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| 26/5/06 |
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www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk/ This IOF Newsletter is produced as a free service for all those opposed to the occupation. In order to strengthen our campaign, please make sure you sign up to receive the free newsletter automatically – go to: lists.riseup.net/www/info/iraqfocus. Please also ask all those who share our opposition to the increasingly brutal US-UK occupation to do likewise. Contents: * Military News <#military> * Life Under Occupation <#life> * Corporate Takeover <#Corporate> * Anti-war news <#Anti-war> * Upcoming events <#events> Military News Lawmaker: Marines killed Iraqis ‘in cold blood’ NBC report (May 17th): www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12838343 A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines “killed innocent civilians in cold blood,” a U.S. lawmaker said. From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children. One young Iraqi girl said the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. “The Americans came into the room where my father was praying,” she said, “and shot him.” On Wednesday, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said the accounts are true. Military officials told NBC News that the Marine Corps’ own evidence appears to show Murtha is right. Government loses control of Baquba as rebels intensify attacks Azzaman reports (May 11th): www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news%5C2006-05-11%5C183.htm Rebels spread control over most of Diyala Province of which the city of Baquba is the capital. The city’s nearly 350,000 live in a state of terror as the security forces charged with keeping law and order can hardly protect themselves. Fearing for their lives, many government employees have left their jobs. Residents say the current descent into lawlessness is worst since the coming of U.S. invaders in 2003. Government offices and vehicles are targets of frequent attacks and even schools and colleges in the city are not spared. More News From Ramadi, Blackhole of the Occupation ‘Alive in Baghdad’ blog reports from Ramadi (May 14th): www.aliveinbaghdad.org/?p=5506 From an email from Qasem, May 12th: “US troops were attacked by some fighters. The reaction of the US troops was to attack the houses that were located near their base. They arrest any family that shows movement inside their house. Most arrest cases are when US soldiers notice that someone is still awake after midnight!!! After inspecting any house the result will be: destroyed doors and windows; broken furniture; they throw sonic bombs in the windows, that make high explosion sounds and this shock keeps everybody inside unable to hear for 20 minutes at least and for babies there is risk to lose there ears’ hearing ability, maybe for their whole life. Iraq Sunnis accuse US of “atrocity” over raids Reuters report (May 15th): www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L15767399.htm Iraq’s main Sunni religious grouping accused U.S. forces on Monday of killing 25 civilians in raids near Baghdad in the past two days, rejecting the U.S. account that only suspected insurgents had died. Two separate U.S. statements on the air and ground raids did not mention any civilian deaths, but said several women and children were wounded. The Sunni association accused U.S. forces of attacking civilian houses and killing people as they tried to flee. A Safer Weapon, With Risks LA Times reports (May 18th): www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-laser18may18,1,5232885.story The U.S. military is deploying a laser device in Iraq that would temporarily blind drivers who fail to heed warnings at checkpoints. But so-called tactical laser devices have been controversial in the past. A protocol to the Geneva Convention bans the use of lasers that cause blindness, and human rights groups have protested previous U.S. attempts to employ such weapons. Raytheon works to fix heat-ray in time for Iraq test next year Bloomberg News reports (May 19th): www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/129783 Raytheon Co., the world’s largest missile maker, said it’s trying to fix problems with an experimental heat-ray weapon to keep the device on schedule for a field test in Iraq early next year. Raytheon’s new weapon, which is intended to repel hostile forces by creating a sensation of intense heat on skin, doesn’t act quickly enough to be effective, said U.S. Marine Corps Col. Wade Hall, who directs the program that would test the device. Why the Pentagon has turned on the makers of ‘Baghdad ER’ The Independent reports (May 18th): news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article485921.ece When Emmy-winning filmmakers approached the US high command to make a documentary about a war zone emergency room, the generals applauded. Now they fear it will undermine public support for the war. If the military is now distancing itself from a venture it once enthusiastically embraced, one reason is concern of the impact it might have on soldiers who served in Iraq, and on the families whose members are still there, or about to go. This week, ‘Baghdad ER’ will be shown separately at 22 military bases. In Baghdad ER you are spared nothing. Almost at the start, you see a medical orderly carrying a human arm, amputated above the elbow, which he puts into a red plastic bag. Mental health crisis hits UK troops The Observer reports (May 14th): observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1774418,00.htmlThousands of British troops have experienced serious mental health problems following service in Iraq, according to the most authoritative study ever undertaken into the psychological impact of war on UK soldiers. A major government study reveals how depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder among service personnel in Iraq has increased dramatically since the war was declared over three years ago. Carried out by a specialist unit at King’s College London, the Ministry of Defence-funded research indicates that Iraq has exerted an unforeseen level of psychological illness among British armed forces. U.S. Redeploying Troops With Mental Health Issues LA Times reports (May 14th): www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-soldier14may14,1,770697.story?coll=la-iraq-complete Army Spec. Jeffrey Henthorn, 25, of Choctaw, Okla., was sent back to Iraq for a second tour even though his superiors knew he had twice threatened suicide. He shot himself with his rifle in 2005, an Army report says, fragments of his skull piercing the barracks ceiling. These deaths are among the most extreme failures by the U.S. military to properly screen, treat and evacuate mentally unfit troops, a Hartford Courant investigation has found. Faced with troop shortages, the military has increasingly sent, kept and recycled troubled service members into combat — practices that undercut past assurances that it would improve mental healthcare. Basra police chief suspended Al-Jazeera reports (May 13th): english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/749420DA-746E-43EE-B60D-00E02621DFC7.htm The governor of the southern Iraqi province of Basra has suspended the city’s police chief after accusing him of links to groups involved in terrorism. Mohammed Musabah al-Waili on Saturday said he was suspending Major General Hassan Sawadi and was also demanding the resignation of General Abdul Latif Thaban, the commander of the Iraqi army’s Basra-based 10th Brigade. Waili said the two security chiefs were suspected of links to “sabotage groups, from outside the city and abroad, that are carrying out sabotage and terrorist attacks”. US in secret gun deal The Guardian reports (May 12th): www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1773107,00.html The Pentagon has secretly shipped tens of thousands of small arms from Bosnia to Iraq in the past two years, using a web of private companies, at least one of which is a noted arms smuggler blacklisted by Washington and the UN. According to a report by Amnesty International, which investigated the sales, the US government arranged for the delivery of at least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns from Bosnia to Iraq in 2004-05. But though the weaponry was said to be for arming the fledgling Iraqi military, there is no evidence of the guns reaching their recipient. Life Under Occupation Iraq media killings provoke shock The BBC reports (May 10th): news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4758601.stm Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders is calling on Iraq to set up a special investigation into the upsurge in murders of Iraqi reporters. So far this month five journalists and media assistants have been killed. Lack of funding is a major obstacle to humanitarian work, says NGO report IRIN report (May 9th): www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53239&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ The findings of a recent survey conducted by a group of non-governmental organisations, under the aegis of the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI), cite a lack of funding as a major obstacle for humanitarian projects in Iraq. NCCI Information Officer Cedric Turlan said that the country was in a state of emergency “because all rights are violated, people are under unacceptable pressure, violence is becoming normal, there is lack of food, water and electricity, and there are more than 1.5 million internally displaced people countrywide.” Displaced from 2003 still homeless, say analysts IRIN reports (May 8th): www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53194&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ Local aid agencies warn that families displaced immediately following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 still remain homeless. Wasit residents protest fuel shortages, allege official corruption IRIN reports (May 8th): www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53199&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ Residents of Wasit province, some 160km south of Baghdad, have accused local officials of corruption and collaboration with black-market fuel dealers. “Local officials are ordering fuel stations to close as early as 3:00 p.m. on the pretence that the security situation is bad,” said Jassim Mohamed, 47, a taxi driver. “But in reality, they’re encouraging these stations to sell fuel on the black market. Officials are making money by creating the crisis.” On 4 May, about 150 angry protestors took to the streets in Wasit city, the provincial capital, blocking roads and burning tyres close to a nearby a fuel station. Along with claims of corruption over fuel distribution, protestors also blamed local officials for neglecting to set up generators and provide the province with adequate electricity. UN report cites vast under-nutrition among children IRIN reports (May 8th): www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53203&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ One in three Iraqi children is malnourished and underweight, according to a report released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Amman on 2 May. According to the report, a full 25 percent of Iraqi children between six months and five years old suffer from either acute or chronic malnutrition. A 2004 Living Conditions Survey indicated a decrease in mortality rates among children under five years old since 1999. However, the results of a September 2005 Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis – commissioned by Iraq’s Central Organisation for Statistics and Information Technology, the World Food Programme and UNICEF – showed worsening conditions since the April 2003 US-led invasion of the country. The problem is particularly dire in the south. Uniformed Death Squads: Terrorizing Iraq into Disintegration Sabah Ali writes (May 10): www.brusselstribunal.org/ArticlesIraq2.htm#uniformed According to many sources, at least 1500 Iraqis are killed monthly in the last 4 months. Many of the kidnapped or the arrested never return or found. A shopkeeper in Baghdad asked to be executed in his shop when some masked (police) men wanted to arrest him. He refused to go with them, to be exposed to the brutal torture and insisted on being killed on the spot. The policemen did not say no. They shot him dead and left calmly. According to Al-Mashriq Daily, the director of Baghdad morgue told Reuters that 4442 bodies were brought to the morgue in the first 4 months of 2006 in Baghdad alone. Baghdad mortuary overwhelmed by rising numbers of dead IRIN reports (May 17th): www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53396&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ Sajida Youssef, a housekeeper, waited more than 24 hours for the body of her son to be released from Baghdad’s central morgue. Lack of space, a shortage of doctors and an increase in the number of victims of daily violence countrywide has put pressure on Baghdad’s only mortuary, which used to release bodies in five hours or less. “An average of 70 civilians are killed in Baghdad every day. One morgue employee, preferring anonymity for security reasons, noted that families often go straight to the morgue whenever a family member goes missing. Iraqi cartoonists facing death threats AP report (May 13th): independent-bangladesh.com/news/may/14/14052006ap.htm#A9 Freedom to criticize the government is one of the few things flourishing in contemporary Iraq. But editorial cartoonists who are testing the limits of expression face a different threat: extremists incensed by their art. These days there are two kinds of people: those who accept your drawings and criticism, and those who take the drawings as insults … and threaten to kill you,” said Diaa al-Hajar, a cartoonist for the government newspaper Al-Sabah. The threats – which come by e-mail, phone and even cell phone text messages – have forced many cartoonists to flee the country. Families still await reparations for wartime property losses IRIN reports (May 16th): www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53361&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ Local NGOs say that at least 80,000 families throughout the country are still awaiting reimbursement. Corporate Takeover How the Bush Administration Deconstructed Iraq TomDispatch reports (May 18th): www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=84463 On April 25, James Glanz of the New York Times told the story of an American effort to repair an inoperative oil pipeline in Al Fatah, a village about 130 miles north of Baghdad. The pipeline had been damaged early in the war by an American air attack on a bridge across the Tigris River over which it travelled. Original estimates indicated that “it would cost some $5 million and take less than five months to string the pipelines across the bridge once it was repaired.” Initially, $75.7 million was allocated for the repair job. After the project had burned up all of the $75.7 million allocated to it, the work came to a halt. The Army Corps of Engineers issued a scathing report detailing what he called “culpable negligence” on the part of KBR. In implementing its ambitious plan, KBR officials seem to have ignored at least three technical reports warning “that the effort would fail if carried out as designed.” So why did KBR proceed with a doomed plan? The answer can be found in the combined impact of two elements of U.S. reconstruction policy: lack of competitive bidding and lack of self-regulation by contractors. Top British commander identifies the “biggest” achievement of the occupation: transforming Iraq’s economy to a market system General Rob Fry, deputy commander of all multinational forces in Iraq, BBC Today Programme, 2nd May 2006: “We are involved in something that is taking this country from dictatorship into plural democracy; that is taking the security forces from an instrument of repression into something which binds the nation together. And perhaps the biggest of all is taking it from a moribund state socialist economy into something that will end up using the devices of the market, and if security has to be provided here for an extended period of time then that’s what needs to happen.” Anti-war News Only 30% of Americans Trust Bush on Iraq Angus-Reid reports (May 14th): www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/11874 Few Americans believe their president can successfully end the war in Iraq, according to a poll by CBS News and the New York Times. 30 per cent of respondents have a lot or some confidence in George W. Bush to deal with the issue. Only 29 per cent of respondents approve of the way Bush is handling the situation in Iraq, down nine points in a year. Prodi signals early end to Italian role in Iraq ‘occupation’ The Guardian reports (May 19th): www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1778685,00.html Britain and the US were last night facing almost total isolation in Iraq after Italy’s new prime minister, Romano Prodi, made it clear that he intended to pull out the third-biggest contingent in the military coalition at the earliest possible opportunity. He declared that the invasion of Iraq had been a “grave mistake” and branded the allied military presence an “occupation”. With some 2,600 troops on the ground, based at Nassiriya in the south, Italy’s contingent in Iraq is the biggest after those of the US and Britain. Upcoming events 3rd June, Labour Against the War AGM,With Tony Benn, Alan Simpson MP, Walter Wolfgang, Christine Shawcroft, Kate Hudson, Jeremy Corbyn MP. 9 JUNE, HARROGATE: PROTESTS AGAINST VISIT OF GEORGE BUSH SNR. See www.bushwatch.co.uk www.bushwatch.co.uk . 9 JUNE, BRISTOL: SCREENING OF “A LETTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: JO WILDING’S DIARY FROM IRAQ.” 10 JUNE, LONDON: FIFTH ANNUAL STWC CONFERENCE. Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London WC1. mailto:office@stopwar.org.uk 16 JUNE, LONDON: PUBLIC MEETING WITH ANTHONY ARNOVE (”Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal”), TARIQ ALI (”Bush in Babylon”) and GLEN RANGWALA (”Iraq in Fragments”). 17 JUNE, CANTERBURY: STOP THE WAR COALITION FESTIVAL AND PARTY FOR PEACE. | |
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