikileak’d video shows U.S. troops killing civilians, children and 2 Reuters reporters
FULL VIDEO
Iraqi family demands justice for US attack death
Military Massacre of Pregnant Afghan Women Covered Up as ‘Honor Killings’
Ret. intel officer: US troops violated Rules of Engagement in Reuters shooting
Filed under: Baghdad, Blackwater, civilian casualties, Dictatorship, Empire, Iraq, justice system, mercenaries, occupation, War On Terror
US judge lets Blackwater/Xe mercs off the hook
Press TV
January 1, 2010
A US federal judge has dismissed criminal charges against five Blackwater/Xe security guards accused of fatally shooting 14 people in Baghdad in September 2007.
On Thursday, Judge Ricardo Urbina said US government prosecutors violated the defendants’ rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a State Department probe to build their case.
“The government used the defendants’ compelled statements to guide its charging decisions, to formulate its theory of the case, to develop investigatory leads, and ultimately to obtain the indictment in the case,” Urbina ruled.
“In short, the government had utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants’ statement or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The Blackwater/Xe mercenaries had been charged with killing 14 Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others using gunfire and grenades at a busy Baghdad intersection in September 2007.
They faced charges of manslaughter.
In a public relations move meant to clean up the company’s image, which was tarnished by incidents in which civilians were killed in the Iraq war, Blackwater Worldwide rebranded and changed its name to a futuristic new name, Xe (pronounced like the last letter of the alphabet), in February 2009.
However, there is still great animosity toward Blackwater/Xe in Iraq.
Many Iraqis believe the US military allowed Blackwater/Xe mercenaries to commit numerous war crimes against their compatriots with impunity, and the latest court ruling will only reinforce such sentiments.
Filed under: Baghdad, inside job, Iraq, iraqi security forces, Maliki, nation building, occupation | Tags: Diyala province, Hoshyar Zebari, huge explosions iraq, iraq Finance Ministry, truck bombs, Wissam Ali Kadhim Ibrahim
UPDATE: Former Police Chief of Saddam Hussein Confesses to Finance Ministry Attack
CNN
August 24, 2009
Iraqi officials Sunday released what they called a confession from a man identified as a former Baathist police official, who says he helped organize one of last week’s attacks on government buildings in Baghdad.
In the videotaped statement, the man identified himself as Wissam Ali Kadhim Ibrahim, a former police chief in executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s government. Ibrahim said he received orders for the bombing of the Finance Ministry building from a member of Hussein’s Baath Party now living in Syria.
The release of the confession came as Iraqi authorities investigate whether members of the country’s security forces collaborated in Wednesday’s attacks. Iraq’s security forces have come under sharp criticism for failing to prevent the bombings, which have raised doubts about the capabilities and allegiances of Iraq’s army and police.
Wednesday’s suicide truck bombings at the Finance Ministry and the Foreign Ministry, as well as three other blasts, killed at least 100 people and wounded hundreds of others. It was the bloodiest day in the Iraqi capital since U.S. troops withdrew from Iraqi cities at the end of June.
Ibrahim’s statement did not mention the use of trucks or the bombing at the Foreign Ministry, Wednesday’s other major attack. In his statement, which was played for reporters and aired on Iraqi television, the well-dressed 57-year-old said he received orders from Sattam Farhan, who he said was a Baath Party leader in Syria. The goal of the attack was “to destabilize the regime,” Ibrahim said.
Some midlevel and senior members of the Baath Party sought refuge in Syria following the U.S. invasion that ousted Hussein in 2003. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki asked for the handover of some of those ex-officials during a visit to Damascus last week, Iraqi officials said.
Ibrahim spoke calmly and conversationally as he described his involvement in one the deadliest bombings in Iraq this year. He said the vehicle used in the bombing was put together in the town of Khalis, northeast of Baghdad, and said $10,000 was paid to a man who facilitated the passage of the vehicle through checkpoints from Diyala province — where Ibrahim was once a town police chief, officials said — to Baghdad.
Iraqi FM: Baghdad bombings possible inside job
AP
August 22, 2009
Iraq’s foreign minister says those who carried out bombings that targeted government buildings got help to pull off the attacks, possibly from members of Iraqi security forces.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari also says he regrets allowing the removal of a checkpoint and concrete blast barriers from near the ministry building.
The building was among two that were targeted Wednesday by truck bombs that killed at least 101 and wounded more than 500.
Zebari told reporters Saturday during a press conference in Baghdad that the attacks were well planned and executed.
He says the ministry is also looking into how the trucks carrying the bombs were allowed to pass into areas where they are banned from traveling.
Filed under: Baghdad, Blackwater, Border Patrol, Burson-Marsteller, Dictatorship, domestic terror, domestic terrorism, Empire, Hillary Clinton, ICE, Illegal Immigration, Immigration, Iraq, iraq deaths, John Edwards, kentucky, Louisiana, mercenaries, militarization, nation building, Neolibs, new orleans, New World Order, occupation, phillip morris, Police State, Posse Comitatus, Propaganda, Troops, War On Terror | Tags: lexington police department
Blackwater training U.S. local police a new trend
Jim Kouri
Examiner.com
August 4, 2009
There are many police and law enforcement officials who are concerned with the growing trend of using military-experienced mercenaries to train and work with local police officers in the United States, but there are many who believe the events of September 11, 2001 dictate the need for this new paradigm.
For example, Kentucky’s Lexington Police Department contracted Blackwater Security International to provide what’s described as homeland security training. Meanwhile that city’s Mayor Jim Newberry and its chief of police Anthony Beatty refused free training provided by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal program that prepares police officers to enforce immigration and border security as part of their duties.
Lexington is on the nation’s list of so-called Sanctuary Cities in which police officers are prohibited from working with ICE or Border Patrol agents in the United States. Critics are angry over the use of local tax dollars to hire Blackwater personnel to train the police.
But Lexington isn’t the only city using hired guns to help local police officers. In New Orleans, heavily armed operatives from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, are openly patrolling the streets of that beleaguered city.
Some of the mercenaries were reportedly “deputized” by the Louisiana governor and were issued gold Louisiana State law enforcement badges to wear on their chests and Blackwater photo identification
cards to be worn on their arms.
Filed under: 2-party system, 2008 Election, Baghdad, Barack Obama, biden, Congress, David Petraeus, Draft, flip flop, flip flopping, George Bush, House, Iraq, joe biden, left right paradigm, Military, nation building, neocons, Neolibs, obama, occupation, Pullout, Senate, tax, Troops, UN, War On Terror | Tags: Hoshyar Zebari, soldiers, u.s. soldiers
Obama Tried To Stall Iraq Withdrawal
NY Post
September 15, 2008
WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.
According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.
“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview.
Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops – and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its “state of weakness and political confusion.”
“However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open.” Zebari says.
Though Obama claims the US presence is “illegal,” he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the “weakened Bush administration,” Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.
While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a “realistic withdrawal date.” They declined.
Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet.
Supposing he wins, Obama’s administration wouldn’t be fully operational before February – and naming a new ambassador to Baghdad and forming a new negotiation team might take longer still.
By then, Iraq will be in the throes of its own campaign season. Judging by the past two elections, forming a new coalition government may then take three months. So the Iraqi negotiating team might not be in place until next June.
Then, judging by how long the current talks have taken, restarting the process from scratch would leave the two sides needing at least six months to come up with a draft accord. That puts us at May 2010 for when the draft might be submitted to the Iraqi parliament – which might well need another six months to pass it into law
http://mparent7777-1.livejournal.com/1726422.html
Biden: Paying higher taxes patriotic for wealthy
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080918/ap_on_el_pr/biden_taxes
Filed under: Ahmadinejad, Air Force, airstrikes, al-qaeda, Baghdad, Centcom, Coup, David Petraeus, Dick Cheney, False Flag, George Bush, Hosni Mubarak, Iran, Iraq, Israel, military strike, nation building, neocons, Nuke, occupation, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Robert Gates, Russia, Shock and Awe, Tehran, war games, War On Terror, White House, William Fallon, WW3, ww4
Bush: Iranians Are ‘Assholes’
Think Progress
September 11, 2008
While serving as CentCom commander between March 2007 and March 2008, Adm. William Fallon consistently pressed the Bush administration for more engagement with Iran and criticized the calls for another war. “This constant drumbeat of conflict is what strikes me which is not helpful and not useful,” Fallon told al Jazeera last year.
In his new book “The War Within,” Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward details a telling White House meeting on Iran in spring 2007 (p. 334):
“I think we need to do something to get engaged with these guys,” Fallon said. Iraq shared a 900-mile border with Iran, and he needed guidance and a strategy for dealing with the Iranians.
“Well,” Bush said, “these are assholes.”
Fallon was stunned. Declaring them “assholes” was not a strategy. Lots of words and ideas were thrown around at the meeting, especially about the Iranian leaders. They were bad, evil, out of touch with their people. But no one offered a real approach.
Fallon’s advocacy for diplomatic engagement irritated administration officials, who were enamored with Gen. David Petraeus. Fallon — a “fan of transition” in Iraq — repeatedly challenged Petraeus’s personnel requests. According to Woodward, the commander was trying to ensure that the United States didn’t “send any more than necessary to the war zone” (p. 343).
In a March interview with Esquire, Fallon said that he was in “hot water” with the White House for meeting with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Fallon noted that such meetings were essential to making sure that regional leaders don’t get “too spun up” by the administration’s war rhetoric. In “The War Within,” Woodward writes that as soon as that article came out, Fallon offered his resignation (pp. 408-9):
Fallon was in Baghdad on March 11 when the article was made public. He realized instantly the uproar it would case. Fallon knew he already was on shaky ground. Days earlier, he had warned Gates that the article was coming. But now he called again.
Recent News:
http://www.spacewar.com/2006/080920083335.9s6h11lp.html
Ex-IDF chief: Israel can’t avoid a military confrontation with Iran
http://www.haaretz.com/has..leEn.jhtml?itemNo=1023056
US officer warns Israel not to hit Iran
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl..hit-iran-936178.html
Study: Bombing Iran will take years
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=69956§ionid=351020104
Ahmadinejad downplays any Israeli strike
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=69804§ionid=351020104
Expert: Al Qaeda is in league with U.S. against Iran
http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/30296
Iran’s wargames enter new stage
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=69802§ionid=351020101
Russia: Armed action on Iran unacceptable
http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/09/12/afx5417721.html
Ex-Cheney aide: Bush won’t hit Iran
http://www.jpost.com/servlet..=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Iran starts large-scale Air Force, air defense drills
http://en.rian.ru/world/20080915/116794839.html
Iran: Israel incapable of launching wide-scale war
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3597493,00.html
Israel Waging ‘Secret War With Iran’
US refuses to give Israel bombs fearing Iran strike: report
US to invade Iran any day now?
Filed under: 1st amendment, ADS, Air Force, army, Baghdad, civil liberties, civil rights, Control Grid, Darpa, Dictatorship, Dissent, DoD, Empire, Eugenics, Fascism, federal crime, free speech, Genocide, human rights, Iraq, iraq deaths, Larry King, LRAD, manhattan project, Military, nation building, navy, Nazi, Nuke, occupation, Oppression, pain compliance, Pentagon, Police State, Population Control, Protest, Space Weapons, Star Wars Program, super weapons, Troops, urban warfare, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror, WMD, WW2 | Tags: Donald Rumsfeld, electromagnetic weapon, electromagnetic weapons, EMP, emp weapon, LA, laser gun, laser weapon, laser weapons, microwave gun, microwave weapon, microwave weapons, neocons, nuclear weapon, radiation gun, war of the worlds
Secret Radiation Guns Used In Iraq
Woodward compares clandestine program to Manhattan Project, could secret weapon be terrifying radiation canon?
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
September 9, 2008
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward revealed to Larry King last night that the U.S. has embarked on a “secret killing program” in Iraq which has dramatically reduced attacks on coalition troops by wiping out terrorists, but what could this secret weapon possibly be?
A CNN report details Woodward’s revelations.
The program — which Woodward compares to the World War II era Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb — must remain secret for now or it would “get people killed,” Woodward said Monday on CNN’s Larry King Live.
“The top secret operations will “some day in history … be described to people’s amazement,” Woodward told King.
While he would not reveal the details, Woodward said the terrorists who have been targeted were already aware of the capabilities.
“The enemy has a heads up because they’ve been getting wiped out and a lot of them have been killed,” he said. “It’s not news to them.”
For the weapon to be comparable to the atomic bomb, one would speculate that it must employ some kind of exotic new technology and is potentially related to neutron bomb and electromagnetic weapons research.
As far back as 2002, a Cox News Service report entitled Super-Secret Microwave Weapons May Be Used In Iraq, speculated that the military was preparing to utilize high-powered microwave weapons that send bursts of electromagnetic energy which completely disable enemy electronic devices.
However, Woodward’s discussion of the secret weapon wiping out alleged terrorists in large numbers suggests it may be a far more barbaric device than an EMP weapon, which would more traditionally be used against standing armies rather than scattered insurgents.
One possibility is that the weapon is something similar that described to film maker Patrick Dillon by Iraqi infantryman Majid al-Ghazali – a frightening giant flame-thrower type device that instead shoots out “concentrated lightning bolts” or radiation bursts that result in vehicles and people being almost literally liquidized.
During a street battle in Baghdad on April 12 2003, Al-Ghazali describes witnessing American troops unveil an oddly configured tank which “suddenly let loose a blinding stream of what seemed like fire and lightning, engulfing a large passenger bus and three automobiles.”
“Within seconds the bus had become semi-molten, sagging “like a wet rag” as he put it. He said the bus rapidly melted under this withering blast, shrinking until it was a twisted blob about the dimensions of a VW bug. As if that were not bizarre enough, al-Ghazali explicitly describes seeing numerous human bodies shriveled to the size of newborn babies. By the time local street fighting ended that day, he estimates between 500 and 600 soldiers and civilians had been cooked alive as a result of the mysterious tank-mounted device.”
Al-Ghazali adds that following the battle, U.S. troops were scrupulous about burying the evidence of the weapon’s deadly consequences, but that telltale signs remained which he showed to journalist Dillon.
Dillon, a battlefield medic in Vietnam, Somalia and Kosovo, stated, “I’ve seen a freaking smorgasbord of destruction in my life, flame-throwers, napalm, white phosphorous, thermite, you name it. I know of nothing short of an H-bomb that conceivably might cause a bus to instantly liquefy or that can flash broil a human body down to the size of an infant. God pity humanity if that thing is a preview of what’s in store for the 21st century.”
An interview with Majid al-Ghazali can be viewed below along with a further exploration of exotic weapons systems being employed in Iraq. Aid workers and others have backed up reports of terrifying new weapons systems being deployed that cause horrific injuries and agonizing deaths. Woodward’s characterization of the victims merely as “terrorists” conceals the fact that a great number of the victims of these brutal weapons are no doubt innocent people caught up in the fighting.
Filed under: 2008 Election, Baghdad, car bomb, David Petraeus, fallen soldiers, Iraq, iraq deaths, John McCain, Military, nation building, neocons, occupation, Pat Buchanan, Propaganda, Pullout, suicide bombing, Troops, War On Terror | Tags: Diyala province
McCain: Iraq Is ‘A Peaceful And Stable Country Now’
Think Progresss
August 28, 2008
Today, Time Magazine published an interview with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that it conducted aboard McCain’s campaign airplane. Reporters James Carney and Michael Scherer described McCain as “prickly” and “at times, abrasive” during the course of the interview.
Carney and Scherer noted to McCain that the Iraqi government is calling for a deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq even though McCain’s previously stated definition of “victory” — “a peaceful, stable, prosperous democratic state” — has not been achieved. The Arizona senator dismissed their characterization of the situation, saying that Iraq is “a peaceful and stable country now”:
Q: Some members of the [Iraqi] government have made it clear in the last month or two that they might want to withdraw before complete stability, before totally secure borders, before some of the completeness of victory as you described. Is there any change, do you think there is some wiggle room there because what you described with Petraeus was an end point that was rather complete — a peaceful, stable country.
MCCAIN: Its a peaceful and stable country now.
Listen here:
Here are some examples (from just this month) of McCain’s so-called “peaceful and stable” Iraq:
– August 9: A suicide car bomb in Tal Afar killed at least 25 people.
– August 24: A suicide bomber killed 25 people, including women and children, in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib district.
– August 27: A suicide bomber killed 28 and wounded 45 in Iraq’s Diyala province.
Moreover, while U.S. troop deaths in Iraq reached their lowest point since the beginning of the war last month, they are on the rise again. According to icasulaties.org, 20 U.S. military personnel have been killed so far this month in Iraq — up from 13 in July.
But this isn’t the first time McCain’s assessment of the security situation in Iraq has been off. Last May he said the northern city of Mosul was “quiet” despite the fact that a car bomb had killed three and wounded nine there the very same day.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Buchanan..of_0822.html
Filed under: Baghdad, Child Abuse, civil liberties, civil rights, Concentration Camp, Detainee, Dictatorship, Empire, Extraordinary Rendition, Fascism, federal crime, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, human rights, Iraq, Military, nation building, Nazi, occupation, Oppression, prison camp, rape, rendition, Torture, Troops, US Constitution, War Crimes, War On Terror | Tags: iraqi civilians, soldiers, u.s. soldiers
Video: 9 year old in U.S. prison camp
Filed under: airstrikes, Baghdad, David Petraeus, federal crime, Genocide, georgia, green zone, Iran, Iraq, Military, military strike, moscow, nation building, occupation, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Russia, Shock and Awe, South Ossetia, staged provocation, Tehran, Troops, War Crimes, WW3, ww4 | Tags: dilyala province, georgian troops, soldiers, u.s. soldiers, u.s. troops
Petraeus: US is Flying Georgian Troops into Battle Zone
Information Clearing House
August 10, 2008
’US aircraft have started to fly some of Georgia’s 2,000 troops in Iraq back home to join the fight in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq said today.
“The flights are ongoing to redeploy the elements of the Georgian contingent so that they can deal with the security issues in their country,” General Petraeus told The Times in an interview at his office inside Baghdad’s Green Zone.
He said measures were already in place to mitigate the impact on operations in Iraq of the sudden departure of the soldiers.
“We can accommodate that. Obviously it was not expected but it is something, the effects of which we can certainly mitigate.”
The Georgian contingent has been taking part in an operation with US and Iraqi forces to clear the south-eastern corner of Diyala province, north of Baghdad, a known al-Qaeda stronghold.
Some 150 Georgian soldiers also guard the Iraqi Parliament building as well as other key structures inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.
In addition, one battalion is helping to support the Iraqi security forces in Wasit province, south of the capital, near the Iranian border.
Filed under: 9/11, ACLU, Baghdad, Britain, Centcom, CIA, civil liberties, civil rights, Department of justice, Detainee, Dick Cheney, DOJ, Europe, european union, Extraordinary Rendition, federal crime, FOIA, Geneva Convention, Habeas Corpus, human rights, Impeach, interrogation, Iraq, john ashcroft, london, Mi5, Military, Nancy Pelosi, nation building, occupation, rendition, Torture, Troops, United Kingdom, War Crimes, War On Terror, waterboarding, White House | Tags: diego garcia, indian ocean, island of diego garcia, prisoner boxes, wooden crates
Iraqi detainees put in wooden crates
The Memory Hole
July 23, 2008
In Iraq, some prisoners/detainees are kept in wooden crates known as “prisoner boxes,” so I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the US Central Command asking for the following:
“Vanity Fair (Feb 2005 issue) has reported the existence of wood “prisoner boxes” being used by the US military in facilities in and around Baghdad. They are used to hold individual prisoners and detainees.
“I hereby request all photographs of these boxes, including empty boxes as well as boxes holding prisoners and detainees.”
Around nine and a half months later, CentCom responded by sending the three photographs on this page.
Another Secret Terror War Prison Found
Huffington Post
August 1, 2008
The existence of a secret, CIA-run prison on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean has long been a leaky secret in the “War on Terror,” and recent revelations in TIME — based on disclosures by a “senior American official,” who was “a frequent participant in White House Situation Room meetings” after the 9/11 attacks, and who reported that “a CIA counter-terrorism official twice said that a high-value prisoner or prisoners were being interrogated on the island” — will come as no surprise to those who have been studying the story closely.
The news will, however, be an embarrassment to the US government, which has persistently denied claims that it operated a secret “War on Terror” prison on Diego Garcia, and will be a source of even more consternation to the British government, which is more closely bound than its law-shredding Transatlantic neighbor to international laws and treaties preventing any kind of involvement whatsoever in kidnapping, “extraordinary rendition” and the practice of torture.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/..6my6QSyHcMGDyb_qe2WwvIE
ACLU: Memos authorized CIA torture
http://rawstory.com//news/2008/A..horized_CIA_torture_0724.html
Former Gitmo Prosecutor Says Trials Rigged
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2008/07/former-gitmo-prosecutor-says-t.html
MI5 Outsourced Torture
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/15/humanrights.civilliberties
`Terrorist’ Loses 60 Pounds on Cheney Torture Diet
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/new..8&sid=as7YVr4Wamak&refer=home
Why Pelosi won’t impeach: She knew about the torture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w88NXHsgi08
Ashcroft: Waterboarding ‘Consistently’ Seen As Legal, Refuses To Say Use On U.S. Troops Is ‘Unacceptable’
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/17/ashcroft-torture/
Filed under: Afghanistan, afghanistan deaths, Baghdad, Canada, Child Abuse, federal crime, Henry Kissinger, human rights, Iraq, iraq deaths, Military, nation building, occupation, Pullout, sexual abuse, Troops, UN, War Crimes, War On Terror | Tags: civilian deaths
U.S. Military Says Soldiers Fired on Civilians
NY Times
July 28, 2008
BAGHDAD — The American military admitted Sunday night that a platoon of soldiers raked a car of innocent Iraqi civilians with hundreds of rounds of gunfire and that the military then issued a news release larded with misstatements, asserting that the victims were criminals who had fired on the troops.
The attack on June 25 killed three people, a man and two women, as they drove to work at a bank at Baghdad’s airport. The attack infuriated Iraqi officials and even prompted the Iraqi armed forces general command to call the shooting cold-blooded murder.
It also bolstered calls from Iraqi politicians to pressure the American military to leave Iraq after this year, when a United Nations mandate expires, unless the United States agrees to permit its soldiers to be subject to criminal prosecution under Iraqi law for attacks on civilians.
In a statement issued late Sunday, the American military said that “a thorough investigation determined that the driver and passengers were law-abiding citizens of Iraq.” It added that the soldiers were not at fault for the killings because they had fired warning shots and exercised proper “escalation of force” measures before they opened fire on the people in the car.
But the findings called into question the way the military handled the aftermath of the shootings.
For example, a key assertion of the news release issued by the military on the day of the killings was that “a weapon was recovered from the wreckage.” But the military said Sunday that no one claimed to have found a weapon in the car or had seen a weapon taken from it.
Instead, one of the soldiers at the scene reported seeing an Iraqi police officer pull something from the burned car and then place it in the front seat of an ambulance, according to Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a spokesman for the Fourth Infantry Division, which patrols Baghdad.
Canadians Kill Two Children At Afghan Checkpoint
Canada.com
July 29, 2008
Canadian soldiers opened fire on a speeding vehicle after its driver ignored repeated warnings not to approach a military convoy Sunday, killing two young children.
The soldiers used hand signals, flashing lights and sirens in a futile attempt to warn the car away.
Fearing they were under attack by a suicide bomber, soldiers fired a single round when the car was just 10 metres from their vehicle, killing a two-year-old and a four-year-old who were passengers in the car.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/..08073002947.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Top Advisor to U.S. Military: “There is No Battlefield Solution to Terrorism”
http://georgewashington2.blogsp..-us-military-confirms-war.html
Death toll climbs in Iraq bombings
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/28/iraq.terrorism
Saturday: 7 Iraqis Killed, 19 Wounded
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=13206
15 % of women in the military test positive for sexual trauma
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25784465/
US Has Killed 78 Afghan Civilians This Month
http://www.washingtonpost.com..2403465.html?hpid=topnews
The pictures you won’t ever see from Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/..5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Filed under: Afghanistan, Baghdad, Britain, Europe, european union, George Bush, green zone, Iraq, Maliki, Military, nation building, neocons, occupation, Pullout, sovereignty, special forces, Troops, United Kingdom, War On Terror | Tags: tigris river
Iraq ready to kick U.S. out of green zone
Times Online
July 13, 2008
The green zone of Baghdad, a highly fortified slice of American suburbia on the banks of the Tigris river, may soon be handed over to Iraqi control if the increasingly assertive government of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, gets its way.
A senior Iraqi government official said this weekend the enclave should revert to Iraqi control by the end of the year. “We think that by the end of 2008 all the zones in Baghdad should be integrated into the city,” said Ali Dabbagh, the government’s spokesman.
“The American soldiers should be based in agreed camps outside the cities and population areas.
“By the end of the year, there will be no green zone,” he added. “The separation by huge walls makes people feel angry.” Dabbagh acknowledged that getting rid of the green zone would be a huge undertaking, given the thousands of American soldiers, private contractors and foreign workers who live inside. He said the concrete walls that divide it from the rest of the city would be taken down slowly, “depending on the threat and circumstances”.
British government ‘to pull troops out of Iraq by mid-2009’
While there are no plans to withdraw before George W Bush hands over to the new American president at the turn of the year, the decision is now expected to be made “in the first half of 2009”.
Only troops training Iraqi military or police and special forces are likely to stay, unless there is a sharp change for the worse.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7498904.stm
Spending Bill Suggests Long Stay in Afghanistan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy../07/13/AR2008071301644_pf.html
Maliki hands out money to Iraqis
http://ph.news.yahoo.com/ap/200807..weapon-d3b07b8.html?printer=1
U.S. Considers Increasing Pace of Iraq Pullout
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/13/america/13military.php
Filed under: Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, Baghdad, Bahrain, Black-Ops, blackops, Britain, Congress, Coup, Europe, european union, False Flag, gas prices, George Bush, gulf, Gulf of Tonkin, h.con.res.362, Iran, Iran war resolution, Iraq, Israel, Kurdish, kuwait, MEK, Military, military strike, mujahedin, nation building, navy, Nuke, occupation, Oil, Pentagon, Petrol, PJAK, PKK, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Propaganda, Psyops, red cross, Revolutionary Guards, Saddam Hussein, Shock and Awe, State Sponsored Terrorism, Strait of Hormuz, Tehran, Troops, Turkish, United Kingdom, war games, War On Terror, WW3, ww4 | Tags: Exercise Stake Net, kevin cosgriff, Mahmoud Othman
U.S. holds Navy exercise in the Gulf
Reuters
July 7, 2008
The U.S. Navy said on Monday it was carrying out an exercise in the Gulf, days after vowing that Iran will not be allowed to block the waterway which carries crude from the world’s largest oil-exporting region.
“The aim of Exercise Stake Net is to practise the tactics and procedures of protecting maritime infrastructure such as gas and oil installations,” Commodore Peter Hudson said in a U.S. Fifth Fleet statement.
The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in remarks published late last month that Tehran would impose controls on shipping in the Gulf and the strategic Strait of Hormuz if it was attacked.
Speculation about a possible attack on Iran because of its nuclear programme has risen since a report last month said Israel had practised such a strike.
Vice-Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, the commander of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, said last week the United States would not allow Iran to block the Gulf.
Fear of an escalation in the standoff between the West and Iran, the world’s fourth largest oil producer, has helped propel oil prices over $140 a barrel.
Two U.S. vessels were taking part in the exercise alongside a British warship and one from Bahrain, a Gulf Arab ally which hosts the Fifth Fleet. “Stake Net seeks to help ensure a lawful maritime order as well as improve relationships between regional partners,” the fleet’s statement said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Hold War Games
Reuters
June 7, 2008
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards began military maneuvers on Monday, news agencies said, the same day the U.S. Navy said it was carrying out an exercise in the Gulf.
The war games were conducted by missile units of the Guards’ naval and air forces, the Fars and Mehr news agencies said. They said the exercises, which began a few hours ago, were aimed at improving combat readiness and capability.
The reports did not give details of where the exercise was taking place. The Guards often conduct maneuvers in the Gulf.
Speculation about a possible attack on Iran because of its disputed nuclear program has risen since the New York Times newspaper reported last month that Israel’s armed forces had practiced such a strike.
Military action ‘would destabilise Iraq’
The Independent
July 6, 2008
Iraq will be plunged into a new war if Israel or the US launches an attack on Iran, Iraqi leaders have warned. Iranian retaliation would take place in Iraq, said Dr Mahmoud Othman, the influential Iraqi MP.
The Iraqi government’s main allies are the US and Iran, whose governments openly detest each other. The Iraqi government may be militarily dependent on the 140,000 US troops in the country, but its Shia and Kurdish leaders have long been allied to Iran. Iraqi leaders have to continually perform a balancing act in which they seek to avoid alienating either country.
The balancing act has become more difficult for Iraq since George Bush successfully requested $400m (£200m) from Congress last year to fund covert operations aimed at destabilising the Iranian leadership. Some of these operations are likely to be launched from Iraqi territory with the help of Iranian militants opposed to Tehran. The most effective of these opponent groups is the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which enraged the Iraqi government by staging a conference last month at Camp Ashraf, north-east of Baghdad. It demanded the closure of the Iranian embassy and the expulsion of all Iranian agents in Iraq. “It was a huge meeting” said Dr Othman. “All the tribes and political leaders who are against Iran, but are also against the Iraqi government, were there.” He said the anti-Iranian meeting could not have taken place without US permission.
The Americans disarmed the 3,700 MEK militants, who had long been allied to Saddam Hussein, at Camp Ashraf in 2003, but they remain well-organised and well-financed. The extent of their support within Iran remains unknown, but they are extremely effective as an intelligence and propaganda organisation.
Though the MEK is on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups, the Pentagon and other US institutions have been periodically friendly to it. The US task force charged by Mr Bush with destabilising the Iranian government is likely to co-operate with it.
In reaction to the conference, the Iraqi government, the US and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have started secret talks on the future of the MEK with the Iraqi government pressing for their expulsion from Iraq. Dr Othman, who speaks to the MEK frequently by phone, said: “I pressed them to get out of Iraq voluntarily because they are a card in the hands of the Americans.”
An embarrassing aspect of the American pin-prick war against Iran is that many of its instruments were previously on the payroll of Saddam Hussein. The MEK even played a role in 1991 in helping to crush the uprising against the Baathist regime at the end of the Gulf war. The dissidents from Arab districts in southern Iran around Ahwaz were funded by Saddam Hussein’s intelligence organisations, which orchestrated the seizure of the Iranian embassy in London in 1980 which was supposedly carried out by Arab nationalists from Iran.
The one community in Iran most likely to oppose the Tehran government is the Iranian Kurds. There have been an increasing number of attacks by PJAK, the Iranian wing of the Turkish PKK, which claims to be a separate party. Based in the Kandil mountains in Iraqi Kurdistan, PJAK has carried out frequent raids into Iran and has reportedly been able to win local support. But it would be extremely dangerous for the US to be seen as a supporter of PJAK as this would offend the Turks who have a military co-operation agreement with Iran against terrorism
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-07/06/content_8499511.htm
Israel: US leaders divided on Iran war
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=62854§ionid=351020104
Iran warns US against new adventurism
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=62745§ionid=351020101
Kuwait: Iran strike reports exaggerated
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx..id=351020104
Ahmadinejad: Israel and U.S. won’t dare attack Iran
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999720.html
US Pentagon doubts Israeli intelligence over Iran’s nuclear programme
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ne..an%27s-nuclear-programme.html
Iran: Oil unlikely to surge to $250
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=172456
Iran says offers talks without nuclear freeze
http://www.spacewar.com/2006/080705081755.6y5ym674.html
Filed under: Afghanistan, Baghdad, George Bush, Iraq, iraq deaths, iraqi deaths, Maliki, military troops, nation building, NATO, occupation, Oil, Shiite, special forces, War On Terror
McClatchy Newspapers
June 28, 2008
Senior Iraqi government officials said Saturday that a U.S. Special Forces counterterrorism unit conducted the raid that reportedly killed a relative of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki , touching off a high-stakes diplomatic crisis between the United States and Iraq .
U.S. military officials in Baghdad had no comment for the second day in a row, an unusual position for a command that typically releases information on combat operations within 24 hours.
The raid occurred at dawn Friday in the town of Janaja near Maliki’s birthplace in the southern, mostly Shiite Muslim province of Karbala . Ali Abdulhussein Razak al Maliki , who was killed in the raid, was related to the prime minister and had close ties to his personal security detail, according to authorities in Karbala .
The incident puts an added strain on U.S.-Iraqi negotiations to draft a Status of Forces Agreement, a long-term security pact that will govern the conduct of U.S. forces in Iraq . Members of the Iraqi government and security forces said the raid only deepened their reluctance to sign any agreement that did not leave Iraqis with the biggest say on when and how combat operations are conducted.
The U.S. military handed Iraqi forces control of Karbala security in October 2007 . By the end of 2007 the U.S. military had transferred nine of the country’s 18 provinces to Iraqi control.
“We are afraid now of signing the long-term pact between Iraq and America because of such unjustified violations by the troops. Handing over security in provinces doesn’t mean anything to the American troops,” said Mohamed Hussein al Musawi , a senior Najaf-based member of the prime minister’s Dawa Party . “We condemn these barbaric actions not only when they target a relative of Maliki’s, but when any Iraqi is targeted in the same way.”
Outrage over the mysterious operation has spread to the highest levels of the Iraqi government, which is demanding an explanation for how such a raid occurred in a province ostensibly under full Iraqi command.
“This is a Special Forces operation, an antiterrorism unit that operates almost independently so there’s been no coordination with the local forces on the ground,” said a high-ranking member of the Iraqi government who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the extreme sensitivity of the issue. “That’s why it’s so important to have a Status of Forces Agreement to regulate this relationship. As long as it’s vague and open, these incidents will continue to happen.”
U.S. and Iraqi officials have been in difficult negotiations to draft a Status of Forces Agreement. Among the main sticking points are whether the U.S. military can stage combat operations without the consent of the Iraqi government and whether to grant immunity to American troops and security contractors.
Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman called Friday’s operation “unacceptable” and had strained relations between the countries.
“This is a big embarrassment for Prime Minister Maliki because he was in that area two days before the incident, telling his people that we are the masters in our country and the decisions were ours to make,” Othman said. “This is why we are afraid of agreements and immunity. … If there are wanted people in any area, why not send an Iraqi force to do the job?”
Iraqi officials in Karbala said the operation began at dawn Friday with U.S. aircraft delivering dozens of American troops to the rural Shiite Muslim town of Janaja, which is populated mostly by members of the Maliki tribe. Authorities said the raid apparently was aimed at capturing what the military calls a “high-value target,” often a reference to the leader of a militant cell.
Raed Shakir Jowdet, the Iraqi military commander of Karbala operations, told journalists Friday that the Americans had acted on faulty intelligence. He said four U.S. military helicopters and a jet fighter soared over the area that morning. About 60 U.S. ground forces then stormed the town, “terrifying the families,” Jowdet said. At least one man was detained, though some Iraqi authorities said more were taken into custody.
Bush Signs $162 Billion War Funding Bill
USA Today
June 30, 2008
President Bush on Monday signed a $162 billion war funding bill that includes doubling college benefits for troops and veterans and provides a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits.
The spending plan also provides $2.7 billion “to help ensure that any state facing a disaster like the recent flooding and tornadoes in the Midwest has access to needed resources.”
“With this legislation we send a clear message to all who are serving on the front lines that the nation continues its support,” Bush said of troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iraq Fails To Ink Deals With Global Oil Majors
http://www.breitbart.com/article.p..v5pos49w&show_article=1
Labour MP Admits US/UK Stealing the Oil and Fomenting Civil War in Iraq
http://www.infowars.com/?p=3016
Afghanistan deadlier for troops than Iraq
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nat..Afghanistan_deadlier_than_Iraq.html
http://rawstory.com/news/afp/NAT..r_deadliest_mon_07012008.html
Filed under: Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, Baghdad, Coup, False Flag, food crisis, Iran, Iraq, italy, military strike, Nuke, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Shock and Awe, Tehran, UN, War On Terror, WW3, ww4
Aide: plot to kill Ahmadinejad thwarted at U.N. meet
Reuters
June 24, 2008
An adviser of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said there was a plot to assassinate the Iranian president during a U.N. food crisis summit in Italy earlier this month, an Iranian daily reported on Tuesday.
It came a few days after Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, accused the United States and its allies of plotting to kidnap and kill him during a visit to neighboring Iraq in March.
Presidential adviser Ali Zabihi said Ahmadinejad’s policies since his election in 2005 were threatening “the illegitimate interests” of many foreign powers and domestic circles, the Etemad-e Melli daily reported.
“Therefore they are thinking about his dismissal or assassination,” Zabihi said in the northwestern city of Tabriz.
A plan to kidnap Ahmadinejad in Baghdad in March and a plot to assassinate him at this month’s three-day summit in Rome were part of this, he said, without giving details, adding: “Both of those were aborted with God’s help.”
Ahmadinejad, widely expected to stand for re-election next year, visited Rome on June 3.
Reformist critics of the president have asked why the Iranian government has not lodged an official complaint about the alleged plot.
“Another assassination claim,” the reformist Mardomsalari said in a front-page headline on Tuesday.
Ahmadinejad Says U.S. Planned to Kidnap, Murder Him in Iraq
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/06..ned-to-kidnap-murder-him-in-iraq/
Filed under: Baghdad, Britain, cancer, defense department, Dennis Kucinich, Department of Defense, DoD, Dyncorp, Europe, George Bush, halliburton, health and environment, House, Impeach, Indiana, Iraq, KBR, Maliki, Military, Moqtada Al Sadr, nation building, national guard, Nuke, occupation, Oil, poll, Protest, radiation, Troops, United Kingdom, War On Terror | Tags: Sheik Assad al-Nassiri, sodium dichromate
Witnesses link chemical to ill US soldiers
Farah Stockman
Boston Globe
June 23, 2008
US soldiers assigned to guard a crucial part of Iraq’s oil infrastructure became ill after exposure to a highly toxic chemical at the plant, witnesses testified at a Democratic Policy Committee hearing yesterday on Capitol Hill.
“These soldiers were bleeding from the nose, spitting blood,” said Danny Langford, an equipment technician from Texas brought to work at the Qarmat Ali Water treatment plant in 2003. “They were sick.”
“Hundreds of American soldiers at this site were contaminated” while guarding the plant, Langford said, including members of the Indiana National Guard.
Langford is one of nine Americans who accuse KBR, the lead contractor on the Qarmat Ali project and one of the largest defense contractors in Iraq, of knowingly exposing them to sodium dichromate, an orange, sandlike chemical that is a potentially lethal carcinogen. Specialists say even short-term exposure to the chemical can cause cancer, depress an individual’s immune system, attack the liver, and cause other ailments.
Yesterday’s hearing – one among several organized to hold contractors accountable for alleged malfeasance in Iraq – was chaired by Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat. “Hundreds of US troops, who may not even know of their exposure to sodium dichromate that could one day result in a horrible disease, cancers, and death,” he said.
Roughly 250 American soldiers were believed to have come in contact with the chemical, according to Defense Department documents. Sodium dichromate is the same substance that poisoned residents in Hinkley, Calif., an incident made famous by the movie “Erin Brockovich” in 2000.
In Iraq, the chemical was used as an antirust coating for pipes that supply water to the oil fields. After the 2003 US-led invasion, looters raided the Qarmat Ali facility; afterward, the chemical was found strewn around the facility and its grounds.
Langford and his former colleagues have said KBR supervisors initially told them the chemical was a “mild irritant.” The company, however, eventually acknowledged that sodium dichromate was a potentially deadly substance and moved to clean up the site.
KBR has denied any wrongdoing in the matter. The company has insisted the safety of its workers and the troops they work with are its “highest priority.”
Anti-US protest surges in Iraq
Press TV
June 20, 2008
Hundreds of Iraqis loyal to senior cleric Moqtada al-Sadr stage a rally to protest plans for a long-term security pact with the US.
Following the weekly Friday prayers, hundreds of Iraqis took to streets in protest to the proposed security pact which has strongly been opposed by Iraqi officials and lawmakers.
The pact would provide a legal footing for the presence of US forces in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires later this year, raising fears that it would impair Iraq’s independence and sovereignty
Sheik Assad al-Nassiri warned the agreement, awaiting completion by July 31, will ’humiliate Iraqis, rob the Iraqi government of its sovereignty and give the occupier the upper hand’.
During a sermon in Kufa, Nassiri described the US presence as the main reason behind all of Iraq’s crises, expressing dismay at some government officials to call on ’the occupation forces’ to stay.
Demonstrators in Kufa as well as Baghdad’s Sadr City chanted “No, no to America, No, no to the agreement,” carrying banners reading “we will not accept Iraq to be an American colony.’’
Tensions rose high on Thursday when Iraqi troops arrested Amarah mayor, Rafia Abdul-Jabbar, and 16 others for alleged involvement with militias.
The ’random detentions’ by US-backed Iraqi security forces in the southern city drew strong criticism from Sadrists, who believe the arrests are being carried out ’without warrants and in contrary to what Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says’.
Critics say Washington has failed to offer a firm commitment to defend the country from any invasion, denouncing a demand for immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts for all American personnel in Iraq.
There is also controversy over the number of bases the US would maintain in the country and whether its military will retain the power to arrest Iraqi civilians and keep them in its detention facilities.
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/05/1..-amored-car-to-transport-hookers/
U.S. Troops in Iraq Sickened By Water from Cheney-Linked Firm
http://noworldsystem.com/2008/03/10/kbr-water-in-iraq-makes-troops-sick/
Iraq To Award Contracts To Foreign Oil Firms
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php..&show_article=1
Baghdad insists on right to veto US operations
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/18/iraq.usforeignpolicy
Bush ’war crimes conference’ to convene in Mass., plan prosecution of admin. officials
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Bush..convene_0622.html
House Votes To Continue Funding Iraq War
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200..qVdEV2EMdW2MwfIE
Big Oil Returns To Iraq For Big Contracts
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/19/africa/19iraq.php
Kucinich: Major General Taguba’s Comments Add Weight to articles of impeachment
http://rawstory.com/news08/2008/..-to-articles-of-impeachment/
Survey: 500,000 Iraqis fled fighting in 2007
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Sur..ting_in_0619.html
Four British Soldiers Killed
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skyne..british-soldiers-killed-45dbed5.html
Filed under: Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, Baghdad, Coup, False Flag, Iran, Iraq, Military, military strike, Nuke, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Shiite, Shock and Awe, Tehran, Troops, War On Terror, WW3, ww4
Ahmadinejad Says U.S. Planned to Kidnap, Murder Him in Iraq
Camilla Hall
Bloomberg News
June 19, 2008
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused U.S. forces in Iraq of planning to kidnap and assassinate him when he visited the country in March, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency said.
Ahmadinejad, 51, refused to reside in Baghdad’s Green Zone, protected by U.S. forces, the news agency cited the president as saying during a seminar today. According to reliable information, they intended to detain and kill him, IRNA cited Ahmadinejad as saying.
The U.S. has repeatedly accused predominantly Shiite Muslim Iran of passing weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq, a charge denied by the government in Tehran. The U.S. has also accused Iran of seeking to build an atomic bomb under cover of a nuclear energy program, an allegation also dismissed by Ahmadinejad’s administration.
“Based on reliable intelligence, the enemies had planned to kidnap and kill the servant’’ of the Iranian nation during the Iraq trip, Agence France-Presse cited Ahmadinejad as saying on state television today. “But with the change of one or two of our plans, their willpower was shaken.’’
Filed under: airstrikes, Australia, Baghdad, Coup, ehud olmert, f-16, False Flag, gaza, greece, H. Con. Res 362, hamas, IAEA, Iran, Iran war resolution, Iraq, Israel, kevin rudd, Kyl-Lieberman amendment, Military, military strike, NIE, north korea, Nuke, Olmert, palestine, Pentagon, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Propaganda, Robert Wexler, Russia, Saber Rattling, Saddam Hussein, Sergey Lavrov, shaul mofaz, Shock and Awe, Syria, Tehran, Troops, War On Terror, WW3, ww4 | Tags: Mike McConnell, Yediot Aharonot
U.S. Says Israel Military Exercise Directed At Iran
IHT
June 19, 2008
Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran’s nuclear program.
More than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in the maneuvers, which were carried out over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece during the first week of June, American officials said.
The exercise also included Israeli helicopters that could be used to rescue downed pilots. The helicopters and refueling tankers flew more than 900 miles, which is about the same distance between Israel and Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, American officials said.
Israeli officials declined to discuss the details of the exercise. A spokesman for the Israeli military would say only that the country’s air force “regularly trains for various missions in order to confront and meet the challenges posed by the threats facing Israel.”
But the scope of the Israeli exercise virtually guaranteed that it would be noticed by American and other foreign intelligence agencies. A senior Pentagon official who has been briefed on the exercise, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the matter, said the exercise appeared to serve multiple purposes.
One Israeli goal, the Pentagon official said, was to practice flight tactics, aerial refueling and all other details of a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear installations and its long-range conventional missiles.
A second, the official said, was to send a clear message to the United States and other countries that Israel was prepared to act militarily if diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from producing bomb-grade uranium continued to falter.
“They wanted us to know, they wanted the Europeans to know, and they wanted the Iranians to know,” the Pentagon official said. “There’s a lot of signaling going on at different levels.”
Several American officials said they did not believe that the Israeli government had concluded that it must attack Iran and did not think that such a strike was imminent.
Shaul Mofaz, a former Israeli defense minister who is now a deputy prime minister, warned in a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot that Israel might have no choice but to attack. “If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack,” Mofaz said in the interview published on June 6, the day after the unpublicized exercise ended. “Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable.”
But Mofaz was criticized by other Israeli politicians as seeking to enhance his own standing as questions mount about whether the embattled Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, can hang on to power.
Israeli officials have told their American counterparts that Mofaz’s statement does not represent official policy. But American officials were also told that Israel had prepared plans for striking nuclear targets in Iran and could carry them out if needed.
Iran has shown signs that it is taking the Israeli warnings seriously, by beefing up its air defenses in recent weeks, including increasing air patrols. In one instance, Iran scrambled F-4 jets to double-check an Iraqi civilian flight from Baghdad to Tehran.
“They are clearly nervous about this and have their air defense on guard,” a Bush administration official said of the Iranians.
Any Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities would confront a number of challenges. Many American experts say they believe that such an attack could delay but not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. Much of the program’s infrastructure is buried under earth and concrete and installed in long tunnels or hallways, making precise targeting difficult. There is also concern that not all of the facilities have been detected. To inflict maximum damage, multiple attacks might be necessary, which many analysts say is beyond Israel’s ability at this time.
But waiting also entails risks for the Israelis. Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed fears that Iran will soon master the technology it needs to produce substantial quantities of highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
Iran is also taking steps to better defend its nuclear facilities. Two sets of advance Russian-made radar systems were recently delivered to Iran. The radar will enhance Iran’s ability to detect planes flying at low altitude.
Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, said in February that Iran was close to acquiring Russian-produced SA-20 surface-to-air missiles. American military officials said that the deployment of such systems would hamper Israel’s attack planning, putting pressure on Israel to act before the missiles are fielded.
For both the United States and Israel, Iran’s nuclear program has been a persistent worry. A National Intelligence Estimate that was issued in December by American intelligence agencies asserted that Iran had suspended work on weapons design in late 2003. The report stated that it was unclear if that work had resumed. It also noted that Iran’s work on uranium enrichment and on missiles, two steps that Iran would need to take to field a nuclear weapon, had continued.
In late May, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran’s suspected work on nuclear matters was a “matter of serious concern” and that the Iranians owed the agency “substantial explanations.”
Over the past three decades, Israel has carried out two unilateral attacks against suspected nuclear sites in the Middle East. In 1981, Israeli jets conducted a raid against Iraq’s nuclear plant at Osirak after concluding that it was part of Saddam Hussein’s program to develop nuclear weapons. In September, Israeli aircraft bombed a structure in Syria that American officials said housed a nuclear reactor built with the aid of North Korea.
The United States protested the Israeli strike against Iraq in 1981, but its comments in recent months have amounted to an implicit endorsement of the Israeli strike in Syria.
Pentagon officials said that Israel’s air forces usually conducted a major early summer training exercise, often flying over the Mediterranean or training ranges in Turkey where they practice bombing runs and aerial refueling. But the exercise this month involved a larger number of aircraft than had been previously observed, and included a lengthy combat rescue mission.
Much of the planning appears to reflect a commitment by Israel’s military leaders to ensure that its armed forces are adequately equipped and trained, an imperative driven home by the difficulties the Israeli military encountered in its Lebanon operation against Hezbollah.
“They rehearse it, rehearse it and rehearse it, so if they actually have to do it, they’re ready,” the Pentagon official said. “They’re not taking any options off the table.”
Your last chance: Israel’s warning
Sydney Morning Herald
June 19, 2008
ISRAEL’S Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has warned the radical Islamic movement Hamas that the truce due to take effect today is the last chance to avoid a massive military incursion into the Gaza Strip.
In an exclusive interview with the Herald – his first interview with the Australian media in four years – Mr Olmert said the people of Gaza were “pissed off with Hamas” and sick and tired of the years of violence.
Since Israel withdrew from Gaza three years ago, the 250,000 residents who surround Gaza have been subjected to almost daily rocket attacks from Palestinian militants.
“You think the people of Adelaide would put up with this?” demanded Mr Olmert. “Or the people of Brisbane?
“I think the strategy of Hamas, which does not want to recognise Israel’s right to exist in the first place, and the extremism, and the fanaticism, and the religious dogmatism is the enemy of peace. We are at the end of our tolerance with regard to terror in Gaza.”
Dismissing an escalating corruption investigation which looks certain to force either his resignation or fresh elections by November, Mr Olmert said he was “going nowhere” and did not rule out running again for the leadership of his Kadima party.
So certain is Mr Olmert of his political survival that he has already sent an invitation for Kevin Rudd to visit Israel later this year.
“I don’t know yet personally enough the new Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, but I am very impressed with his friendship and his commitment to the well-being of the state of Israel,” Mr Olmert said.
Greeks help Israel prepare for Iran war?
Press TV
June 20, 2008
The Greek Air Force says it partook in an Israeli military exercise which is regarded as a rehearsal for a potential attack on Iran.
Greek sources speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed a New York Times report that Israel’s military maneuvers which were carried out earlier this month off the southern Mediterranean island of Crete, were preparations for a future war with the Islamic Republic.
The Greek source, however, assured that no terrestrial targets were involved as the operation was mainly aimed at personnel training.
According to a New York Times report, more than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in the military drills which involved simulated aerial combat, attacks on terrestrial targets, aerial refueling, and search and rescue missions.
http://www.bloomberg.com/..jLlSBbx5E&refer=home
Israeli attack on Iran: “not a matter of if, but when”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jun2008/iran-j20.shtml
Tehran pledges to deal ’powerful blow’ against attack
http://en.rian.ru/world/20080620/111496436.html
Uh-Oh…Wexler Backs Naval Blockade of Iran
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert..n-steroids_b_108122.html
How Iran would retaliate if it comes to war
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0620/p07s04-wome.html
Russia’s Lavrov warns against attack on Iran
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080620/ap_on_re_eu/russia_iran
Bomb Iran? What’s to Stop Us?
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/061908c.html
Filed under: 1984, 2008 Election, Ahmadinejad, airstrikes, Baghdad, Big Brother, China, Coup, David Petraeus, Dictatorship, False Flag, Fox News, Holocaust, Iran, Iraq, iraq deaths, Israel, John McCain, Military, military strike, nation building, neocons, Nuke, occupation, Pat Buchanan, POW, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, Russia, scott ritter, Surveillance, Tehran, Troops, UN, War On Terror, warrantless wiretap, WW3, ww4
McCain: Bringing Troops Home Not Important
McCain: “I disagree with what the majority of the American people want.”
http://www.crooksandliars.c..d-town-hall-with-supporters/
McCain: Warrantless wiretapping of Americans’ overseas conversations good
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/20080613_Editorial_.html
Mccain Invokes the Jewish Holocaust to Warn of Iranian Attack on Israel
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/..ahanes-ne_b_105324.html
McCain Staffer Supports Dictatorship
http://www.jbs.org/node/8276
McCain: I’d Secretly Spy On Americans Too
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/mccain-id-spy-o.html
Filed under: Afghanistan, army, Baghdad, Blackwater, charles schumer, Congress, DEBT, Depleated Uranium, George Bush, Iraq, Maliki, marine, military base, nation building, neocons, occupation, Pentagon, PTSD, Shiite, Taxpayers, Troops, UN, veterans, War On Terror | Tags: Hoshiyar Zebari
Iraq war costs may reach $2.7 trillion
Press TV
June 13, 2008
The costs on American taxpayers may reach $2.7 trillion by the time the Iraq war ends, according to a Congressional testimony.
In a hearing held by the Joint Economic Committee Thursday, members of the Congress heard testimony about the current costs of the war and the future economic fallout from returning soldiers.
At the beginning of the conflict in 2003, the Bush administration gave Congress a cost estimate of $60 billion to $100 billion for the entirety of the war. However, the battle has been dragging on much longer than most in the government expected.
William Beach, director of the Center for Data Analysis, told the Congress that the Iraq war has already cost taxpayers $646 billion.
That’s only accounting for five years, and with the conflict expected to drag on for another five years, the figure is expected to more than quadruple, Beach added.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said the war costs taxpayers about $430 million per day.
“It is long past time for the administration to come clean and account for the real costs of the war in Iraq,” said Schumer. “If they want to disagree with our estimates or with other experts … fine – they should come and explain why.”
The Bush administration, which was invited to give testimony, declined to participate.
The Pentagon has previously said that the war costs approximately $9.5 billion a month, but some economists say the figure is closer to $25 billion a month when long-term health care for veterans and interest are factored in.
Iraqi PM suggests US might be asked to leave
Raw Story
June 13, 2008
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki suggested that US forces might be asked to leave if the two countries cannot agree on the new status of forces agreement, McClatchy reported Friday.
Maliki, seen above, made the comment after pressure from Shiite lawmakers who feel that Iraq’s sovereignty is threatened by US forces and after talks over the status of forces agreement “reached an impasse,” according to McClatchy.
“Iraq has another option that it may use,” Maliki said during a visit to Amman, Jordan. “The Iraqi government, if it wants, has the right to demand that the U.N. terminate the presence of international forces on Iraqi sovereign soil.”
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said that although talks over the security pact are struggling, Baghdad and Maliki are committed to concluding the agreement, Reuters reported Friday.
“I think it’s too early really to judge this agreement that it is dead or there is no way out,” he said after attending a U.N. Security Council meeting on Iraq.
The U.N. mandate for a US presence in Iraq expires at the end of the year, McClatchy reported.
An excerpt from the McClatchy story details the nations’ conflict over the status of forces agreement:
“Maliki acknowledged that talks with the U.S. on a status of forces agreement “reached an impasse” after the American negotiators presented a draft that would have given the U.S. access to 58 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and immunity from prosecution for both U.S. soldiers and private contractors.
The Iraqis rejected those demands, and U.S. diplomats have submitted a second draft, which Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih told McClatchy included several major concessions. Among those would be allowing Iraq to prosecute private contractors for violations of Iraqi law and requiring U.S. forces to turn over to Iraqi authorities Iraqis that the Americans detain.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSCOL33273620080613
Blackwater’s Private CIA
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/87200/?page=entire
4 Afghan civilians killed in US raid
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=59546§ionid=351020403
US Napalm Iraqi Children (Warning-Graphic)
http://thingsimportanttoharry.blogspot.c..ldren-warning.html
Doctors To Study Iraq Birth Defects
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1318608,00.html
GAO: Military Fails To Examine Troops Properly
http://www.usatoday.com/ne..-deploy-report_N.htm?csp=1
Filed under: 1984, 1st amendment, 2nd Amendment, 4th amendment, Airport Security, anti gun, Baghdad, Big Brother, Britain, Checkpoints, Europe, free press, Gun Control, knock and talk, Martial Law, Military, New York, Oppression, pepper spray, philadelphia, police brutality, Police State, Protest, Surveillance, Taser Guns, TSA, United Kingdom, urban warfare, US Constitution, veterans, Washington D.C. | Tags: Christopher Cocker
NY Police Officer Steals Camera From Journalist
UK: Man Who Fell Off Couch Laughing at TV Show Ends Up Pepper Sprayed, Arrested
Fox News
June 11, 2008
A British man who was so amused with BBC1’s “Have I Got News for You” that he fell off his couch in a fit of laughter was not so happy when it got him arrested and pepper sprayed.
Christopher Cocker, 36, collapsed on the floor after laughing at a joke on TV, but his neighbor who heard the thud thought something bad had happened and called the police, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.
According to police, Cocker initially was cooperative but quickly became “aggressive” when asked his name and personal information. Cocker tried to shut his door on the officers, at which point he was pepper sprayed through a crack in the door.
Cocker then was handcuffed, arrested and taken to court, the Daily Mail reported. An unidentified police spokesman told the Mail that, given Cocker’s aggression, they acted appropriately.
“Within the circumstances, we feel we used reasonable force,” the officer told the Mail.
Cocker, of Blackburn, England, eventually pleaded guilty to resisting a police officer and was given a conditional discharge for six months following the May 20 incident, the Mail reported.
Cocker is shocked at the outcome of what he describes as minding his own business.
“I can’t believe it — I was thrown in the back of a police van before being stripped naked and put in a cell,” Cocker told the Mail. “I was handcuffed behind my back and my ankles bound with plastic ties before six of them carried me to the van.”
Cocker told the Mail he never thought he would end up in court for laughing at his favorite comedian.
’Baghdad-style’ checkpoints in US capital
Telegraph
June 9, 2008
In a move that critics have compared to the security clampdown in Baghdad, police are stopping motorists travelling through the main thoroughfare of Trinidad, a neighbourhood near the National Arboretum in the city’s northeast section.
Drivers’ identification are checked and those who didn’t have a “legitimate purpose” in the area, such as a church visit or doctor’s appointment, are turned away.
The checkpoints were set up after eight people were killed in the city last weekend.
http://www.infowars.com/?p=2607
TSA Nixes Flying Without ID
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/tsa-nixes-flyin.html
War Veteran May Go To Jail After Police Officers Charge Man With Pointing His Finger
http://www.badcopnews.com/20..ax-dollars-at-work/
Indy Star Thinks Martial Law Training Is Good
http://www.indystar.com/apps/p..6090325/1291/OPINION08
Warnings of ’surveillance society’
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/itn/20080608..ociety-dba1618.html
Police Kill Man In Taser Fight
http://www.kpho.com/news/16537593/detail.html
Filed under: 2008 Election, Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, airstrike, army, Baghdad, Barack Obama, Britain, Coup, False Flag, Federal Reserve, George Bush, Iran, Iraq, John McCain, Maliki, methanphetamines, Military, military base, military strike, permanent military bases, Preemptive Strike, preemptive war, prozac, PTSD, Sanctions, Shiite, Syria, Tehran, Troops, UN, veterans, WW3, ww4 | Tags: fallujah, habbaniyah military base, kirkuk, Moqtada Al Sadr, mosul, nasiriyah
New Agreement Lets US Strike Any Country From Inside Iraq
Gulf News
June 3, 2008
A proposed Iraqi-American security agreement will include permanent American bases in the country, and the right for the United States to strike, from within Iraqi territory, any country it considers a threat to its national security, Gulf News has learned.
Senior Iraqi military sources have told Gulf News that the long-term controversial agreement is likely to include three major items.
Under the agreement, Iraqi security institutions such as Defence, Interior and National Security ministries, as well as armament contracts, will be under American supervision for ten years.
The agreement is also likely to give American forces permanent military bases in the country, as well as the right to move against any country considered to be a threat against world stability or acting against Iraqi or American interests.
The military source added, “According to this agreement, the American forces will keep permanent military bases on Iraqi territory, and these will include Al Asad Military base in the Baghdadi area close to the Syrian border, Balad military base in northern Baghdad close to Iran, Habbaniyah base close to the town of Fallujah and the Ali Bin Abi Talib military base in the southern province of Nasiriyah close to the Iranian border.”
The sources confirmed that the American army is in the process of completing the building of the military facilities and runways for the permanent bases.
He added that the American air bases in Kirkuk and Mosul will be kept for no longer than three years. However, he said there were efforts by the Americans to include the Kirkuk base in the list of permanent bases.
The sources also said that a British brigade was expected to remain at the international airport in Basra for ten years as long as the American troops stayed in the permanent bases in Iraq.
Iraqi analysts said that the second item of the controversial agreement which permits American forces on Iraqi territories to launch military attacks against any country it considers a threat is addressed primarily to Iran and Syria.
Iran has raised serious concerns in the past few days over the Iraqi-American security agreement and followed it with issuing religious fatwas and called for demonstrations, mainly by the powerful Shiite leader Moqtada Al Sadr movement, who is close to Iran, against the agreement.
Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control
Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors
Randall Mikkelsen
London Independent
June 5, 2008
A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.
The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq’s position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.
But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.
The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq – a victory that he says Mr Obama would throw away by a premature military withdrawal.
America currently has 151,000 troops in Iraq and, even after projected withdrawals next month, troop levels will stand at more than 142,000 – 10 000 more than when the military “surge” began in January 2007. Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.
The precise nature of the American demands has been kept secret until now. The leaks are certain to generate an angry backlash in Iraq. “It is a terrible breach of our sovereignty,” said one Iraqi politician, adding that if the security deal was signed it would delegitimise the government in Baghdad which will be seen as an American pawn.
The US has repeatedly denied it wants permanent bases in Iraq but one Iraqi source said: “This is just a tactical subterfuge.” Washington also wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft and the right to pursue its “war on terror” in Iraq, giving it the authority to arrest anybody it wants and to launch military campaigns without consultation.
Mr Bush is determined to force the Iraqi government to sign the so-called “strategic alliance” without modifications, by the end of next month. But it is already being condemned by the Iranians and many Arabs as a continuing American attempt to dominate the region. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful and usually moderate Iranian leader, said yesterday that such a deal would create “a permanent occupation”. He added: “The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans.”
Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is believed to be personally opposed to the terms of the new pact but feels his coalition government cannot stay in power without US backing.
The deal also risks exacerbating the proxy war being fought between Iran and the United States over who should be more influential in Iraq.
US issues threat to Iraq’s $50bn foreign reserves in military deal
Patrick Cockburn
London Independent
June 6, 2008
The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq’s money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.
US negotiators are using the existence of $20bn in outstanding court judgments against Iraq in the US, to pressure their Iraqi counterparts into accepting the terms of the military deal, details of which were reported for the first time in this newspaper yesterday.
Iraq’s foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq’s funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq’s independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new “strategic alliance” with the United States.
The threat by the American side underlines the personal commitment of President George Bush to pushing the new pact through by 31 July. Although it is in reality a treaty between Iraq and the US, Mr Bush is describing it as an alliance so he does not have to submit it for approval to the US Senate.
Iraqi critics of the agreement say that it means Iraq will be a client state in which the US will keep more than 50 military bases. American forces will be able to carry out arrests of Iraqi citizens and conduct military campaigns without consultation with the Iraqi government. American soldiers and contractors will enjoy legal immunity.
Recent News:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=58683§ionid=351020101
’Ayatollah will not allow US-Iraq deal’
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=57198§ionid=351020201
Secret Security Pact Will Ensure Permanent Iraq Occupation
http://www.infowars.net/articles/june2008/050608Iraq.htm
Shell-shocked Iraq veterans housed next to firing range
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/..-housed-next-to-firing-range-in-US.html
Nearly 20% Of Army In Afghanistan Is On Prozac
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1811858,00.html
Analysis: May marks most violent month in Afghanistan since 2001
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/03/..fghanistan-since-2001/
Iraqi Parliamentarian: 70 Percent Of Iraqis Want Withdrawal
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/04/iraq-parliament/
Report: Bush Misused Iraq Intelligence
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iraq_usa_intelligence_dc
Iraq At Odds With U.S. Over Troop Presence
O’Reilly gets angry while interviewing Scott McClellan
Canada May Give Asylum To U.S. War Resisters
Filed under: Baghdad, Child Abuse, child sex slavery, Dick Cheney, Dyncorp, gold, Iraq, KBR, military troops, nation building, occupation, Saddam Hussein, scandal, Senate, Sex Scandal, War On Terror, whistleblower
DynCorp Used Amored Car To Transport Hookers
Muckracked
April 29, 2008
Some explosive testimony this afternoon from a panel of whistleblowers testifying
before the Senate’s Democratic Policy Committee on contractor abuse in Iraq.
A contractor died when a DynCorp manager used an employee’s armored car to transport prostitutes, according to Barry Halley, a Worldwide Network Services employee working under a DynCorp subcontract.
“DynCorp’s site manager was involved in bringing prostitutes into hotels operated by DynCorp. A co-worker unrelated to the ring was killed when he was travelling in an unsecure car and shot performing a high-risk mission. I believe that my co-worker could have survived if he had been riding in an armored car. At the time, the armored car that he would otherwise have been riding in was being used by the contractor’s manager to transport prostitutes from Kuwait to Baghdad.“
Other revelations:
– Kellogg Brown & Root contractors used to destroy countless quantities of still-usable equipment that was difficult to transport in “massive burn pits” that were “burning 24 hours a day.”
– KBR’s ice foreman “was cheating the troops out of ice at the same time that he was trading the ice for DVDs, CDs, food and other items at the Iraqi shops across the street.”
– When KBR whistleblower Frank Cassaday reported weapons looting, he was placed in a jail tent by KBR security.
– KBR employees looted Iraqi palaces for treasure to sell on eBay.
Mass Corruption By KBR In Iraq
Houston Chronicle
April 29, 2008
KBR employees working in Iraq stole weapons, artwork and even gold to make spurs for cowboy boots, two former company workers told Senate Democrats on Monday.
Appearing before a Democrats-only panel looking into allegations of contracting abuses in Iraq, the witnesses accused their former co-workers of widespread improper activity.
KBR spokeswoman Heather Browne said the company would not comment at length because the claims are part of ongoing lawsuits.
“The witnesses who testified today raised claims that KBR has previously addressed. The government has reviewed the claims and refused to join lawsuits asserting them,” Browne said.
Linda Warren, a 50-year-old Abilene woman who worked as a laundry foreman and recreation director for the Houston-based contracting giant in Iraq, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee Monday that some of her American colleagues doing construction work in Iraqi palaces and municipal buildings took woodcarvings, tapestries and crystal “and even melted down gold to make spurs for cowboy boots.”
Her allegations could not be independently verified.
Warren leveled her allegations in early 2004 after being reprimanded by a supervisor for giving water to Iraqi workers laboring in a sweltering laundry building when their own water supply was undrinkable.
Warren said the supervisor reminded her she had signed a confidentiality agreement and then threatened her by suggesting an American woman “wouldn’t last very long on the streets of Baghdad.”
That evening, with company managers present, she called KBR’s ethics hot line in Houston to report her allegations. She eventually was escorted out of Baghdad by company security after KBR officials intercepted a threatening e-mail, Warren said.
Frank Cassaday, a former KBR ice plant operator, told lawmakers that a KBR foreman tried to take military equipment, including two rocket launchers, detonators and ammunition.
When he confronted the foreman, Cassaday said, “he told me to mind my own business.”
Cassaday then told the camp manager. A military investigation confirmed his allegations, Cassaday said, but he did not elaborate on how the matter was resolved.
A third worker, Barry Halley, a former security manager for CAPE Environmental Management, alleged that after raising complaints with CAPE management, he was held in a room for several days by private security guards.
Les Flynn, Atlanta-based CAPE’s chief operating officer, said that while some of Halley’s allegations Monday were new, the company’s insurance company had investigated his allegations.
“It appears they were found to be untrue,” Flynn said.
The witnesses appeared at the Democratic Policy Committee’s 13th hearing on contracting activities in Iraq. While Congress has had some bipartisan hearings regarding KBR, many of the allegations have come from this series of Democrats-only sessions.
Congressional investigations of KBR’s activities in Iraq are almost invariably colored by politics, in no small part because Vice President Dick Cheney once headed KBR’s former parent company, Halliburton Co.
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Army Sustainment Command reaffirmed its selection of KBR to participate in the 10-year logistical support contract valued at up to $150 billion.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ar..0106sexslavescandal.htm
Filed under: Ahmadinejad, Baghdad, Britain, Europe, european union, False Flag, Iran, jihadist, Maliki, MEK, MKO, Mujahedin Khalq Organization, mujahideen, State Sponsored Terrorism, UN, United Kingdom, Washington D.C., White House
Iran slams US for supporting terror
Press TV
March 20, 2008
Iran has sharply criticized the United States policies on terrorism, saying Washington supports Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO).
An Iranian envoy to the UN Security Council said while both Washington and the EU have banned MKO as a terrorist organization, its members ’continue to enjoy support and receive safe haven’ in the US and some EU member states, Reuters reported.
MKO, which has also been present in Iraq, assisted Saddam Hussein in the massacre of thousands of Iraqis.
The group is also responsible for several acts of terror in Iran including the 1994 bombing of Imam Reza’s Shrine in Mashhad.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki reassured the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in an early March meeting that Baghdad would take necessary steps to expel MKO from Iraq.
Filed under: Afghanistan, Baghdad, BP, Britain, chevron, Europe, George Bush, hans blix, Iraq, iraw deaths, marine, Military, nation building, occupation, Oil, shell, surge, Troops, UN, United Kingdom, War On Terror
U.S. death toll in Iraq reaches 4,000
CNN
March 23, 2008
The four were killed when a homemade bomb hit their vehicle as they patrolled in a southern Baghdad neighborhood, the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq said. A fifth soldier was wounded.
The grim milestone comes less than a week after the fifth anniversary of the start of the war.
“No casualty is more or less significant than another; each soldier, Marine, airman and sailor is equally precious and their loss equally tragic,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, the U.S. military’s chief spokesman in Iraq.
“Every single loss of a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine is keenly felt by military commanders, families and friends both in theater and at home.”
Of the 4,000 U.S. military personnel killed in the war, 3,263 have died in attacks and fighting and 737 in nonhostile incidents, such as traffic accidents and suicides. Eight of those killed were civilians working for the Pentagon.
Also Sunday, at least 35 Iraqis died as the result of suicide bombings, mortar fire and the work of gunmen in cars who opened fire on a crowded outdoor market. Nearly 100 were wounded in the violence.
Estimates of the Iraqi death toll since the war began range from about 80,000 to the hundreds of thousands. Another 2 million Iraqis have been forced to leave the country, and 2.5 million have been displaced from their homes within Iraq, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/march2008/230308Ambassador.htm
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/U..in_southern_Iraq_report_999.html
http://www.spacewar.com/2006/080320010207.x9ljrgla.html
Forbidden fields: Oil groups circle the prize of Iraq’s vast reserves
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5b24f674-f5e6-11dc-8d3d-000077b07658.html
’We live in a nightmare. Death and carnage is everywhere’ -Baghdad resident
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/20/iraq1
Talk Of Troop Surge For Afghanistan
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news..-for-afghanistan_print.htm
Filed under: army, Baghdad, Congress, defense department, Dick Cheney, DoD, Eugenics, halliburton, health and environment, Iraq, iraq deaths, KBR, marine, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, occupation, Pentagon, PTSD, Troops, veterans
U.S. Troops in Iraq Sickened By Water from Cheney-Linked Firm
AP
March 9, 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeIxHQ-lkuM
Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using “unmonitored and potentially unsafe” water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company, the Pentagon’s internal watchdog says.
A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.
The Defense Department’s inspector general’s report, which could be released as early as Monday, found water quality problems between March 2004 and February 2006 at three sites run by contractor KBR Inc., and between January 2004 and December 2006 at two military-operated locations.
It was impossible to link the dirty water definitively to all the illnesses, according to the report. But it said KBR’s water quality “was not maintained in accordance with field water sanitary standards” and the military-run sites “were not performing all required quality control tests.”
The report said KBR took corrective steps and was providing adequate water quality by November 2006. But military units at the two sites they controlled were still failing to perform required quality control tests and maintain appropriate records by that time.
“Therefore, water suppliers exposed U.S. forces to unmonitored and potentially unsafe water,” at the military sites by late 2006, the report said.
The problems did not extend to troops’ drinking water, but rather to water used for washing, bathing, shaving and cleaning. Water used for hygiene and laundry must meet minimum safety standards under military regulations because of the potential for harmful exposure through the eyes, nose, mouth, cuts and wounds.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=46308§i..3510203
Upswing in Iraq attacks not a trend: U.S. military
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080309/ts_nm/iraq_dc_2
60,000 Iraq Vets Diagnosed With PTSD
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0803/S00119.htm
Baghdad blast toll rises, deadliest for months
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL0157942120080307
Army Falsely Claims That Lowering Standards Has Not Affected Troop Quality
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/03/recruiting-standards/
