“ I did not look away “
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…Every single Iraqi I meet tells me that the sanctions years appear like the “golden years” compared to what is now. The golden years. Can you imagine !? The sanctions years were horrible years, but today’s reality in Iraq is even more horrific. The above article attests to it. And this is nothing. The reality is far uglier than what is stated in the IRIN report. Talking about the “golden years” of the sanctions, I remember how I lost an uncle because the hospital had no ink for the ECG and no X rays. Forbidden by the sanctions committee. He passed away from a lung and heart condition at age 54. And how I lost another uncle due to cancer and there was no available medication and no morphine. Forbidden by the sanctions committee. I also remember seeing little children with leukemia and other diseases queuing for days in the hope of getting treatment. Many of them died while waiting. I will never forget their faces nor their eyes. The despair, the fear and the eternal question marked all over them with WHY ? WHAT HAVE WE DONE ? I will never forget the doctors, trying to be brave about it all and privately breaking down in tears… How can I forget the “ golden years “? But today, hospital patients are dragged out of their beds and shot. Or they are left to die for lack of medication and treatment. If they are lucky to make it to a functional hospital that is and if they are lucky to find a doctor, the majority of which have fled the country. Do remember the brain drain of the Iraqi in! telligen tsia. Who is to blame this time around ? Saddam Hussein and his WMD’s ? I can understand why the sanctions years are considered the “golden years” in comparison to today’s Iraq…

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Why is Antiwar.com hiding the Iraq Genocide?
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Dream
Dear Margaret Griffis, I read on Antiwar.com that you edit the website’s page Casualties in Iraq – The Human Cost of Occupation. While that page includes a big Iraq Body Count’s banner and other IBC references, I could not find any mention of: * the studies conducted by the world leaders in the field of epidemiology and published as peer-reviewed scientific papers in the world’s leading medical journal, the Lancet; * the recently published ORB poll suggesting a total of 1,220,580 deaths as a result of the conflict in Iraq since 2003 (ie as a result of violence rather than a natural death such as old age). The British media watchdog Media Lens recently wrote: IBC only collects records of violent civilian deaths reported by two different (mainly Western) media sources operating in Iraq. Epidemiologists report that this type of study typically captures around 5 per cent of deaths during high levels of violence, such as exists in Iraq. By contrast, the Lancet studies provide figures for all deaths – violent and non-violent, civilian and military, reported and unreported. [The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Violent Deaths In Iraq, SEPTEMBER 18, 2007 ] In its latest Alert, Media Lens wrote: The mainstream media are continuing to use figures provided by the website Iraq Body Count (IBC) to sell the public a number for total post-invasion deaths of Iraqis that is perhaps 5-10% of the true death toll…

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A reminder…just in case you forgot.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
Just heard an interesting program. Bush is ready and willing to face Iran tête à tête and NEGOTIATE on the nuclear issue. The “anti- imperialistic “ Iran on the other hand, urges the international community to support Karzai, the Afghani puppet. Just as it has urged the international community to support the other puppet Maliki. Re-read that sentence will you. Or are you deaf and blind at the same time ? So “dear” anti-war movement and other pre-emptive wailers, when will the strike take place ? Tomorrow, next month, or next year? Maybe next century ? Is this why Scott Ritter said let us put Iraq on the back burner. Of course, why should you give a fuck about Iraq. You did not during Desert Storm also known as Gulf War I- when 700 tons of bombs fell on our heads. You certainly did not give a fuck when 13 years of sanctions killed 1.5 million Iraqis – half of them children under your DEMOCRATIC government auspices. And you certainly do not give a fuck about the current genocide. All you had to say and you keep repeating till this very day, was that Saddam Hussein was a dictator and that he oppressed the shias and the kurds. Lies you have FABRICATED. Now we have a divided, partitioned “country”. If you can still call it a country that is. (your zionist Chomsky must be very proud). And all you do is defend Iran against an improbable attack USING Iraqi suffering, pain and destruction. And Iraq ? To hell with Iraq…

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IRAQ: Shortage of cancer treatments puts thousands at risk
IRIN News
Hospitals specialising in cancer treatment have urged the Iraq authorities to replenish supplies because they say a shortage of essential medicines is putting the lives of thousands of patients at risk. “Patients are dying from cancer because of a lack of medicines in public hospitals. Private pharmacies are selling the products but at very high prices, which cannot be afforded by poor families,” said Ibraheem Muhammad, a senior official at the Cancer Research Centre at the Ministry of Health. “Indispensable drugs like methotrexate, largely used in breast [cancer], bone [cancer] and in certain cases of leukaemia; cyclophosphamide used in lung and breast cancer and lymphomas, as well as vindesine, used in all those cases, are seriously short in all hospitals in Iraq,” Muhammad added. “To make the situation worse for patients, some machines used for radiotherapy are broken, waiting for repairs.”…

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Doctors: Only severely wounded Palestinians allowed into Israel
Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel is allowing entry to only the most severly wounded Palestinians, and not to those at risk of losing limbs or suffering other debilitating handicaps, according to Physicians for Human Rights. Hundreds of people were injured during the June clashes in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Fatah. However, only those whose lives were in danger were allowed into Israel for treatment. Others, whose injuries endangered “only” their quality of life, remained in the Gaza Strip for treatment, PHR wrote to the defense minister and the health minister. Out of 44 requests to transfer injured individuals for treatment in Israel, 16 were refused by authorities in Israel, PHR said. In some cases, this meant physicians in Gaza had to amputate limbs because treatment was delayed too long…

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U.S. army says Diala operation killed 25 gunmen, eyewitnesses claim civilians
Voices of Iraq
The U.S. army said 25 gunmen were killed on Friday morning when U.S. troops targeted a “Special Groups commander” in Diala, central Iraq, while a security source and eyewitnesses said the operation left 65 casualties among the local residents. “Coalition forces were targeting a Special Groups commander believed to be associated with members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard – Quds Force (…) Earlier, a police source said that 25 civilians were killed and 40 more were injured when U.S. aircraft shelled a village, north of Baaquba, on early Friday, a police source said. “U.S. aircrafts pounded at dawn Jezani al-Imam village in Hibhib district, north of Baaquba, killing 25 civilians and injuring 40 others, including women and children,” the source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) on condition of anonymity…

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Plain and Simple: Nothing But Ouster Will Stop Bush-Cheney Torture Regime
Chris Floyd , Empire Burlesque
…Look, it’s very simple, and we’ve been saying it for years: Bush and his minions are liars. They are proven liars, confirmed liars; they lie for pleasure and they lie for profit, they lie as a matter of course, as a matter of policy. So when they say they are not torturing people, when they say they are following U.S. law and international law and the restrictions of the courts and Congress, they are lying. They lied about it in 2004, they lied about it in 2005, and they are lying about it now. They lie about it because they want to torture people. That’s the first thing you must understand: They want to do it. They enjoy the thought of it. They want to hear the details, they want to hear about the pain, about the broken spirits and the ruined minds. They literally, physically – perhaps even sexually – enjoy the idea of people getting beaten, tormented and waterboarded at their command…

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Bush excludes waging a military strike against Iran – interview
Earthtimes.org,
US President George W Bush said in an interview to be broadcast Friday on the pan-Arab al-Arabia news channel that he excluded the possibility of waging a military strike against Iran. Bush pointed out during the interview, parts of which were broadcast in al-Arabia news bulletins, that he would seek diplomatic means and work cooperatively with the European Union and Russia to send a message to Tehran. Bush also talked about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict saying the two sides should be committed to the road map…

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18,000 REASONS TO BE AN ANTI-SEMITE
Desert Peace
At least that is what the Kosher Nostra will label you if you dare speak out against any one of the following illegal home demolitions of Palestinian homes by the Israeli government. The following is taken from the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions…

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IOA demolishes historical fence in Jerusalem built 491 years ago
Palestinian Information Center
Sheikh Mohamed Hussein, the Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, strongly denounced the IOA for demolishing an Islamic archeological fence adjacent to the fountain of Sultan Suleiman al-Qanoni, outside Al-Khalil gate in occupied Jerusalem, which was constructed 491 years ago. Sheikh Hussein confirmed that this assault on such antiquity comes within the framework of a scheme prepared by the IOA to judaize places of worship and Islamic antiquities, pointing out that the IOA put some Jewish stones in the area in an attempt to conceal Islamic monuments and antiquities as a prelude to erase the history of the holy city and its Islamic character. The Mufti also revealed that the IOA is carrying out demolition works against the antiquities of the Umayyad state and excavations in the road to the Magharba gate and other assaults on Islamic antiquities, calling on the ISESCO and UNESCO organizations to assume their responsibilities towards the protection of Islamic and historical antiquities in occupied Jerusalem…

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Report details secret Bush administration memos authorizing torture
Joe Kay, WSWS
Since 2005, the Bush administration has produced at least three secret orders and memoranda justifying extreme interrogation methods banned under international law as forms of torture, according to a newspaper report published on Thursday. The existence of the memos was revealed in a New York Times article (”Secret US Endorsement of Severe Interrogations,” by Scott Shane, David Johnston, and James Risen) published on Thursday. None of these opinions or memos have been released to the public…

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Iraqi judge tells of government corruption
RENEE SCHOOF, McClatchy Newspapers
Iraq’s top corruption fighter told a congressional panel Thursday that rising corruption cost Iraq $18 billion over the past three years. Enormous sums of oil revenues ended up in the hands of Sunni and Shiite militias, he said. Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, who is seeking U.S. asylum because of death threats against him, said that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government prevented al-Radhi’s U.S.-backed Commission on Public Integrity from taking action against top national officials. “I want people to know that real corruption — from the highest to the lowest levels of government — is destroying my country,” said al-Rahdi, an Iraqi judge…

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“Capitalism and Freedom” Unmasked
Stephen Lendman
An era ended November 16, 2006 when economist Milton Friedman died. A torrent of eulogies followed. The Wall Street Journal mourned his loss with the same tribute he credulously used when Ronald Reagan died saying “few people in human history have contributed more to the achievement of human freedom.” Economist and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers called him a hero and “The Great Liberator” in a New York Times op-ed; the UK Financial Times called him “the last of the great economists;” Terence Corcoran, editor of Canada’s National Post, mourned the “free markets” loss of “their last lion;” and Business Week magazine noted the “Death of a Giant” and praised his doctrine that “the best thing government can do is supply the economy with the money it needs and stand aside.”…

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Tariq Aziz in deteriorating condition after hunger strike
dpa news
The state of health of former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz – a high-profile figure in the former regime – was deteriorating after he went on a hunger strike, an Arab TV channel reported on Thursday. Aziz, who was captured by US forces in April 2003, went on strike last month to protest at his transfer to the custody of Iraqi authorities, the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV reported. His lawyers requested an independent medical examination, the TV station said…

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Iran urges international support for Afghanistan’s Karzai
DPA
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Motaki called on the international community Wednesday to continue to support Afghan President Hamid Karzai who, he said, has no alternatives but face insecurity, extremism and drugs trafficking. Of the three problems, Motaki said extremism in Afghanistan cannot be taken seriously even though it may have some impact on the war-torn country, where some 50,000 military personnel from NATO and US military forces have been deployed to try to maintain security…

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Rayhan Nasir, Iraq: “We never saw my father again”
IRIN News
Rayhan Nasir, 24, is losing hope after two years spent searching for his father, who disappeared on his way home from work. Nasir Muhammad, then a 53-year-old pharmacy owner, telephoned the family to say he was leaving his shop, would buy some bread and cheese, and join them for dinner. That was the last time the family had any information about the father of four. “The last time we saw my father was on 23 August 2005. We never saw him again. Since that date we have been searching for him but cannot get any information. Police officers tell us that probably he has been killed and that because of the situation in Iraq it is useless to open an investigation into his disappearance…

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Thursday, 4 October 2007.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
…In a dispatch posted at 1:30pm Baghdad time Thursday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that at that moment a violent battle was raging between the puppet “Road Protection Battalion” and local residents of the ad-Dubbat neighborhood in the al-’Amil area of Baghdad. The AMSI reported that the fighting began on Thursday morning when the puppet forces began shooting randomly at rooftops of houses in the area – where local residents routinely sleep. The residents responded with their household weapons and as of the time of reporting, the battle was still underway. No complete reports on the nature or extent of casualties were available. AMSI noted that the neighborhood had frequently been the target of Shi ‘ sectarian militia attacks and assaults by the puppet “Iraqi Interior Ministry Shock Troops (Maghawir)” who also are in the habit of randomly opening fire on local residents in full view of other puppet regime troops who do nothing to stop such sectarian attacks…

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Good to talk: lets debate Britannia
Hussein Al-alak, The Iraq Solidarity Campaign
The sorry state of affairs created under Labour, has demonstrated itself once more, in an attack on public sector workers in the Fire Brigade, where a group of four officers have been put through a “disciplinary”, with two of them being fined £1,000 each, for having shone a light on a group of men having sex in a public park in Bristol. Although the act of group sex in a public place is against British law, the men participating in the act have apparently received no punishment from the “police force” but the four firemen, who have a total of 26 years of active service, were according to one paper “suspended for three months”, whilst Fire Chiefs conducted an investigation into allegations of “homophobia”…

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Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations
SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN, NYTimes
When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations. But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency. The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures…

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Iraq Struggles With Cholera Outbreak
KATARINA KRATOVAC, The Associated Press
… WHO has confirmed at least 3,315 cholera cases and registered more than 30,000 cases of acute watery diarrhea _ which could also prove to be cholera in its more common, milder form. The group has also warned that _ as the weather cools and temperatures become more favorable for transmission _ the bacteria could spread further (…) Cholera, usually spread by drinking contaminated water, typically causes severe diarrhea that in extreme cases can lead to fatal dehydration and kidney failure. There are normally about 30 cases registered each year in Iraq. The last major outbreak was in 1999, when 20 cases were discovered in one day…

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GI Special 5J1: 25,000 IEDs So Far This Year [ October 1, 2007 ]
Thomas F. Barton
The 100 or so daily IED “events” — bombs that blow up, as well as those discovered before they detonate — have doubled since the 50 per day typical in January 2006. The 3,229 IEDs recorded in March of this year put the monthly total in Iraq above 3,000 for the first time, a threshold also exceeded in May and June.
“The numbers,” one Army colonel said, “are astonishing.”…

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