APRIL 9
Malcom Lagauche
Five years ago, many of us awoke to see Saddam Hussein’s statue being torn down in Baghdad. The media ate it up. This was as eventful as the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, George Bush stated. Iraq was free, most pundits wrote or spoke. The U.S. proved its naysayers to be wrong. Baghdad had fallen with a minimal loss of U.S. lives. A democratic Iraq was just over the horizon. What you saw wasn’t real. Saddam’s statue was not torn down by Iraqis. The event was staged and well-rehearsed by the U.S. military. The “crowd” comprised U.S. military personnel and tanks, and about 50 or so journalists who were alerted in the Palestinian Hotel, near the venue, to come a witness this historic event. This definitely was no popular action on behalf of the Iraqi people. It appears that the “experts” who assessed the implications of the statue coming down were all wrong. The U.S. military was not met with a flower-throwing public; more than 4,000 U.S. soldiers, almost 2,000 U.S. civilian “security” personnel; and hundreds of other foreign nationals have been killed since April 9, 2003…

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Hundreds Flee Fight in Shiite Stronghold
ROBERT H. REID
Hundreds of people fled fighting in Baghdad’s Shiite militia stronghold Monday as U.S. and Iraqi forces increased pressure on anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who faces an ultimatum to either disband his Mahdi Army or give up politics. Gunbattles raged around the sprawling Sadr City district that serves as the Baghdad nerve center of the Mahdi militia, which has been under siege since last week by about 1,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops. Police said at least 14 civilians were killed in clashes Monday in the Baghdad area, nine of them in Sadr City. Frightened families poured out of Sadr City — some carrying their belongings in sacks or piled in pushcarts…

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3 US Soldiers Killed in Baghdad
Associated Press
Three American soldiers were killed in separate attacks Monday in Baghdad, the U.S. military said. That pushed the two-day American death toll to at least 10 nationwide. Two soldiers were killed in a rocket propelled grenade attack and another was killed by small arms fire in east Baghdad, the military said. The U.S. military said earlier Monday that three other soldiers died in separate roadside bombings on Sunday, when a total of at least six U.S. soldiers died in Iraq…

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INTERVIEW-Iraq’s humanitarian crisis worsens—U.N. official
Suleiman al-Khalidi, Reuters
…One effect of the “deteriorating humanitarian situation” were the “worrying signs” of acute malnutrition among four to nine percent of children under the age of five, even though malnutrition was still not a general phenomenon, he said. “When you get these indicators … these are alarm bells that you need to take some notice of,” said Holmes, who is also the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator. Four million Iraqis do not have enough food, only 40 percent have reliable access to safe drinking water and about one third of the population is cut off from basic health care, he said…

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Sadr did not refer dissolving al-Mahdi army to top Shiite clerics
Voices of Iraq
The official spokesman for al-Sadr’s office on Monday denied that Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr had referred the dissolution of al-Mahdi army to Shiite clerics, describing reports in this regard as inaccurate. “Shiite Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr did not think of dissolving al-Mahdi army,” Sheikh Salah al-Ubeidi told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI), noting that “we have no right to interfere in freezing or dissolving al-Mahdi army because it is an exclusive right of Muqtada al-Sadr.” Al-Ubeidi had said that any effort to prevent Sadrists from political participation would be unconstitutional….

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US military reports 2 more American soldiers killed in Iraq
Associated Press
The U.S. military has reported two more American soldiers killed by separate roadside bombs in Iraq. The military says a Multi-National Division _ Baghdad soldier died in an explosion Sunday during a route-clearing patrol in an eastern section of the capital. A separate statement says another American soldier also has died of wounds suffered in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad…

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Waking up the old man
Swopa, Needlenose
Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr offered on Monday to disband his militia if the highest Shi’ite religious authority demand it, a shock announcement at a time when the group is the focus of an upsurge in fighting….Reuters is wrong where they say this is the first time Sadr has ostentatiously placed his militia’s fate in Sistani’s lap — Moqtada made similar promises during previous conflicts. In those cases, the grand ayatollah (reluctantly or not) ultimately had Sadr’s back, forcing compromise in the name of Shiite unity. Is Mookie expecting the same sort of bail-out now, or is he just trying to tie the Maliki/ISCI government more tightly around Sistani’s neck before open warfare breaks out?…

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Politics In Iraq
Kevin Drum
…I’d say that Sadr would be doing this only if he felt pretty confident that no order to disband will be forthcoming. That would be a tacit approval of keeping JAM armed and intact, which in turn would be a pretty effective answer to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s calls for Sadr to disband his militia and lay down his arms. Maliki said yesterday that political parties maintaining militias wouldn’t be allowed to take part in October’s elections — an announcement pretty clearly aimed solely at Sadr — but he’ll be unable to make that stick if Sistani doesn’t take his side. Sadr and JAM could easily come out of this stronger than before. Or maybe this is all a big nothing….

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Tehran sends positive signals for talks with U.S.
Payvand, Iran
Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad-Ali Hosseini, talked to reportes in Tehran on Monday, IRNA reported. Commenting on the proposal of the US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, to Iran for talks with Washington, Hosseini said, “If the Americans take basic steps and change their Iran policies, a new opportunity will be created to think about reconsidering Tehran-Washington relations.” Iran receives US official note to hold talks on Iraq…

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Palestinians in Iraq: Life on edge
Ali Alarabi, Mideast Youth
The recent gruesome murder of Palestinian female doctor, Layla Ali Taha and her young daughter in Baghdad, this past Friday (4/5/2008) at the hands of Shia death squads, who murdered them in cold blood hacking them with kitchen knives then burning their bodies into charred remains shows not only the grave danger Palestinian face in Iraq, but it also shows a trend of a slow but simmering religious persecution and extermination of Palestinian Arabs at the hands of Iraqi Shias supported by Iran. According to sources in Iraq, over 260 Palestinian were murdered in Iraq at the hands of Shia government soldiers and religious militias many of those victims were women. Among those killed was Shiekh Tawfiq Abdel Khaliq one of the most respected and honorable local Palestinian Imams, who happened to be traveling to an area of Baghdad and was stopped by a checkpoint manned by government shia soldiers and upon learning that he was a Palestinian, he was killed in cold blood…

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Tehran sends positive signals for talks with U.S.
Payvand, Iran
Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad-Ali Hosseini, talked to reportes in Tehran on Monday, IRNA reported. Commenting on the proposal of the US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, to Iran for talks with Washington, Hosseini said, “If the Americans take basic steps and change their Iran policies, a new opportunity will be created to think about reconsidering Tehran-Washington relations.” Iran receives US official note to hold talks on Iraq…

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Doctors still unable to work normally in Baghdad suburb
IRIN News
Despite the Iraqi premier’s order to relax security measures in two Baghdad suburbs which have seen fierce clashes since 25 March, doctors and medical staff in one of these suburbs are still unable to operate normally, according to the head of a local hospital. Abbas Owaid, director-general of Fatima al-Zahra hospital, one of four hospitals in Baghdad’s mainly Shia Sadr City, said continuing clashes made it very hard for medical personnel to move around, and hospitals were still in dire need of medical supplies..

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Israel Attempting to Close Hebron-Area Schools, Orphanages Serving 7,000 Palestinian Children
Ahmad Jaradat, Alternative Information Center (AIC)
Fourteen Hebron-area schools and orphanages, which serve approximately 7000 Palestinian children and orphans, today face the threat of closure by the Israeli army, Eight of these schools and orphanages belong to the Islamic Charitable Society, while the remaining six belong to the Muslim Youth Society. On 25 February 2008, the Israeli military commander of the West Bank, General Gadi Shamni, issued a military order confiscating all properties located in Hebron that belong to these Islamic societies, including schools, stores, centres and residential houses…

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Iraq’s Sadr to Disband Militia if Ordered by Clerics
Reuters
Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr will disband his Mehdi Army militia if top Shi’ite clerics including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani order him to do so, a senior Sadr aide told Reuters on Monday. Aide Hassan Zargani told Reuters that Sadr had told his representatives in both the holy Iraqi city of Najaf and also the Iranian city of Qom to ask top Shi’ite religious leaders for advice on whether to dissolve the militia. “If they order the Mehdi Army to disband, Moqtada al-Sadr and the Sadr movement will obey the orders of the religious leaders,” said Zargani, who was speaking from Iran….

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IRAQ: Shia Battles Spread to Baquba
Ahmed Ali and Dahr Jamail*
Battles between rival Shia groups have spread from Basra in the south to Baquba in the north. Clashes between the Mehdi Army of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and the Badr Organisation militia of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) have been reported in the predominantly Shia district of Hwaider in Baquba, the capital city of Diyala province located 40 km northeast of Baghdad. The fighting for control of Baquba has left at least seven dead and several more wounded, according to local doctors….

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Barghouthi: Settlement expansion surged about twenty-fold since Annapolis
Palestinian Information Center
Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, a lawmaker and the secretary-general of the Palestinian national initiative, said on Sunday that the pace of settlement expansion has surged almost twenty-fold since the Annapolis conference, adding that the total settlement units under construction are 11,332. Dr. Barghouthi underlined that the Israeli occupation is preparing for a Palestinian state with temporary borders including Israeli settlements, and is intending to separate occupied Jerusalem from the West Bank, annex and Judaize Al-Aghwar region, thus guaranteeing its control over 46 percent of the West Bank….

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Sadr’s Mahdi Army refuses to disarm
Abdulhussein al-Gharafi, Azzaman
A senior official of the movement led by the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has said that the group’s military wing, the Mahdi Army, will not lay down arms as demanded by the government. “The Sadr movement expresses reservations at the decision of this council on disarming the Mahdi Army. This council’s decisions are not binding,” said Liwa Sumaisem, head the group’s political commission…

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Iran receives U.S. request for new talks on Iraq security
Voices of Iraq
Iran received an official request from the United States to hold a fourth round of talks to improve Iraq security, the official IRNA news agency Monday reported. “We are studying the U.S. officials repeated request which was sent to us as an official note to hold new round of talks on Iraq,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini was quoted as saying at the weekly press conference….

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Iran to OPEC: Stop Oil Sales in Dollars
Associated Press
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is urging OPEC members to form a joint bank and stop pricing oil trades in U.S. dollars. According to the Iranian government’s Web site, Ahmadinejad told OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri the cartel “should establish a joint bank as well as having joint currency.” Oil is priced in U.S. dollars on the world market, and the currency’s depreciation has concerned producers because it has contributed to rising crude prices and eroded the value of their dollar reserves…

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PM says Sadrists have to disband militia to enter political process, elections
Voices of Iraq
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said a decision was taken on Sunday that the Sadrists, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, no longer have a right to participate in the political process or take part in the upcoming elections unless they end the Mahdi Army. Replying to Maliki’s statements, Sheikh Salah al-Ubaydi, a spokesman for the Sadrist bloc, said, “Any attempts to deny the Sadrists participation in the political process would not be constitutional. A decision to disband the Mahdi Army is none of the government’s business. It is up to the organization that set it up.”…

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* * * NOT SATIRE * * *
Israeli press: “Gazans Torture, Slaughter Sea Turtle”
Infolive.tv, Israel
Picture: The body of Palestinian boy Abdullah Bhar at the morgue in the Bureij refugee camp. He was shot dead by Israeli tank fire in the central Gaza Strip today
Meanwhile, the Israeli press is reporting that the evil Gazans “slaughtered” a turtle: Palestinians tortured and killed a giant leatherback sea turtle that had come ashore the beach in Gaza. After tying the turtle up, they attached it to a car and dragged it through the area. A local knife man then used a makeshift blade to slit the turtle’s throat. You could hear the turtle croak as the shock of being killed set in….

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