IRAQ: Animals Too Struggle for Survival
Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*
Amidst the huge and growing death toll, it has been easy to forget that animals, in their own way, are finding it hard to survive in Iraq. “Like human beings, animals find it very hard to stay alive now,” Dr. Sammy Hashim, a veterinarian who lives and works west of Baghdad, between Fallujah and the capital city, told IPS. “Naturally, no one cares for the poor animals when nobody seems to care even for human beings under the occupation.” Dr. Hashim said animals cannot get basic needs. “Good drinking water, good feed, vet care and medicines are all unavailable in Iraq since the U.S. occupation of the country began in the spring of 2003. When we complain to the government, they laugh at us, saying humans are first priority.”…

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Did Iranian agents dupe Pentagon officials?
John Walcott | McClatchy Newspapers
Defense Department counterintelligence investigators suspected that Iranian exiles who provided dubious intelligence on Iraq and Iran to a small group of Pentagon officials might have “been used as agents of a foreign intelligence service … to reach into and influence the highest levels of the U.S. government,” a Senate Intelligence Committee report said Thursday. A top aide to then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, however, shut down the 2003 investigation into the Pentagon officials’ activities after only a month, and Defense Department officials never followed up on investigators’ recommendation for a more thorough investigation, the Senate report said. The revelation raises questions about whether Iran may have used a small cabal of officials in the Pentagon and in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to feed bogus intelligence on Iraq and Iran to senior policymakers in the Bush administration who were eager to oust the Iraqi dictator. Iran, which was a mortal enemy of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and fought a bloody eight-year war with Iraq during his reign, has been the primary beneficiary of U.S. policy in Iraq, where Iranian-backed groups now run much of the government and the security forces…

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Summer in Gaza
Najwa Sheikh
…In Gaza there are areas where people are suffering from the lack of water, where they can have water for two to three hours per day, and sometimes they have to stay awake all night so they can monitor the exact time of having water to be able to fill in the tanks and enjoy a shower in the morning. Some families used to put pockets in winter so it can be filled with the rain water to compensate the lack of water, and some if not the majority have to buy drinking, treated water to enjoy the taste of a clean cup of water. It is a fact that we are living on the 21st century, but comparing with the privileges we have in Gaza I have to say that we are years far away form the modern life of this century. When you find yourself unable to use and to have water all day, when you find yourself unable to enjoy a clean glass of water, and force yourself to drink it despite of its smell and color, When your son come back home from school very thirsty because there is no access to clean water in his school, and when you feel afraid form going to the beach due to the high percentage of pollution due to the sewage dumped in the sea, then you have to realize that you are in Gaza…

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A new contender for the chutzpah crown
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
Uneasy lies the head with the chutzpah crown; there’s always someone else eager to demonstrate they’ve got more. Today’s contender, Air Force Brig. Gen. Tom Hartmann, a top official in the impending war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo: “In the course of trial, they’ll have opportunity to present their case, any way they want to present it subject to rules and procedures. That’s a great freedom and a great protection we are providing to them. We think…it is the American way.” The “American way.” And who can argue? Kidnapped in a foreign country, spirited away to a series of secret prisons, tortured, held without charges or even human contact for nearly seven years, and now they’ll have the opportunity to “present their case.” Man, if that isn’t “freedom” and the “American way,” I just don’t know what is. Certainly it’s something to crow about, as Hartmann demonstrates…

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Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 23/2008 (29 May – 04 June 2008)
PCHR (Palestinian Centre for Human Rights)
Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law continued in the OPT, especially in the Gaza Strip, during the reporting period (29 May – 4 June 2008):Shooting: During the reporting period, IOF killed an elderly Palestinian woman, and another civilian died of a previous injury in the Gaza Strip. In addition, 11 Palestinians, including 8 civilians, were injured by IOF in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the Gaza Strip, on 29 May, IOF killed an elderly Palestinian woman during an incursion into Khuza’a village, east of Khan Yunis. On the same day, Palestinian medical sources declared that a Palestinian civilian died of injuries sustained by IOF on the previous day. On 30 May, 4 Palestinian civilians were injured when IOF used force against a demonstration organized by Palestinian civilians near Sofa crossing, northeast of Rafah, in protest at the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip…

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‘Genocide by design?’ Bush Administration Plans to ‘Stay’ in Iraq for the Oil
Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
Just as Bush’s attack and invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with WMD, the Iragi resistance has nothing to do with ‘terrorism’. The original code name —Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) —gave the game away and was changed. Never called ‘resistance’, the Orwellian linguists inside the Bush White House called the resistance ‘insurgents’. a term which implies an opposition to a ‘legitimate’ authority. But there is nothing legitimate about the US occupation, in fact, a theft of Iraq’s most valuable natural resource. The US presence is, in fact, a war crime. Those resisting the US occupation are, therefore, not terrorists nor are they ‘insurgents’ The Bush regime is responsible —legally and morally —for the deaths of some 1.2 million Iraqis and some 15,000 who die each month…

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Senate committee: Bush knew Iraq claims weren’t true
Jonathan S. Landay | McClatchy Newspapers
President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials promoted the invasion of Iraq with public statements that weren’t supported by intelligence or that concealed differences among intelligence agencies, the Senate Intelligence Committee said on Thursday in a report that was delayed by bitter partisan infighting. A second report found that a special office set up under then-secretary of defense Donald H. Rumsfeld conducted “sensitive intelligence activities” that were inappropriate “without the knowledge of the Intelligence Community or the State Department.” That report revealed that Pentagon counterintelligence officials suspected that Iran might have tried to use the group to influence administration policymakers…

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Iraq fishermen die crossing Iran’s imaginary line
LEILA FADEL, McClatchy Newspapers
…Hamid is the fourth fishermen killed this year by the Iranians, according to the local fishermen association. Since the U.S. invasion, at least 15 have been killed and tens more have been wounded along the Shatt al-Arab, territory that’s been disputed since the time of the Persian and the Ottoman empires and a flashpoint for war during Saddam Hussein’s reign. Since the dictator was deposed, the fishermen have been confronted by Iranians enforcing their claim on the Shatt al-Arab. Sometimes the bullets fly from the Iranian bank to the Iraqi bank. Other times, if the fishermen approach or cross the imaginary line in the water, the Iranians shoot or threaten to shoot…in five years nothing else has been done. No one in Baghdad acknowledged the problem publicly. The Iranian ambassador said he had heard nothing about the shootings and could not speak about the matter. But there is no dispute that fishermen are dying. Sabah Hassan, the deputy of the al-Faw fishermen’s union, said nothing is being done. The government ignores the plight of the fishermen being shot on the water.

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Israel Eyes F-35 Stealth Fighters
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
Israel is seeking to buy America’s multirole F-35 radar-evading stealth warplanes, the world’s most advanced striker fighter. “Obviously Israel wants to defend itself, and the United States has been supportive,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told a press briefing on Wednesday, June 5. “It’s possible that things could come up.” Israel has recently submitted a formal request for pricing information of the F-35A Joint Striker Fighter…

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Bottomless basket
Khaled Amayreh
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is contemplating a large-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip which observers say is intended to deflect attention away from the corruption scandal in which he is increasingly mired. Speaking before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention in Washington on Tuesday night Olmert hinted at a wide-ranging “military campaign” in Gaza…

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A short note on the American-Iraqi Deal.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…Basically Cockburn argues that Bush is trying to have this deal signed before he leaves office. Cockburn got a few facts wrong as well. It is not 50 military bases, it is 4'000 military posts around the country. Never mind, we will not quibble over a few thousands. That is not the point am trying to make here. You can read the article for yourself for all of its contents. A grotesque colonisation of the 21st century. Now the Al-Safir in yesterday’s article, in Arabic has another twist to the story. Their reporter, Ali Al-Haj Yussef in Tehran reveals that high ranking sources in Iran have the perception that this is what Bush is looking for and that the recent moves by the Sadrists and Sistani in Iraq who supposedly “oppose” this deal are part of Iran’s pressure on Bush to tell him that if he badly needs this agreeement with Iraq, he will have to sign with Iran a COMPREHENSIVE deal. A good sharp insight, I must add…

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The Watch List Through the Prism of Global War on Terrorism
Ahmad Al-Akhras, PhD., Palestine Think Tank
Like racial profiling, the so-called Watch List hinges on a false premise that people commit crimes because of their racial, ethnic or religious background. This false premise caused huge suffering to African America, Japanese Americans and now Arab and American Muslims. The worst part of this is the assumption th at practicing Islam, never mind being an activist at that, gives one an appetite for terrorism. In the process, people who are in good standing who did not commit nor had a criminal record are treated as “posing a threat to civil aviation or national security” or as “potential enemies of the state”…

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Five Years on, Saddam’s Successor Resurfaces. Addouri Outlines Anti-U.S. Strategy, Tactics of Resistance.
Nicola Nasser*, Axis of Logic
For the first time since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in April 2003, the deputy of Saddam Hussein, the late President of Iraq, Izzat Ibrahim Addouri has resurfaced, despite a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, in a lengthy interview with Abdel-Azim Manaf, the editor-in-chief of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Mawqif Al-Arabi, not a mainstream, on May 26 to lay out the strategy and tactics of the Iraqi resistance led by the former ruling party, Al-Baath. Addouri’s resurface and the resistance strategy he has laid out represent a direct challenge to the U.S. occupying power. Manaf told The Associated Press (AP) he interviewed addouri “on the battlefield.” The “dialogue” was conducted “with a commander in his lion’s den and among his soldiers,” in the “war zone” and on the “combat field while weapons were talking,” Manaf said in his introduction…

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Iraq Seeking to Cement Ties with Iran
Fars News
Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki will make an official visit to Iran on Saturday to strengthen relations between the two countries. The visit was confirmed by Maliki’s media adviser, Yassin Maguid, who did not reveal any details. This is al-Maliki’s second visit to Tehran after he travelled to Iran in August last year. From Tehran, the Iraqi prime minister will return to Baghdad and then go on to Jordan on an official visit to meet Jordanian King Abdullah and to strengthen relations with the government in Amman…

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Iran’s conditions to support Maliki
Roads to Iraq
Some information about the Maliki’s expected visit to Iran next week reported on Al-Khaleej. The newspaper revealed that Iran invited Maliki, to be his first stop in his regional tour. The newspaper says that Iran put two conditions to support him: 1) Not signing the long-term security presence agreement with the U.S. 2) To ease the pressure on the Shiites militias, to keep their strikes against anti-Iranian presence…

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Bush Vowed US Would “Kill” Anyone Who Interfered in Iraq, Book Claims
Jason Leopold
President Bush reacted to the deaths of four Blackwater contractors in Fallujah in 2004 by proclaiming in a hastily arranged video conference with officials that the United States would “kill” anyone who threatened to derail the “march to Democracy” in Iraq, according to a new book released last month by the former commander of US soldiers in Iraq. In the book Wiser in Battle: A Soldier’s Story, Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez writes that after the bodies of the four Blackwater contractors were dragged through the streets of Fallujah in 2004 and hung off a bridge Bush became unhinged…

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Iran, Turkey coordinate Iraq strikes
eSearchNet News
A Turkish TV station is quoting a senior military commander as saying that Turkey and Iran have carried out coordinated strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. CNN-Turk television reports that Gen. Ilker Basbug has confirmed for the first time that the two countries share intelligence against the rebels. He said the two countries plan to launch more coordinated operations against the rebel group in the future…

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A 4-year-old girl killed, her mother wounded in an Israeli air strike on Gaza
Rami Almeghari – IMEMC
The 4-year-old Aya Alnajjar, was killed on Thursday after noon, and her mother was wounded after an Israeli air strike hit the southern Gaza Strip village of Kheza’a. Palestinian medical sources confirmed that Aya arrived at the hospital with many wounds in her little body as her mother was wounded critically. The source said that a third residsdnt was also wound. Witnesses said that the victim child was walking along with her mother down the street in the Kheza’a town in southeastern Gaza Strip, when an Israeli missile mistaken a group of resistance fighters in the area…

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Israel uses term “unlawful combatant” to justify detention without charges
Palestinian Information Center
The ministry of detainees and ex-detainees in Gaza stated Wednesday that the Israeli intelligence apparatus started using the term “unlawful combatant”, which has no basis in international law, to justify the detention of Palestinian prisoners for an indefinite period without charge. Riyadh Al-Ashqar, the director of the ministry’s information office, underlined that the use of such a term incurs serious legal and human rights consequences where the IOA uses it to continue detaining Palestinian prisoners without pressing any charges or indictment against them or granting them a fair trial at the pretext that there are secret files which prove that they are “unlawful combatants”…

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High Time for BDS
60 Years of Nakba, 41 Years of Occupation …
OMAR BARGHOUTI
“The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to make them die of hunger,” said Dov Weisglass, Sharon’s closest advisor, a few years ago. Today, Israel is slowly choking occupied Gaza, indeed bringing its civilian population to the brink of starvation and a planned humanitarian catastrophe. If the US government is an obvious accomplice in financing, justifying and covering up Israel’s occupation and other forms of oppression, the European Union, Israel’s largest trade partner in the world, is not any less complicit in perpetuating Israel’s colonial oppression and special form of apartheid. At a time when Israel is cruelly besieging Gaza, collectively punishing 1.5 million Palestinian civilians, condemning them to devastation, and visiting imminent death upon hundreds of patients, prematurely born babies, and others, the EU is extending an invitation to Israel to open negotiations to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), instead of ending the EU-Israel association agreement due to Israel’s grave violation of its human rights clause…

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Hamas welcomes Abbas call for national dialogue
Palestinian Information Center
Dr. Mousa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of the Hamas political bureau said on Thursday that his Movement was amenable to the call of PA chief Mahmoud Abbas for national reconciliation, describing it as step in the right direction. “If we (Hamas and Fatah) agreed on the contents of the Sana’a declaration, then it will be good news for the Palestinian people”, confirmed Abu Marzouk in an interview with the PIC. On Wednesday, Abbas delivered a televised speech, in which he called for the start of talks between Hamas and Fatah….

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