ACLU Releases Navy Files On Civilian Casualties In Iraq War
ACLU
The American Civil Liberties Union today released thousands of pages of documents related to Navy investigations of civilians killed by Coalition Forces in Iraq, including the cousin of the Iraqi ambassador to the United States. Released today in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the ACLU filed in June 2006, these records provide a vivid snapshot of the circumstances surrounding civilian deaths in Iraq. “At every step of the way, the Bush administration and Defense Department have gone to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU National Security Project.

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Behavior Unbecoming of a Palestinian
Khalid Amayreh
Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, holds a number of key portfolios of immense significance and symbolism. He is the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), President of the Palestinian ‘national’ Authority (PA) and Chief of the Fatah organization. As such, he ought to strive to represent his tormented people in the best possible manner. He should also make every possible effort to eloquently and effectively communicate to the world at large the Palestinian people’s pains and grievances as well as their hopes for freedom and liberation from the manifestly criminal Israeli occupation.
Indeed, these are the most elementary tasks a leader, let alone a leader of a people languishing under a sinister foreign military occupation, is expected to perform… This week, while attending the 23rd congress of the Socialist International at the Lagonissi Grand Resort in Greece, Abbas was audacious enough to introduce Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to Israeli war minister Ehud Barak…

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Palestinians cannot even visit their homes
Linda S. Heard, Online Journal
Sometimes I try to imagine what it must be like to be a Palestinian without a secure home, without reliable travel documents and without the rights most of us take for granted. But as someone who has a passport that opens most doors and the freedom to come and go at will, it is difficult to put myself fully in the shoes of people who never know when the place they call home will be barred to them. Imagine waking up one day to be told you are no longer considered a citizen of your own country and have no automatic entitlement to see your parents or siblings ever again…

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US invaded Iraq “to secure Israel”, and “everybody knows it”
Paul J. Balles*
The pundits still don’t see or don’t want to see the truth about why the Bush administration attacked and invaded Iraq. The crucial factor in President Bush’s decision to attack Iraq was to help Israel. Based on prodding by zioncons Richerd Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Charles Krauthammer, Bush resolved to invade and subdue one of Israel’s chief regional enemies. In May 2004, Senator Ernest Hollings acknowledged that the US invaded Iraq “to secure Israel”, and “everybody knows it”. Hollings referred to the cowardly reluctance of his Congressional colleagues to acknowledge this truth openly, saying, “Nobody is willing to stand up and say what is going on.” Due to “the pressures we get politically,” he added, “members of Congress uncritically support Israel and its policies.”…

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Kurds bad-mouth the fee-for-service approach to oil
Arablinks
AlHayat calls attention to the fact that the oil-policy dispute between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government now involves not only the question of who can sign contracts, but also the question of the fundamental nature of the contracts themselves, as a matter of government policy. Baghdad oil minister Husein Shahristani said on Monday that the Iraqi government failed to sign the expected package of “short-term technical support agreements” with a group of oil majors, and he said this was because the companies “rejected our proposal that they provide advice (or consultancy) on developing oil production, demanding instead a production-sharing proposal, but we are still negotiating with them”…

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The Palestinian Return and Right of Return—No Deal!
Michael Warschawski, Alternative Information Center (AIC)
Before dealing with the topic of the Palestinian refugees and the Right of Return, I would like to say a few words following the interesting remarks of my friend Omar Barghouti on the issue of “one democratic state.” In my opinion, the core of our discussions should not be about solutions and models, but values and rights. In that perspective, one has to unequivocally reject the very idea (and existence) of a Jewish state, whatever will be its borders. For a Jewish state (in the demographic sense of the concept) necessarily implies the drive for exclusion and expulsion. Any ethnic (or confessional) state considers the non-dominant ethnicity as a threat, and aspires to its disappearance through more or less violent means…

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B’Tselem warns of grave water shortage in the West Bank
B’Tselem
The chronic water shortage in the West Bank, resulting from an unfair distribution of water resources shared by the Palestinians and Israel, will be much graver this summer because of this year’s drought. In the northern West Bank, water consumption has fallen to one-third of the minimal amount needed. The 2008 drought, the most serious drought in the area in the past decade, aggravates the built-in, constant shortage of water in the West Bank. Rainfall this year in the northern West Bank was 64 percent of average, while in the southern sections of the West Bank, it was 55 percent. As a result, the water stored from rainfall has already been used…

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Former int. chief reveals Iranian handover deal
Voices of Iraq
Iraq’s former intelligence chief on Wednesday revealed during a court session on the 1991 al-Intifada al-Shaabaniya case an alleged 1990 Iranian intelligence proposal to hand over Iraqi opposition leaders in return for leaders of the Iranian Mujahideen Khalq (People’s Mujahideen) opposition group. “In October 1990, the then Iranian intelligence deputy chief visited Iraq and personally met me to offer the proposal on behalf of the Iranian government,” Sabaawi Ibrahim al-Hassan said after meeting separately with Judge Mohammed Araibi al-Khalifa. According to al-Hassan, who is also a half-brother of former President Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi government rejected the proposal on “religious and tribal grounds.”…

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Eager to Tap Iraq’s Oil, Industry Execs Suggested Military Intervention
Jason Leopold, The Public Record
Two years before the invasion of Iraq, oil executives and foreign policy advisers told the Bush administration that the United States would remain “a prisoner of its energy dilemma” as long as Saddam Hussein was in power. That April 2001 report, “Strategic Policy Challenges for the 21st Century,” was prepared by the James A. Baker Institute for Public Policy and the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney…

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75 children and 23 women killed, the harvest of Israel’s terrorism in the first 6 months of 2008
Iqbal Tamimi, Palestine Think Tank
The Israeli occupying forces have killed 75 children and 23 Palestinian women during the first half of this year, says a report published yesterday by the National and International Relations Department of the PLO in Ramallah. The report informs us that the Israeli military occupation authorities continued their violations of the rights of the Palestinians, showing no respect to international protests and Palestinian efforts to secure peace in the region, and to end the conflict…

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PETITION TO PROTEST ISRAELI ASSAULT ON MOHAMMED OMER
Washington Report, via Desertpeace
Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer, Gaza correspondent for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and co-recipient of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, was hospitalized with cracked ribs and other injuries inflicted by Israeli soldiers at the Allenby Bridge crossing from Jordan into the occupied West Bank. Omer was returning home to Gaza after a European speaking tour and the June 16 London ceremony at which he accepted the prestigious Gellhorn Prize…

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Why the Iraq War is Destroying the US Economy
Len Hart
The cost of Bush’s war on Iraq war has surpassed one trillion dollars but there is no evidence of it benefiting the US economy. It is time to drive a stake through the heart of the malicious lie that wars are good for the economy. Only the Military/Industrial complex benefits from war and what is good for the MIC is NOT good for the country. The MIC is a drag on the economy, an economic black hole into which is drained the economic and creative resources of the nation. War itself is a Faustian bargain. The hour of midnight is approaching…

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Iraq’s Female Bombers
Afif Sarhan, IOL Correspondent
Um Mustafa, 41, is training to become a bomber to revenge the killing of her husband and two children by US occupation forces. “US troops destroyed my life, killed thousands of Iraqis and have support from many who also are betrayers,” she told IslamOnline.net. “I lost my children and husband and have no reason to be in this world anymore.” Um Mustafa’s husband and her two children were killed during a US blitz in the western city of Fallujah in 2004. Since then, her desire for revenge has never died down…

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Legislators speak of secret oil and gas agreement with Kurds
Azzaman
The central government and the Kurdish authorities have signed a secret deal under which the Kurds are to extend their political autonomy over their oil riches, a senior member of parliament said. Jaber Khaleefa of the parliament’s Oil and Gas Committee said the secret deal has allowed both sides to proceed ahead with contracts with foreign firms despite the lack of constitutional backing…

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Oil majors to lead another Iraq invasion
ABCNews
Five years after the US-led coalition stormed into Iraq there is set to be another western invasion. This time it is the world’s biggest oil companies leading the charge, 36 years after Saddam Hussein kicked them out. The oil giants are seeking access to Iraq’s rich crude reserves, Australian companies BHP Billiton and Woodside are among them…

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Medical Evidence Supports Detainees’ Accounts of Torture in US Custody
PHR Library
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has published a landmark report documenting medical evidence of torture and ill-treatment inflicted on 11 men detained at US facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, who were never charged with any crime. The physical and psychological evaluation of the detainees and documentation of the crimes are based on internationally accepted standards for clinical assessment of torture claims. The report also details the severe physical and psychological pain and long-term disability that has resulted from abusive and unlawful US interrogation practices…

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Report: Israel killed 29 Palestinians in June including four children
Palestinian Information Center
Quds Press reported that the IOF troops killed last June 29 Palestinians including four children which means that the total number of the victims murdered during the first six months of 2008 rose to 449 Palestinians, mostly killed in the Gaza Strip. According to the report, Israel during June killed 24 Palestinians in Gaza alone due to its military escalations while five were murdered in the West Bank. The report also pointed out that the IOF troops have killed since the beginning of this year a total of 66 children…

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Bush may send more troops to Afghanistan
DEB RIECHMANN, AP
President Bush said Wednesday he is weighing whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. Bush said it has been a “tough month” in Afghanistan, where more U.S. and NATO troops died during the past two months than in Iraq. The president told a Rose Garden news conference that one reason for the rising deaths “is that our troops are taking the fight to a tough enemy … of course there is going to be resistance.”…

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Hamas calls on Egypt to speed up solution to the problem of stranded passengers
Palestinian Information Center
The Hamas Movement said on Wednesday that today’s incidents on the Rafah border terminal between Egypt and the Gaza Strip were the “natural result” of the stranded passengers and sick people’s attempt to end their suffering. Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, told the PIC that what happened was a clear message to the Egyptian side that it should allow swift passage for patients and students across the Rafah terminal especially when hundreds of them had been waiting for a long time to cross into Egyptian territory…

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Egypt closes Rafah crossing terminal after riots
Rami Almeghari – IMEMC
The Egyptian authorities closed on Wednesday afternoon the Rafah crossing terminal after hundreds of Palestinians, mainly patients and stranded, flooded into the Egyptian side of terminal, as their entry has been delayed. The angry awaiting travelers began heading for the terminal on Wednesday midday after they have been waiting since the early morning , while their entry has been delayed by the Egyptian authorities, witnesses said. Witnesses added that hundreds of youth hurled stones at Egyptian security personnel, manning the border line, as more security forces have been beefed up to prevent further clashes…

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ISRAELI PRESS OBVIOUSLY EMBARRASSED BY GOVERNMENT STATEMENT ABOUT MOHAMMED OMER
Desertpeace
A Reuters report that appeared earlier was published on Ynet’s Webpage as well as that of HaAretz. In BOTH cases it has been removed. THIS appears on HaAretz in its place… Nothing replaces it on Ynet. (it was pointed out to me this morning by the dedicated staff at Uruknet, that the original ‘denial’ is still on Ynet’s page… but not displayed prominently as it was earlier)…

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UN envoy rips US violations in Iraq, Guantanamo, Afghanistan
Rapporteur condemns rights abuses at home, too
Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service
After a two-week fact-finding tour of US prison and detention facilities, a UN human rights investigator has blasted the administration of President George W. Bush for a rash of shortcomings in the country’s flawed justice system and continued violations of the rule of law. Unleashing a stinging barrage of attacks, Professor Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary and arbitrary executions, singles out the existence of racism in the application of the death penalty in the United States, and the lack of transparency in the deaths of prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility…

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Iran may consider opening US interest section, direct flights
IANS
Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki Wednesday said his country might consider suggestions of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on opening an US interest section in Tehran, the official IRNA news agency reported. “We believe that restoring relations between the American and Iranian nations would be a positive move,” Mottaki said in New York. The foreign minister is currently in New York to attend a meeting of Economic and Social Council of the United Nations from June 30 to July 3. “Contacts between Iranians and the American people will be a useful step for better understanding of the two nations,” Mottaki said referring to last week’s US media reports and official indications that Washington was considering opening a so-called interests section, or unofficial embassy, in Tehran which would also issue visas for Iranian nationals with relatives in the US…

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Sewage in Water Threatens Gazans
Mel Frykberg
Gaza is being forced to pump 77 tonnes of untreated or partially treated sewage out to sea daily due to the Israeli blockade of the coastal territory. The fear is that some of this is creeping back into drinking water. “The health of Gaza’s 1.5 million people is at risk,” Mahmoud Daher, from the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) told IPS following a report released by WHO after it carried out a number of tests on Gaza’s contaminated water…

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Time to Let Vanunu Go Now
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate – thepeoplesvoice.org
In l986 a young Israeli man, called Mordechai Vanunu, followed his conscious and told the World that Israel had a nuclear weapons’ programme. He was convicted of espionage and treason and given an 18 years sentence. After serving this (12 of which were in solitary confinement) Mordechai Vanunu was released. In April 2004 about 80 people from around the world went to welcome him out of prison. Unbelievably, upon his release Mordechai was served with severe restrictions, which forbade him many basic civil liberties including his right to leave Israel, to speak to foreigners and foreign media and his travel within Israel restricted…

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Report: Iran willing to suspect nuclear program for at least six weeks
Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent
Unofficial reports from Iran, supported by several Iranian legislators, suggest that Tehran is willing to suspend its nuclear program for at least six weeks as a goodwill gesture to the West. According to the reports, released on various Iranian Web sites, Tehran would suspend the installation of new centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility in the first stage of the suspension, after which it would be willing to halt the enrichment of uranium for an undetermined amount of time…

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The Toddler King’s Insufferable Reign is Doomed
Jason Miller
…We pour billions of dollars into the support of those miserable Zionist squatters in Palestine because a very small percentage of our population (which has very deep pockets, a strangle-hold on mass media, and a juggernaut lobbying organization) has many of us brain-washed into believing “poor little Israel” is fighting for its very existence—when the reality is that it has a more formidable military than all of its alleged threats combined and has ruthlessly brutalized the Palestinians like the terrorist state that it is. We slaughtered over two million Vietnamese in an attempt to keep the world safe for capitalism and are poised to consider putting one of the perpetrators in the White House. We have murdered untold millions of Iraqis since the Gulf War via invasion, brutal economic sanctions, fomenting civil war and chaos, illegal occupation, and destruction of infrastructure. And neither of the performers in the theater of the absurd we call a “presidential election” has promised to bring an immediate end to this moral and legal abomination. If we enforced the Nuremberg Laws that WE crafted, all responsible would be hanged, including whoever replaces Bush and perpetuates this genocide…

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ZIMBABWE TO U.S. AND BRITAIN: GO HANG
Malcom Lagauche
The U.S. and Britain just can’t allow a country in its crosshairs to function on its own. Both imperialist nations are calling for more sanctions on Zimbabwe. To many Westerners, sanctions are a slap on the wrist, but the truth is different. As we saw with Iraq, sanctions are no less than murder without firing bullets. On July 1, 2008, according to an Al Jazeera news article titled, “African Leaders Urge Zimbabwe Unity:” But the US has prepared UN sanctions in response to Mugabe’s re-election…

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Ark. man, others blame KBR for contaminant fears in Iraq
© 2008 The Associated Press
An Arkansas man who worked as a contractor in Iraq says he lost his job after warning workers they were being exposed to a cancer-causing chemical there. Ed Blacke, a former safety inspector for Houston-based contracting giant KBR, says his exposure to sodium dichromate in 2003 gave him chronic thyroid problems and early signs of cancer. He said supervisors initially ignored his warnings about contamination at the Qarmat Ali water injection plant near Basra, Iraq. “In my mind, it was criminally negligent of (the company) to make a decision to continue to expose personnel to sodium dichromate poisoning,” the Bella Vista, Ark., man told a congressional panel Friday…

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Shaking hands with the enemy of Iraq!
EUROPE TURKMEN FRIENDSHIPS
Iraq’s Kurdish “president” Jalal Talabani shaking hands with Zionist Barak “Israeli defense minister” at Socialist International Congress in Athens in the presence of Palestinian “president” Abbas. Kurdish press reports. “During this conference SI Secretary General Luis Ayala, in his speech appreciated the remarkable role of Mam Jalal the Secretary General of the PUK in achieving peace, freedom and democracy.” Peace??? Over 1.200.000 Iraqis have been killed since the US-UK invasion/occupation in 2003 – there is no Peace and no Security in Iraq!!! Freedom??? IRAQ IS O C C U P I E D!!! Democracy??? Iraq is ‘led’ by US-UK imposed ‘puppets’, the two elections were rigged and Iraq is one of the world’s most corrupt country…

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What’s up with Maliki’s latest tribal-council proposal
Arablinks
On Sunday June 29, Maliki hosted a meeting of notables from the Jubbur tribe, where he spoke glowingly of the role of tribes and clans in Iraqi society and history, adding that he proposed to set up a national council of tribes, which would work hand in hand with the government in such important tasks as applying the law and so on. It was not a widely-noticed meeting or statement. This morning (Tuesday July 1), Baghdad reporter Zaid Al-Zubadi explains in Al-Akhbar where this fits in the ebb and flow of the Maliki administration…

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Israeli Daily Aggression on the Palestinian People: Casualties, Kidnapping, Damage of Property by Israeli Occupation Forces and Settlers, July 1, 2008
Aljazeera.info
A Palestinian woman was shot and injured by Israeli army fire near the Sufa crossing in the southern part of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning. Medical sources reported that 35-year-old Aishah Ataya sustained moderate wounds in her leg and was moved to a nearby hospital for treatment. Witnesses reported that Israeli soldiers manning the borders opened fire without any reason injuring Aishah…

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One more patient dies in Gaza as Israel maintains closure
Rami Almeghari – IMEMC & Agencies
Spokesman of the popular committee against the Israeli blockade, Rami Abdo, announced on Wedensday that patient number 200 died after having been unable to go for treatment outside of Gaza as Israel continues to close border crossings for more than one year now. Mazen Arrar, 20 and cardiac patient, died while he was awaiting to enter through the Rafah crossing terminal yesterday, but he could not do so due to the continued closure of Gaza, which Israel enforced in June2007. Arrar’s death is the second in 24 hours, as the eight-month-old infant Ayat Anwar Dhaik, of the Nuseirat refugee camp, after she was unable to go outside of Gaza yesterday…

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BEIT UMMAR: IDF fatally shoots seventeen-year-old Palestinian youth in Beit Ummar; CPTers assaulted
Christian Peacemaker Teams
IDF fatally shoots seventeen-year-old Palestinian youth in Beit Ummar; CPTers assaulted On Friday, 27 June around 11:00 p.m., an Israeli soldier in Beit Ummar, a village north of Hebron, shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian youth, Mohammad Al-Alameh, member of a family with whom the Christian Peacemaker Teams has had frequent contact over the years…When the team arrived half an hour later, rocks littered the main street. Israeli soldiers marched up and down the block with assault rifles held in a firing position, amid clusters of Palestinian men huddled in quiet shock…

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Iraq: Garbage collection, poor people’s job to earn living
Voices of Iraq
Every dawn, Um Faris and her 13 years daughter leave their house driving a cart dragged by a donkey. They go to a garbage yard where they use their gloved hands to collect useful garbage, despite the job embracing health and security dangers, as one of their colleagues highlighted. Um Faris says that she has to leave very early in order to reach the garbage yard before Baghdad Mayoralty’s garbage trucks and contractors’ trucks that she deals with. She also should be earlier than other garbage collectors, to win bigger quantities and better quality of garbage.Her daughter, Huda, left school after learning how to read and write; to join her mother in garbage collection. Um Faris is among thousands of Iraqis who practice this job throughout Iraq, particularly with their numbers having increased after the embargo that was imposed on Iraq by the UN in 1990, and the consequences of the U.S. invasion to Iraq in 2003, yet there are no official or semi-official statistics that show the exact number of this social category…

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From triumph to torture
Israel’s treatment of an award-winning young Palestinian journalist is part of a terrible pattern
John Pilger, The Guardian
Two weeks ago, I presented a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, with the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. Awarded in memory of the great US war correspondent, the prize goes to journalists who expose establishment propaganda, or “official drivel”, as Gellhorn called it. Mohammed shares the prize of £5,000 with Dahr Jamail. At 24, he is the youngest winner. His citation reads: “Every day, he reports from a war zone, where he is also a prisoner. His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless.” The eldest of eight, Mohammed has seen most of his siblings killed or wounded or maimed. An Israeli bulldozer crushed his home while the family were inside, seriously injuring his mother. And yet, says a former Dutch ambassador, Jan Wijenberg, “he is a moderating voice, urging Palestinian youth not to court hatred but seek peace with Israel”…

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Iranian Leaders Offer Nuclear Hope
Adam Zagorin, Time
The beating of the war drums over Iran may get most of the attention, but there are growing signs, also, of progress towards a possible diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff. This week, the top foreign policy adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared that Iran could respond favorably to the latest deal offered by Western negotiators, which he described as acceptable “in principle.” It remains unclear whether the unusual declaration by Ali Akbar Velayati, who served as Iran’s foreign minister from 1981 to 1997, will translate into government policy. But in New York on Tuesday Iran’s current foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, reinforced the impression that progress could be imminent in the long-running talks between Iran and the so-called 5+1 group, composed of the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany…

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Ark. man, others blame KBR for contaminant fears in Iraq
© 2008 The Associated Press
An Arkansas man who worked as a contractor in Iraq says he lost his job after warning workers they were being exposed to a cancer-causing chemical there. Ed Blacke, a former safety inspector for Houston-based contracting giant KBR, says his exposure to sodium dichromate in 2003 gave him chronic thyroid problems and early signs of cancer. He said supervisors initially ignored his warnings about contamination at the Qarmat Ali water injection plant near Basra, Iraq. “In my mind, it was criminally negligent of (the company) to make a decision to continue to expose personnel to sodium dichromate poisoning,” the Bella Vista, Ark., man told a congressional panel Friday…

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Iran to allow 100% foreign ownership
IranMania
Iran has announced it will begin to allow foreign firms to purchase Iranian state-run companies, with the possibility of obtaining full ownership, PressTV reported. Iran will allow foreign companies and nationals to purchase unlimited shares of state-run enterprises which are in the process of being sold off, said the director of Iran’s Privatization Company, Gholamreza Heidari Kord Zangeneh. The move is designed to attract greater foreign investment and is part of the country’s sweeping economic liberalization program…

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Targeting Journalists
Eva Bartlett
The killing of Gaza-based Palestinian Reuters cameraman received considerable attention 2.5 months ago. Filming at the site of shelling in Gaza earlier in the day, Fadel Shana was himself targeted by shelling from the very tanks he was filming. After the incident, with international outcry from rights groups, journalists associations, and individuals, Israel promised to look into his death. Given the high number of journalist fatalities and injuries at the hands of the Israeli army, it is not hard to believe that perhaps Israel is targeting journalists…

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July 1, 2008: 24 Iraqis Killed, 62 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
Bombings across central and northern Iraq left a number of casualties. At least 24 Iraqis were killed and 62 more were wounded in these and other attacks and raids. No Coalition deaths were reported. At least one person was killed and 25 more were wounded in a truck bombing south of Mosul in al-Qayarra. The bomb targeted the home of a local sheikh, who was wounded in the attack. Police are combing through the rubble for more casualties and had earlier said that 40 people were wounded. A suicide bomber killed four people and wounded 16 more in Mandali…

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