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The Presiding Judge of the First Trial Panel
Defense and Support Committee of President Saddam Hussein, his Comrades and all P.o.W.s and Detainees in Iraq (ISNAD)
It has been reported that the Court will issue its judgment in the above-mentioned case on November 5, 2006. We want to state the following: 1- The due procedures of this case have not completed in order for a sentence to be announced according to article no. (156) of the (Iraqi) Civil Procedural Law. The Court has not yet received the final defense submissions, which have already been handed to it. Although one of our (protected) colleagues was delegated by the Defense Committee and by his other colleagues to submit our submissions to the Court, in compliance with the decision of the same court in its session no. (39) Of July 27, 2006, which provides that the Court will “admit the deposition of the defense lawyer’s and their client’s submissions during the adjournment period of time, which ends on the 16th of October 2006…
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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2006
Today in Iraq
A Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldier died at approximately 10:30 a.m. today in a non-combat related incident north of Baghdad. Three Marines assigned to Regimental Combat Team 7 died Nov.2 from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province. One Marine assigned to Regimental Combat Team 5 died from injuries sustained due to enemy action Thursday while operating in Al Anbar Province. Three Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers died at approximately 2:15 p.m. Thursday when the vehicle they were riding in was struck by an improvised-explosive device in eastern Baghdad. Fifty-six bullet-riddled bodies were found in Baghdad by Iraq police in the previous 24 hours, a Baghdad emergency police official said Friday morning…
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Friday, 3 November 2006.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
In a dispatch posted at 7:26pm Makkah time Friday night, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that Iraqi Resistance men had attacked the as-Sufiyah command post of the US occupation troops north of ar-Ramadi, about 110km west of Baghdad. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported eyewitnesses as saying that Resistance men armed with machine guns, pipe rockets, and mortars, assaulted the US Marine check point, killing six troops and then making off with their weapons. Two Resistance men died in the course of the operation and one man was wounded…
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GI Special 4K3: The Troops Stand Up – November 3, 2006
Thomas F. Barton
Recently it has come to light that a growing number of active-duty service members are expressing their opposition to the occupation of Iraq.
The main vehicle of this effort has been the appeal for redress, a web site that provides service members a confidential and legal means of communicating their concerns to members of congress.
Throughout the several interviews I have done with various media outlets, a few valid questions have been raised …
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American Prison Planet
The Bush Administration as Global Jailor
Tom Engelhardt & Nick Turse
Today, the United States presides over a burgeoning empire — not only the “empire of bases” first described by Chalmers Johnson, but a far-flung new network of maximum security penitentiaries, detention centers, jail cells, cages, and razor wire-topped pens. From supermax-type isolation prisons in 40 of the 50 states to shadowy ghost jails at remote sites across the globe, this new network of detention facilities is quite unlike the gulags, concentration-camps, or prison nations of the past. Even with a couple million prisoners under its control, the U.S. prison network lacks the infrastructure or manpower of the Soviet gulag or the orderly planning of the Nazi concentration-camp system…
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Maliki Fiddles As Iraq Burns
Joseph L. Galloway
Just when it seemed that the situation in Iraq couldn’t get any murkier, more muddled or more dangerous, it did. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, our “friend” or our client, if you will, has openly declared his independence from us and his dependence on his most important domestic supporter, the anti-American Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia. Maliki, it’s becoming clear, is as big a part of the problem in Iraq as al-Sadr and his gang of thugs and murderers. But President Bush is, well, staying the course with Maliki with all the obstinacy that he’s displayed throughout his sojourn in Iraq…
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Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 42/2006 (19 October – 01 November 2006)
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Escalate Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Threaten to Expand Military Operations in the Gaza Strip * 27 Palestinians, 11 of whom including 2 children and a woman are civilians, were killed by IOF. * 16 of the victims, including 6 members of one same family, were killed by IOF in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun. * 104 Palestinians, including 29 children and 4 women, were wounded by IOF. * IOF have continued to launch air strikes on houses and civilian facilities in the Gaza Strip; 4 houses were destroyed and a number of others were severely damaged. * IOF conducted 45 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and 8 others into the Gaza Strip. * IOF have initiated a wide scale offensive on Beit Hanoun town. * IOF arrested 93 Palestinian civilians, including 8 children, in the West Bank, and one in the Gaza Strip…
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Depleted Uranium Weapons – an investigation
Angus Stickler, BBC, via Iraq Solidarity News (Al-Thawra)
A BBC investigation can reveal that the US and UK military have continued to use depleted uranium weapons despite warnings from scientists that it poses a potential long-term cancer risk to civilians. A former senior scientist with the United Nations has told the BBC that studies showing that it was carcinogenic were suppressed from a seminal World Health Organisation report. The US has refused to fund major research and has been criticised for failing to cooperate with UN attempts to conduct a post conflict assessment in Iraq…
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Iraqi Government Negotiations with Sunni Guerrillas
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
It was announced in Amman yesterday that the Iraqi national reconciliation conference, which was scheduled to be held on 4 November 2006, has been postponed until after the middle of the same month. Falih al-Fayyad, a member of the Higher Committee for Iraqi Reconciliation, told Al-Ra’y that the postponement came to allow for more time for dialogue and consultation with the Iraqi political spectrum inside and outside Iraq. The postponement announcement came following talks the Reconciliation Committee delegation, which is supported by the Nuri al-Maliki government, held at the Iraqi Embassy in Amman with around 40 Iraqi political and tribal figures, all of whom are members of the Sunni opposition…
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The Truth about Iraq You Won’t Get from Bush/Cheney or Our Media
Adam Ash
…Today Iraqis are longing for the days of Saddam, when they had security. And when there was much less snuffing of the neighbors. The country is thoroughly butt-bonked, blood-assed and bum-buggered for the next 20 years. And we did it, not the Iraqis. We destroyed their institutions, and let them vote for a bunch of corrupt pols who play us for suckers and sit high and dry in the safety of the Green Zone and act like they’re running the country, a country they’re too afraid to travel in, unless surrounded by US Army tanks, jeeps and Humvees. What a mess. It’s insoluble. Bush says we’re training the Iraqis to stand up so we can stand down. Such BS. What we’re actually doing is training the Shiites in the army to kill the Sunnis, and giving them the arms to do it with. That’s what we’re doing. We’re knee-deep in a civil war, on the side of the Shiites…
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Hannity Says Iraq War has Been “A Massive Success”
Steve Young
Really. He did. In the last segment of the second hour of his radio show today. A caller said that he was upset over the poor performance of Rumsfeld and Cheney. Sean says he takes more calls from liberals than any other rightie. ‘Course, he rarely lets them finish more than one sentence before interrupting them with his patented litany of Demcoratic “wrongs.” Today he told that caller that the comment about Rumsfeld and Cheney was a put down of the troops. Really, he did. Then he called the Iraq invasion a “massive success.”…
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Baghdad is Surrounded: “The American Era in the Middle East has ended”
Mike Whitney
For American troops in Iraq, there is a worse scenario than chaos; that is defeat. Patrick Cockburn’s 11-1-06 article “Baghdad is under Siege” in the UK Independent provides the chilling details of an armed Iraqi resistance which has now cut off supply lines to the capital and threatens to make America’s ongoing occupation impossible. Cockburn says: “Sunni insurgents have cut the roads linking the city to the rest of Iraq. The country is being partitioned as militiamen fight bloody battles for control of towns and villages north and south of the capital…The country has taken another lurch towards disintegration. Well armed Sunni tribes now largely surround Baghdad and are fighting Shia militias to complete the encirclement. The Sunnis insurgents seem to be following a plan to control all approaches to Baghdad.” Baghdad is surrounded and the predicament for American troops is increasingly tenuous. The battle is being lost on all fronts. So, what is Secretary Rumsfeld’s response to these new and urgent developments? Rumsfeld held a press conference in which he blasted his critics for “focusing too much on the bad news coming out of Iraq” and announced the launching of a new public relations campaign which will attempt to elicit greater support for the ongoing occupation…
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INTERVIEW-Saddam says his sentencing timed to boost Bush
Suleiman al-Khalidi, Reuters
Saddam Hussein’s defence team urged a delay on Friday of his possible death sentence and said the ousted Iraqi leader believed Sunday’s expected verdict was timed to boost President George Bush before U.S. mid-term elections. Chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaimi said a letter was sent on Thursday asking the Iraqi High Tribunal trying the former president to delay delivering its verdict against him and his seven co-defendants charged with crimes against humanity. Dulaimi repeated warnings that a death sentence against Saddam — which would come before Tuesday’s U.S. Congressional elections at a time when Bush faces mounting criticism over the Iraq war — would plunge the region into wider bloodshed…
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Fighting empire
Ian Douglas
Ramsey Clark, 78, former attorney general of the United States under President Lyndon B Johnson, appears indeed a believer in truth and justice when we speak in the East Village apartment days after his latest return from Baghdad and ahead of key US mid-term congressional elections. Mr Clark is a lead defence lawyer in the trials of Saddam Hussein, the first of which is slated to reach a verdict 5 November…
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Iraqi police find 56 bodies in Baghdad
The Associated Press
Officials have found 56 bodies bearing signs of torture scattered around the Iraqi capital in the past 24 hours, all apparent victims of sectarian death squads, police said Friday. The bodies, all men between 20 and 45 years of age, were found between 6 a.m. Thursday and 6 a.m. Friday, said police Lt. Mohammed Khayon. All wore civilian clothes and had been bound at the wrists and ankles, Khayon said. He said the bodies showed signs of having been tortured, a common practice among religious extremists who seize victims from private homes or from cars and buses traveling the capital’s dangerous streets…
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Asshole of the day
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
Readers know I don’t resort to profanity often. But this just made me spit: “Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition.” – Major General William Caldwell, chief military spokesman in Baghdad I dare Major Caldwell to go knock on the doors of the families of the hundred Iraqis who were killed just today, and tell them to take consolation in being part of a “great work of art.” Of course he wouldn’t get that far; he’d be dead before he got to door number two…
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Should decent people subscribe to The Progressive?
Norman G. Finkelstein
Finkelstein comments: Several listeners to Wisconsin Public Radio informed me last week that The Progressive Political Editor, Ruth Conniff, referred to me as an “anti-Semite” and a “Holocaust denier” on air. I have now had an opportunity to listen to an audiotape of the program on which she appeared. These are Conniff’s exact words: “I was talking to a friend of mine who is going up for tenure at DePaul University at the same time as Norm Finkelstein, a colleague of hers who is a Holocaust denier, who is a Holocaust minimizer, sort of a, y’know, he’s a celebrity in a certain, a pretty ugly anti-semitic group in the country and he is going up for tenure and I think is on his way to becoming a tenured professor.” I requested from Progressive editor-in-chief Mathew Rothschild the evidence to support these allegations or a retraction and an apology. I also reminded him that I come up for tenure this year at a midwestern university and that these statements from a respected midwestern publication can cause me great harm…
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“Should decent people subscribe to The Progressive?” (2)
Gabriele Zamparini, The cat’s dream
Dear Mathew Rothschild, editor-in-chief, “Progressive”. I have just read on Norman Finkelstein’s Blog “Should decent people subscribe to The Progressive?” What you and “Progressive” Political Editor, Ruth Conniff have done has nothing to do with journalism, with free speech or with politics. As a human being I am ashamed to see so much dishonesty and unprincipled tactics just to harm personally the academic career of someone you disagree with. It’s not enough to call yourself “progressive” when your tactics smell of Stalinism. I have a couple of times advertised my documentary XXI CENTURY on your publication. I won’t make again this mistake in the future. I will also delete all the links to your publication on my website. I also hope that the many people writing on your publication will stand up to this new low. To answer Finkelstein’s question, “Should decent people subscribe to The Progressive?”, the answer is, No, they shouldn’t. Nor should they write for it.
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Should decent people subscribe to The Progressive? (3)
Xymphora
Norman Finkelstein asks “Should decent people subscribe to The Progressive? The Political Editor there, Ruth Conniff, referred to Finkelstein on Wisconsin Public Radio as “a Holocaust denier”, and left no doubt that she thought he is an anti-Semite. When Finkelstein challenged the Editor of The Progressive, Baron Mathew deRothschild on this, he received the smarmiest ‘fuck off you dirty anti-Semite’ reply possible (…) I’m looking at the current front page of The Progressive site. Do I see anything ‘progressive’? Well, sort of. There’s lots of stuff on human rights, discrimination, same-sex marriage, free speech. It is not that those issues aren’t progressive, but where are the articles on health care, welfare, minimum wage, income redistribution, etc., etc.? Amongst all the countries with which it likes to compare itself, the United States is the only one without any kind of functioning left-wing party (…) The answer to Finkelstein’s question? No.
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Iraq a ‘work of art in progress’ says US general after 49 die
Julian Borger, The Guardian
An American general in Baghdad called Iraq a “work of art” in progress yesterday in one of the most extraordinary attempts by the US military leadership to put a positive spin on the worsening violence. On a day in which 49 people were killed or found dead around the country, Major General William Caldwell, the chief military spokesman, argued that Iraq was in transition, a process that was “not always a pleasant thing to watch. “Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition. A lump of clay can become a sculpture. Blobs of paint become paintings which inspire,” Maj Gen Caldwell told journalists in Baghdad’s fortified green zone…
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Seven US troops killed in Iraq
SEVEN American troops were killed on Thursday in Iraq, the US military said overnight, updating an earlier toll. Three US marines died from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al-Anbar province in western Iraq, a statement said. Earlier statements had said three army soldiers were killed on Thursday in a Baghdad bomb attack and one more marine was killed in the west. The deaths bring to 2825 the number of US troops to have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures…
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Israeli troops open fire on women outside mosque
Guardian Unlimited
Two Palestinian women were killed and another 10 were reported wounded when Israeli forces today opened fire on a group preparing to act as a human shield for militants in a Gaza mosque. Dozens of women were gathering outside the mosque in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip this morning after an appeal on a local radio station. More than 30 gunmen had taken refuge in the building after the Israeli army began its largest Gaza offensive in months in an attempt to stop militants launching rocket attacks on nearby Jewish settlements over the border…
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A volte face for Iraq?
Salah Hemeid
…Indeed, well-informed Iraqi politicians told Al-Ahram Weekly that discussions of a coup have been underway for some time between American and Iraqi officers. One politician stated that several Iraqi leaders, who have been working closely with the Americans even before the 2003 war that toppled Saddam Hussein, are also involved in the discussions (…) According to a third Iraqi politician, the coup idea has not reached the planning stage and it is still under discussion. He claims, via telephone from Baghdad, that under the proposals, units from the new Iraqi army, with the assistance of US forces, will take control, suspend the constitution, dissolve parliament and form a new government. He further suggests that martial law and a state of emergency will also be declared as the military takes direct control of the Iraqi provinces and local administrations. He also said that certain Arab countries were informed of the plan and were requested to offer their help in convincing the leaders of the former Baath Party regime residing in their countries to support the move and stop the party-led insurgency in Iraq…
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The smell stinks. Close that site!
Imad Khadduri, Free Iraq
“The Web site, “Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal,” was a constantly expanding portrait of prewar Iraq. Its many thousands of documents included everything from a collection of religious and nationalistic poetry to instructions for the repair of parachutes to handwritten notes from Mr. Hussein’s intelligence service. It became a popular quarry for a legion of bloggers, translators and amateur historians … Yesterday, before the site was shut down, Jamal Ware, a spokesman for Mr. Hoekstra, said the government had “developed a sound process to review the documents to ensure sensitive or dangerous information is not posted.”…
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