[Thanks to Mark Shapiro, who sent this in.]

17 U.S. Troops Killed Since Tuesday:
[Not Including 6 More In Afghanistan]
U.S. Soldier Killed By Baquba IED

6.25.06 Associated Press

Another U.S. soldier has been killed in Iraq.

That brings to 17 the number of American service members killed since Tuesday.

The military says a soldier from the Third Heavy Brigade Combat Team, Fourth Infantry Division, was killed in a roadside bombing south of Baqouba yesterday.

Since the Iraq war began in March, 2003, The Associated Press has counted at least 2522 deaths among members of the military.

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

4 Marines Killed In Anbar Province

6/22/2006 (AP)

The U.S. military announced Thursday that four Marines were killed during operations in Anbar province, three of them in a roadside bombing.

The military statement said three Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 “died after their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device.”

No useful information was given concerning the fourth marine, assigned to 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.”

BAGHDAD SOLDIER KILLED BY ROADSIDE BOMB

June 22, 2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-06-02CE

BAGHDAD, Iraq: A Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldier died at approximately 11:30 a.m., June 21, when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad.

TWO MORE BAGHDAD SOLDIERS KILLED BY ROADSIDE BOMB

6/23/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-06-02C

BAGHDAD, Iraq: Two Multi-National Division-Baghdad Soldiers were killed early this morning when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb southeast of Baghdad.

MARINE KILLED IN AL ANBAR PROVINCE

6/23/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-06-02CP

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq: A Marine assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division died due to enemy action while conducting operations in Al Anbar Province June 22.

Bomb Kills U.S. Soldier On Foot Patrol South Of Baghdad

June 24, 2006 Santa Barbara News-Press

A bomb killed a U.S. soldier on a foot patrol Saturday south of Baghdad, the military said, after a particularly deadly week for U.S. forces in Iraq.

The soldier with the Multi National Division in Baghdad died at about 7:20 a.m. Saturday due to injuries ‘’suffered from a bomb explosion while on a dismounted patrol south of Baghdad,’’ the military said.

MND-B SOLDIER DIES IN NON-COMBAT RELATED INCIDENT

6/23/2006 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS RELEASE Number: 06-06-02CP

BAGHDAD: A Multi National Division Baghdad Soldier died in a non-combat incident at approximately 11:40 p.m. Wednesday.

Two Guard Members Recovering

June 19, 2006 Terry Collins, Star Tribune

Until Tarja Brown got a call early Saturday from her son, National Guard Specialist Gregory Brown, she didn’t know he was lying in a hospital bed in Germany.

“Mom, I got hit with a bomb,” she said her son told her. After he described driving a vehicle and the explosion of a roadside bomb in Ad Diwaniyah, Iraq, he also told her another member of the unit was killed.

For Mary Puckett, the news of her son’s injury came when she was paged to pick up a phone call while working an extra shift at the 3M plant in Hutchinson, Minn.

“Mom! Willy’s OK,” Puckett remembered her daughter saying about her son, Staff Sgt. Willy Puckett. “I had thought the worst, but then I was relieved.”

Puckett and Brown, both of Litchfield, were hurt in the explosion that killed Specialist Brent W. Koch, 22, of Morton, Minn. The three were part of the largest overseas deployment of the Minnesota Army National Guard since World War II.

They’re assigned to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 136th Infantry Combined Arms Battalion, which consists of soldiers from Hutchinson, Litchfield and Redwood Falls.

Puckett, 29, suffered a deep cut near his left kneecap and punctures on his left arm and face, his mother said Monday.

He also had a piece of glass removed from an eye.

Brown, the driver, had surgery Monday after suffering extensive shrapnel damage to his arms. His right cornea was injured as well. He joined the Guard after graduating from Litchfield High School in 2004.

Both are expected to recover and could be back in the United States later this week.

“We’re just thankful they’re alive,” Mary Puckett said. Both mothers said they plan to attend Koch’s funeral services, which are pending.

The three were deployed to Iraq in March along with some 2,600 Minnesota Guard members for a 12-month tour.

Puckett, who joined the Guard in 1996, recently reenlisted for another six years.

“His good friends are still over there. He talked about being a career military man, going the full 20,” his mother said. “But too many things are going through his mind right now.”

Resistance Sets Up Checkpoints Near Green Zone

6/23/2006 (Reuters) & By Sinan Salaheddin, The Associated Press

The Iraqi government declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew Friday after insurgents set up roadblocks in central Baghdad and opened fire on U.S. and Iraqi troops outside the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered everyone off the streets of the capital from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m.

U.S. and Iraqi forces also fought guerrillas in the Dora neighborhood in south Baghdad.

Throughout the morning, Iraqi and U.S. military forces clashed with attackers armed with rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and rifles in busy Haifa Street, which runs into the Green Zone, site of the U.S. and British embassies and the Iraqi government.

Five Iraqi soldiers and three police have been wounded in the fighting, which prompted a state of emergency and a curfew in the capital.

U.S. Commanders Pissing Their Pants In Panic:
Now They’re Lying About The Small Shit Too

22 Jun 2006 Reuters

The governor of Diyala province was wounded and his driver and a bodyguard killed when a bomb exploded near his convoy in Baquba, 60 km (40 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police sources said.

They dismissed a U.S. military statement that there was no bomb, only a tire blow-out that caused an accident.

[But why stop there? There are no Iraqis shooting at U.S. troops. It’s celebratory gunfire gone astray. There are no IEDs. Just U.S. military vehicles with major repairs needed because of hard use in difficult terrain. And there are no dead and maimed U.S. troops coming back home to grieving families. Those are all scenes from a new TV series about what it was like back during Vietnam days.]

“The Area Patrolled By American Troops Is Shrinking”

June 23, 2006 BALAD, Iraq (AP)

In the last four months, the Army has tagged 7,000 Humvees and 17,000 other pieces of equipment to be shipped to the United States to be rebuilt. They then will be distributed among active and reserve units at home or possibly returned to equip Iraqi security forces.

The military said the shipments would result in a reduction in the amount of U.S. equipment in Iraq, a cut made possible because the area patrolled by American troops is shrinking.

NO MISSION;
HOPELESS WAR:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

U.S. soldiers inspect a car after a car bomb attack which targeted a U.S. convoy in Mosul June 18, 2006. REUTERS/Khaleed al-Mousuly (IRAQ)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Four US Troops Killed In Kamdesh

22 June 2006 BBC

Four American soldiers have been killed in fighting in north-eastern Afghanistan, the US military says.

They were killed after US-led coalition forces attacked “enemy extremists” in the Kamdesh district of Nuristan Province, a coalition statement said. [Clearly extremists: they defend themselves when attacked by foreign invaders in their country.]

Another soldier was injured and evacuated to hospital.

Two Occupation Troops Killed In Panjwai;
Another Wounded:
Nationality Not Announced

Jun 25 Aljazeera & Reuters

Two U.S. led coalition soldiers have been killed in a clash in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said on Sunday.

The two soldiers were wounded during an operation on Saturday in support of Operation Mountain Thrust and later died at a hospital, the U.S.-led coalition said in a statement.

The nationalities of the soldiers weren’t immediately released pending notification of next of kin.

The clash erupted after coalition forces engaged a group of eight to 10 Taliban in Panjwai district of Kandahar province on Saturday.

“Afghan and coalition forces pressed the attack with joint fires and a ground assault, killing an estimated 45 extremists in the firefight.”

It said two coalition soldiers were also killed and another wounded in the battle but did not give their identity.

The four-hour gunbattle began late Saturday in the Panjwayi district of southern Kandahar province, said Gen. Rahmatullah Roufi.

Harlandale Alum Killed

06/16/2006 Carmina Danini, Express-News Staff Writer

There’s just one thing people should know about Army Sgt. Roger P. Peña Jr., a champion chess player and Harlandale High School alumnus, his grieving father said Thursday.

“He was a hero. That’s how I want him to be remembered,” Roger Peña Sr. said. “It’s a great loss. Nobody understands the pain unless they’ve been there.”

Peña, 29, a combat medic with the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., was killed Tuesday in Afghanistan.

Details of what happened have not been released by the Defense Department, but his father said he was told Peña was caught in an ambush. Another soldier was wounded.

Peña only had recently been promoted to sergeant and was considering staying in the military, his father said.

“I was distraught when I learned he was going to Afghanistan, but it was his wish,” his father said. “To me, going into the Army was a bad decision but I supported him.”

The older of two sons, the sergeant never told his family members about his work out of fear they would worry more than they already did.

A good student who made excellent grades, he was in the youth club at St. Leo’s Catholic Church and he enjoyed competing in chess against kids from the North Side.

Nine years old when his father began teaching him chess, Peña took to it quickly. He joined the chess club when he got to Harlandale Middle School and began taking part in more serious competitions.

In 1991, Peña took first place overall among eighth-graders at the Texas Junior State Championship in Austin.

The team placed second in the state meet.

“Roger was one of the top players at that time in the state,” said Felix Fierros Jr., a chess coach and computer literacy teacher at the middle school at the time.

Fierros, who will be teaching at Inez Foster Elementary School in the fall, said the football coaches at Harlandale High School, where Peña played on the football and soccer teams, were overjoyed at his chess-playing ability.

“Because of chess, coaches knew he could think ahead and calculate what strategies would be needed in football,” Fierros said. “Besides that, he was one of those kids who’s a born leader. He had the looks, the smarts, the charisma and the kids liked him.”

Peña almost attended Texas A&M University, but his father talked him into attending the University of Texas at Austin because it was closer to home.

His goal was to graduate and teach history.

At UT, he met a pretty student from Mission, Marisol Gomez. He took a semester off after they got married, thinking he would return to get his degree. Instead, until he joined the Army, Peña worked with the H.E. Butt Grocery Co., first at the store on Fredericksburg Road, then at the one on Goliad Road.

The sergeant made his last visit home in January to see Marisol, their two sons, Ivan, 5, and Gabriel, 2, and his parents.

“When he arrived, he told his mother he needed a home-cooked meal,” his father said. “He liked everything, but Mexican food was his favorite.”

Now, Peña’s little boys have no idea what has happened to their father.

“They know he’s away, but they don’t know that he’s never coming back,” their grandfather said.

Military Convoy Attacked, Two Canadian Troops Wounded

6/22/2006 By Noor Khan, Associated Writer

Kandahar, Afghanistan: Attacks on a military convoy Wednesday in southern Afghanistan left two Canadian soldiers wounded, and the U.S.-led coalition warned that “significant fighting” lies ahead. [What do the idiots think has been going on, insignificant fighting?]

An attacker detonated his explosives-filled car near a military convoy in the city of Kandahar, killing one and wounding nine, Afghan and coalition officials said.

The troops were on their way back from a patrol in a light-armored vehicle when they were hit by the attacker’s car around 7:30 p.m., said coalition spokesman Maj. Quentin Innis.

Two Canadian soldiers were injured and the attacker was killed, he said.

In addition, an Afghan bystander was killed and seven others injured, including one policeman and six civilians who were taken to Mir Wais Hospital, said Dr. Aziz Khan.

An Associated Press reporter saw the burning shell of the attacker’s vehicle on the main road through Kandahar, blackened pieces scattered over the highway.

“Convoy Carrying Moving Targets” Hit By RPG;
U.S. Soldier Wounded

June 24, 2006 By Nadine Stinger, RECORDER STAFF WRITER

A 23-year-old Kingsburg resident was severely wounded in Afghanistan last week when his convoy carrying moving targets was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

Nathan Toews, the 2001 Kingsburg High School graduate who was an active member of FFA, Young Life and other school and community-based organizations, enlisted in the Army straight out of high school.

As far as his parents knew, he had a promising future in the Army.

Toews’ parents, Jerri and Doug, last spoke to him a few days after Memorial Day. Toews had told his family that he was nominated for the Bronze Star, an honor given only to those who have shown acts of valor. He was to go before the promotion board on June 8 for consideration of being promoted to sergeant.

Last Wednesday, the Toews family got the call that parents and spouses of military personnel dread. It was 11:30 a.m., and Jerri had just gotten off work. An Army sergeant left a message on the answering machine, asking her or her husband to call back.

“My heart sunk and I knew it was bad news,” Jerri said.

Toews had suffered serious injuries and was unconscious. He had a broken right arm, as well as critical damage to his right eye. As of last Friday, Toews still had shrapnel lodged in his brain.

He was first stabilized in Afghanistan, and then transferred to a hospital in Germany, where surgery was performed on his broken arm and a tube placed in his head to drain spinal fluid.

With the permission of Toews’ surgeon in Germany, his mother was able to speak to her son on the phone.

“I told him that I loved him, that everybody was praying for him, that God and His angels were tending to him and he was being well taken care of,” she said.

He could not respond to his mother’s words, but Jerri said she knew he had heard them.

On Friday morning, Toews was transferred to Betheseda Naval Hospital near Washington, D.C. His parents and younger siblings, Nicole and Andrew, left Saturday morning to be with him. They plan on being there for as long as they need to.

Toews served in Iraq from June 2004 to June 2005, and was sent to Afghanistan in the spring of this year, where he would have been stationed for at least a year.

Jerri spoke of her mixed feelings as she anticipated seeing her son.

“I can’t wait to see him, but at the same time, my son is broken and I don’t know what I am going to do when I see him. It’s going to be hard, but I have to be strong for him,” she tearfully said, and added that he needed to focus on getting better.

Jerri spoke of times when her son was stationed oversees and she would get the opportunity to talk to him. She said it was always hard for him when she cried, so it’s her goal when she sees him not to show her sadness.

“I would be a basket case. The only reason I am handling it is through the grace of God, the community and friends,” she said.

She spoke of her appreciation for the support from friends, family and the community. Her purpose in coming to THE RECORDER was to inform the community and lengthen the list of those praying for Toews.

“You can’t have too many prayers. Continue praying for men and women serving in the military, not just those from Kingsburg. We sometimes forget them until something happens and it hits close to home,” she said.

Occupation Spies Killed In Zabul

June 23, 2006 AP

The decapitated bodies of two more Afghan men were found Friday, bringing to four the number of decapitated bodies found over the past two days, an official said.

Local residents found two bodies Thursday near their homes in the southern Zabul provincial district of Shahjoy, and two more near the same area Friday, said the Zabul governor’s spokesman, Ali Khail.

The men had been kidnapped at gunpoint from the village of Chinoh, Khail said.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousof Ahmadi, said the Taliban killed the men because they had been allegedly spying for Afghan and coalition forces.

5 Occupation Workers Captured

06/25/06 MEI: KABUL, Afghanistan

A police official says two doctors and an employee of a Swedish agency were captured along with two local government workers.

A spokesman for the Public Health Ministry in Kabul says the five are alive and that police and Afghan troops are looking for them.

The five had traveled to a remote village and were taken prisoner on the return trip.

TROOP NEWS

THIS IS HOW BUSH BRINGS THE TROOPS HOME:
BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW, ALIVE

Rosa and Jose Velez watch as the flag is lifted off the coffin of their son, Sgt. Jose M. Velez, June 19, 2006 in New York. Sgt. Velez, originally from Bronx, New York, was killed during combat operations near Kirkuk in Iraq. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Iraq Veteran Calls On Bush “To Apologize To The Troops For Lying About The Reasons For Going To War With Iraq.

Dave Adams of IVAW, Veterans Day 2005, Chicago

Spring 2006, By Jen Tayabji, The Veteran, Vietnam Veterans Against The War. Jen Tayabji is executive director of the Illinois Disciples Foundation in Champaign, Illinois.

*****************************************

On February 11, 2006, the Progressive Resource/Action Cooperative (PRC) hosted an antiwar event featuring Iraq War veteran Dave Adams.

The PRC is a multi-issue, multi-tactical activist organization composed of students and community members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The PRC has been involved in antiwar organizing, including fighting for the rights of GIs and veterans, since the first Gulf War.

Over fifty people came out to hear Adams, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), discuss his experiences serving in Iraq and readjusting to civilian life. Adams has spoken at many events, including the VVAW Veterans Day rally in Chicago last fall.

Adams joined the military in December 1999, not long after completing high school, and served from 2000 to 2003. He completed basic training at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. Upon completion of basic training, he was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. He served as a mechanic for the military police and was stop-lossed in early 2003, shortly before the start of the Iraq War.

During his talk, he described how he was assigned to various tasks and positions, including chaplain’s assistant, that he was never trained to do.

He spent some time working in convoys, and witnessed a severe shortage of armor in his unit. Because of this lack of armor and the way they were arranged, the convoys were very dangerous, not only the soldiers in the convoy, but also to Iraqi civilians.

Adams called on President Bush to apologize to the troops for lying about the reasons for going to war with Iraq.

As part of his process of reintegrating into civilian life, he began to realize that his friends were dying and there wasn’t a good justification for what was going on. Adams discussed his work with IVAW and their goals of working to bring the troops home now, support Iraqi reconstruction in any way possible, and support our veterans and our troops now and upon their return home.

Adams said that upon returning home, he began drinking heavily and acting uncharacteristically, and sometimes he became angry for no reason. He went to the local VA and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He also joined Iraq Veterans Against the War and began speaking out about his experiences.

Adams described how the VA’s treatment was simply to dole out medication, which had negative side effects and didn’t address the problems at hand. It was his work with IVAW that helped him the most.

Currently Adams is an undergraduate at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Despite being a full-time student, Adams continues fighting for the rights of his brothers and sisters by talking to those who are contemplating enlisting, by talking with his fellow vets, and by speaking out and fighting for the rights of all veterans.

www.ivaw.net

Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this E-MAIL along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the war, at home and inside the armed services. Send requests to address up top.

Military Charges 8 Troops With Murder of Iraqi:
“If A Few Privates And Corporals Have To Take It, That’s The Price Of Keeping My Stars”

Ishikawa and Kuroshima would understand: insert troops into a hell on earth and there’s no way to prevent atrocities. Yet the real fiends in their capital suites are never spattered with a single drop of blood. Solidarity, Z

June 21, 2006 By CAROLYN MARSHALL, The New York Times Company

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif.,

Seven marines and a Navy corpsman were charged today with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in connection with the shooting death of an Iraqi civilian in April.

The men, all members of the Third Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment, have been confined to the brig here at Camp Pendleton since May, when a preliminary inquiry concluded that there was enough evidence to warrant a criminal investigation.

Officials here disclosed little information about the case itself. But earlier this month, Marine officials and members of Congress who had been briefed on the case said the eight men appeared to have dragged a 52-year-old Iraqi man from his house in the town of Hamdaniya, west of Baghdad, on April 26, and shot him without provocation.

They said the marines had then placed a shovel and bomb components near the man’s body to make it seem that he had been digging a hole for a roadside explosive, and also placed an AK-47 near his body.

Four other marines are still being investigated in the case, Colonel Navarre said.

The charges are the first in the military legal process. The next step is an Article 32 investigation, the military’s equivalent of a grand jury inquiry. That process could lead to a court martial or dismissal of the case.

In addition to Corporal Thomas, those charged include Marine Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III, Navy Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Melson J. Bacos, Marine Lance Cpl. Tyler A. Jackson, Marine Pfc. John J. Jodka, Marine Lance Cpl. Jerry E. Shumate Jr., Marine Lance Cpl. Robert B. Pennington, and Marine Cpl. Marshall L. Magincalda, according to the Associated Press.

Marine officials said the incident was reported by other Iraqis on May 1.

The parents of one of the marines, Private Jodka, told The Los Angeles Times earlier this month that they thought their son was being punished out of a desire by Marine officials to rebut criticism that they were slow to react to evidence in the Haditha case.

“It appears to me that this is the reaction of some senior people to show ‘we’re in charge, we’re cleaning up our act,’” John Jodka Jr. told the newspaper. He said he believed that the generals figure, “If a few privates and corporals have to take it, that’s the price of keeping my stars.”

Two U.S. Soldiers Charged In Killing Of Civilian Near Ramadi

Ishikawa and Kuroshima would understand: insert troops into a hell on earth and there’s no way to prevent atrocities. Yet the real fiends in their capital suites are never spattered with a single drop of blood. Solidarity, Z

June 25, 2006 Associated Press, BAGHDAD, Iraq

The U.S. military has charged two soldiers in the February killing of a civilian near Ramadi, the military said today.

Spec. Nathan B. Lynn was charged with one count of voluntary manslaughter for allegedly shooting an unarmed man on Feb. 15, the military said.

Lynn and Sgt. Milton Ortiz Jr., both of the 1st Battalion, 109th Infantry (Mechanized) of the Pennsylvania National Guard, were each charged with one count of obstructing justice for allegedly conspiring with another soldier who allegedly put an AK-47 near the body of the man in an attempt to make it look as though he was an insurgent.

Ortiz also was charged with one count of assault and one count of communicating a threat for a separate incident on March 8, when he allegedly placed an unloaded weapon against the head of an Iraqi man and threatened to send him to prison, the military said.

Both soldiers are being held in Baghdad while awaiting Article 32 hearings to determine if there is sufficient evidence to proceed to a court-martial.

List Of Massacre Accusations Of GIs In Iraq Stuns Experts

June 23, 2006 AP

The accounts are brutal: An Iraqi man dragged from his home, executed and made to look as if he were an insurgent. Three prisoners killed by their Army captors. A team of revenge-seeking Marines going home to home, shooting down unarmed Iraqi men, women, children.

The recent flurry of accusations against U.S. servicemen has stunned military analysts and experts.

Many see a critical new point in the war, though few agree whether it shows the toll of combat stress, commanders resolved to stamp out war crimes, or, as some claim, an overzealous second-guessing of the troops.

But the number and gravity of the latest allegations have drawn the greatest outcry against U.S. military actions since the Abu Ghraib prison abuses.

“All of a sudden there seem to be charges right and left,” said Loren Thompson at the Lexington Institute, a defense think tank in Arlington, Va. “It clearly has happened in some cases. But it’s hard to tell whether this is a pattern of wrongdoing on our part or just a pattern of closer supervision.”

So far, none of the troops accused in the latest cases has even been tried:

On Friday, a Pennsylvania National Guard spokesman said two Guardsmen were being investigated in connection with the shooting death of an Iraqi earlier this year.

On Wednesday, seven Marines and one Navy corpsman were charged in the April shooting death of an Iraqi man in the town of Hamdania. Charging documents claim the man was taken from his home, forced into a hole, shot and left with a stolen AK-47 near him to make it look as if he fought the troops.

On Monday and Wednesday, three soldiers and a noncommissioned officer were charged in the May deaths of three unarmed Iraqis in military custody in Salahuddin province. A Pentagon official told The Associated Press that the detainees were shot while trying to flee.

Those accusations come a few months after another disturbing charge; that in Haditha, a town in the Sunni hotbed of Anbar province, members of a Marine unit killed up to two dozen unarmed Iraqis in and outside their homes after a roadside bomb killed one of the troops.

What do you think? Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Send to contact@militaryproject.org. Name, I.D., withheld on request. Replies confidential.

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action;
Offensive Hits Baquba Hard

22 Jun 2006 Reuters & 6.23.06 The Associated Press & By Mussab Al-Khairalla (Reuters) & Jun 24, 2006 (AP) & Reuters & (KUNA) & June 25 (KUNA) & Reuters

Guerrillas shot dead police General Hussein Abdul-Rahman, a lieutenant-colonel and a third officer in their car in a market in the town of Baquba, police said.

The Joint Coordination Center in Baquba said in a press release that an armed group targeted an Iraqi Army checkpoint in the town of Khan Bani Saad near Baquba, killing six Iraqi soldiers and wounding four others.

It added that armed groups also killed three Iraqi soldiers nearby a garage in Baquba.

The governor of Diyala province was wounded and his driver and bodyguard killed when a bomb exploded near his convoy in Baquba 56 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police sources said.

A statement for the joint coordination center said that unidentified armed men shot dead an Iraqi police officer in the western suburbs of Baqouba.

A car bomber killed a police commando and wounded nine people in an attack on a police checkpoint in Baghdad’s eastern Zayouna district, police said.

A municipal council employee was shot dead on his way to work in the oil refinery city of Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S./Iraqi Joint Coordination Centre said.

An Iraqi soldier was killed when a roadside bomb exploded near an army patrol in Tikrit, the Joint Coordination Centre said.

Guerrillas killed an Iraqi soldier in his home in Dhuluiya, 40 km (25 miles) north of Baghdad

A car bomb exploded in Dhuluyia, 90 km (55 miles) north of Baghdad, killing five members of an Iraqi security patrol, a policeman at the scene said.

Guerrillas riding a motorcycle shot dead a police officer in Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, police sources said. Other fighters opened fire on a car in Najaf, killing two employees of a U.S. military base, police said.

An engineer who worked at Baghdad airport was killed in a drive-by-shooting in western Baghdad, police said.

Two policemen were killed when guerrillas ambushed their patrol in Latifya south of Baghdad

KIRKUK: The sister of the former speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Hajim Al-Hassani, was wounded when guerrillas attacked her near her home, police sources said.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, a roadside bomb killed the local intelligence chief, Mousa Hachim, and two of his guards, Kirkuk police chief Torhan Abdul Rahman said. Insurgents managed to capture a Kirkuk police officer.

A roadside bomb struck a police patrol Saturday in a predominantly Iraqi area in Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding three others.

The explosion occurred at 8 a.m. as the patrol was passing the al-Sadiq University for Islamic Studies in northern Baghdad, police Lt. Thaer Mahmoud said.

Militants opened fire on a police patrol in Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, wounding two policemen

Resistance fighters killed three Iraqi soldiers and wounded five when they fired at their minibus near the town of Udhaim, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad.

A police officer and soldier were killed Sunday in the Iraqi capital Baghdad.

Furthermore, an Iraqi police source told KUNA that a booby-trapped vehicle blew up today targeting an Iraqi army patrol near a mosque in eastern Baghdad killing an Iraqi soldier and wounding four others.

Another car explosion occurred in Baghdad targeting a four wheeler convoy used by foreign contractors.

So far there have been no reports on the casualties and damage.

Three Iraqi policemen were also killed by militants in the area of Imam Wais in Meqdadiya district, northeast of Baghdad,

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION

OCCUPATION REPORT

“Neighborhood After Neighborhood In Western Baghdad Has Fallen To Insurgents”

June 24, 2006 By SABRINA TAVERNISE, New York Times [Excerpts]

Now, as Iraqi leaders in the Green Zone savor their recent successes the naming of the first full-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted guerrilla leader Iraqis outside its walls are more frightened than ever.

Neighborhood after neighborhood in western Baghdad has fallen to insurgents, with some areas bordering on anarchy. Bodies lie on the streets for hours. Trash is no longer collected. Children are home-schooled.

Mansour is an area of stately homes, elaborately trimmed hedges and people who can afford guards. In recent weeks, that has not seemed to matter. Homemade bombs have struck two sport utility vehicles belonging to the former Iraqi exile leader, Ahmad Chalabi, a Mansour resident, twice in the past month. Gangs have kidnapped the United Arab Emirates ambassador and the Russian Embassy workers, whom Al Qaeda claimed to have killed this week.

The Hunting Club now tells wedding parties to bring guards.

“These middle- and upper-class families, these guys are not willing to fight,” one resident said. “It’s like cutting into butter.”

“If the Americans want to destroy Iraq, they are on the right path,” said the owner, a Shiite, who stood scowling behind a candy counter. He displayed a pistol jammed in his waistband. “If they can’t improve things, they should just leave us alone.”

Ali Aziz, a Shiite, had to hastily load the body of his friend into the back of a pickup in Dawra in late April, after the police refused to respond to pleas from the man’s widow. He waited until he had reached the safety of a police station to put the body in a coffin.

“There is no government there,” said a computer programmer who moved earlier this month from another western Baghdad neighborhood, Amiriya, after four murders on his block. “I want to go to my home, to bring some clothes, but I can’t go there. My own country, my own home, and I can’t go there.”

In Mansour, by contrast, life has not shut down entirely, but has slowed from a bustle to a trickle. An internal American Embassy security document, recently posted on the Internet by The Washington Post, quoted an Iraqi employee who had said Mansour was “an unrecognizable ghost town.”

Mr. Mualla, the Hunting Club director, sips ice-cold water in his renovated office in the back of the club and worries. Business receptions and banquets is down by about half over the past two months. Weddings are now booked just a week in advance, not a month.

“I’m tired,” he said. “I’m very tired of controlling the situation. Nobody is helping me.”

U.S. OCCUPATION RECRUITING DRIVE IN HIGH GEAR;
RECRUITING FOR THE ARMED RESISTANCE THAT IS

Foreign fighters from the U.S. armed forces occupying an Iraqi citizens home in Ramadi June 20, 2006. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

[Fair is fair. Let’s bring 150,000 Iraqis over here to the USA. They can kill people at checkpoints, bust into their houses, overthrow the government, put a new one in office they like better and call it “sovereign,” and “detain” anybody who doesn’t like it in some prison without any charges being filed against them, or any trial.]

[Those Iraqis are sure a bunch of backward primitives. They actually resent this help, have the absurd notion that it’s bad their country is occupied by a foreign military dictatorship, and consider it their patriotic duty to fight and kill the soldiers sent to grab their country. What a bunch of silly people. How fortunate they are to live under a military dictatorship run by George Bush. Why, how could anybody not love that? You’d want that in your home town, right?]

U.S. OCCUPATION RECRUITING DRIVE IN HIGH GEAR;
RECRUITING FOR THE ARMED RESISTANCE THAT IS
#2

Jun 24, 2006 (Reuters) & (KUNA)

TIKRIT

U.S. troops arrested a top Sunni Arab religious leader in the northern town of Tikrit on Saturday, said a senior provincial government official.

Abdullah Hussein, the deputy governor of Salahaddin province, said U.S. forces raided the home of Sheikh Jamal Abdel Karim al-Dabaan in the early morning.

“Most of the provincial government institutions, including the provisional council, have suspended work to protest the arrest. Employees will not return to their offices until American forces release him,” Hussein told Reuters.

“We don’t know the reason behind this arrest but it is unjustified.”

Hussein said U.S. helicopters took part in the raid.

Dabaan is a top Mufti, or religious authority, for most of Iraq’s minority Sunni Muslim community,

This arrest was reported by the Iraqi Islamic Party, the country’s leading Sunni party today and the arrest is said to have been in the early morning hours.

A statement by the IIP said US forces stormed the house of Sheikh Dabban’s house early this morning and arrested him along with all his children and his guests, including Ifta’ Authority (Islamic edicts authority) member Sheikh Abdel Elah Al-Hayti in Tikrit, the key city in Salahideen Province.

The party condemned the arrest and demanded the release of the religious figure and all other arrestees and stressed the man is “a national as well as Muslim figure.”

“In the States, if police burst into your house, kicking down doors and swearing at you, you would call your lawyer and file a lawsuit,” said Wood, 42, from Iowa, who did not accompany Halladay’s Charlie Company, from his battalion, on Thursday’s raid. “Here, there are no lawyers. Their resources are limited, so they plant IEDs (improvised explosive devices) instead.”

OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!

“The Body Was Still In The Street Being Eaten By Dog”

6.24.06 By Hugh Sykes BBC News, Baghdad [Excerpts]

It is about 45 degrees [Celsius] in the shade almost every day (115 Fahrenheit) and seldom less than 35 [Celsius] at night.

It is common to have one hour of electricity followed by six hours cut.

Ceiling fans and air conditioners stop. Some homes have generators but you have to queue for hours to buy fuel or pay extortionate prices on the black market.

The power cuts affect even the new Iraqi armed forces.

I have a friend who works as an interpretator at one of the largest military bases.

He says they sometimes have no power for 10 hours at a stretch. And this week, a soldier at a checkpoint begged him for just half a litre of petrol so that he could clean his rifle.

Back in our office, Ali took another call.

It was from a friend whose brother in law had been shot dead early in the morning in a district where the police said it was not safe for them to go and recover the body.

In the evening, the body was still in the street being eaten by dogs.

Fury After Australians Kill Iraqi Trade Ministers’ Bodyguard:
“The Point Is This: We Shouldn’t Be There”

June 22, 2006 By Philippe Naughton and agencies, Times Newspapers Ltd.

The Iraqi Trade Minister threatened today to impose a national boycott on Australian wheat and other exports after Australian soldiers mistakenly shot dead one of his bodyguards.

The shooting happened after an Australian protection unit accompanied a visiting dignitary to the offices of the minister, Abdul Falah al-Sudany, in Baghdad yesterday.

The Australian convoy left the ministry followed by a vehicle carrying Iraqi bodyguards, which then tried to overtake.

Police and Interior Ministry sources said it appeared that the Australians mistook the bodyguards, who were dressed in civilian clothes and armed with AK-47 rifles, for insurgents and opened fire, killing one man and wounding three others.

“The minister holds the Australian Government responsible and demands an apology and payment of compensation. If this does not happen he will reconsider trade agreements between the two countries,” Muhammed Hanoun, a Trade Ministry spokesman, told Reuters.

The incident will come as a major embarrassment for Canberra, which has been trying hard to improve trade ties with Iraq after Baghdad suspended dealings with Australia’s monopoly wheat exporter, AWB Ltd, over a scandal involving A£90 million in kickbacks paid to the Saddam regime in the years leading up to the war.

Iraq has long been one of the largest customers for Australian wheat, taking around 10 per cent of its crop, and the suspension of the dealing with AWB have forced Australian growers to create a new consortium to deal with Baghdad.

[K]im Beazley, the Opposition leader, said the shooting mishap just showed that Australia should not have got involved in the Iraq conflict.

“I’m afraid in a difficult, complex, civil conflict like that the possibility of what they describe as blue-on-blue, or friendly fire deaths, is always a possibility and it has the most terrible effects,” Mr Beazley said.

“The point is this: we shouldn’t be there. We made a mistake going to Iraq in the first place. We should not be there now.”

Contractors In Iraq Prefer Slave Labor:
Getting Them To Stop It “Kind Of Like Pulling Teeth” Col. Says

June 22, 2006 By Cam Simpson, Washington Bureau, Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON

Getting contractors on U.S. military bases in Iraq to return the passports they seized from thousands of foreign workers imported to do menial labor in the war zone was “kind of like pulling teeth,” even though the seizures violated U.S. laws against human trafficking, a senior contracting officer told Congress Wednesday.

Air Force Col. Robert Boyles, who helped implement military reforms aimed at eliminating trafficking of Asian laborers onto American bases in Iraq, also testified that contractors had seized passports as a standard practice.

He suggested they complied with military orders to return travel documents to the workers only because their business was threatened.

Much of the hearing focused on the agency’s investigation of and response to a 2005 Tribune series, “Pipeline to Peril.” The series documented networks run by a string of human brokers in Asia and the Middle East, men working in tandem with a chain of subcontractors doing business on U.S. military bases in Iraq.

They deceitfully lured workers into the war zone from poor Asian nations, sometimes used coercion, violated human rights or failed to protect them.

Workers also were subjected to a type of debt bondage that made it difficult for them to leave one of the world’s most dangerous places.

Unbeknownst to many Americans, there are an estimated 35,000 foreign workers, most from impoverished corners of South Asia or the Asian Pacific, working on U.S. bases for more than 200 subcontractors hired by Halliburton-subsidiary KBR. The Houston company is carrying out an unprecedented, multibillion-dollar privatization of military-support operations in Iraq, largely through subcontractors based in the Mideast.

A U.S. military investigation, prompted by the Tribune series, led to reforms in April, including an order to return workers’ passports. Wednesday’s hearing was the first in Congress on the issue since the abuses were revealed last year.

Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) called the practices “absolutely deplorable and unacceptable,” and asked Boyles whether the military needed to be concerned about more passport seizures.

“You have got to constantly stay on top of it,” Boyles said. He also said the contractors were “not changing because they had an epiphany. . . . They’re changing because they know they’re going to be held accountable.”

John Miller, head of the State Department’s office charged with combating human trafficking, testified that seizing passports is a standard tool for traffickers, though he cautioned that not everyone who takes passports is trafficking.

Boyles said the practice had been widespread in Iraq. Contractors had claimed it was primarily aimed at keeping workers from seeking different employers. He also testified that once they’re threatened under U.S. laws designed to cut off taxpayer-financed contracts that are linked to human trafficking, the “contractors then finally get the message, and they comply.”

Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.), a co-chairman of the hearing who wrote the law aimed at cutting off such contracts, urged the military to be aggressive. “I would hope,” Smith said, “that you wouldn’t be shy about using the penalty phase to get people’s attention.”

Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.) wondered about America’s business partners in the Middle East. “What does it say,” he asked, “about the people with whom we’re contracting?”

In part, the Tribune documented the abuses by retracing the trail of 12 Nepalese workers who were illegally trafficked to Iraq, then kidnapped and executed by extremists while en route to jobs on a U.S. base.

A previously undisclosed U.S. military investigation of the specifics in that case concluded that there was “no reason to question the sequence or accuracy of events outlined in the Chicago Tribune articles,” according to an April 14 memo written by Thomas Gimble, principal deputy of the Defense Department’s inspector general’s office.

But Gimble, who also testified Wednesday, would not say whether two Jordanian subcontractors involved had lost their contracts. A spokesman for the office said he was unsure of their status.

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

Rumsfeld Says “It Very Likely Will Go Down And Up And Down And Up”

Jun. 22, 2006 LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press

“It will very likely not be a steady path down,” Rumsfeld said. “It could very likely be a drawdown with an increase.”

Noting that there now are 126,900 U.S. troops in Iraq, he said: “It could very well go back up at some point. It very likely will go down and up and down and up depending on the circumstances and depending on the need.”

CORNERED RAT ARRESTED

July 5, 2007: Rumsfeld raises his hands in surrender as he is taken prisoner at the Pentagon by a combined strike force made up of elements of the 3rd ID and the New York National Guard, acting under the command of officers elected by the troops from among combat veterans of the Iraq war.

Rumsfeld, who has been charged with treason and premeditated murder, will face trail by court-martial. In a departure from usual military practice, the jury will be composed of next of kin of troops KIA in Iraq. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

KERRY SETS FIRM TIMETABLE FOR MAKING UP HIS MIND ABOUT WAR:
Will Decide About Iraq ‘Once And For All’ By Year’s End

Sen. Kerry’s words may have fallen on deaf ears at the White House, however, where President Bush vowed to remain in Iraq “until we have determined why we are there.”

June 22, 2006 The Borowitz Report

In a speech to the United States Senate today, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass) made his strongest policy statement to date about the war in Iraq, saying that he had set a firm timetable for making up his mind about the conflict.

“I will make up my mind about Iraq, once and for all, by the end of this year, and not one day later,” a resolute Sen. Kerry told his colleagues. “June 2007 at the very latest.”

After initially voting for the war in 2003, then arguing for finishing the job in Iraq in 2004, and then calling for a complete troop withdrawal in recent days, Mr. Kerry may have difficulty convincing skeptics that he will stick to his timetable of making up his mind by the end of 2006.

But according to one Democratic operative, Sen. Kerry’s recent flipflopping on the war may be a sign that he is tuning up for another presidential run in 2008: “He wants to be in full flipflopping form in time for the Iowa caucuses.”

Sen. Kerry’s words may have fallen on deaf ears at the White House, however, where President Bush vowed to remain in Iraq “until we have determined why we are there.”

“Pulling out now would send the message that we actually know the reason we are in Iraq,” Mr. Bush said. “We will stay there until we know that reason, and if that means forever, so be it.”

What do you think? Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Send to contact@militaryproject.org. Name, I.D., withheld on request. Replies confidential.

OCCUPATION ISN’T LIBERATION
BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW!

NEED SOME TRUTH? CHECK OUT TRAVELING SOLDIER

Telling the truth – about the occupation or the criminals running the government in Washington – is the first reason for Traveling Soldier. But we want to do more than tell the truth; we want to report on the resistance – whether it’s in the streets of Baghdad, New York, or inside the armed forces. Our goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties working-class people inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter to be a weapon to help you organize resistance within the armed forces. If you like what you’ve read, we hope that you’ll join with us in building a network of active duty organizers.  www.traveling-soldier.org/  And join with Iraq War vets in the call to end the occupation and bring our troops home now! www.ivaw.net

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