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THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Baghdad's Walls Are Closing In

Shiites and Sunnis are virtually imprisoned in their enclaves. On the street, the wrong answer to a subtle question can be a death sentence.
By Jeffrey Fleishman
Times Staff Writer

August 20, 2006

BAGHDAD — Curling through the desert, wind rattling its marshes, the Tigris once brought so much life to this city, where spices and silks were loaded on wooden boats bound for Basra and beyond. Shiites lived with Sunnis, Christians and Jews, but today, as in other times, unity splinters in bloodshed.

The river's bridges have turned into escape routes for families fleeing sectarian death squads. Some head one way, others go the opposite direction, and many fear that if full-scale civil war erupts, the Tigris will act as a green line, separating Sunni-dominated west Baghdad from the Shiite-controlled east.

The shoes of Akram Mustafa tell the story of a dividing city; the orange dust from the clay tennis courts is fading on them. One of his country's top-ranked tennis players, Mustafa seldom plays these days. Getting to his club along the Tigris would mean crossing from his eastern neighborhood of Sadr City into streets guarded by Sunnis.

"I haven't been out of Sadr City in five or six months," Mustafa said. "Each day we stand in the same place talking the same talk to the same people. We have nothing."

Travel west across the river to the Sunni neighborhood of Amiriya and listen to Fatima Omar: "I have a best friend who's leaving the country in six or seven weeks, and I can't go visit her because she lives in a Shiite neighborhood."

With each explosion, with each firefight, Omar's geography shrinks.

"We are prisoners of the city," she said.

Conditions that lead Pentagon generals to say civil war is close are already polarizing many neighborhoods. Although Shiites and Sunnis still live side by side in some places, about 200,000 Iraqis, most of them from Baghdad, have left their mixed neighborhoods and taken refuge in communities where they can live among their own. In July, the Baghdad morgue reported more than 1,800 violent deaths.

A widening war would strike at the city's religious complexities, which have grown over time: Each sect has holy sites in the other's territory, and neighborhoods such as Kadhimiya, a Shiite stronghold in west Baghdad, and Adhamiya, a Sunni pocket in the east, would be surrounded by enemies.

"The national character of Iraqis doesn't want the city divided," said Adnan Yassin, a sociologist at Baghdad University. "Sunni and Shiite have lived together for centuries. They've married one another. How can you divide this?"

Gone are the days of walking hand-in-hand with your lover along the Tigris, hearing the clack of backgammon through the scent of fish grilling beneath the moon. Sunni car bombers drive into Shiite marketplaces; Shiite death squads move through the night, leaving Sunni bodies in alleys and date palm groves. Some people carry two identity cards, one for who they really are, the other a lie to save them from death that often waits behind a suspicious gaze.

The Tigris rolls between the rage on both sides. Boatmen pull fish and bodies from the water. Iraqi and U.S. forces race along the banks, and sometimes a child, standing in the wrong place, will vanish in the dust of mortar rounds. It all gets whispered about along the Tigris, as if the river were a thread stitching together the vignettes of a city of 6 million that has lived on the edge for way too long.

Baghdad has become a sinister parlor game of unmasking affiliations with subtle and not so subtle questions: Where does your family come from, north or south? Who is your uncle? What tribe do you belong to? It is a place where death squads call the family of someone they've kidnapped and ask: Is he a Shiite, or a Sunni? A wrong answer can mean a trip to the morgue to identify a body streaked with acid burns and drill holes.

Jabbar Dulaimi bobs along in this vortex. A calm man with neatly combed hair, he's a councilman in Mansour, a once mixed neighborhood that is increasingly dominated by Sunnis. More than 150 shops are shuttered on 14th of Ramadan Street, many of them after owners received fliers from insurgents telling them to close or die. Garbage blows on sidewalks, rats scurry, sewage backs up in homes.

Dulaimi's cellphone buzzes and blinks with calls from constituents, but what can he do if fear keeps his municipal crews from work?

"I can't even pick up the garbage anymore," said Dulaimi, a Sunni. "One ward leader in Mansour told me, 'I can't send my trash collectors in there, they'll kill them.' "

Sectarian bloodshed has escalated since February, when Sunni insurgents attacked a Shiite shrine in Samarra. In the old arithmetic of Iraq, Sunni Arabs, many of them Baathists who benefited under Saddam Hussein, despised the American occupation. The majority Shiites wanted the U.S. to help rebuild a country. Now the Shiites are in control, and their death squads have forced Sunnis to inch toward the Americans for cover.

"One week ago a man came to me. His neighbor had been kidnapped," said Dulaimi, unfolding his anecdote as if were a parable from a sacred, if confounding, book. "The family was terrified. But then they found out he was in American custody, and they were very happy. They started throwing candy in the air. They were joyous the U.S. had him instead of Iraqi government forces or Shiite death squads."

The boys in Sadr City sell block ice and don't drift far from their corners. The neighborhood, with as many as 2 million people, is a poor, hot place devoted to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr. It is a mesmerizing grid of wind-swept chadors and echoing gunfire guarded by Sadr's Al Mahdi militia, which runs an intelligence network marked by the incessant static of radios and walkie-talkies.

Mustafa feels safe here. His tennis career is suffering, but his life will lengthen if he doesn't too often slip out of any of the neighborhood's 37 entrances and exits. It is a narrow existence, and sometimes, he'd just like to take his wife to another part of town and smoke a water pipe and stroll until 2 a.m. Then he thinks of an uncle with a shrapnel wound and of three friends — a coach and two tennis players on Iraq's Davis Cup team — who were killed not long ago.

He has a daughter. What if he died and never saw her again? The courts at his old Alwiya Club along the Tigris stay mostly empty anyway. But he'd love to hit a topspin forehand again, the ball streaking down the line, a puff of dust.

He works construction when he can. He hasn't had a job in months. He watches people come and go, like the women at Jemila Wholesale, who shop quickly and race home against the possibility that something somewhere might explode.

He doesn't hate Sunnis; he has Sunni friends. But lines are being drawn and it's best not to blur where you stand. He watches every day as more Shiites fleeing Sunni-dominated neighborhoods gather in Sadr City. They pour in with nowhere to go, children straggling through alleys, and fathers visiting Sadr's Al Mahdi militia, hoping for work in a city that has little.

"We ask God to stop this. It can't go on," Mustafa said. "We ask the government to stop this, but how can we trust them? They have done nothing.

"We're all human beings. What is this Kurdish, Sunni, Christian, Shiite? It's selfishness for people wanting things for their groups."

Fatima Omar lives across the river in the Sunni neighborhood of Amiriya. The tallest female student in the English department at Baghdad University, she is slim and wears a hijab. She has a degree, but no job, and sometimes when she looks for one, she must cross into dangerous neighborhoods that U.S. troops are steadily turning over to Iraqi forces, which are often ambushed by insurgents.

Helicopters shake the night sky and flares float like bright ghosts over the rooftops. A curfew keeps the streets mostly empty, but come daylight, rolling sectarian checkpoints appear, looking for anyone with the wrong last name, like hers.

"A lot of Omars have been killed crossing certain checkpoints," she said. This is why the neighborhood boys, even though they swagger, don't roam far from home, and why her father wants to reinvent himself with a fake ID card.

"I had an interview not long ago," she said. "My dad drove me to the bus stop. I got on quickly and rode to Mansour. Out on the street, I passed a lot of shops and saw things that I needed. But I didn't stop. I went by running. It's been 1 1/2 months since summer vacation, and I haven't stepped outside the courtyard of our house."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writers Zainab Hussein and Saif Rasheed contributed to this report.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

4 Killed as occupation continues:

U.S. forces killed a 10 year-old boy accidentally on Sunday when they fired at a car approaching their patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, 250 km (150 miles) north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Monday.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM128582.htm


Gunmen kill four in Iraqi capital :

Unidentified gunmen have killed three soldiers and a civilian in separate drive-by shootings in the war-torn Iraqi capital Baghdad, an interior ministry official has said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060821/wl_mi...aqunrestbaghdad


Four U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq:

The U.S. military said on Monday four U.S. servicemen had been killed in action in Iraq in the past 24 hours.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2116970.htm


Bush Contemplates Rebirth of Dictatorship for Iraq:

The Bush Administration may be looking for an Iraqi Stroessner, or another, more reliable Saddam.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14636.htm


SAS men get £100,000 to bribe Iraqi fighters:

BRITISH Army officers in Iraq are being handed stashes of up to £100,000 in cash for “operational expenses” without formal controls on how it is spent.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14634.htm


In case you missed it:

John Pilger: Sinister Events in a Cynical War:

Here are questions that are not being asked about the latest twist of a cynical war. Were explosives and a remote-control detonator found in the car of the two SAS special forces men "rescued" from prison in Basra on 19 September? If true, what were they planning to do with them?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10425.htm


"I Was a Propaganda Intern in Iraq" :

Fmr. Lincoln Group Intern Describes Paying Iraqi Press to Plant Pro-American Articles Secretly Written by U.S. Military
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14637.htm

Saddam trial hears of gas attack BBC News
The first prosecution witness has appeared at the latest trial of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and six others on war crimes charges.The witness described a chemical weapons attack which he says was carried out on his village. Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants are being tried over the Anfal campaign in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in the late 1980s. The prosecution alleges that up to 180,000 civilians were killed.The witness, Ali Mustapha Hama, said eight to 12 jets bombed his village of Balisan in April in 1987. Two of the defendants told the court that Anfal was a campaign targeting Iranian troops and Kurdish guerrillas supporting them. The Iran-Iraq war was not yet over.

'Many dead'
The explosions were not very loud, Ali Mustapha Hama said. There was greenish smoke, and minutes later, a smell like rotten apples or garlic."People were vomiting... We were blinded. We were screaming. There was no one to save us, only God." He spoke of a new-born infant who was trying to "smell life", but breathed in the chemicals and died. Many others died too, he added. During cross-examination, defence lawyers asked Mr Hama how he knew the aircraft were Iraqi, and prompted Hama to say he had helped shelter guerrillas in his village.

Iran-Iraq war
One of them, Sultan Hashim Ahmed, commander of the Anfal operation and a former defence minister, said his orders were to prevent the Iranians from occupying Iraq at whatever price.But he said civilians were moved safely to other areas. "The goal was to fight an organised, armed army - the goal was not civilians," he said. Saber Abdul Aziz, the director of military intelligence at the time, said Anfal aimed to clear northern Iraq of Iranian troops. "You will see that we are not guilty and that we defended our country honourably and sincerely," he said. All the defendants face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, while Saddam Hussein and Ali Hassan al-Majid are additionally charged with genocide. All seven face the death penalty if convicted. Saddam Hussein and seven different defendants have already been tried for the killing of 148 Shias in Dujail in 1982. A verdict is due on 16 October.

At least 16 killed in occupied Iraq:

Bodies of eight fruit traders were found with their throats slit on the roadside in Madaen, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, Ahmed Diabil, a spokesman for Najaf province, said on Tuesday.
http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticl...oryId=KAM228050

===
Iraqi Panel Launches Own Rape-Slay Probe:

An Iraqi investigative panel has launched an independent probe into the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl allegedly by American soldiers currently in U.S. custody, who will be tried in absentia if necessary, an official said Tuesday.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2341038

===
Bush: Iraq Had ‘Nothing’ To Do With 9/11:

Bush Now Says What He Wouldn’t Say Before War. Watch it.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/21/bush-on-911/

===
Marines to issue involuntary call-ups:

Corps faces shortage of volunteers for deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14468245/

Mother recalls Iraqi gas attack BBC News
The third day of Saddam Hussein's genocide trial has seen a Kurdish woman testify about the death of one of her children in a poison gas attack. The former Iraqi leader and six others are being tried over the Anfal campaign in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq in the late 1980s. The prosecution alleges that up to 180,000 civilians were killed. Adiba Oula Bayez described the bombardment of her village, Balisan, on 16 April 1987. She said warplanes dropped bombs that spread a smoke that smelled "like rotten apples". "Then my daughter Narjis came to me, complaining about pain in her eyes, chest and stomach. When I got close to see what was wrong with her, she threw up all over me," she said. "When I took her in to wash her face... all my other children were throwing up. "Then my condition got bad, too. And that's when we realised that the weapon was poisonous and chemical." She then described how her family was blinded by the attack, sought shelter along with other villagers from Iraqi army fire, and was taken to a detention centre. "I went for four days without eyesight. My children could not see. I was just screaming. On the fifth day I slightly opened my eyes. And it was a terrible scene. My children and my skin had turned black," she said. Mrs Bayez told the court one of her children had died after the chemical attack, and she had subsequently had two miscarriages. "May God blind them all," she said, pointing at Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants. Mrs Bayez is married to one of the men who testified for the prosecution on Tuesday, Ali Mustapha Hama. The former leader, who faces the death penalty if found guilty of genocide, questioned the witness's account of one alleged chemical attack: "I wonder if the village in which she lived was struck with chemical weapons, why she was hurt while the others, her two sisters or daughters and a husband - not one of them was hurt? And why those who came to rescue her were not hurt too? Thank you." The trial has now been adjourned to 11 September.

Bleeding birds
Later on Wednesday, a former Kurdish peshmerga fighter described several attacks he witnessed in 1987 and 1988 - including an August 1988 chemical weapons attack on his village. Moussa Abdullah Moussa described how his brother's family was killed. "I found my brother, Saleh Abdullah and his son Shaabaan. They were 100 metres [yards] away. They were hugging and they were dead," he said. "I can't describe the feeling which I felt with my eyes and heart. We screamed." He said he ran past birds and chickens which lay dead after the gas attack, blood trickling from their beaks, while villagers washed their faces with milk to ease the pain of the chemicals. "People were certain they were going to die because the government had no mercy." Another Balisan resident, Badriya Said Khider, said nine of her relatives were killed in the attack, including her parents, husband and son, and that she still suffered the after-effects. "I can't speak. I am breathless," she said, wheezing. "I want the court to treat Saddam as he treated us." The accused say the campaign was a legitimate counter-insurgency operation aimed at clearing northern Iraq of Iranian troops and separatist guerrillas. All the defendants face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, while Saddam Hussein and Ali Hassan al-Majid are additionally charged with genocide. All seven face the death penalty if convicted. Saddam Hussein and seven different defendants have already been tried for the killing of 148 Shias in Dujail in 1982. A verdict in that case is due on 16 October.

At least 18 killed as U.S. occupation grinds on:

Police found the bodies of three people, handcuffed and with gunshot wounds, in Kut, 170 km (105 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO427510.htm


3 U.S. Soldiers Among Fatalities in Iraq :

A series of attacks across Iraq killed more than a dozen people, including three U.S. soldiers, authorities said Thursday. The killings came despite assurances from U.S. officials that progress was being made to improve security in the capital.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/stor...6035600,00.html


Iraq PM bans TV from showing attacks :

Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has banned television channels from broadcasting gory images of daily bloodshed in the country, the interior ministry said in a statement.
http://tinyurl.com/zhrsh


At least 19 killed in occupied Iraq:

Iraqi police pulled out six bodies from a small river near Latifiya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM329576.htm


2,500 Marines Face Involuntary Recall:

The number of troops in Iraq has climbed back to 138,000 — the prevailing number for much of last year.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/08/22/...in1925647.shtml


UK troops to stay in Iraq 'to protect investment' : -

A force of around 4,000 British troops will stay behind in Iraq for an indefinite period, even after all provinces controlled by the UK are handed over to the Baghdad government in nine months' time, senior defence sources said yesterday.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14671.htm


McCain Faults Admin. For Painting Iraq As ‘Some Kind of Day At the Beach,’

Ignores Own Rosy Rhetoric
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/22/mccain-hypocrisy


The Kurds' fight for oil rights:

In Iraq, striking oil workers have shut the main pipeline supppling Baghdad with refined oil prodcuts.
http://tinyurl.com/zmsbs


An interview with an Iraqi insurgent:

The night before Jill Carroll was released, Abu Nour, her chief captor who claims to be a leader of the Sunni insurgency, ordered her to do one final interview.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0822/p11s02-woiq.html?s=t5


S General Says Iranian Forces Do Training in Iraq :

A senior U.S. military spokesman says Iranian forces have infiltrated Iraq to provide training, money and equipment to Shi'ite extremists and fuel their insurgency. The officer went farther than others have in detailing Iran's alleged role in Iraq's violence.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-08-23-voa58.cfm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2401721_pf.html

Sadr's Militia and the Slaughter in the Streets

Sadr's Militia and the Slaughter in the Streets
'We Don't Need a Verdict,' One Commander Says

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 25, 2006; A01



BAGHDAD -- In a grungy restaurant with plastic tables in central Baghdad, the young Mahdi Army commander was staring earnestly. His beard was closely cropped around his jaw, his face otherwise cleanshaven. The sleeves of his yellow shirt were rolled down to the wrists despite the intense late-afternoon heat. He spoke matter-of-factly: Sunni Arab fighters suspected of attacking Shiite Muslims had no claim to mercy, no need of a trial.

"These cases do not need to go back to the religious courts," said the commander, who sat elbow to elbow with a fellow fighter in a short-sleeved, striped shirt. Neither displayed weapons. "Our constitution, the Koran, dictates killing for those who kill."

His comments offered a rare acknowledgment of the role of the Mahdi Army in the sectarian bloodletting that has killed more than 10,400 Iraqis in recent months. The Mahdi Army is the militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, now one of the most powerful figures in the country.

The death squads that carry out the extrajudicial killings are widely feared but mysterious. Often, the only evidence is the bodies discovered in the streets. Several commanders in the Mahdi Army said in interviews that they act independently of the Shiite religious courts that have taken root here, meting out street justice on their own with what they believe to be the authorization of Sadr's organization and under the mantle of Islam.

"You can find in any religion the right of self-defense," said another commander, senior enough to be referred to as the Sheik, who was interviewed separately by telephone. Like the others, he lives and works in Sadr City, a trash-strewn, eight-square-mile district of east Baghdad that is home to more than 2 million Shiites. They spoke on condition that their names not be revealed and that specific areas of Sadr City under their control not be identified.

"The takfiris , the ones who kill, they should be killed," said the Sheik, using a term commonly employed by Shiites for violent Sunni extremists. "Also the Saddamists. Whose hands are stained with blood, they are sentenced to death."

"This is part of defending yourself," the commander said. "This is a ready-made verdict -- we don't need any verdict."

Before Feb. 22, when the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra unleashed a wave of sectarian killing and retribution, U.S. authorities and others believed the primary force behind Shiite death squads was the Badr Brigade, the militia of another large Shiite organization, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. But since the bombing, the Mahdi Army appears to have taken the lead in extrajudicial trials and executions, according to Joost Hiltermann, a project director in Jordan for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

For suspected enemies taken by the Mahdi Army, the outcome is swift, with guilt and punishment already determined, the commanders said.

"If we catch any of them, the takfiris, Saddamists, bombers, we don't hand them over to police. He could be freed the next day," the Sheik said.

The captured men get a rapid interrogation, he added. They are asked, "How do you come here? Who is working with you? Which organization is supporting you?"

"We get a full confession," he said. "Once we do, we know what to do with them."

A Widow's Story

In a darkened living room in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Baghdad, the widow of a retired army officer -- a Sunni allegedly taken by the Mahdi Army after the Samarra bombing -- recounted the last hours of her husband's life, stopping her account only to call aloud to God for revenge.

Gunmen from outside the neighborhood surrounded the mosque where her husband and other men were at late-afternoon prayer, she said. It was Feb. 23, the day after the shrine bombing. The armed strangers were wearing black clothes of the type then worn by the Mahdi Army. Sadr later ordered his fighters to discard the uniform, saying rivals were using it to commit killings in the guise of the Mahdi Army.

The gunmen took her husband and the other men to a police station in the Habibiya neighborhood of Sadr City, the black-clad widow said, surrounded by her daughters and granddaughters. Women of the neighborhood gathered in another room to pay their respects to the bereaved family. Some of the men were released, surviving to tell what happened. They recalled that her husband and three other retired officers from Saddam Hussein's military were subjected to a one-hour hearing.

"The trial was held in public, at 6 a.m., on Friday," she said. "At 10 a.m., they called us to tell us to pick the body up from the morgue."

As directed, male relatives retrieved her husband's body from the Baghdad morgue. The corpse bore bullet holes in the face and chest, with both hands still cuffed behind the back.

Fearful despite her anger, she refused to say who she thought killed her husband. An 8-year-old granddaughter whispered the answer into her ear: "The Mahdi Army."

"Darling," the widow scolded, frowning at the child to be silent.

Asked about the Mahdi Army's role in the surge of killings immediately after the Samarra mosque bombing, the Mahdi Army commander in short sleeves at the restaurant frowned, and answered carefully. "Terrorists" were at work then, he said, using a term employed by Shiites for Sunni insurgents. "There was an immediate need to move and contain these groups," he said.

Grisly Discoveries

Thousands of bodies turned up on the streets and vacant lots of Baghdad in the months after the Samarra bombing, found by U.S. Army patrols, Iraqi forces, passersby and families of the dead. Unlike earlier in the conflict, when the biggest share of victims were killed by the bombs of Sunni insurgents, these corpses were found shot to death, often bearing signs of torture and with their hands still bound. Shiite militias were blamed for many of these deaths.

The Mahdi Army commanders who were interviewed balked at detailing how many people the militia may have killed, and how. American forces, by contrast, saw nothing but the end results.

One small unit alone, made up of roughly two dozen Americans helping train the Iraqi army in Sadr City, happened upon more than 200 bodies this year along roads on the edges of Sadr City, said 1st Lt. Zeroy Lawson, the unit's intelligence officer.

Witnesses and residents of Sadr City told the Americans that the victims had been brought from all over Baghdad, said Lawson and Capt. Troy Wayman, an officer in the same squad. Victims typically had their shoes removed and their hands bound, Lawson said, and were executed in public. The Americans said they suspect that the women they found dead, like the men found with their genitals mutilated, were judged guilty of extramarital sex.

Lawson and Wayman offered several examples. One was a female worker at a Sadr City clinic that Mahdi Army members believed was a brothel. The militiamen warned the women there to shut the place down, pistol-whipped them in public and then shot the worker dead on the street, the two Americans said.

In another case, Lawson spotted the unmoving form of a paunchy man in a checked shirt by the side of the road. Residents told Lawson that the man, a Sunni, had been taken from his home in Mansour, an affluent neighborhood of Sunnis, Shiites and Christians in central Baghdad. Accused of conspiring to drive Shiites from their homes, the Sunni man had been brought to Sadr City and shot dead where he now lay, witnesses told the Americans.

In late spring, Wayman recalled, the Americans in Sadr City happened upon uniformed Iraqi security forces clustered around the body of an Iraqi man. Gunmen had shot the man dead seconds before, then sped off when the Iraqi and U.S. forces happened by, Wayman said.

Americans traced the killers' vehicle to a nearby police station, where they found two grateful captives inside. The men were Christians who told Wayman they worked at a store elsewhere in Baghdad that sold alcohol. Gunmen had visited the shop to tell the men that alcohol was forbidden by the Koran and that they must shut down. When the two refused, they told Wayman, the gunmen stuffed them into a car at gunpoint and brought them to a house in Sadr City.

A Shiite cleric visited the two Christians at the house, they told Wayman. The cleric demanded that the captives convert to Islam and, when they refused, informed them that alcohol was forbidden by Islam.

They would be punished, the cleric said, but he did not specify how. The captives said they believed they were second and third in line for execution, after the man who was found in the street.

Mahdi Army commanders interviewed uniformly denied that they kill people for selling alcohol. The Mahdi Army only warns liquor vendors, increasingly strongly, they said. If the vendors still refuse to stop selling, the Mahdi Army "beats them lightly, in accordance with the Koran," the commander known as the Sheik said.

Lawson, the intelligence officer, credits the Mahdi Army with an intelligence operation that has become skilled at feeding bad information to Americans about the militia's activities. But U.S. military officials say they know enough to condemn much of what the Mahdi Army does.

"I have no doubt . . . they hold trial courts and execute people," said Lt. Col. Mark Meadows, commander of a cavalry regiment with the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division. Meadows's men oversaw Shula, a northern Baghdad neighborhood under Sadr's control, at the time of the Samarra bombing. The Mahdi Army "is probably the largest, most aggressive militia in this country," Meadows said. "They are a terrorist organization. They terrorize people."

But Iraqi and U.S. security forces are often left as puzzled spectators in areas under the Mahdi Army's jurisdiction.

On patrol early one morning, Wayman and his convoy pulled over at the telltale sign of a group of Iraqi police gathered by the side of a road in northern Sadr City, eyes cast down.

The police officers made room for Wayman, who looked down at an Iraqi girl lying on her side. She appeared to be no more than 15. The morning light bathed her face, and her hands curled gently to her mouth. Wrapped in a blanket, she looked asleep, except for two bursts of pink flesh from bullet wounds in her back.

Neither American nor Iraqi forces had any inclination to investigate what had happened to the teenager.

"Who knows?" one of the Iraqi policeman said, preparing to bundle up the body. Wayman got back into his Humvee, and the Americans drove on.

"WHAT THE IRAQI PEOPLE WANT" - MARC LYNCH (ABU AARDVACK, AUGUST 24): Maybe there are reasons for keeping American troops in Iraq, but "it's what the Iraqi people want" really doesn't seem to be one of them.
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark...the_iraqi_.html

RETURNING SOME ORDER TO IRAQ'S MEAN STREETS - DAVID IGNATIUS (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 25): With enough troops and aggressive tactics, American forces can bring order to even the meanest streets, but it's only the Iraqis themselves who can stabilize these neighborhoods permanently.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2401331_pf.html

IRAQ: THREATENED TEACHERS FLEEING THE COUNTRY IRIN (ALERTNET, AUGUST 24)
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/I...81cfa749748.htm
VIA
http://www.juancole.com/

A PLAN TO HOLD IRAQ TOGETHER - JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR. (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 24): The only way to hold Iraq together and create the conditions for our armed forces to responsibly withdraw is to give Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds incentives to pursue their interests peacefully and to forge a sustainable political settlement. (The writer is a senator from Delaware and the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2301419_pf.html

GETTING TO THE TRUTH ON IRAQ - MOLLY IVINS (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AUGUST 24): Iraq is a Disaster.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...ncommentary-hed

BUSH'S NEW IRAQ ARGUMENT: IT COULD BE WORSE - PETER BAKER (WASHINGTON, AUGUST 24): For three years, the president tried to reassure Americans that more progress was being made in Iraq than they realized. But with Iraq either in civil war or on the brink of it, Bush dropped the unseen-progress argument in favor of the contention that things could be even worse.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2301878_pf.html

BUSH CLINGS TO A LOST CAUSE IN IRAQ - JOAN VENNOCHI (BOSTON GLOBE COLUMNIST, AUGUST 22): When it comes to Iraq, Bush, the rebel with a lost cause, continues to defy one thing above all: logic.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...6304081?mode=PF

NATION PAYS A HIGH PRICE FOR PRESIDENT'S IRAQ DELUSIONS - STEVE CHAPMAN (BALTIMORE SUN, AUGUST 23): We are not going to stay long enough to succeed in Iraq, and we have already stayed long enough to fail.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines

LEARNING FROM IRAQ: IN A WAR, THINK BIG -- AT LEAST AT FIRST - JEFFREY SHAFFER (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, AUGUST 26): The public relations advantage of a massive force is that if the campaign goes well, you can start pulling some troops out right away and keep public opinion on the positive side.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0825/p09s03-cojs.html

IRAQ FOR SALE: THE MOVIE - SPIN OF THE DAY (CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY, AUGUST 23): Robert Greenwald, the director of last year?s influential "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," has a new film coming out in October, titled ?Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers.?
http://www.prwatch.org/spin (scroll down link for item)

Iraq: At least 19 killed as U.S. occupation continues:

U.S. tanks shelled a mosque in the Sunni stronghold of Ramadi after coming under attack from gunmen inside the building, the U.S. military said. A doctor at Ramadi hospital said three people were killed and 22 wounded by U.S. fire.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MOU528836.htm


Poll: Iraqi's Want U.S. Occupation Forces Out Of Iraq:

91.7% of Iraqis oppose the presence of coalition troops in the country, up from 74.4% in 2004.
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark...the_iraqi_.html


'I can't go to Iraq. I can't kill those children' -

Suicide soldier's dying words to his mother
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_brit...icle1221649.ece


Shays Urges Iraq Withdrawal:

Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), once an ardent supporter of the war in Iraq, said yesterday that the Bush administration should set a time frame for withdrawing U.S. troops. He added that most of the withdrawal could take place next year.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14692.htm


Hillary Still Hiding on War; Time Warner Provides Cover :

The cover story in the new issue of TIME, the flagship publication of the Time Warner media empire, informs readers that Hillary Clinton has “virtually nonexistent opposition for her senate seat.”
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0824-33.htm


Cost of Iraq war: $1,075 each:

The National Priorities Project has calculated the cost of the Iraq war by congressional district, city, state and even household. - You owe $1,075.
http://washtimes.com/upi/20060823-051747-8542r.htm


Is Iran Running Militias in Iraq?:

Iraqi politicians say the growing U.S. claims of a clear link between Shi'ite militias and Tehran is pure scapegoating. And renewed Tehran-bashing in Washington could further complicate its efforts to end the civil war
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14688.htm

Baghdad blasts claim more lives BBC News
At least 12 people have been killed and more than 30 injured in bombings in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. At least five died and 14 were hurt when a vehicle exploded near a hotel. Five more were killed at an open-air market, and a car bomb explosion near the state-run newspaper claimed at least two lives and wounded 20 people. The attacks come as US-led forces have been carrying out a major operation to improve security following a recent rise in violence in the city. They say the situation is improving. The US military has said a joint force of Iraqi and US soldiers has searched 31,000 buildings and 25 mosques, detained 70 suspected terrorists and seized 529 weapons in the past two weeks.

Media targets
The explosion outside the al-Sabah offices was the second car bomb attack on the newspaper this year. Al-Sabah is state-owned, but financed by the US. Correspondents say insurgents in Iraq often target journalists working for the state media.

At least 28 killed in occupied Iraq:

One day after Maliki won a promise from tribal leaders to rein in Iraq's violent factions, bombers targeted the busy heart of Baghdad and a state-run newspaper seen as friendly to the government.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060827/wl_mideast_afp/iraq

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20 bodies found in Baghdad :

Police said 20 bodies had been found in various districts of Baghdad on Saturday. Some bore signs of torture and most had been killed by gunshots to the head, a typical feature of the communal bloodshed between the Shi'ite and Sunni sects.
http://tinyurl.com/l5ukv

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Call for autonomy as Iraqi tribes demand peace :

A powerful Iraqi politician called yesterday for the Shi’ite south of the country to become an autonomous region as tribal leaders vowed to work together for peace.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14715.htm

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For an Iraq Cut in 3, Cast a Wary Glance at Kurdistan :

Children are not required to learn Arabic in schools, which means an entire generation is growing up without the ability to communicate with other Iraqis. Arabs arriving from other parts of the country have to register with local security forces.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14716.htm

===
Reuters seeks Pentagon probe on journalist's "unlawful". death:

Reuters news agency urged the U.S. military on Sunday to investigate the killing of one of its journalists by American troops in Baghdad a year ago.
http://tinyurl.com/hdxa3

===
You wouldn’t catch me dead in Iraq:

Scores of American troops are deserting — even from the front line in Iraq. But where have they gone? And why isn’t the US Army after them? Peter Laufer tracked down four of the deserters
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly...643-531,00.html

Fierce battles in south Iraq city BBC News
Iraqi troops have fought battles with Shia militiamen in the southern town of Diwaniya, amid an upsurge in violence in which dozens of people have died.At least 19 soldiers were killed and more than 40 people were wounded in Diwaniya. Officials said some 40 gunmen from the Mehdi Army had also died. Government forces had lost control of parts of the city, officials said. In Baghdad, 11 people died when a suicide car bomber attacked a compound of the Iraqi interior ministry. A spokesman for the Diwaniya general hospital said 34 bodies had been brought in, including soldiers and seven civilians and two militiamen.Local leaders are quoted as saying the gunmen in Diwaniya have split from the from the Mehdi Army after rejecting a call from their radical leader to take part in Iraq's political peace process. Members of the militia have set up their own checkpoints in the town, eyewitnesses said, and the government has sent large numbers of reinforcements. In Baghdad, dozens of people were injured in the mid-morning blast outside the interior ministry. The ministry complex has been frequently targeted in the past and is heavily guarded. At least eight policemen are reported to be among the fatalities.

'Improved security'
Insurgents have carried out almost daily attacks against Iraqi and coalition targets since the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Thousands of Iraqis have died in apparently sectarian attacks in the past four months alone. However, a US general says violence has fallen in Baghdad by nearly a half since July, although he acknowledged a spike in bombings in the past 48 hours. "Insurgents and terrorists are hitting back in an attempt to offset the success of the Iraqi government and its security forces," Maj Gen William Caldwell told reporters. The Baghdad bomber struck as UK Defence Minister Des Browne was in the capital for talks with Iraqi officials. After meeting Iraqi Defence Minister Abdul-Qader Mohammed Jassim al-Mifarji, Mr Browne said Iraq was moving forward. "Each time I come, I see more progress," he said. Meanwhile, five US soldiers were killed in two separate bomb attacks in Iraq on Sunday afternoon, the US military said. Four soldiers died when a roadside bomb hit their vehicle north of Baghdad, a military statement said. A fifth soldier was killed when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle in the west of the capital.

IRAQI MUSEUM SEALED AGAINST LOOTERS: ANTIQUITIES CHIEF QUITS POST, FLEES COUNTRY, CITING LACK OF SAFEGUARDS FOR HISTORIC TREASURES - ELLEN KNICKMEYER (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 27)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2600810_pf.html

IRAQIS LAMENT DEMISE OF CINEMA - ISLAMONLINE.NET & NEWS AGENCIES (ISLAMONLINE.COM, AUGUST 27): Curfews, bomb attacks scare, continuous power blackouts and relentless sectarian violence have ruined the onetime bustling Iraqi cinemas and the film industry.
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2006-08/27/03.shtml

SERVICE IN IRAQ: JUST HOW RISKY? - SAMUEL H. PRESTON AND EMILY BUZZELL (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 26): The ratio of deaths to person-years, .00392, or 3.92 deaths per 1,000 person-years, is the death rate of military personnel in Iraq. For the civilian population of the United States, that rate was 8.42 per 1,000 in 2003, more than twice that for military personnel in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2500940_pf.html

DEATHS DROP IN IRAQI CAPITAL: EVEN AS THE NATION'S TOLL CLIMBS BY AT LEAST 80, INCLUDING 6 U.S. SOLDIERS, OFFICIALS CREDIT A MILITARY SWEEP FOR BAGHDAD'S LOWER TALLY THIS MONTH - SOLOMON MOORE (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 28)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...-home-headlines

CIVIL WAR VIOLENCE EXPLODES THROUGHOUT IRAQ - JUAN COLE (INFORMED COMMENT: THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST, HISTORY, AND RELIGION, AUGUST 28): The first question is whether the decline in deaths in Baghdad (which is only relative) has been offset by violence in Mosul, Baqubah and elsewhere. The second question is whether the violence will remain lower when the sweeps end, as inevitably they will.
http://www.juancole.com/ (scroll down link for item)

MORALITY IN IRAQ, THEN AND NOW - JIM HOAGLAND (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 27): Conducting a military occupation that has lost the ability to change the situation for the better for those being occupied is unwise and ultimately untenable. It is also immoral. U.S. involvement in Iraq is again perilously close to being just that.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2501238_pf.html

IRAQ: STILL WORTH SOME WAITING - DAVID IGNATIUS (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 27): We'll be out of Iraq, one way or another, over the next few years. Rushing the process because of American impatience would make a bad situation even worse.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2501237_pf.html

RETURN TO THE SCENE OF THE CRIME - FRANK RICH (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 27): When the fifth anniversary of 9/11 arrives in two weeks, you can bet that the president will once again invoke the Qaeda attacks to justify the Iraq war, especially now that we are adding troops (through the involuntary call-up of reservists) rather than subtracting any. The new propaganda strategy will be right out of Lewis Carroll: If we leave the country that had nothing to do with 9/11, then 9/11 will happen again.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/opini...agewanted=print
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FOR AN IRAQ CUT IN 3, CAST A WARY GLANCE AT KURDISTAN - EDWARD WONG (NEW YORK TIMES, AUGUST 27): Whether Iraq?s neighbors like it or not, this country?s regions are heading toward greater autonomy, not less.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/weekinre...agewanted=print

BREAKING UP (A COUNTRY) IS HARD TO DO - GARY BASS (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 27): If Iraq is partitioned, it probably will be only after the United States experiences the same kind of panicky desperation that helped prompt Britain's mid-century partitions in its crumbling imperial possessions.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2501172_pf.html

BREAK UP IRAQ TO SAVE IT: GETTING SHIITES, SUNNIS AND KURDS TO RELOCATE MIGHT BE THE ONLY WAY TO SALVAGE THE STATE - MICHAEL O'HANLON (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 27): If we can encourage future ethnic relocation to occur voluntarily and peacefully, rather than through murder, rape and intimidation, we can still salvage an imperfect but real success that ultimately leaves most Iraqis better off than they were under Hussein.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

AMERICAN PSYCHE: GEORGE BUSH SAYS IRAQ IS DRAINING FOR AMERICA. HE SHOULD SEE WHAT IT?S DOING TO THE IRAQIS - MICHAEL HASTINGS (NEWSWEEK, AUGUST 23): If America's soul is tied to Iraq, Iraq's soul is now desperately intertwined with America. The Iraqi psyche is badly damaged, mainly because Iraqis actually are at war with themselves.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14487361/site/newsweek/

PROLONGED WAR WASN'T IN THE DEAL - DERRICK Z. JACKSON (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 26): Until we get out of Iraq, Bush has to soothe the American psyche. He can start by firing Rumsfeld, who told us the battle would not be prolonged. That would be a good first step to rearranging the chairs.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...he_deal?mode=PF

RETALIATION ALLEGED FOR TEACHING ON IRAQ WAR - JESSICA GARRISON (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 26): Alberto Gutierrez, a 33-year-old social studies teacher who is known on campus as a passionate educator with a left-wing tilt, says in a suit filed this week that after he "offered objective discussion ... regarding the United States' involvement in the war in Iraq to his students," then-Principal Jose Luis Rodriguez began filling Gutierrez's personnel file with negative reviews and surreptitiously encouraging parents to complain about him.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-me...dlines-politics

THE CHENEY PRESIDENCY - ROBERT KUTTNER (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 26): The Iraq war is the work of Cheney and Rumsfeld.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...sidency?mode=PF

NEWS ANALYSIS: IRAQ WAR HAS BUSH DOCTRINE IN TATTERS - CAROLYN LOCHHEAD (SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, AUGUST 27): President Bush vowed last week that he would never abandon his goal of creating democracy in Iraq, but outside the White House, the foreign policy world is wondering how to contain a civil war that could engulf the Middle East.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

WILL WE CHOOSE TO WIN IN IRAQ? THE WAR IS FRUSTRATING. THAT DOESN'T MEAN WE OUGHT TO GET OUT - WILLIAM J. STUNTZ (WEEKLY STANDARD, SEPTEMBER 4): The territory over which we fight is among the most strategically important in the world. Victory will place the most dangerous regime on the planet, Iran's fascist theocracy, in serious peril. Defeat will leave that same regime inestimably strengthened.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...12/615hksxa.asp

THE CURRENT CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS - FREDERICK GRAB (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 28): Perhaps we can't subdue Iran through a ground invasion, but we could very well utilize air power, not to defeat a large, well-equipped army like Iran's, but to destroy the infrastructure and war-making capability of an enemy with which we were actually at war.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...27-100239-8074r

SQUEEZING IRAN EDITORIAL (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AUGUST 27): Anything less than the Security Council's complete resolve to stop Iran's nuclear program through tough sanctions is destined to fail.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...newsopinion-hed

THE LEBANON CEASEFIRE: THE PLANNED ASSAULT ON IRAN - GARY LEUPP (COUNTERPUNCH, AUGUST 26/27)
http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp08262006.html

IRAN'S 'CRISIS' OF OVERCONFIDENCE - JASON MOTLAGH (ASIA TIMES, AUGUST 26): The failure of the Israelis to rout Hezbollah suggests the high cost of a potential ground war on Iran to Israel and to US forces already bogged down in Iraq.
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HH26Ak02.html

WILL BUSH MAKE IRAN THE ONLY SUPERPOWER? - BRADLEY BURSTON (HAARETZ, AUGUST 27): Bush, who is fast nearing the mid-point of his second term, has yet to field a coherent policy regarding the grand dark-horse of 21st Century superpower politics, Iran.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/754892.html

PAVING THE WAY TO WAR WITH IRAN - WILLIAM M. ARKIN (WASHINGTONPOST.COM, AUGUST 24): In the absence of expert opinion that is neither myopic nor bought, in our earning for an explanation as to why the world is such a mess and in our patriotic duty not to see ourselves as responsible, in our myopia about WMD, in our polarized partisan grossness, we have unfortunately paved the way for war with Iran.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarnin...r_with_ira.html

TRAPPED BY HIS OWN RHETORIC: WHY BUSH WILL CHOOSE WAR AGAINST IRAN - RAY CLOSE, FORMER CIA ANALYST (COUNTERPUNCH, AUGUST 26/27)
http://www.counterpunch.org/close08262006.html

'FIXING' IRAN INTELLIGENCE - JOHN PRADOS (TOMPAINE.COM, AUGUST 25): More and more it appears that the pattern of manipulation and misuse of intelligence that served the Bush administration in the drive to start a war with Iraq is being repeated today for its neighbor Iran.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/2...ntelligence.php

HOEKSTRA'S HOAX: HYPING UP THE IRAN 'THREAT' - RAY MCGOVERN (ANTIWAR.COM, AUGUST 27): "Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States," released this week by House intelligence committee chair, is another sign pointing in the direction of a US attack on Iran.
http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=9609

REPUBLICAN REPORT HYPES IRAN 'THREAT' - JIM LOBE (ANTIWAR.COM, AUGUST 27): The fact that Frederick Fleitz, a former CIA officer, was the report's main author, suggests that his effort to undermine confidence in the intelligence community's estimates regarding Iran is part of a larger campaign that includes many of the same hawks who led the drive to war in Iraq.
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=9610

WHY IT'S NOT WORKING IN AFGHANISTAN - ANN JONES (TOMDISPATCH, AUGUST 27): The Karzai government, confined to a self-serving American agenda that is often at odds with Afghan interests, has delivered nothing at all to the average Afghan, still living in abysmal poverty.
http://tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=116512

COMMENTARY: ISLAMISTS' STAR RISES FOLLOWING WAR IN LEBANON ECCENTRIC STAR (AUGUST 23)
http://eccentricstar.typepad.com/public_di...ntary_isla.html

AMERICA'S MUSLIMS AREN'T AS ASSIMILATED AS YOU THINK - GENEIVE ABDO (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 27): U.S. foreign policy persists in dividing Muslim and Western societies, making it harder still for Americans to realize that there is a difference between their Muslim neighbor and the plotter in London or the kidnapper in Baghdad.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2501169_pf.html

OLD SHIITE-SUNNI BLOOD FEUD DRIVES THE MIDEAST'S NEW POWER PLAY: HEZBOLLAH'S PERCEIVED VICTORY IN THE LEBANON WAR PUTS FEUDING MUSLIMS ON A COLLISION COURSE - VALI NASR (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 27): Sectarianism is a Muslim problem, but if unchecked, it can unleash conflicts detrimental to U.S. interests.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...omment-opinions

WITCH DOCTORS AND THUGS - ALAN REYNOLDS (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 27): If the phrase "Islamic fascism" is to become something more serious than a gratuitous slur, its value may lie in drawing attention to the dangers of mixing brutality and murder with quasi-religious excuses, force with fraud and thugs with witch doctors.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...26-101825-7882r

WRONG WAR, WRONG WORD KATHA POLLITT (NATION, AUGUST 24): As the Bush Administration's Middle Eastern policy sinks ever deeper into bloody incoherence, the "war on terror" has been getting a quiet linguistic makeover. It's becoming the "war on Islamic fascism."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060911/pollitt

RELEARNING LESSONS IN THE WAR ON TERROR - VICTOR DAVIS HANSON (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, AUGUST 25): Unless we in the West adapt more quickly than do canny Islamic terrorists in this constantly evolving war, cease our internecine fighting and stop forgetting what we've learned about our enemies -- there will be disasters to come far worse than Sept. 11.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion...ncommentary-hed

ONE PICTURE OF 'MODERATE' ISLAM EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON TIMES, AUGUST 28): The Bush administration's cooperation with Indonesia in the pursuit of terrorists has been commendable. But the numbers don't lie as to the rest of its policy, which is insufficiently ambitious in light of such radicalized opinion in a country touted for its moderation.
http://www.washtimes.com/functions/print.p...27-100219-2648r

THE LIQUID BOMB HOAX: THE LARGER IMPLICATIONS - JAMES PETRAS (GLOBALRESEARCH.CA, AUGUST 25): Some reports from British police insiders claim that the Bush Administration pushed Blair for early arrests and the announcement of the ?liquid bomb? plot. Security officials then launched a massive, all-out ?terror propaganda? campaign designed to capture the attention and support of the public with the total support of the mass media. The security-mass media campaign served its objective -- Bush?s popularity increased, Blair avoided censure and both continued on their vacations.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context...&articleId=3069

WHAT WENT WRONG?: NEW LOOKS AT THE BIN LADEN NETWORK AND THE PANEL THAT TRIED TO EXPLAIN ITS MOST VICIOUS ATTACK [REVIEW OF THE LOOMING TOWER: AL-QAEDA AND THE ROAD TO 9/11 BY LAWRENCE WRIGHT; WITHOUT PRECEDENT: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE 9/11 COMMISSION BY THOMAS H. KEAN AND LEE H. HAMILTON WITH BENJAMIN RHODES] - BRUCE HOFFMAN (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 27)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2401147_pf.html

IRAQ: A WAR ABOUT NOTHING MARIE COCCO (BOULDER DAILY CAMERA, COLORADO, AUGUST 27/COMMON DREAMS): If we now are embarked on a contemporary hundred years' war, what will historians say was its cause? Certainly 9/11 was the watershed event, but before that was the founding of Israel in 1948 and before that, the carving up of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0827-23.htm

At least 99 killed in occupied Iraq:

Fifty gunmen and 20 Iraqi soldiers have been killed in clashes in
the
town of Diwaniya south of Baghdad, the Ministry of Defence spokesman
said in Baghdad.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/KAM836303.htm

===
At least 67 killed as militia seizes key town:

Shiite militiamen killed at least 20 Iraqi soldiers in two days of
fighting that also left seven civilians dead, defence ministry
spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said Monday.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=17336

===
Eight U.S. occupation soldiers among at least 60 killed: :

The deaths followed bombings and shootings Sunday that killed more
than 60 people across the country, from the northern city of Kirkuk
to Baghdad and Basra in the south.
http://www.katu.com/printstory.asp?ID=88695

===
25 Iraqi soldiers killed amid nationwide violence :

Mohammed Abdul-Muhsen of Diwaniyah general hospital said 34 bodies
were brought in - 25 Iraqi soldiers, seven civilians and two
militiamen. He said at least 70 people were injured.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1859979,00.html

===
Baghdad violence cut by half: U.S. military:

Violence in Baghdad has dropped by nearly half since July, when
U.S.-led forces launched an operation to pacify the capital, a U.S.
general said on Monday
http://tinyurl.com/rqyba

===
Two Iraqi units have refused deployment

Members of two Iraqi military units have refused orders to deploy to
heavily contested areas, a top U.S. military general said.
http://tinyurl.com/hd5zm

===
Bush 'palace' shielded from Iraqi storm:

Washington is sending a clear message to Iraqis: "We're here to
stay."
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/age25.html

===
With thousands of Iraqis killed at hand of US soldiers, only few
charged-report ;

A review of military cases has found that the majority of US
soldiers
who served in Iraq and charged in the deaths of Iraqi civilians have
been acquitted, found guilty of relatively minor offenses or given
administrative punishments without trials.
http://tinyurl.com/n3yyf

===
"The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without
End." Video:

Peter Galbraith discusses his book . He describes his experiences in
Iraq, his impressions of the current situation and the leaders in
Iraq & the administration.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14731.htm

Iraq: Raging violence claims at least 91 lives as U.S. occupation
continues:

Police found the bodies of 20 men with gunshot wounds in two areas of
Baghdad on Tuesday
http://tinyurl.com/g8kr4

===
At least 100 die as militia force Iraqi troops out of town :

More than 10,000 Iraqis - the vast majority in Baghdad - have been
killed in the past four months alone, a figure that would send
shockwaves through the international community were it in any other
part of the world.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14737.htm

===
American toll is 10 killed in 2 days:

The U.S. military said today that nine U.S. soldiers were killed on
Sunday, eight of them in and around Baghdad and one in fighting in
Anbar province west of Baghdad. A 10th soldier died yesterday of
wounds sustained in a vehicle accident in Balad north of Baghdad.
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/nationworld/ci_4254845

===
Iraqi army agrees to truce with Shi'a militia:

Under the deal brokered by local political leaders, the army will
pull out of residential areas, while the Mahdi Army militia will
stand down its forces in the districts it seized during the fighting,
they said.
http://tinyurl.com/zlyzh

===
Attorneys want officials gagged in soldier's murder - rape case: -

Federal officials should be barred from speaking about the case of a
former soldier charged with raping and killing a 14-year-old Iraqi
girl, defense attorneys said.
http://tinyurl.com/fakp5

===
New 'Caught Red-Handed' Report:

Since the Iraq war began, the Republican-led Congress has spent more
than $300 Billion on President Bush's failed policy. $18 billion has
been awarded to Halliburton, much of which was in "no bid" contracts
and $9 billion is missing.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14738.htm

===
Turkish general vows to rout PKK :

He described the Kurdish rebels as "terrorists" who used democracy
and human rights as a shield.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5294438.stm

===
Rumsfeld: U.S. able to take new fight despite Iraq:

"It would be unfortunate if other countries thought that because we
have 136,000 troops in Iraq today, that we're not capable of
defending our country or doing anything that we might need to do," he
said in response to a question about military options for dealing with
Iran.
http://tinyurl.com/epcvp

===
The Spider's Web:

More people than ever are dying in Iraq while the United States looks
on powerlessly. In the wake of its invasion of Lebanon, Israel is
driven with self-doubt, while Europe tries to establish peace. But
there is one country that is benefiting from every crisis in the
region: Iran.
http://tinyurl.com/h6kt3

Iraq bombs leave at least 38 dead BBC News
A bomb has exploded at a busy Baghdad market killing 24 people and injuring more than 35, Iraqi police say. Witnesses said body parts and debris were strewn across the Shurja market, a scene of frequent attacks. At least two people died in a separate blast in the capital, while a bomb at an army recruitment centre in the town of Hilla killed 12 people, police said. Hilla, the capital of the mixed Sunni and Shia province of Babel, has been frequently targeted by insurgents. Wednesday's blasts are the latest in a series of attacks which have killed dozens of people across Iraq since the weekend. A roadside bomb went off at the Shurja market at around 1000 local time (0600 GMT), police said.

Renewed attack
"There are patches of blood everywhere in the area and firefighters are fighting to quell the fire as many shops are burning," a police officer told the French news agency AFP. The blast also injured at least 38 people, according to officials. Shurja, a teeming maze of streets and stalls, is one of Baghdad's biggest markets. It has been attacked before. A blast there three weeks ago left 10 people dead. Also on Wednesday, a petrol station in the capital was bombed, leaving at least two people dead. Just hours earlier, at around 0800 (0400 GMT) , a crowd had gathered outside an army recruitment centre in Hilla when a bomb exploded. A police spokesman said it was believed the bomb was attached to a bicycle or motorcycle. Recruitment centres for the Iraqi army and police have been frequent targets for insurgents. Hilla was the scene of the bloodiest single attack in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003 when about 125 people were killed by a suicide bomber in February 2005.

BUSH SPEECHES TO STRESS STAKES IN IRAQ: BID TO BOOST WAR SUPPORT WILL EMPHASIZE ADAPTING TO CONFLICT, NOT GAINS ON GROUND - JOHN D. MCKINNON (WALL STREET JOURNAL, AUGUST 30): President Bush will launch another major public-relations offensive to strengthen support for the Iraq war -- this time likely emphasizing the high stakes and changing nature of the battle more than the progress being made.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1156851380...e_whats_news_us
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IRAQI HOSPITALS ARE WAR'S NEW 'KILLING FIELDS': MEDICAL SITES TARGETED BY SHIITE MILITIAMEN - AMIT R. PALEY (WASHINGTON POST, AUGUST 30)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6082901680.html


IN IRAQ, FEWER KILLED, MORE ARE WOUNDED: NEW DATA SHOW BETTER TECHNOLOGY AND TACTICS ARE KEEPING FATALITIES DOWN, BUT INJURIES REMAIN HIGH - BRAD KNICKERBOCKER (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, AUGUST 29)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0829/p03s02-usmi.html


SPRINGTIME FOR KURDISTAN: THE SEMI-AUTONOMOUS NORTHERN REGION OF IRAQ IS AN ISLAND OF RELATIVE STABILITY IN AN OCEAN OF TURMOIL. IF AMERICA DOES NOT SUPPORT KURDISTAN?S INDEPENDENCE, WE MAY WELL LOSE OUR BEST SHOT OF HAVING A DESPERATELY NEEDED SECULAR ALLY IN THE REGION ? (PARAG KHANNA TRUTHDIG, AUGUST 29) http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/200608..._for_kurdistan/


WHAT IF WE LEFT? - WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR. (NATIONAL REVIEW, AUGUST 29): Lawrence Kaplan is a senior editor of The New Republic. He wrote last week, "U.S. troops are the only thing standing between what we see on our television sets today and butchery on a scale that would rival the worst of Saddam Hussein's depredations." Good men will perhaps not be finally governed by consideration of the moral question in Iraq, but they will not conceal that the point is there for men of good will to weigh.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTI1M...zcyNWZjZTEyZTY=


LIE BY LIE: CHRONICLE OF [THE IRAQ] WAR FORETOLD: AUGUST 1990 TO MARCH 2003 - MOTHER JONES (AUGUST 29)
http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/


IRAQ ISN'T THE PHILIPPINES: A DECADES-LONG U.S. OCCUPATION EVENTUALLY BROUGHT DEMOCRACY TO MANILA, BUT ANALOGIES OVERLOOK HISTORICAL AMERICAN BRUTALITY AND IRAQ'S COMPARATIVE STRENGTH - JON WIENER (LOS ANGELES TIMES, AUGUST 30): U.S. history provides a much better model for the future of Iraq: the withdrawal from Vietnam.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-...inion-rightrail

Iraqi Hospitals Are War's New 'Killing Fields'

By Amit R. Paley

BAGHDAD -- In a city with few real refuges from sectarian violence -- not government offices, not military bases, not even mosques -- one place always emerged as a safe haven: hospitals.

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060830/wl_mi...raqunrestshiite

Wed Aug 30, 10:21 AM ET

Iraq's defence minister has declared the army's truce with Shiite militants in the central city of Diwaniyah null and void, and demanded an inquiry into the murder of 13 soldiers.

Fighting erupted in Diwaniyah on Sunday between Iraqi army troops and the Mahdi Army militia.

Officials reported that 23 soldiers, 50 militants and eight civilians were killed before local officials could negotiate a ceasefire.

Visiting the city Wednesday, Defence Minister Abdel Qader Jassim Mohammed denounced the truce under which the army agreed to pull out of residential areas, and rejected the idea of concessions to the gunmen.

He also said that 13 of the military's dead had been "executed" by the militia fighters and demanded that this be investigatied while an "extraordinary security plan" be implemented in the city.

From: Washington Post

Marine Who Led Haditha Attack Was Recommended for a Medal

By Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; A05

The platoon commander for the squad of Marines who killed as many as two dozen Iraqi civilians during an attack in Haditha last year recommended later that the sergeant who led the attack receive a medal for his heroism that day, according to military documents.

Lt. William T. Kallop wrote in a praise-filled memo that the incident on Nov. 19, 2005, was part of a complex insurgent ambush that included a powerful roadside bomb followed by a high volume of automatic-weapons fire from several houses in the neighborhood. He lauded Sgt. Frank Wuterich for his leadership in the "counterattack" on three houses while the unit received sporadic enemy fire.

The proposed citation indicates that Kallop -- the only Marine officer at the scene as the incident unfolded -- believed the unit was under a coordinated insurgent attack when Marines stormed civilian homes and opened fire, killing women and children. Whether Marines felt threatened and believed the homes to be hostile is a central element of their defense against potential criminal charges.

The documents offer one of the first public accounts of the incident from Kallop, 25, a University of Virginia graduate and New York City native. Kallop does not explicitly address the civilian deaths in his summary of the incident, which gives detailed support for Wuterich's combat actions from September to December 2005.

Representatives for Kallop, who was promoted to first lieutenant in May, could not be reached for comment yesterday. He is one of numerous Marines who are the subject of a Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigation into civilian deaths in the Haditha attack, which has alternately been characterized as a vengeful massacre and as the unfortunate collateral damage of war. None has been charged so far.

Neal A. Puckett, an attorney for Wuterich, provided the documents and the Marine's regular fitness report dated Jan. 19 to The Washington Post, saying they support his client's version of events, and show that officers in the unit believe Wuterich and the other Marines did the right thing in the Haditha attack. Wuterich has since been promoted to staff sergeant. The award was approved by the Kilo Company commander and was sent to battalion and, later, regimental headquarters before being put on hold at the division level, Puckett said.

Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Marine Corps spokesman, said Marine officials found no record of the award. Fazekas also declined to discuss the Haditha incident.

While residents in the Iraqi neighborhood have said the Marines went from house to house in a rage, killing civilians in cold blood, Kallop complimented Wuterich on his calm demeanor and suggested that the incident led the Marines to valuable intelligence. Kallop arrived on the scene after the initial explosion.

"Sgt. Wuterich ensured that he had 360 degree security and led a counterattack on the buildings to his south where his Marines were still receiving sporadic fire from," Kallop wrote in support of a Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal with a combat distinguishing device for Wuterich. "That counterattack turned the tide of the ambush and killed a number of insurgents still attempting to fight or attempting to flee the area."

In a summary of the incident, officials wrote that Wuterich's decisiveness "doubtlessly prevented further injury or death to fellow Marines and innocent civilians."

Puckett said Kallop approved the assault in the midst of battle: "This was a planned and orchestrated attack by insurgents, and the Marines were responding in accordance with their rules."

While it is possible that the Marines concocted a story after the shootings, Kallop's recommendation and the fitness report were completed in January, weeks after the incident but months before a criminal investigation was launched in March. Senior officials have said an investigation looking into command responsibility has concluded that officers should have been more diligent in investigating the shootings.

John Sifton, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said there is no doubt that civilians were killed in Haditha and that the real question is whether the shootings were accidental or intentional. He said Kallop's account notably does not describe the civilian deaths.

"Our concern has been that when a bunch of civilians get killed and there are a bunch of questions about it, why didn't the military ask those questions at the beginning?" Sifton said. "The issue is not solely Haditha; it's whether the military has the ability to police itself."

Kallop described the response to the bomb attack as successful, largely because it led to the arrest of 18 people, which in turn led to the capture of more insurgents who were "complicit in the ambush."

Iraq: At least77 killed as bloody U.S. occupation continues:

A blast in the Shurja market left 24 dead and 35 wounded Wednesday
and came just two hours after rebels targeted an Iraqi army
recruitment centre in the Shiite town of Hilla, south of Baghdad,
killing 12 volunteers and wounding 38.
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/06...0.gzgvn32q.html

===
Iraqi minister says gunmen executed 13 soldiers:

The 12-hour gun battle on Monday was among the bloodiest between
Iraqi government forces and Shiite militiamen. The Defence Ministry
had said 20 of its soldiers were killed.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1728480.htm

===
Five more US soldiers die in Iraq:

The US military announced the deaths of five US soldiers on Tuesday,
bringing to 13 the number of troops that have died over the past
three days.
http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=139797

===
Congressmember Murtha: " Disappointed" by Hillary Clinton's Refusal
to Endorse Troop Withdrawal Plan:

Democracy Now! interviews Congressmember John Murtha (D - PA) about
his position on the Iraq war, the Haditha massacre and Sen. Hillary
Clinton's refusal to endorse his troop withdrawal plan.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/30/1417256

===
Iraqi minister cancels truce with Shiite militia:

Iraq's defence minister has declared the army's truce with Shiite
militants in the central city of Diwaniyah null and void, and
demanded an inquiry into the killing of 13 soldiers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060830/wl_mi...raqunrestshiite

Bush speech to back Iraq strategy BBC News
US President George W Bush is to give the first in a series of speeches defending his strategy in the "war on terror", as mid-term polls approach.Mr Bush, arriving in Salt Lake City, Utah, to address military veterans, said victory in Iraq would be "a major ideological triumph". He is to speak several times on Iraq and security in the next two weeks. Correspondents say his Republican party fears unease over the Iraq war could damage their standing in coming polls. BBC correspondent James Westhead says the White House is thought to be trying shift attention from the unpopular war in Iraq to the global terror threat. He says the threat remains a politically potent issue, and one over which the president has the backing of much of the US public.

'Wider context'
Speaking on Wednesday before leaving for Salt Lake City, Mr Bush said his planned speeches were "not political". "They're speeches to make it clear that, if we retreat before the job is done, this nation will become even more in jeopardy," he said. "These are important times, and I would seriously hope people wouldn't politicise these issues that I'm going to talk about." On arriving in Salt Lake City, President Bush told an audience at the airport that the US could not afford to abandon Iraq. "If we leave the streets of Baghdad before the job is done, we will have to face the terrorists in our own cities," he said. "We will stay the course, we will help this young Iraqi democracy succeed," he said. According to White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, the president plans to put "the violence that Americans are seeing on their TV and reading in their papers into a larger context".

'UN address'
Mr Bush is also expected to discuss the recent conflict between Israel and Lebanon, as well as Iran's controversial nuclear programme. Iran has again said it has a right to a nuclear programme as a deadline set by UN asking it to stop controversial uranium enrichment expires. Mr Bush's two-week-long series of speeches on the "war on terror" coincides with the anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks and culminates in an address to the United Nations on 19 September. The US is to hold mid-term polls on 7 November.

IN IRAQ, SINGING FOR A SHOT AT HOPE AND GLORY: TV REALITY SHOWS OFFER RARE 'BREATH OF FRESH AIR' - SUDARSAN RAGHAVAN (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 1): "Iraq Star," Iraq's version of "American Idol,' is one of a growing stream of made-in-Iraq reality television shows, produced under often-perilous conditions, that are being beamed across the Middle East.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...3101675_pf.html


HOW TO BRIDGE TWO VIEWS OF SUCCESS IN IRAQ - JANESSA GANS (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, AUGUST 31): If the US makes no attempt to understand its mistakes, Iraqis and Americans end up moving along two parallel tracks of self-made and self-perpetuated truths that never coincide.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0831/p09s01-coop.html


WHICH IRAQI ARMY? EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 1): The White House and the Pentagon keep assuring Americans that despite the obvious problems, the Iraqi Army is becoming increasingly capable of taking over basic defense responsibilities. But evidence continues to mount that it is not.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/opinion/...agewanted=print


DEBATING WITHDRAWAL II: THE PHANTOM MENACE MARC LYNCH (ABU AARDVACK, AUGUST 29): The homegrown Iraqi insurgency does indeed want the US out of Iraq, but al-Qaeda wants us in.
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark...da_in_iraq.html


LOOSE LIPS SINK HISTORY EDITORIAL (BOSTON GLOBE, AUGUST 31): The Bush Administration has gone on the offensive this week to shore up collapsing support for its policies in Iraq. The latest effort -- transparent as it is inaccurate -- tries to draw parallels between Iraq and World War II. It's a misuse of history and the kind of propaganda that should have gone out with Liberty Bonds.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...history?mode=PF

At least 5 killed in as U.S. occupation continues:

A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi policemen in Baghdad's southern
Doura district on Friday, police said.
http://tinyurl.com/zudzc


16 Children among 72 killed in Baghdad blast:

The blasts flattened a multistory apartment building, buried women
and children under mounds of rubble and sent terrified shoppers
fleeing out of a major bazaar, authorities and witnesses said. The
death toll included 16 children, an Iraqi police official said
Friday.
http://tinyurl.com/l4bov


Two U.S. occupation forces soldiers killed in Iraq:

An Army specialist from Minneapolis was among four soldiers killed
when a bomb exploded while they were on a foot patrol in Iraq.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/15410604.htm


U.S. force in Iraq at 140,000 :

The United States has expanded its force in Iraq to 140,000 troops,
the most since January and 13,000 more than five weeks ago, the
Pentagon said on Thursday, amid relentless violence in Baghdad and
elsewhere.
http://tinyurl.com/kfn2f


Pentagon: Conditions ripe for civil war in Iraq:

“Conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically
in and around Baghdad, and concern about civil war within the Iraqi
civilian population has increased in recent months,” it said in a
quarterly report to Congress on U.S. efforts to stabilize the
country.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14622992/


Speaking from his home in clouded cuckoo land:

Bush says Iraq the central front in war on terror:

“We will fight the terrorists overseas so we don’t have to fight
them
here at home,” he told the veterans and current military personnel
in
attendance at the Salt Palace.
http://tinyurl.com/zsjce

Kurdish leader bans Iraqi flag:

The leader of northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region has ordered
officials not to fly the Iraqi national flag, in a further sign of
the country's separatist tensions.
http://tinyurl.com/kh9pk


Halabja: Anger boils in Iraq's "town of martyrs":

They said Kurdish leaders had exploited Halabja for their political
ends, and that donations and investment from outside had not
translated into better schools, roads or services.
http://tinyurl.com/flquv


Peter W. Galbraith: The true Iraq appeasers:

The appeasement of Saddam Hussein by the Reagan and first Bush
administrations.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14782.htm


Iraq WMD inspector accuses Govt of cover up: Video report:

The second Australian scientist who worked on the fruitless hunt for
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction has broken his silence. John Gee
has followed Rod Barton in claiming he gave the Government early
warning in 2004 that no weapons would be found.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14783.htm

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/nyt424.html

New York Times
September 1, 2006
Car Bomb and Rockets Kill 43 in Baghdad’s Shiite Strongholds

By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 31 — A series of explosions ripped through predominantly Shiite neighborhoods in eastern Baghdad on Thursday evening, killing at least 43 people and pushing the death toll for the day to 53, Iraqi police officials reported. Nearly 200 people were wounded, adding to a week of bloody attacks throughout the country.

Since Sunday, more than 300 Iraqis have been killed in bombings, murders and a deadly pipeline explosion that occurred when security forces were diverted from their normal duties to fight Shiite militiamen. The violence is generally believed to be the work of insurgents, militias and criminal gangs embroiled in Sunni-Shiite sectarian strife.

The recent surge in bombings calls into question the long-term effectiveness of a joint American-Iraqi security offensive in Baghdad. The security measures are expected to contribute to a relatively low civilian death toll in August, but there are increasing questions about whether that can be sustained.

The attack in eastern Baghdad appeared to be a well-organized strike on areas controlled by the Mahdi Army, a powerful Shiite militia led by Moktada al-Sadr, the radical cleric who led two uprisings in 2004.

Iraqi officials expressed fears that Thursday’s onslaught could ignite a wave of revenge killings by Shiite militiamen in the coming days, continuing a pattern of reprisals in the Sunni-Shiite conflict.

Police officials counted seven explosions from a combination of car bombs and rocket or mortar fire. They shook eastern Baghdad shortly after nightfall and were clearly aimed at civilian areas, including a crowded market. At least one explosion took place in the Sadr City district, a Mahdi Army stronghold.

Earlier on Thursday, a car bomb exploded in a line of drivers waiting for gas at a station in eastern Baghdad, killing at least four people and wounding 11, including four police commando recruits, an Interior Ministry official said. At least six other Iraqis were killed in scattered attacks across the country, The Associated Press reported.

The American military said a soldier was killed by a roadside bomb north of Baghdad on Wednesday.

The recent attacks have also brought into question whether Iraqi forces can take control of security in the country’s most troubled areas anytime soon.

Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, said Wednesday that Iraqi forces might be ready to take responsibility for security in 12 to 18 months. On Thursday, the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said Iraqi forces would take over security in Dhi Qar Province in September. The province is in southern Iraq, is dominated by Shiites and has a contingent of Romanian troops operating under American guidance.

Things were somewhat brighter on the political front, where Iraqi politicians said Shiite and Kurdish leaders had put to rest, for now, their differences with the speaker of Parliament, a firebrand Sunni Arab, after weeks of pressuring him to step down.

The speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, reached an understanding with the Shiite and Kurdish leaders after meeting with several of them, the politicians said in interviews. “The whole issue has been settled,” said Hassan al-Shammari, a member of the main Shiite bloc in Parliament. He declined to give details.

The position of speaker of Parliament is the third highest-ranking job in the Iraqi government, and an ouster of Mr. Mashhadani would have been the biggest shake-up in Iraqi politics since the government was installed in late May.

A senior Kurdish legislator, Mahmoud Othman, said the Kurdish parties had backed down from their call for Mr. Mashhadani to withdraw after the Shiites made peace with him. The Kurds had simply been supporting the Shiites, Mr. Othman said.

“The Kurds had nothing specific against him,” he added.

He said the Shiites had become incensed over Mr. Mashhadani’s criticism of a possible Shiite autonomous region in the south, an idea championed by the head of the Shiite bloc, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Sunni Arabs are generally opposed to carving Iraq up into autonomous regions because of the lack of oil in provinces where they are in the majority.

Mr. Mashhadani said in an interview on Aug. 14 that he might resign because of the groups’ pressure.

American officials have expressed displeasure with the speaker, who earlier this summer called the American occupation “the work of butchers” and suggested that statues be built for insurgents who kill American soldiers.

Ali Adeeb contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Bush: Iraq a 'decisive ideological struggle'
President Bush on Thursday predicted victory in the war on terror at a time when Americans are disillusioned with his strategy, likening the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism with the fight against Nazis and communists in the last century.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14599961/from/ET/

Sunni, Shiite factions carve up Baghdad
A battle for Baghdad is well under way between the two major Muslim sects. Death squads are slaughtering people daily, and an estimated 160,000 Iraqis have fled their homes _ mostly in the capital.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14627075/from/ET/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060902/ap_on_...i_ea/iraq_kurds

Kurdistan president replaces Iraqi flag Fri Sep 1, 9:25 PM ET

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq - Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani has ordered the Iraqi national flag to be replaced with the Kurdish one in his northern autonomous region in what appeared to be another move toward more self-rule in the north, local officials said Friday.

The order was issued Thursday and applies to the Kurdish region, said Beshraw Ahmed, a spokesman for the Sulaimaniyah municipality.

According to Azad Jundiyanim, a member of President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Sulaimaniyah, Barzani issued a formal message asking for the Iraqi flag to be lowered. The message was also broadcast on Kurdish radio.

Iraq's northern Kurdish region has slowly been gaining more autonomy since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

On May 7, its parliament in the northern city of Irbil unified the Kurdish region's two long-standing administrations, one headed by Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and the other by Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Kurds had until then enjoyed self-rule in three provinces of the north but under the separate administrations.

Sunni Arabs fear that Kurds are pushing for secession under the nation's new federal system, a step which, if imitated by the Shiite majority in the oil-rich south, would leave Sunnis with little more than date groves and sand.

The Kurdish region had been out of Saddam Hussein's control since the 1991 Gulf War, when the Kurds set up their autonomous region under the protection of U.S. and British warplanes. After the U.S.-led invasion, Kurdistan was the only region that did not witness major changes.

Iraq's new constitution recognizes Kurdish self-rule and provides a legal mechanism for other areas to govern themselves but within the Iraqi state

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/faireno...latimes393.html

Iraqi Casualties Increase by 1,000 a Month
By Julian E. Barnes
Times Staff Writer

2:24 PM PDT, September 1, 2006

WASHINGTON — In a dismal assessment, the Pentagon reported to Congress today that the number of attacks and civilian deaths in Iraq have risen sharply in recent months — with casualties increasing by 1,000 a month — as sectarian violence has engulfed larger areas of the country.

The quarterly report, based on new government figures, shows that the number of attacks in Iraq over the last four months increased 15% and the number of Iraqi casualties grew by 51%. In the last three months, the report says, the number of deaths and injuries increased by 1,000 people a month over the previous quarter — to more than 3,000 each month.

Over a longer time horizon, the spike is even more grim. The number of weekly attacks has increased from just over 400 in the spring of 2004 to nearly 800 during recent weeks. And the number of daily casualties has increased from just under 30 a day in 2004 to more than 110 a day in recent weeks.

"Extremists seeking to stoke ethno-sectarian strife have increasingly focused their efforts on civilians, inciting a cycle of retribution killings and driving civilian casualties to new highs," the report says.

The report says that Iraq is not in a civil war, but acknowledged that Iraqi civilians are increasingly worried about such a conflict. It reports that Iraqis are optimistic about the future, but cautions that the positive outlook is eroding. Stopping the ethnic and sectarian violence is the "most pressing immediate goal" of the American military and Iraqi government, it says.

The report comes amid a new effort by President Bush and his administration to shore up sagging public support for the Iraq war in advance of the fall elections, but may do little to help the president's case. Administration officials have tried to portray Iraq as the front line in the war on terrorism and have described the effort as part of a larger struggle against Islamic extremists. However, by putting hard numbers to the perception that Iraq is increasingly chaotic, the new Pentagon report stands to further undermine support for the administration's strategy in Iraq.

The violence in Iraq, according to the report, cannot be attributed to a unified or organized insurgency. Instead, violence is the result of a complex interplay between international terrorists, local insurgents, sectarian death squads, organized militias and criminal groups. The armed militias and other sectarian groups are contesting integrated neighborhoods in a bid to expand their area of influence, the report says.

"This is a pretty sober report," said Peter Rodman, the assistant secretary of Defense for international security. "The last quarter has been rough. The level of violence is up. And the sectarian quality of the violence is particularly acute and disturbing."

In arguing that Iraq is not yet in a full-scale civil war, Defense officials pointed out that Iraqi security forces remain loyal to the central government and that no rival government has emerged.

"History tells us in many cases you do not realize it until it is staring you in the face, but there are important things that have not happened," said Rear Adm. William Sullivan, the vice director for strategic plans and policy on the Pentagon's joint staff. "The sectarian violence is worrisome We are not blind to the possibility that this could continue down the wrong path."

Sullivan said he believed that despite the rise in killings, the U.S. was still making progress.

"The violence has increased, but it is primarily Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence," he said.

Although military officials in Iraq repeatedly have emphasized that the majority of recent violence is concentrated in Baghdad, the new report also says that violence has increased in Diyala, Mosul and Kirkuk. The sectarian violence that has enveloped Baghdad, the report says, is now spreading to those cities.

"Any spread of sectarian violence is cause for concern," Sullivan said.

The report says part of the reason for the increased violence is that the attacks on civilians have driven people to "endorse extremist actions on their behalf" — lending their support to the insurgent and militia groups in order to provide security for their neighborhoods. That dynamic is undermining the government's reconciliation efforts and ability to provide security.

According to the report, Muqtada Sadr's Al Mahdi army militia has achieved a "measure of tolerance" from Iraq's new government. But the report says that violence between the Al Madhi army and the Iraqi army is frequent, and says the militia receives support from Iran.

One key indicator of full-scale violence identified in previous Pentagon reports is the number of forced displacements of people and households. Although the U.S. military has been skeptical about reports of large numbers of displaced people in the past, the report quotes a U.N. estimate that 137,862 people have been pushed out of their homes since the Samarra mosque bombing in February.

The mosque bombing is widely seen as setting off the current cycle of sectarian violence. Sunnis allied with Abu Musab Zarqawi, the terrorist leader slain in June in a U.S. attack, were blamed for destroying the mosque, a holy site for Shiites in a largely Sunni city.

The report is optimistic about the new plan to increase security by promoting economic growth, but provides no numbers about the results of the renewed security initiative that began in earnest last month.

Rodman cited as a positive development the report's finding that the Iraqi security forces continue to grow in size and training, with the number of areas in which Iraqi army battalions have taken the lead in providing security expanding between October 2005 and August 2006. He said the number of Iraqi army battalions has increased from 23 in October 2005 to 85 today.

Also, major changes in the nation's police system are underway to address problems and deficiencies. The number of police battalions has decreased from 6 to 2. Last month, military officials said they had been forced to dissolve some national police battalions because they were loyal to militias, not to the central government. The report says public confidence in the national police has decreased and the program is being reformed.

"Unprofessional and, at times, criminal behavior has been attributed to certain units in the national police," the report says.

In its last report to Congress in May, Pentagon officials expressed hope that rapid political progress would earn confidence from Iraqis and blunt the increase in violence. However, delays in forming a new government under Prime Minister Nouri Maliki have quickly undermined those hopes.

Rodman said had the Iraqi government been able to form more quickly after the December election, the sectarian violence that rose from the Samarra mosque bombing might have been dampened.

The delay in forming a government really hurt, it was a partial vacuum," he said.

"For years people like Zarqawi have been aiming at this, trying to foment civil war," Rodman said. "In Samarra they hit pay dirt, in a sense. The system has been shaken by it."

The report notes that the violence has not subsided since the killing of Zarqawi in June. Rodman said although the U.S. has inflicted serious blows on his organization, Al Qaeda in Iraq, the group's role was not decisive.

"The nature of the conflict has changed," Rodman said. "And maybe Zarqawi's legacy was the Samarra bombing, the effects of which have lived after him."

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

South Asian pilgrims shot in Iraq BBC News
Fourteen pilgrims from Pakistan and India have been ambushed and killed on their way to the Shia holy city of Karbala, Iraqi police have said.The pilgrims, believed to be 11 Pakistanis and three Indians, were shot dead at close range, police said. The motive for the attack is not clear but it comes amid increasing fears of sectarian strife in Iraq. A US Defense Department report on Friday warned of mounting violence between the Sunni and Shia communities. Police and hospital sources said the pilgrims were ambushed as they travelled in a minibus through Anbar province in western Iraq, a stronghold of Sunni insurgents. It is thought the attack took place up to three days ago, but reports vary.The pilgrims reportedly had their hands and legs bound and had been shot at close range. Conflicting accounts suggest women were among those killed. The pilgrims were understood to be on their way to Karbala, 80km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, to the shrine of Imam Hussein, one of the founders of the Shia branch of Islam. The ambush happened at a service station in the desert, about 160km (100 miles) west of Ramadi, which has been the scene of numerous killings in recent months, the BBC's James Shaw in Baghdad reports. It is not clear what the motive for the attack was with some reports suggesting they were ambushed by robbers who stole their belongings. However, Shia pilgrims, both Iraqi and foreign, have been frequent targets for attack, and last month, gunmen opened fire on pilgrims in Baghdad, killing at least 20 people.

Revenge attacks
This week saw bombings and shootings that left hundreds dead. On Thursday, suspected Sunni insurgents launched rocket and bomb attacks in mainly Shia neighbourhoods of Baghdad, killing 67 people. Correspondents say the capital is braced for possible revenge attacks by Shia militias. Iraq Prime Minister Nouri Maliki held talks with the country's most influential Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on Saturday to discuss the violence. Mr Maliki went to Najaf, 160 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, to meet the ayatollah who has previously called for an end to sectarian hatred and urged the majority Shia community to refrain from retaliation. "If the government does not do its duty in imposing security and order to the people and protecting them, it will give a chance to other powers to do this duty and this a very dangerous matter," the cleric's office quoted him as saying.

Militias 'entrenched'
Concern about sectarian conflict is growing in the Pentagon which issued its quarterly report on the situation in Iraq to Congress on Friday. Since its last report, the Pentagon said, "the core conflict in Iraq changed into a struggle between Sunni and Shia extremists." Illegal militias were becoming more entrenched, especially in Baghdad, the report said, while death squads targeting mainly Iraqi civilians were a growing problem. Armed factions from both sides of the religious divide "are locked in mutually reinforcing cycles of sectarian strife". While stressing that the current violence did not amount to civil war, the Pentagon's assessment said "conditions that could lead to civil war exist in Iraq, specifically in and around Baghdad."

Iraq holds 'key al-Qaeda figure' BBC News
The Iraqi authorities have announced the arrest of a man they say is the second-in-command of al-Qaeda in Iraq.Iraq's national security adviser, Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, told a news conference the man, Hamad Jama al-Saedi, was detained a few days ago. Mr Rubaie said the man was behind the bombing of a Shia shrine in Samarra in February that drew revenge attacks. American troops killed the insurgent group's key leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in June."We announce today the arrest of the most important al-Qaeda leader after the criminal Abu Ayyub al-Masri. He's the second man in the organisation," Mr Rubaie said.

This is a reference to the man believed to be al-Qaeda's current leader in Iraq, who remains at large.

In other developments:

• The formal handover of control of Iraq's armed forces by the US-led coalition is delayed for a second day
• Two US soldiers are killed in eastern Baghdad when their vehicle hits a roadside bomb
• A row with Kurds in northern Iraq intensifies, as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki orders that the national flag is the only one that should be flown across the country

'Severe blow'
Iraqi and US officials have blamed the group for some of the worst attacks against civilians, and for inciting sectarian tensions between its Sunni supporters and Iraqi Shias.Mr Rubaie said Mr Saedi's arrest had dealt a severe blow to the group. Mr Saedi has been closely interrogated over the last few days and as a result, 11 second level leaders and nine other members of al-Qaeda in Iraq have been arrested or killed. Mr Saedi was hiding in a building north of Baquba that was being used by families, Mr Rubaie said. "He wanted to use children and women as human shields as our forces attempted to capture him." Mr Saedi was responsible for organising the bombing of the al-Askari shrine in February, Mr Rubaie said. The bombing led to a sharp rise in sectarian attacks across the country. The al-Askari shrine, part of the Imam Ali al-Hadi mausoleum, is one of Shia Islam's holiest sites and attracts pilgrims from around the world.

Core conflict
In June, Mr Rubaie announced the capture of a Tunisian identified as Abu Qudama, who was one of several men wanted in connection with the attack. The BBC's James Shaw in Baghdad says the Iraqi government will see these latest arrests as a significant strike against the insurgency, particularly because they were carried out by Iraqi forces. But despite the reported successes against militants, parts of Iraq continue to be wracked by violence. On Friday, a report by the Pentagon warned that "the core conflict in Iraq (had) changed into a struggle between Sunni and Shia extremists."

4 U.S. Occupation soldiers among at least 25 killed:

U.S. and Iraqi forces have arrested the second most senior figure of
al Qaeda in Iraq and killed 20 fellow "militants", Iraq's national
security adviser said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO340062.htm


Iraq: At least 31 killed as U.S. occupation grinds on:

Fourteen South Asian pilgrims were ambushed and killed on their way
to Shi'ite Muslim sites in Iraq, hospital, Interior Ministry and army
sources said.
http://tinyurl.com/z6yv3


More Than 300 Killed as sectarian attacks soar in Iraq :

Sectarian violence in Iraq this week has killed more than 300 Iraqis,
including 64 in a series of coordinated attacks Thursday night in
Baghdad, which has been the target of a U.S.-Iraqi campaign to
improve security.
http://tinyurl.com/zrv3c


I no longer have power to save Iraq from civil war, warns Shia
leader:

The most influential moderate Shia leader in Iraq has abandoned
attempts to restrain his followers, admitting that there is nothing
he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14805.htm


Sistani tells Maliki to 'impose security': al-Sistani said:

"If the government does not do its duty in imposing security and
order to the people and protecting them, it will give a chance to
other powers to do this duty and this is a very dangerous matter."
http://tinyurl.com/j4w3y


Iraq: A Sweeping, Secret New Report:

Bush administration policymakers and their congressional backers may
get some unwelcome news from a new analysis on Iraq that the office
of intelligence czar John Negroponte will soon produce.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14638232/site/newsweek/


4 Minute Video: No Bravery:

A nation blind to their disgrace
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11799.htm

===
Kurdish leader attacks Arab politicians over Iraqi flag:

The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region has launched a
scathing attack on Iraqi Arab leaders Sunday over their opposition to
his order banning the national flag from public buildings.
http://tinyurl.com/zlzfj


U.S. asserts Iran stirring up trouble in Iraq, but evidence less
certain:

Most of that aid appears to go to the same Shiite parties in Iraq
that the American government supports and that are part of the
government. The more militant Shiite groups are equally critical of
U.S. and Iranian influence in the country.
http://tinyurl.com/j34u3


'Why did Blair send my teenage son to fight an illegal and dishonest
war?' :

Mrs Hamilton-Bing said that anger at seeing her son sent to fight a
dishonest war had driven her to take action, adding that many other
military families shared her views.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1269497.ece


UK: 'Deluded': Extraordinary attack on Blair by Cabinet :

'Self-indulgent' PM urged to 'end the pantomime' as senior ministers
meet to hasten his departure
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1325433.ece


Rebels kill 5 Turkish soldiers:

Separatist Kurdish militants attacked two military outposts along the
Iraqi border in southeastern Turkey, killing five Turkish soldiers and
wounding two others, local authorities said on Saturday.
http://tinyurl.com/h74q5

4 U.S. AND 2 UK Occupation Forces Soldier Among At Least 49 Killed :

The bodies of 33 men, some with their hands bound and bearing signs of torture, were found across the capital, an Interior Ministry source said. All had been shot.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/COL440644.htm

===
21 Iraqis Die in Baquba Attacks :

Twenty one Iraqis have been killed — including two policemen and four children — in a series of attacks in Baquba northeast of Baghdad.
http://tinyurl.com/jo2we

===
Kurdish leader threatens Iraq secession:

The leader of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq threatened secession Sunday as a dispute over flying the Iraqi flag intensified.
http://tinyurl.com/gkvtr

===
Iraq's inflation rate hits 70%: minister:

Iraq's inflation rate has soared to reach nearly 70 percent, the country's planning minister said Sunday. The inflation rate from July 2005 to July 2006 stood at 69.6 percent, Ali Baban said.
http://tinyurl.com/eacbc

A WARRIOR'S WARNING ON IRAQ - GEORGE F. WILL (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 3): Sen. John Warner, the five-term Virginia Republican who chairs the Armed Services Committee, defines the U.S. objective in Iraq not in terms of a glittering achievement, democracy, but as avoiding something appalling -- the Iraqi oil fields in jihadists' hands.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0101452_pf.html


IRAQ LESSONS: LEARNING FROM MISTAKES - CLIFFORD D. MAY (NATIONAL REVIEW, SEPTEMBER 1): Iraq may never look like Switzerland. But is it too much to expect that it should be neither the playground of a gangster nor a base for terrorists?
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmU5O...jFiODM2OGQ0OWU=


IN KURDISTAN, IRAQ SEEMS A MILLION MILES AWAY: THE AUTONOMOUS REGION IS AN OASIS OF SAFETY IN COMPARISON TO OTHER, VIOLENCE-STRICKEN AREAS BORZOU DARAGAHI; (LOS ANGELES TIMES, SEPTEMBER 4): The regional government announced over the weekend that it would no longer fly the red, white and black flag of Iraq, opting for the sun-splashed red, white and green banner that has been a symbol of Kurdish independence for 60 years.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...-home-headlines


IRAQ'S COMPLICATIONS: THE ADMINISTRATION'S NEW RHETORIC ON THE WAR DOESN'T BEAR MUCH RELATION TO THE CRITICAL SITUATION IT FACES EDITORIAL (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 3): The war President Bush would like to fight -- between an emerging democracy and its totalitarian enemies -- can't be won if it is crosscut by a sectarian conflict.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6090200757.html


WHO'S REALLY MORALLY AND INTELLECTUALLY CHALLENGED? - JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY (MIAMI HERALD, FLORIDA, SEPTEMBER 2/COMMON DREAMS): We can't win in Iraq with the current U.S. force, strategy and tactics, even using the White House's fluid definition of victory, which currently is that we'll somehow train and equip Iraqi soldiers and police who will take control of the country and allow us to begin bringing our soldiers home.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0902-23.htm


A CIVIL WAR, BUT NOT OURS - EDITORIAL (MADISON CAPITAL TIMES, SEPTEMBER 2/COMMON DREAMS): Someday soon reality will force the White House to acknowledge that the misadventure in Iraq has gone horribly awry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0902-22.htm


BUSH TEAM STILL IN DEEP DENIAL - CYNTHIA TUCKER (BALTIMORE SUN, SEPTEMBER 4): For now, tens of thousands of soldiers, sailors and Marines in Iraq are stuck in a quagmire.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines


RUMSFELD'S FANTASY EASY TO SEE THROUGH - LEONARD PITTS JR. (BALTIMORE SUN, SEPTEMBER 3): People are beginning to see that the only terrorism in Iraq is that which we, by our presence, have helped create.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/o...-oped-headlines


POLLS SHOW OPPOSITION TO IRAQ WAR AT ALL-TIME HIGH: SIXTY PERCENT ALSO SAY TERRORISM IS MORE LIKELY IN US BECAUSE OF IRAQ - TOM REGAN (CSMONITOR.COM, SEPTEMBER 4)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0901/dailyUpdate.html


THE SPOILS OF WAR: A REPORTER ACCUSES THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION OF TURNING NATION-BUILDING INTO A PORK BUFFET [REVIEW OF ?BLOOD MONEY: WASTED BILLIONS, LOST LIVES, AND CORPORATE GREED IN IRAQ? BY T. CHRISTIAN MILLER] - MICHAEL HIRSH (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 3): The Bush administration seems about to give up on the reconstruction, slashing its funding even as it extends the U.S. troop presence in Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...3101162_pf.html


THE BEST WAR EVER: AN INTERVIEW WITH SHELDON RAMPTON - KEVIN ZEESE (COUNTERPUNCH, SEPTEMBER 1): Sheldon Rampton, co-author of "The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq": ?Th[e] [American] combination of cultural isolationism and international interventionism has taken political form under Bush as unilateralism: the idea that we can successfully invade and occupy a country as far away and alien to our own culture as Iraq."
http://www.counterpunch.org/zeese09012006.htm

DISPATCHES: SOLDIERS' BLOGS, WASHINGTON'S BLUNDERS [IN IRAQ] - MICHAEL HIRSH (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 3): Everyone, it seems, is vying to be part of the official history of the Iraq debacle these days.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6083101158.html


PENTAGON TO CONGRESS: BUSH IS WRONG -- THE WAR IS LOST - PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS (COUNTERPUNCH, SEPTEMBER 4): Having lost the Iraq war, the neoconservatives are determined to initiate war with Iran.
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts09042006.html

Iraq: At least 25 killed as U.S. occupation continues:

Police said they found the bodies of seven people in Baghdad with gunshot wounds to the head, five of them in the mainly Sunni area of Adhamiya, where insurgents are active.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO533707.htm

===
U.S. occupation forces kill 5:

U.S. troops killed five men in a ground assault and air strike on what they called a "safe house", targeting a person involved in moving money and foreign fighters into Iraq. A child was also killed in the fighting in Muqdadiya, northeast of Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4163711.html

===
3 U.S. occupation troops killed in Iraq fighting:

The deaths brought to eight the number of American troops killed in Iraq in combat-related violence over the past two days.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4163711.html

===
Iraq to extend state of emergency:

The measure has been in place for almost two years and grants security forces greater powers. It affects the entire country apart from the autonomous Kurdish region in the north
http://tinyurl.com/hgnq9

===
Dahr Jamail : U.S. Losing Control Fast:

The U.S. military has lost control over the volatile al-Anbar province, Iraqi police and residents say. The area to the west of Baghdad includes Fallujah, Ramadi and other towns that have seen the worst of military occupation, and the strongest resistance.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14854.htm

===
Iraqi parliament mulls federal break up:

Abbas al-Bayati, spokesman for the largest Shia bloc, the United Iraqi Alliance, predicted: "In the next few sessions the parliament will discuss the law for the formation of provinces."
http://tinyurl.com/zv4fn

===
Shiite Revival or Majority Resistance?:

The Sunni-Shiite divide is a deplorable ploy that was implemented by the West to create a diversionary tactic. Regrettably, the people of Iraq have fallen prey to it, for violence begets violence.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14856.htm

===
Patrick Seale: Four American allies in deep trouble:

In Islamabad, Kabul, Baghdad and Jerusalem, four heads of government are facing grave, possibly terminal, difficulties -- largely because of their alliance with the United States.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14842.htm

===
Documentary Slams U.S. Companies Working in Iraq:

He's tackled Wal-Mart and Fox News with his scathing documentaries. Now, filmmaker Robert Greenwald is releasing a documentary which argues that private companies helping to fight the war in Iraq don't have the nation's best interests in mind.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2392965

===
Truth in a Time of War with Howard Zinn : Video:

Zinn's talk explores the notion of "just" wars with his usual candor and critical understanding.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14840.htm

US hands over Iraq army control BBC News
The US-led coalition has formally handed control of Iraq's armed forces to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. The first units to be transferred are Iraq's small navy and air force, and the 8th Army Division, based in Najaf. Other army divisions will be handed over in the coming months according to a timetable set by Iraq's leaders. US officials called it a milestone in Iraq's history, but the key test will be whether the Iraqi-led forces can control violence across the country. A BBC correspondent in Baghdad says the transfer of control could be long, slow and fraught with problems. The handover took place five days later than scheduled, although the delay has not been explained. US-led forces disbanded what was left of the Iraqi army after they overthrew Saddam Hussein's rule in 2003. Since then, the coalition has been training and equipping new Iraqi forces with a view to their taking over security and allowing the eventual withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq. In the latest violence, a suicide car bomber killed 10 people at a police control centre in Baghdad. Seven others died in bombings and shootings elsewhere in the Iraqi capital, mainly targeting police and security patrols.

Iraq: More than 37 killed as U.S. continues:

A suicide car bomber killed 10 people and wounded 17 at a petrol station used by police vehicles in eastern Baghdad, police said.
http://snipurl.com/w2qm

===
12 policemen killed by bomb :

Two more American soldiers also died, the US military said, bringing the week's coalition fatalities to 17.
http://snipurl.com/w2qp

===
August Death Total in Baghdad Morgue Triples:

We took an interesting phone call today from an official at the Baghdad morgue. We get these calls every day – a daily tally of the violence. But this one was particularly sobering.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/fromthefrontlines...dropoff_au.html

===
U.S. force in Iraq now 145,000, highest since December:

Officials earlier had hoped to reduce forces to around 100,000 by the end of this year.
http://www.startribune.com/722/story/661635.html

===
Prospect of Shiite self-rule spells break-up of Iraq:

THE future of Iraq as a sovereign nation has been jeopardised with the introduction to parliament of a law that would enable the country to break up into semi-autonomous regions.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/09/07/1157222261799.html

===
Iraq closes down Al-Arabiya in Baghdad:

The Iraqi government on Thursday ordered Arabic satellite network Al-Arabiya to shut down its Baghdad operations for one month, state television reported. Al-Arabiya said Iraqi police later arrived at its offices to enforce the order.
http://snipurl.com/w2qu

===
Book says CIA tried to provoke Saddam to war :

More than a year before the invasion of Iraq the CIA devised a plan, codenamed Anabasis, to use Iraqi exile fighters to seize an air base and declare a revolt against Saddam Hussein in the hope that his response would create a pretext for war, according to a book published tomorrow.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14883.htm

===
Suit Filed by Iraq Veterans Contaminated with Depleted Uranium Against U.S. Military:

A U.S. District court in Manhattan held a hearing Wednesday on a lawsuit brought by soldiers from the New York National Guard who have been sick since being exposed to depleted uranium while serving in Iraq.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/07/1643226

===
Al Jazeera airs audio of new Iraq "al Qaeda leader":

Al Qaeda's new leader called on Muslims to unify ranks with insurgents in Iraq, according to an audio tape aired by Al Jazeera television on Thursday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060907/ts_nm/...aeda_muhajir_dc

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0700768_pf.html

Body Count in Baghdad Nearly Triples
Morgue's Revised Toll for August Undermines Claims by Leaders of Steep Drop in Violence

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 8, 2006; A12



BAGHDAD, Sept. 7 -- Baghdad's morgue almost tripled its count for violent deaths in Iraq's capital during August from 550 to 1,536, authorities said Thursday, appearing to erase most of what U.S. generals and Iraqi leaders had touted as evidence of progress in a major security operation to restore order in the capital.

Separately, the Health Ministry confirmed Thursday that it planned to construct two new branch morgues in Baghdad and add doctors and refrigerator units to raise capacity to as many as 250 corpses a day.

The morgue expansion plans and the final body count for August show the dramatic surge in violence in Baghdad since U.S.-led foreign troops entered Iraq in 2003. Baghdad's morgue chiefly handles unidentified gunshot victims, now predominantly shot execution-style and often found with hands bound and showing signs of torture.

Since the spring, as sectarian violence has mounted, monthly counts of civilian casualties have reached the highest levels of the war, topping 1,800 at the Baghdad morgue in July. At least 3,438 Iraqis were killed across the country that month, according to Iraqi government figures, nearing the total of roughly 5,000 for the entire first year of the war.

In 2002, before U.S.-led forces entered Iraq, the Baghdad morgue averaged 15 shooting victims a month, morgue officials have said.

Gianni Magazzeni, chief of the U.N. human rights office in Iraq, which tracks casualty figures from Iraq's government, confirmed Thursday that the government-run Baghdad morgue had reported 1,536 dead for August.

Bombing victims and many others who die violently in Baghdad are taken to the city's hospitals rather than the morgue. The figures announced Thursday do not include those killings, or killings outside Baghdad and its surrounding towns. A complete countrywide toll is due from the Health Ministry later this month.

At the end of August, Baghdad's morgue initially reported receiving 550 bodies during the month. U.S. military and Iraqi government officials hailed what they said was a massive decrease in violence, calling it a sign of the success of Operation Forward Together. The joint U.S.-Iraqi security push had placed at least four of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods under cordons and search operations, which were welcomed by many residents as bringing a relief from violence.

The U.S. military had called in units from Germany and Kuwait and postponed the scheduled return home of an Alaska-based unit for the bid to return peace to Iraq's capital in the fourth year of the U.S. occupation. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad called it the Battle of Baghdad and said it was essential that American forces win it, although U.S. commanders cautioned that the work would take months rather than weeks.

By late August, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell was claiming a 46 percent decrease in the murder rate in Baghdad for that month. "We are actually seeing progress," Caldwell said at the time. A U.S. military Web site on Thursday continued to assert a roughly 50 percent drop in killings in Baghdad.

A U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, said Thursday that the U.S. figures were based on the military's "consolidated reporting with the Iraqi government." Johnson also disclosed that the military's numbers included only "individuals targeted as a result of sectarian-related violence, to include executions," and did not include "other violent acts such as car bombs and mortars."

Johnson said he did not track the morgue's figures and could not account for the substantial gap between the military's count for August killings and the latest figures from Baghdad's morgue.

The issue of civilian casualties has been politically charged since the start of the Iraq war. Soon after the invasion, U.S. and Iraqi officials for a time forbade Baghdad's medical officials to release morgue counts.

About a week after the bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra in February this year, a Baghdad morgue official, a Health Ministry official and an Interior Ministry official -- all of whom oversaw the morgue's body counts -- said 1,000 or more people had been killed as Shiite militias rolled openly across Baghdad to carry out retaliatory killings. Iraqi officials and Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, called that figure exaggerated, saying only about 350 people were killed. An international official in Baghdad said Health Ministry officials had cited the higher toll before lowering it in response to what he said was political pressure.

The Health Ministry is run by the Shiite religious party of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and is guarded by his militia, known as the Mahdi Army. Sadr's militia and that of the country's other main Shiite religious party have been blamed for much of the continuing Sunni-Shiite violence.

After the Samarra bombing, morgue officials brought in refrigerated trucks to hold corpses and crammed refrigerators in the morgue far beyond their intended capacity. Most of the corpses taken to Baghdad's morgue are unidentified and are held for long periods awaiting identification.

This week, Health Minister Ali Hussein al-Shamari said morgue workers plan to begin shooting videos of the unclaimed bodies so that officials can bury them after three or four days rather than storing them at the morgue for the required two weeks.

Health officials were also working to increase the number of refrigerators to allow the morgue to handle as many as 200 to 250 bodies a day, Shamari said. Two new buildings were planned, in the districts of Karkh and Rasafa.

Morgue officials also intend to double the pay of the morgue's overworked doctors and award bonuses, the health minister said.

Shamari made his comments to a Health Ministry in-house newspaper. The ministry's spokesman, Qasim Yahia, on Thursday confirmed the details in the account. Yahia said expansion had "nothing to do with the violence and killing."

Magazzeni, the U.N. human rights official, said, "Reducing the level of violence and the number of civilians killed is crucially important." Doing so would take a "common effort" by the U.S. and Iraqi military, police and Iraq's debilitated justice system, he said.

Special correspondent Naseer Nouri and other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.


© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Baghdad violence 'not declining' BBC News
The Iraqi ministry of health says more than 1,500 people were killed in attacks in Baghdad last month.The figure is far higher than previously thought, and only slightly lower than July's figure. US military and Iraqi officials had previously said a major new security operation in Baghdad had dramatically reduced the number of killings. In the latest violence, three people were killed by a bomb in the Karrada district on Friday. The bomb apparently targeted a local police commander, who survived the attack.

Revised numbers
The Iraqi health ministry says its final count for violent deaths in Baghdad in August is 1,536.That is nearly three times the same ministry's estimate issued last week. Correspondents say this indicates a nearly undiminished level of sectarian and insurgent killings. Last month the US military spokesman in Iraq, Maj Gen William Caldwell, said the rate of violent deaths in Baghdad had fallen significantly from July to August. US officials had suggested that the murder rate in Baghdad had dropped 52% in August compared to the daily rate for July. The health ministry's figures are complied from reports by hospitals and mortuaries in Baghdad area.

Senate report: No Saddam, al-Qaida link MSNBC
Long-awaited analysis also finds that anti-Saddam group misled U.S.There’s no evidence Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaida, according to a Senate report issued Friday on prewar intelligence that Democrats say undercuts President Bush’s justification for invading Iraq. Bush administration officials have insisted on a link between the Iraqi regime and terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence agencies, however, concluded there was none. Republicans countered that there was little new in the report and Democrats were trying to score election-year points with it. The declassified document released Friday by the intelligence committee also explores the role that inaccurate information supplied by the anti-Saddam exile group the Iraqi National Congress had in the march to war. It concludes that postwar findings do not support a 2002 intelligence community report that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, possessed biological weapons or ever developed mobile facilities for producing biological warfare agents. The 400-page report comes at a time when Bush is emphasizing the need to prevail in Iraq to win the war on terrorism while Democrats are seeking to make that policy an issue in the midterm elections. It discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates.” Bush and other administration officials have said that the presence of Zarqawi in Iraq before the war was evidence of a connection between Saddam’s government and al-Qaida. Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in June this year.

Partisan reaction
White House press secretary Tony Snow said the report was “nothing new.” “In 2002 and 2003, members of both parties got a good look at the intelligence we had and they came to the very same conclusions about what was going on,” Snow said. That was “one of the reasons you had overwhelming majorities in the United States Senate and the House for taking action against Saddam Hussein,” he said. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a member of the committee, said the long-awaited report was “a devastating indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration’s unrelenting, misleading and deceptive attempts” to link Saddam to al-Qaida. The administration, said Sen. John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., top Democrat on the committee, “exploited the deep sense of insecurity among Americans in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, leading a large majority of Americans to believe — contrary to the intelligence assessments at the time — that Iraq had a role in the 9/11 attacks.” The chairman of the committee, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said it has long been known that prewar assessments of Iraq “were a tragic intelligence failure.” But he said the Democratic interpretations expressed in the report “are little more than a vehicle to advance election-year political charges.” He said Democrats “continue to use the committee to try and rewrite history, insisting that they were deliberately duped into supporting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime.”

Divisions slowed release
The intelligence committee issued a portion of its analysis, labeled Phase I, on prewar intelligence shortcomings in July 2004. But concluding work on Phase II of the study has been more problematic because of partisan divisions over how senior policymakers used intelligence in arguing for the need to drive Saddam from power. Last November, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada forced the Senate into a rare closed-door session to discuss the delay in coming out with the new data. The 400-page report covers only two of the five topics outlined under Phase II. Much of the information — on the intelligence supplied by the INC and Chalabi and the overestimation of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction threat — has been documented in numerous studies. The committee is still considering three other issues as part of its Phase II analysis, including statements of policymakers in the run-up to the war.

Baghdad bomb blast 'kills three' BBC News
A bomb has exploded in Baghdad killing at least three people and injuring about 15 others.The device went off at about 0720 GMT (1115 local) near Tahrir Square in the centre of Iraq's capital, police said. The blast comes days after Iraqi health ministry figures suggested a major new security operation in Baghdad had not diminished violence. On Friday officials said about 1,500 people were killed in attacks there last month, higher than first thought.

Violence averted at Iraq festival BBC News
Tens of thousands of Shia Muslim pilgrims have taken part in a religious festival in the Iraqi city of Karbala amid tight security.Thousands of police and soldiers were deployed to guard sites and deter possible attackers. No major security incident was reported. Up to three million pilgrims had been expected during events marking the birth of the Ninth Century Imam Mahdi. Such festivals have been targeted by Sunni insurgents in the past. While pilgrims have begun to leave Karbala, a major police presence will remain in place until noon on Sunday to make sure that people are able to leave the city safely.This weekend is being seen as a real test of the new Iraqi security force's ability to deal with the continuing insurgency, the BBC's James Shaw in Baghdad says. There have already been attacks on pilgrims travelling to Karbala in recent days. Some 7,000 police, 2,000 Iraqi soldiers and 1,800 Interior Ministry commandos were deployed around Karbala, with units of special forces guarding the city's entrances, Iraqi officials said."Our forces have tightened their control on the ground and our only concern now is rockets launched from a far distance," Iraqi army Major General Samir Abdullah said earlier. Many pilgrims made their way by foot or vehicle to Karbala, 80km (50 miles) south of Baghdad. Three pilgrims were reported to have been killed and several wounded by a mortar attack on a procession near the town of Musayyib on Friday. A week ago, 14 Pakistani and Indian pilgrims were ordered off their bus and shot at the roadside. In other developments in Iraq:

• The bodies of six people are found in Mahmoudiya, 30km (18 miles) south of Baghdad
• A roadside bomb kills three people and wounds 14 on a highway south of Kirkuk
• Several Iraqi policemen die in separate attacks on patrols in Baghdad
• Gunmen fire on employees of the state-funded newspaper al-Sabah in Baghdad, reportedly killing one.
• Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki will make his first official visit to Iran on Monday, a government spokesman says

More than 25 Killed In Occupied Iraq:

Three people were killed and 15 wounded when a bomb exploded in a popular market in Bab al-Sharji in central Baghdad, police said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L10332825.htm


Police find 16 more tortured corpses :

Iraqi police also found 16 bullet-riddled corpses of men killed in the vicious sectarian conflict, some of them with severed heads.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060910/wl_mi..._afp/iraqunrest


U.S. count of Baghdad deaths excludes car bombs, mortar attacks:

U.S. officials, seeking a way to measure the results of a program aimed at decreasing violence in Baghdad, aren't counting scores of dead killed in car bombings and mortar attacks as victims of the country's sectarian violence.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15474438.htm


Iraqi parliament speaker suspends legislative session:

Iraq Iraq's parliament speaker on Sunday suspended the start of a legislative session after two major Sunni blocs boycotted the proceedings because of a dispute over a draft bill submitted by the main Shiite grouping, a Sunni lawmaker said.
http://snipurl.com/w7jb


Tortured screams ring out as Iraqis take over Abu Ghraib :

The notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad is at the centre of fresh abuse allegations just a week after it was handed over to Iraqi authorities, with claims that inmates are being tortured by their new captors.
http://snipurl.com/w781

Iraqi PM on first visit to Tehran BBC News
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has arrived in Tehran for his first official visit to Iran since taking office in May. He is expected to meet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Many of Iraq's new Shia leaders have close ties to neighbouring Iran. An Iraqi government spokesman told the Reuters news agency that Mr Maliki would be making it clear Iran that what his country needed was stability. "We want to pass a message to the Iranian leaders that Iraq needs good relations with neighbouring countries, without interference in our internal affairs," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. The official Iranian news agency said the Iraqi prime minister would discuss regional and world issues as well as the situation in Iraq and ways of reinforcing the relationship between the two countries. Mr Maliki lived in Iran during the 1980s when Saddam Hussein was in power in Baghdad.

Saddam trial
The US has accused Iran of sending members of its Revolutionary Guard into Iraq. Last year, Britain said explosive devices used to attack British troops in southern Iraq had "Iranian elements". Iran has rejected these allegations. Mr Maliki's two-day visit to Tehran was due to begin on Monday, but was postponed at the last minute for "technical" reasons, officials said. He attended a ceremony in Baghdad to mark the fifth anniversary of the terror attacks on New York and Washington. Meanwhile, the genocide trial of Saddam Hussein got under way for a second day. It resumed on Monday following a three-week break.

Situation Called Dire in West Iraq

By Thomas E. Ricks

The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there, said...

To view the entire article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...er=emailarticle

Kurd witness mocks 'caged' Saddam BBC News
A Kurd who fled attacks by Saddam Hussein's troops in 1988 has described learning 15 years later of the fate of members of his family. Ghafour Hassan Abdullah told the trial of the former Iraqi leader how the identity cards of his mother and two sisters were found in a mass grave. He called out: "Congratulations Saddam Hussein - you are now in a cage!" Saddam Hussein and six others are on trial for war crimes against the Kurds during the so-called Anfal campaign. The defendants are accused of killing up to 180,000 civilians in the late 1980s. Saddam Hussein and his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, face additional charges of genocide.

'Trees turned grey'
Mr Abdullah told the court that troops had shelled his village near the northern Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya in February 1988. "At night, I heard the screaming of women and children," he told the court. He said he fled to neighbouring Iran with other relatives, but his mother and two sisters had gone missing. Their identity cards were found in a mass grave more than 120 miles (200km) from their village many years later. "I don't know why these tragedies come to us. Is it only because we're Kurds?" he asked. Three other witnesses also spoke of the loss of family members during the Anfal campaign. Like Ghafour Hassan Abdullah, two witnesses said they learned of the fate of some of their relatives in 2004 when a court showed them the identity cards found in the mass grave. One man, Akram Ali Hussein, described how a chemical attack on his village had forced people to run for the mountains. "We heard big bangs and later bad smells," he said. We saw a white layer cover the ground... The trees turned grey and white, so we knew that a chemical material was used."

'Agents of Iran'
Saddam Hussein listened to the witnesses, but lost his temper when the Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas were described by one lawyer as freedom fighters. "Rebellion is rebellion. Let's come up with one country which had a rebellion that wasn't confronted by the army," he said. The former Iraqi president also demanded "neutral countries like Switzerland" examine the evidence found in mass graves. And he lashed out at the court, saying: "You are agents of Iran and Zionism. We will crush your heads." Saddam Hussein and his fellow accused say the Anfal campaign was a legitimate counter-insurgency operation aimed at clearing northern Iraq of Iranian troops and separatist guerrillas. All seven face the death penalty if convicted. This is the fifth hearing in what is the second trial for Saddam Hussein. The case was adjourned until Wednesday. Saddam Hussein and seven different defendants have already been tried for the killing of 148 Shias in Dujail in 1982. A verdict is due on 16 October.

Iran offers Iraq 'full support' BBC News
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has offered Iraq full support in stabilising the security situation in the country.He made the remarks in Tehran after talks with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. Speaking to reporters after their meeting, Mr Ahmadinejad said "Iraq's security is Iran's security". Mr Maliki is making his first official visit to Iran since he took office in May. "Iran supports the Iraqi government that has been created by the Iraqi people's votes, and strengthening a united and independent Iraq is in the interest of all the region", Mr Ahmadinejad said. Mr Maliki said his discussions with Mr Ahmadinejad had been positive. "Even in security issues there is no barrier in the way of co-operation." Few concrete details of their talks have emerged, except that an agreement covering political, security and economic co-operation was signed.

Close ties
After fighting a long war in the 1980s, the relationship between Iran and Iraq has improved since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Many of Iraq's new Shia leaders have close ties to neighbouring Iran. Mr Maliki lived in Iran during the 1980s when Saddam Hussein was in power in Baghdad. The United States has accused Iran of destabilising Iraq by backing Shia militant groups there. Last year, Britain said explosive devices used to attack British troops in southern Iraq had "Iranian elements". Iran has rejected these allegations. Mr Maliki is due to meet Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, on Wednesday. During his visit, he is expected to also press for the release of six Iraqi border guards who were seized last week after a reported exchange of fire with Iranian forces.

DARK MILESTONE: MORE AMERICANS HAVE NOW DIED IN IRAQ THAN DIED ON 9/11 R.J. ESKOW (HUFFINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 11)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/dar...html?view=print

SITUATION CALLED DIRE IN WEST IRAQ: ANBAR IS LOST POLITICALLY, MARINE ANALYST SAYS - THOMAS E. RICKS (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 11)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1001204_pf.html

US INTEL REPORT: IRAQ'S ANBAR PROVINCE 'POLITICALLY LOST': CHIEF MARINE ANALYST SAYS REGION'S POLITICAL VACUUM BEING FILLED BY AL QAEDA - TOM REGAN (CSMONITOR.COM, SEPTEMBER 12)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0911/dailyUpdate.html

US "DEFEATED POLITICALLY" IN AL-ANBAR - JUAN COLE (INFORMED COMMENT: THOUGHTS ON THE MIDDLE EAST, HISTORY, AND RELIGION, SEPTEMBER 11): 'A painful realization is setting in that it is more and more likely that Iraq is going to be partitioned. ... I continue to resist it.'
http://www.juancole.com/
(scroll down text for item)

UNWINDING BUSH: HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE TO CORRECT THE PRESIDENT'S MISTAKES? -JONATHAN RAUCH (REASON, SEPTEMBER 11): The Iraq adventure fueled a precipitous decline in America's image abroad, and Bush's pugnacious style during his first term and his tin ear for foreign opinion made a bad situation worse.
http://www.reason.com/rauch/091106.shtml

PRESIDENT BUSH'S REALITY EDITORIAL (NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 12): The nation needs to hear a workable plan to stabilize a fractured, disintegrating country -- Iraq -- and end the violence. If such a strategy exists, it seems unlikely that Mr. Bush could see it through the filter of his fantasies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/12/opinion/...agewanted=print

EVEN DATING IS PERILOUS IN POLARIZED BAGHDAD: RISING TENSION BETWEEN SUNNIS, SHIITES NEARLY PUTS END TO MIXED RELATIONSHIPS - AMIT R. PALEY (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 12)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6091101044.html

REINFORCE BAGHDAD - WILLIAM KRISTOL AND RICH LOWRY (WASHINGTON POST, SEPTEMBER 12): More U.S. troops in Iraq would improve our chances of winning a decisive battle at a decisive moment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1100879_pf.html

MORAL FORCE: IN IRAQ, THE UNITED STATES ISN'T THE PROBLEM; IT'S THE SOLUTION - LAWRENCE F. KAPLAN (NEW REPUBLIC, SEPTEMBER 12): The moral cost of abandoning a country we have turned inside-out seems not to have made the slightest impression on opinion-makers.
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=w060911&s=kaplan091206

THE BEST WAR EVER YOUTUBE (SEPTEMBER 9): This video chronicles how the U.S. defeated itself by believing its own propaganda that the invasion and occupation of Iraq would be a cakewalk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qGAqA-muYU

Rockefeller: Bush Duped Public On Iraq

CBS News Exclusive:

Rockefeller went a step further. He says the world would be better off today if the United States had never invaded Iraq — even if it means Saddam Hussein would still be running Iraq.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14940.htm

At least 14 Killed As U.S. Occupation Continues:

Gunmen attacked overnight a Shi'ite mosque in Khan Bani Saad, a town south of the ethnically volatile city of Baquba, killing seven and wounding others, state television al-Iraqiya said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L12720335.htm


Violence kills another six civilians, policeman, four gunmen in Iraq:

At least six Iraqi civilians, an Iraqi police officer and four gunmen were killed Tuesday and several others were wounded in separate violent incidents in various parts of Iraq.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/Home/Story.aspx?Lan...=en&DSNO=904259


Car bomb kills five in Iraq :

A parked car bomb detonated Tuesday in Baghdad's upscale Mansour neighborhood, killing at least five people and wounding 13, police said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060912/ap_on_...a/iraq_violence


Situation Called Dire in West Iraq: Anbar Is Lost Politically, Marine Analyst Says:

The chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country's western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14934.htm


Dahr Jamail: Fallujah Under Threat Yet Again:

In the face of killings, and now threats of a new attack, residents remain defiant of the occupation forces. The hardships that people have endured seem to have strengthened rather than weakened them.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14937.htm


Sadr, Sunnis oppose Iraq partitions:

Powerful Shiite Muslim cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has reaffirmed his opposition to a plan to separate Iraq into three connected but largely autonomous partitions.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?Stor...12-100118-2080r


Propaganda or fact?

Top Aide to Sadr Outlines Vision of a U.S.-Free Iraq:

In a shabby but spotless living room in the holy city of Najaf, a top deputy of Shiite Muslim leader Moqtada al-Sadr quietly sketched out his vision of the Iraq to come, after the Americans withdraw.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14933.htm


Charge of the heavy brigade :

Soldiers active in the 'war on terror' cannot speak out. But their former commanders can
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1870192,00.html


Iraqi elections believed to have worsened divisions, report says:

In spite of a sharp increase in Sunni-Shiite violence, however, attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces are still the primary source of bloodshed in Iraq, the report found. It was the latest in a series of recent grim assessments of conditions in Iraq.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15494904.htm


Zbigniew Brzezinski: "Victory Would Be A Fata Morgana":

Iraqis are not primitive people who need American colonial tutelage to resolve their problems.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14942.htm


Nonaligned want terrorism redefined :

More than 100 other nations are pushing to broaden the world's definition of "terrorism" to include the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
http://tinyurl.com/khful