Iraq War Inquiry, Day Nine

Drip, drip, drip, ""He recalled noting that: "the dog didn't bark - it grizzled." Don't forget - this 'grizzling' for regime change was 6 months BEFORE 9/11."". drip, drip, drip, ""But there was a 'sea change' in attitude after the atrocities, with former national security adviser Condoleezza Rice targeting Iraq on the very day of the outrage."", drip, drip, drip, ""George Bush tried to make a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida in a conversation with Tony Blair three days after the 9/11 attacks, according to Blair's foreign policy adviser of the time."", drip, drip, drip, ""There was "a touching belief [in Washington] that we shouldn't worry so much about the aftermath because it was all going to be sweetness and light"."", drip, drip, drip, ""Boyce mentions the "dysfunctionalism" of Washington. He says that he would find himself briefing his American counterparts on what was happening in different parts of the US adminstration. Rumsfeld was not sharing information"", drip, drip, drip...........!

Written Transcripts by Date of each session.

The Video's of the Daily Testimony.

Trickle down information, while slow and coming in bits and pieces, does come quicker then economic trickle down capitalism.

Keep in mind as you come across the time lines in this Inquiry who was responsible for the 9/11 criminal terrorist attacks on this country,

Senate Report Revisits Osama bin Laden's Great Escape

Less than a month after the 9/11 attacks, the military began bombing al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan. It was the start of a campaign orchestrated by the CIA and Special Forces troops that quickly ousted the ruling Taliban from power but led to an insurgency that continues today...>>>>>

and what the then president bush stated a few years into both and close to leaving office, about "not thinking about bin Laden much anymore!", which they really had already started to do on 9/11 and after! That should give to one the simple reason why we're still sending Ours and NATO troops into Afghanistan and still fighting a growing Insurgency and the Afghans have seen little in Actually helping them rebuild their country after decades of destructive war by Foreign Occupiers!

You can Watch the Inquiry Live when in Session

And we "Drip" into day nine with other information from the weekend:

As the British Iraq war Inquiry moves ahead, day eight was friday, new calls for investigations of issues related to the Iraq buildup and questions of the reasons given for invading are heating up!

Call for inquest into 'suicide' question

Six British doctors have begun legal action for a new coroner's inquest into the controversial death of U.N. weapons inspector David Kelly, authorities say.

Kelly's former colleagues suspect the original verdict of suicide is incorrect and should be overturned.

Kelly, a 59-year-old microbiologist died days after being revealed as the source of confidential information in a 2003 BBC story about the Iraq war, The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday. In it, Kelly alleged the British government "sexed up" evidence against Iraq to justify the invasion....>>>>>

An Op-Ed I caught, at least some are paying attention, across the pond, here in the states:

We've spent too much on war; seek peace

The call for peace has nothing to do with the Democratic Party or the Republican party; this is about the American people and about people of other lands who struggle to defend their homes. It makes little difference which political party is in power; both are heavily influenced by corporate elite who profit directly or indirectly from wars.

The Iraq Inquiry, currently being held in Britain and chaired by Sir John Chilcot, reveals that the American and British governments knew very well that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and no weapons of mass destruction. They were told that the invasion was illegal and unwarranted, but that made no difference.

Snip

But overall American poverty cannot compare with the poverty, destitution and pain suffered by the hundreds of thousands of people who are victims of military invasions.

The death, disease, maiming and displacement of whole populations subject to the violence of wars is unimaginable. The use of hideous weaponry that leads to hideous suffering that goes on long after an attack, destroying young and old alike, is morally indefensible and unforgivable....>>>>>

US 'neglected' southern Iraq, ambassador tells Chilcot inquiry

Edward Chaplin tells inquiry that despite billions of dollars being poured into Iraq by the US, little went to the main UK area of operations around Basra

Edward Chaplin, who in 2004 became the first British ambassador to Baghdad for 13 years, said that despite the billions of dollars being poured into Iraq by the US, little went to the south, which was the main UK area of operations.

He said that the lack of assistance was "damaging", breeding resentment in an area which had been historically neglected under the rule of Saddam Hussein...>>>>>

Senior officer says he urged Tony Blair to delay invasion

Major General Tim Cross tells Chilcot panel that preparations were 'woefully thin'

"We talked for about 30 minutes or so. I was as honest about the positions as I could be, essentially briefing that I did not believe post-war planning was anywhere near ready," he said.

"I told him that there was no clarity on what was going to be needed after the military phase of the operation, nor who would provide it.

"Although I was confident that we would secure a military victory, I offered my view that we should not begin that campaign until we had a much more coherent post-war plan."

He also criticised the then-international development secretary, Clare Short – who subsequently resigned over the war – saying she would not allow one of her officials to work with him on a full-time basis because of her "well known concerns".

"This was, I am bound to say, unhelpful for me, and it was an early indicator that Whitehall was not much more joined up than Washington," he said....>>>>>

Chilcot tantalises us with documents

The cosy Iraq inquiry has an infuriating habit of referring to key evidence but not indicating when, if ever, it will be published

Snip

Observers have commented already on the cosy nature of the proceedings, the formally polite, almost oleaginous, interventions of the chairman. As important is the deeply frustrating manner in which the inquiry panel members refer to documents but do not quote from them. They do not quote even from the Downing Street documents (which appear on more than one dedicated website) leaked more than four years ago.

These make clear that senior officials and ministers were warning Tony Blair even before his private head-to-head meeting with George Bush at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, 11 months before the invasion, that military action to topple Saddam would be unlawful, that the government should first have to spend a lot of effort massaging British public opinion, and that in the notorious phrase attributed to Sir Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, "the facts and intelligence" were being "fixed round the policy" in Washington. These documents were given to the Butler review into the way intelligence was used and abused in the runup to the invasion but not published on the grounds that that inquiry had limited terms of reference...>>>>>

Blair warned over Iraq war planning

Major General Tim Cross

A senior Army officer described how he warned Tony Blair two days before the invasion of Iraq that there were insufficient preparations for dealing with the aftermath of the conflict.

Giving evidence to the official inquiry into the war, Major General Tim Cross said he told Mr Blair that he did not believe the post-war planning was "anywhere near ready" and that the situation in the country could be "chaotic".

Gen Cross said that in the weeks leading up to the invasion he had tried to raise his concerns in both London and Washington, but that his views were "not particularly warmly received" by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Snip

Gen Cross - who was attached to the US Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (Orha) which was supposed to manage the aftermath - said that he set out his concerns in a 30 minute meeting with Mr Blair in No 10 on March 18...>>>>>

Tony Blair Ignored Iraq Warning, Top General Says

U.S. Marine Corps / Lance Cpl. Matthew R. Jones

Add Maj. Gen. Tim Cross to that growing list of people who foresaw disaster in Iraq but were ignored. The senior British liaison to the U.S. reconstruction effort warned his prime minister before the invasion that insufficient postwar planning would lead to chaos. The rest is history...>>>>>

The truth about the Iraq war finalling coming out

The current Chilcot Enquiry in the UK is at last bringing out the truth about the illegal Iraq War. The fact long known by many that there was no justification for this war and that the agenda was completely different to that purported is confirmed by Christopher Story of World Reports in his Global Analysis of 3 December 2009. ..>>>>>

Todays Inquiry is still going on as I post this, around four pm U.S. est., as they are talking to Government official of that time, didn't catch name but reports will be coming on his testimony shortly I'm sure.

Military Children Face More Emotional Challenges as Parental Deployments Grow Longer, Study Finds

Children in military families may suffer from more emotional and behavioral difficulties when compared to other American youths, with older children and girls struggling the most when a parent is deployed overseas, according to a new RAND Corporation study...>>>>>

Blast Walls: Baghdad Iraq

August 22 2009

AP – Workers place concrete blast walls in front of the Iraqi foreign ministry in Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday

Iraqis begin restoring concrete walls in Baghdad

Workers used giant cranes to raise concrete walls around the blast-scarred Foreign Ministry and other government buildings on Saturday, as Iraqi authorities sought to bolster security after suicide truck bombings that killed scores in Baghdad.

The decision to reinforce vital institutions is a sharp reversal of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's desire to remove the barriers as part of his efforts to make life more normal for war-weary Iraqis before January's national elections............

Occupied and Controlled by Us now being Occupied and Controlled by their own, and We Tore That Lid Off The Pandora's Box!!

Leila Fadel: Journalist

Leila has been a really good source and young Real Journalist on the Iraq occupation.

A McClatchy reporter reflects on what war brought to Iraq

I picked up a daily habit in Iraq. Every morning, before I left the office, I'd savor that moment — the moment before. Maybe it came from all the times that my Iraqi friends told me how they prayed before they walked out their doors because they might never return.

For almost three years, I spent my mornings the same way: I woke up and worried about what the day would bring. It wasn't a question of whether people would die that day, only of when, how and how many..........Rest Here

In Leila's Words

Iraq: Secure?

Martha Raddatz: A Soldier Fights for Life

After giving power to Iraqis, Lt. Col. Tim Karcher loses legs in explosion.

Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz reports on Lieutenant Colonel Tim Karcher, who lost both his legs this week when his vehicle was bombed near Baghdad’s notorious Sadr City neighborhood. A vivid reminder on this day when US forces hand control of Iraqi cities and towns over to Iraqi command, that the war is far from over.......

US military says 4 soldiers killed in Baghdad

The U.S. military says that four soldiers were killed in Baghdad on the eve of the American withdrawal from Iraq's cities.......

"The Hurt Locker": Some Reviews

I did a post a few days ago on the release of "The Hurt Locker", with a couple of trailers, here are a few reviews from those limited openings:

It’s a man’s world
And in ‘Hurt Locker,’ director Kathryn Bigelow tells another muscular story by focusing on members of an elite Army bomb squad

Director Kathryn Bigelow is about to leave, but there’s one more question. An obvious one, to be sure. By this point in the interview it seems, well, silly - condescending even - to ask it. Bigelow’s been so forthright, so outgoing and inquisitive in her own right, that she seems to have answered it already:

No, Kathryn Bigelow, 57, didn’t get where she is because she’s a woman or in spite of being a woman. She got here by sheer force of all 5 feet 11 inches of her, and that’s not in heels, which she wears to make for an even more impressive presence...........

Could 'The Hurt Locker' make Oscars' new top 10?

"The Hurt Locker" opened today to some of the strongest reviews for a movie this year. The Iraq war drama about a bomb squad earned a jaw-dropping 91 among the reviews surveyed by Metacritic, and the aggregate score of top critics at Rotten Tomatoes came in at a still-impressive 89...........

Review: Hurt Locker a Tough, Terrific Combat Flick

A Review in a Hurry: In the latest Iraq War movie...Wait, don't leave! This one's actually good, we promise! Eschewing political commentary for nerve-rattling suspense, director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Near Dark), palpably conveys the unrelenting tension of life in a never-ending war zone.

The Bigger Picture: After an attempted bomb defusing goes horribly wrong, the Iraq-based Bravo company is assigned a new Staff Sergeant, William James (Jeremy Renner). But unlike his predecessor, James is a cocksure adrenaline junkie who frequently ignores protocol, and makes things difficult on his teammates, the aggressive Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and nervous Eldridge (Brian Geraghty)........

Box Office: “Hurt Locker” Huge

Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” bowed in four theaters this weekend and according to estimates, it took in a huge $144,000 gross. That makes for a $36,000 average for the Summit Entertainment release, topping the opening of recent films like “Whatever Works” and “Away We Go” to become the second biggest limited debut of 2009, behind only “Sunshine Cleaning.” This is particularly impressive considering that, unlike those three examples, “Locker” is not a comedy and does not feature any well-known stars..............

"The Hurt Locker"

Soldiers on a Live Wire Between Peril and Protocol

If “The Hurt Locker” is not the best action movie of the summer, I’ll blow up my car. The movie is a viscerally exciting, adrenaline-soaked tour de force of suspense and surprise, full of explosions and hectic scenes of combat, but it blows a hole in the condescending assumption that such effects are just empty spectacle or mindless noise........

Trailer 1


Trailer 2


Trailer 3

Not necessarily about the causes and consequences of the Iraq war, mind you. The filmmakers’ insistence on zooming in on and staying close to the moment-to-moment experiences of soldiers in the field is admirable in its way but a little evasive as well. “The Hurt Locker,” which takes place in 2004 (it was filmed mostly in Jordan), depicts men who risk their lives every day on the streets of Baghdad and in the desert beyond, and who are too stressed out, too busy, too preoccupied with the details of survival to reflect on larger questions about what they are doing there.........

Opens on Friday, 6.26.09, in New York and Los Angeles.

Official website for THE HURT LOCKER, winner of the 2008 Venice Film Festival SIGNIS Grand Prize.

NPR Fresh Air 'Hurt Locker' Creators On Explosive New Thriller

Fresh Air from WHYY, June 24, 2009 · Screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow join Fresh Air to discuss their collaboration on The Hurt Locker, a combat movie about an Army bomb squad that roams Iraq in search of explosives to diffuse........{More at above link}

Listen to discussion on NPR Player

From the Movie Reality of War to the Reality of War:

Hospital sees more GIs from Afghan frontline
‘We’ve seen a lot ... and I hope we can handle it,’ says one staffer

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan - The urgent call came in: Roadside bombs had ripped through two Humvees and wounded eight or nine U.S. soldiers.

Medevac helicopters immediately hit the air to ferry the soldiers to the main U.S. military hospital. But when they arrived, they carried only five patients.

The other four were dead..........

Baghdad: City of Walls

Baghdad: City of Walls, Pt.1: Scars of war

Guardian: Baghdad wears its scars as a series of giant walls dividing its neighbourhood

Baghdad: City of Walls, part 2: Crossing the wall

Guardian: Eight new ghettos divide Baghdad's Shia and Sunni neighbourhoods

Baghdad: City of Walls, part 3: City of the dead

Guardian: What legacy will the poison of hatred and violence bequeath Baghdad?

Baghdad: City of Walls Pt. 4: Hope in hell?

Guardian: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad finds there is evidence that the killing is still going on

What The Hell Has Been Going On In Iraq????

$40M fuel theft from Army prompts global manhunt

A former Army contractor convicted of stealing $40 million worth of fuel from a military base in Iraq is helping authorities search the globe for other suspects in the case.

The thefts occurred in 2007 and 2008 from Camp Liberty in Baghdad.>>>>>>More

We didn't have this much crap War Profiteering during 'Nam, and that was bad enough!!

Blind Amputee Iraq KBR Worker Fights AIG

Blind Amputee Has to Fight AIG for New Plastic Leg, Wheelchair

While Executives Get Bonuses, John Woodson Gets "Cheapest They Could Get Away With"

An Oklahoma man who lost an eye and a leg in Iraq says the giant insurance company AIG refused to provide him a new plastic leg and fought to keep from paying for a wheelchair or glasses for the eye in which he has 30 percent vision.>>>>>More with Video Report

Walled in Neighborhoods! Security or Imprisoning Residents?

Baghdad Security Plan Burdens Residents - 10.07.2008

Baghdad, Iraq - The ongoing fighting in Baghdad pushed the Iraqi and US forces to establish checkpoints all over the city to secure the roads and neighborhoods. Controlling the cars inside the city and preventing them from distributing weapons or bombs was the first aim of these checkpoints. There are four main types of checkpoints in Baghdad, the checkpoints made by US forces those of the Iraqi National Guard, and finally those established by the Iraqi Police or the Ministry of Interior.

There are approximately five hundred checkpoints deployed around the perimeter as well as inside the city. Most of the checkpoints are directed by the Iraqi National Guard or Coalition forces. These checkpoints are getting attacked repeatedly by IEDs, car bombs, and sniper attacks. Many Iraqis were killed because of these attacks, for example, they may be driving into a checkpoint or getting killed by stray bullets fired after a car bomb attack.

On the other hand, starting several years ago, militias began using what are known as “fake checkpoints” in order to kidnap or kill people. The fake checkpoints generated great fear among the Iraqi people agains Iraqi forces whether they were military forces or police. It become something very familiar within Iraqi society that if someone was kidnapped or disappeared at one of the “fake checkpoints,” the family should go and look in the morgue looking for that person.

Another type of checkpoint began appearing in late 2007, these ones have been run by the Sahwa “Awakening” Forces, in order to control the Sunni Areas and keep them out of Al-Qaeda control and free of any other groups that may be related to Al-Qaeda. These Sahwa Forces were selected from the same area they work in, their local knowledge helps them to know everyone coming in or out of neighborhood. These forces have assisted in establishing many of the stability gains in the Sunni neighborhoods.

The Iraqi security forces used to wear masks to hide their identity form other extremist insurgents, and not to be followed when they return home. Many militias also used masks to hide their faces and keep a low profile. In late 2007 the Iraqi government ordered all security forces to take off their masks to give a greater impression of honesty and trustworthiness to the Iraqi people and prevent them form being afraid due to the threat of fake checkpoints.

Today, although security appears to have returned to much of Baghdad, blast walls and checkpoints continue to choke the city streets. These measures helped re-establish security in the capital, but today many people question them and have begun pushing the Iraqi government to take down the walls that block much of the city.

Iraq, Baghdad and an Army Report on a recent Killing

U.S. Troops in Iraq

US troops' anger on Iraq duty

US troops talk to Newsnight's Andrew North about not wanting to be in Iraq and how the effort is hurting the US economy and reputation.

Guardian photographer and film-maker Sean Smith spent two months with the US 101st airborne division over the summer, in the Shia strongholds of Sadr City and Shu'la, where peace still seems a long way off.

~~~~~~~~~~

Getting to School in Iraq

09.15.2008

Iraq, Baghdad/Adhamiya - Over the last five years violence, terrorism, and fundamentalism have a severe impact on the ability of Iraq's children to receive an adequate education. This week Alive in Baghdad's Isam Rasheed speaks with parents, teachers, and children about the issues facing the Iraqi education system.

For many, simply the issue of travelling to and from school prevents them from attending their classes regularly. Roads and even schools are often closed for government military operations, or by insurgents or militias opposed to the idea of an unfettered education system.


Alive in Baghdad

~~~~~~~~~~

Army report on Touma killing

Army's report finds fault with Touma's unit

Touma, who was 23, checked in at Fort Bragg on June 12 and was not expected back at the post until June 16. Police investigators believe she was killed June 13 or 14.

The military’s investigation shows that Touma should have been declared “absent without leave” on June 17, but paperwork declaring her AWOL was not started until June 22 — the day after her body was found.

Touma UpDate

No court appearance for soldier charged with murder

From Mosaic

Link TV

It's Their Region

We have Destroyed one Country, and it's people!

While the administration hammers on the negative of the idea of Talking with the other Countries of the Region they are Apparently talking to the one they condemn the most Iran, in secret.

The only way to end this Extreme Debacle is by getting All of Iraqs Neighbors Involved! What has helped quell the violence, these last couple of months, has been the involvement of Iran which the Iraqi's seek out!

Iran leader in landmark Iraq trip

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has received a warm welcome in Baghdad on the first ever visit to Iraq by an Iranian president.

Here is a Video of his arrival

He received the lavish ceremonial welcome granted to heads of states by the visited country, something the bush has Never Received from his visits to Iraq!!

The Myth

Remember this:

President Bush laid down the standard of success when he announced the surge more than a year ago: "If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home."

Than yesterday we get this:

The Pentagon is projecting that when the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq ends in July there will be about 8,000 more troops on the ground than when it began in January 2007, a senior general said Monday.

Rolling Stone has a great report, From Iraq, that's online now and out in next months mag.

The Myth of the Surge

Hoping to turn enemies into allies, U.S. forces are arming Iraqis who fought with the insurgents. But it's already starting to backfire. A report from the front lines of the new Iraq
NIR ROSEN Posted Mar 06, 2008

It's abit of a long read, but a truth to word and opening ones mind to imagine the reality as if there, opening:

It's a cold, gray day in December, and I'm walking down Sixtieth Street in the Dora district of Baghdad, one of the most violent and fearsome of the city's no-go zones. Devastated by five years of clashes between American forces, Shiite militias, Sunni resistance groups and Al Qaeda, much of Dora is now a ghost town. This is what "victory" looks like in a once upscale neighborhood of Iraq: Lakes of mud and sewage fill the streets. Mountains of trash stagnate in the pungent liquid. Most of the windows in the sand-colored homes are broken, and the wind blows through them, whistling eerily. House after house is deserted, bullet holes pockmarking their walls, their doors open and unguarded, many emptied of furniture. What few furnishings remain are covered by a thick layer of the fine dust that invades every space in Iraq. Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush's much-heralded "surge," Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood. Apart from our footsteps, there is complete silence.

We have created a Huge Refugee Crisis that may be ready to explode, creating more danger to them and the already unstable conditions of Iraq and the region.

A top U.N. refugee official warned on Tuesday of the possibility that Iraqi refugees might be expelled from their sanctuaries unless the United States, Iraq and other countries act quickly to help them.

One of the reasons for the curb in violence, besides the ceasefire by Sadr and paying former insurgent personal to not fight U.S. troops but the so called al Qaeda of Iraq, are the Blast Walls seperating the now mostly ethnically cleansed neighborhoods of Baghdad.

Baghdad security walls curb violence, at a cost
To some Iraqis they are the reason it is safe to shop. To others they are like big jails.

Not winning Hearts and Minds!!

And any Iraq refugees, returning, voluntarily or forced because of lack of money or forced out of safer neighboring countries, return to the ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, most with others now living in their homes, and all living behind Walls of Concrete seperating neighborhood from neighborhood!

The three trillion dollar war
The cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts have grown to staggering proportions

Most Americans have yet to feel these costs. The price in blood has been paid by our voluntary military and by hired contractors. The price in treasure has, in a sense, been financed entirely by borrowing. Taxes have not been raised to pay for it - in fact, taxes on the rich have actually fallen. Deficit spending gives the illusion that the laws of economics can be repealed, that we can have both guns and butter. But of course the laws are not repealed. The costs of the war are real even if they have been deferred, possibly to another generation.

So far this Month some 29 U.S. Military Personal have been killed in Iraq, by Iraq Casulties.org.

“ Every war, when viewed from the undistorted perspective of life's sanctity, is a "civil war" waged by humanity against itself."
- Daisaku Ikeda

al-Sadr Spoke, and......

Series of rockets fired on Baghdad's Green zone
Attacks come a day after al-Sadr orders extension of cease-fire

BAGHDAD - A series of rockets or mortars were fired toward the U.S.-protected Green Zone early Saturday, a day after radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Mahdi Army militia fighters to cease attacks for another six months.

Anybody want to guess who will be blamed for these?

The U.S. military blamed what it calls Iranian-backed Shiite militias for a series of deadly rocket attacks in Baghdad earlier this week, including one against U.S. outposts in Baghdad that wounded three American soldiers.

Gee, Iran and Shiite militias, seems they can't claim al-Qaeda, wonder why that universal label wasn't used, must be the big bad Iranian involvement?, you think!

The military said the extremists were among factions that have broken with al-Sadr and refused to follow his cease-fire order.

al-Sadr is a Nationalist and wants the U.S. occupation to end and the troops out of his country as do most of the Iraqi's, especially those in these varied militias.

The U.S. Troops, and any Iraqi's working with them are considered their enemies, than we have those religious extremists wanting to push their ideological religious beliefs on others, which wasn't happening untill We Invaded! Also, as in any society, you have a criminal element that attempts to take advantage of the situation, a situation We Created! There are many twists and turns in a War Theater, especially one that has created the problems of Ethnically Cleansed Area's, Refugee's by the Millions, within and outside of Their Country, which once again is the situations We Created!

Is this a picture of what Iraq will face, as we Occupy, or if we leave, which We Created, it already is and not only in Basra.

Ominous Signs Remain in City Run by Iraqis

BASRA, Iraq — This southern port city has been, in effect, on its own since September, when British forces here moved to the outskirts, yielding authority to local leaders. British and American officials say Basra’s experiment in self-rule could serve as a model for Iraq’s future, but if so — many locals and outside advisers say — that future remains dark.

Basra has the nation’s best economic base, little ethnic tension within a homogeneous Shiite population and no Western occupation force to inflame nationalist tensions.

Lets see, Shiite's, followers of al-Sadr.

Disappearances of doctors, teachers and other professionals are common, as are some clashes among competing militias, most of which are linked to political parties. Murder victims include judicial investigators, politicians and tribal sheiks. One especially disturbing trend is the slaying of at least 100 women in the last year, according to the police. The Iraqi authorities have blamed Shiite militiamen for many of those killing, saying the militants had probably deemed the women to be impious.

How many of the Shiite followers will heed al-Sadrs decree for another six month ceasefire?

As the first link might show the answer came rather quickly, as it was meant to, by Iraqi Nationalists!

How many of the Nationalist will look at the Turkish Invasion, of the North, as another Invasion of their country by an outside foreign force. Wether Kurd or not, they all lived within the borders established as Their Country. And with the seemingly Green Light by the U.S. what will be the 'Blowback' to Occupation Forces by the Turkish Invasion, big extremely dangerous question that only time will show, but it seems that question might have been answered as well with the attack on the Green Zone.

We've made Sadr the present poster boy in a F**KED UP situation We Created, who will be the next poster boy next week or the following weeks, now that Sadr has spoken!

How many of those, we now are paying, eventually turn back on our troops?

You might want to listen to this NPR Freshair interview, aired on thursday the 21st, before Sadrs decree was made public, Journalist Patrick Cockburn on Iraq's Tenuous Calm

The cease-fire that's kept Iraq's Shiite militias in check for months is in danger of unraveling. At the same time, there's a growing restlessness among some of the Sunni militias backed by the United States in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. Patrick Cockburn, author and Iraq correspondent for The Independent in London, joins Fresh Air to discuss what he sees as a tenuous calm in Iraq.
You can listen to the interview with this link, and there's an excerpt from his book at the site link.

It's way past 5yrs. overdue to try and correct what happened in the past and now this present Huge Historic, of the U.S., Foreign Policy Debacle, that will shape, and already has, the future this World now faces, especially this country!

Get all of Iraqs neighbors together and Seek their Help, religious and ethnic, in the attempt to bring Stability to this country We Destroyed. Stop condemning the Governments and those leaders, thus Condemning the people of, those at the receiving end will, and are, taking the steps of escalation needed, as they see the policies unfolding, to protect their countries and people, some of those people fully back the escalations of weapontry and forces!

The failed foreign policies of the past brought about the hatreds of the present, and the present failed policies bring on more and more hatreds!

No Blame should be placed on our Military Troops, for they are Us, and anything that Happens, especially the Atrosities Of War, in Our Created War Theater, is Done In Our Names!

A Nation cannot give Cheer to perceived Victory's, in Wars of Choice, and be in Denial of All that Happens to those we've Destroyed, personally and as a country!

Start finally being what We As A Nation say we are, and Condemn what we've done in the past, Especially the Recent Past!!

“ Every war, when viewed from the undistorted perspective of life's sanctity, is a "civil war" waged by humanity against itself."
- Daisaku Ikeda

Pressure for Results

Those of us who served in 'Nam, or really any insurgent conflict, and anybody else who were paying attention understand the Government Propaganda used to make things look rosier than the reality on the ground.

One of the most blatant is "The Body Count". Used to show success, in 'enemy kills', and used to show success in the citizens feelings security because of actions by an occupying force or a puppet government.

Real Honesty is not a popular tool of propaganda!

Newsweek and the New York Times are carrying articles about the returning Iraqi's to Baghdad, looking deeper into the reasons why, reasons anyone paying real attention already understand.

In the Newsweek article called There’s No Place Like … Iraq?

We find this subtitle:
Actually, yes. Refugees are returning—but it's tough to resettle them without worsening sectarian divisions.

Why are some returning, and they actually are, is it because of how Secure? Baghdad has become, or are other reasons in play.

Dawood (he won't risk the use of his full name) is a 33-year-old IT engineer, but he couldn't find work outside Iraq. His Lebanese visa ran out, and Canada refused his asylum application. So a few weeks ago, practically broke, he returned to Baghdad. His old district is torn by an ongoing Shia-Sunni turf war, but Dawood says he feels safe in the family's new, mainly Shia area.

Syria, the region's last country that offered free access to Iraqis, has cracked down on new entries and forbidden Iraqis to hold jobs. "They put a stamp in your passport that says NO WORK," Dawood says. Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt enforce similar bans.

The money is about enough to fix all the broken windows, but it won't begin to replace the furniture that was looted in their absence. Besides, the house is a triplex. Hamoud's in-laws used to have the other two units, now occupied by Sunni fugitives from Shiite-led ethnic cleansing in the Jihad neighborhood. Hamoud says when her husband asked them to leave, they refused, saying: "If you get the people out of our house in Jihad, we'll go back there."

It closes with a little girls wish to return to her real home and that her father not leave again:

"She told me to promise not to leave again, but until now I don't promise," says Dawood. "We don't know what life will bring."

The New York Times looks a little deeper into the 'body count' of the returning Iraqi's.

The Politics of Tallying the Number of Iraqis Who Return Home

The description of the scope of the return, however, appears to have been massaged by politics. Returnees have essentially become a currency of progress.

Under intense pressure to show results after months of political stalemate, the government has continued to publicize figures that exaggerate the movement back to Iraq and Iraqis’ confidence that the current lull in violence can be sustained.

They admit to just 'counting the bodies':

“We didn’t ask them if they were displaced and neither did the Interior Ministry,”

The UN though dug abit further:

A United Nations survey released last week, of 110 Iraqi families leaving Syria, also seemed to dispute the contentions of officials in Iraq that people are returning primarily because they feel safer.

The survey found that 46 percent were leaving because they could not afford to stay; 25 percent said they fell victim to a stricter Syrian visa policy; and only 14 percent said they were returning because they had heard about improved security.

Furthermore, people are still leaving their homes — 28,017 were internally displaced in October, according to the latest United Nations figures. In all, the United Nations estimates that 2.4 million Iraqis are still internally displaced, with many occupying someone else’s home.

We are getting a number of reports of how we are creating alliances with once insugents, fighting us and each other, by training and paying them to rid their area's of al Qaeda of Iraq.

What are we really doing?

To my view of those reports, added to the reports, reading between the lines of the returning Iraqi's, it seems we are training and arming Militia's that are now protecting their ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, that we allowed, in Baghdad and other cities, as well as pockets of Iraq outside of the cities controlled by the verious sect tribes of Sunni and Shiite.

I fail to see where 'The Surge' main objective is being realized, a functioning Iraqi Government, and especially one creating their own security for the country we destroyed.

We tore open, and destroyed, 'Pandora's Box' of Iraq. The Iraqi's still want All Foreign Troops out of their Country, a Country where these sects, despite what our Allie Saddam did to many lived and worked together, married and had children, were friends, lived side by side.

Can they be brought back together by Buying them off, Nope!

Will these militia's we are creating join forces to really bring about a more secure Iraq, a Big Question!

Or will they once again revert back, or have they really left that, to the Killing and Maiming of each other, and the occupying militaries, in order to keep their own ethnically cleansed area's safe for their own????

Cholera - Iraq

Cholera Epidemic Infects 7,000 People in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Sept. 11 — A cholera epidemic in northern Iraq has infected approximately 7,000 people and could reach Baghdad within weeks as the disease spreads through the country’s decrepit and unsanitary water system, Iraqi health officials said Tuesday.

The World Health Organization reported that the epidemic is concentrated in the northern regions of Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya and that 10 people are known to have died. But Dr. Said Hakki, president of the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, a relief organization that has responded to the epidemic, said that new cases had turned up in the neighboring provinces, Erbil and Nineveh, indicating that the disease had spread.

SNIP

For Reading on This Labor Day

God's Not Watching Baghdad

It's September. Four and a half years in, the author, a former infantryman, went back to Iraq to profile the president's surge. Here's what he found...
By Brian Mockenhaupt {for more from this author}
8/29/2007

Brian Mockenhaupt

Watching soldiers on a mission can be poignant. Watching soldiers on a mission spiraling toward failure is devastating. Outside a house in western Baghdad's once-upscale Ghazaliya neighborhood, next to a broken Iraqi Humvee, I enjoyed this rare bit of clarity, and in a moment I saw why Iraq is such a mess. It's not the obvious choices -- sectarian hatred or Al Qaeda or meddling by Iraq's neighbors -- but something much more pedestrian, exceptionally mundane: flat tires.

Business Is Booming In Iraq!!!

Coffin Maker in Iraq Writes Article About His Sadly Busy Job

By E&P Staff

Published: December 26, 2006 10:45 PM ET

NEW YORK A 36-year-old Iraqi man name Muhammad Abdel Kader wrote or dictated a first-person story published on Tuesday on the Web site of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. He explains how he has been making coffins for a living for about a dozen years, and was not particularly busy until the current war -- but now has to make about 20 or more coffins a day.

His saddest moment? He had to make the coffin that would carry his brother, a bombing victim, to his grave.

Kader seems a bit like the character in the great Kurosawa movie, "Yojimbo," who make coffins day and night due to the violence shaking his town.

Here is the article as it appears at www.irinnews.org.

*****

My name is Muhammad Abdel Kader. I am 36 years old and live in the Ejidida neighborhood of Baghdad with my parents, wife and only son. I have lived in Baghdad all my life. I have been making coffins since I was 24 to help with the family income.

I work non-stop, 12 hours a day, six days a week. I have never made so many coffins a day in my life. I have to make as many coffins as I can to meet demand in al-Qarah Cemetery.

Before the war, we were making about two or maximum three coffins a day for people who had died from diseases or car accidents. But today we make at least 20 a day for victims of the violence.

For me, this is good business because the more people I bury the more income I get. I usually get U.S. $10 per burial. But I can’t be inhuman and say that I don’t care because the suffering of the families sometimes makes me think about changing my profession so that I don’t ever have to see such depressing scenes.

We coffin makers are in so much demand these days. My job is essential to the country because of the dozens of people who are killed daily and if I don’t make coffins, there will be more chaos.

I remember a day, some four months ago, when I and my colleague had to make 50 coffins. Soon there will be no more places here in the cemetery to bury so many bodies.

Some of the dead have been killed by militias or insurgents or in bomb explosions. Others have been killed by gangsters for money or in senseless sectarian violence.

My worst experience was making the coffin of my own brother, Ahmed. He was a 33-year-old cabinet maker with two children. I had to help burying him. He was killed in a bomb explosion and fate had it that I was the one working in the cemetery on that day. Sometimes you don’t even have time to cry for the loss of your relative.

After burying my brother, I had to help make coffins for 13 other people who had died on the same day.

My brother’s death was a tragedy for my family. We were only two brothers helping our parents because my father lost his leg in the 1991 Gulf War and a month earlier my uncle had been killed by insurgents inside his home - but thank God I didn’t have to bury him as it was my day off.

It is very sad to see Iraq like this today. I hope that my children one day will live in a better country without violence but in a country filled with happiness and dignity.”




--------
E&P Staff

Alive in Baghdad - Christmas Special

Alive In Baghdad

Alive in Baghdad - Christmas Special - 12.25.2006

{There's a Flash Video at site with a few snippets of the past years Reports}

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Eid Sa’eed, and whatever else you may celebrate. This week we’re taking a look back at 2006, and a year of video about Iraq, by Iraqis.

First we’d like to thank our tireless correspondents in Baghdad, Omar Abdullah, Isam Rasheed, Marwan Ghassan, Basheer Rasheed. We would also like to thank Rafat Jaiosy and Shadi Al-Kasim, who were there from the beginning in Jordan. Of course we must thank our translators Wisam and Neghem, as well as Qasem, Sami, Linda, Mhyar, Ahmed, Bassem, and many others who have supported our work.

We’d also like to thank supporters from outside of the Middle East, Justin Alexander, Robert Baker, Joe Carr, The CPT, Jay Dedman, Dave Enders, JD, Justin Kownacki, Robert Millis, Freeman Murray, Jeff Rae, Eowyn Rieke, Paul F. Roberts, Ben Varadi, Michael Verdi, the staff of blip.tv, and our moms.

Since we began Alive in Baghdad in 2005, it has been a wild ride. Finally in late 2006 real recognition has started to come our way. We’ve seen that independent media producers utilizing the internet and harnessing the power of RSS distribution can produce stories CNN and big media companies only dream of.

As 2007 approaches, we plan on expanding and continuing our work in Iraq, as well as expanding to Mexico, and perhaps other countries and regions in the year to come.

However, we still depend entirely on the support of our viewership and are again urging you to make a tax deductible donation of money or equipment to help continue the Alive in projects. If you received a new still or video camera this christmas, or a laptop, or other media equipment, consider donating your old equipment to help make media in other parts of the world.

To learn more about how you can help, email us at Alive in Baghdad or make a donation.