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| Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Corporate Media |
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Archive for the Month of August, 2005.
Viewing Iraq War NEWS articles 1 through 75 of 101.
- In a lawsuit filed in federal court here in December, a former CIA officer, whose name remains secret, said that an informant told him that Iraq's uranium enrichment program had ended years earlier, and that centrifuge components from the scuttled program were available for examination and even purchase. The officer, an employee at the agency for more than 20 years, including several years in a clandestine unit assigned to gather intelligence related to illicit weapons, was fired in 2004 for not going along with the government propaganda that Saddam had nukes. - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again warned he could take action against Kurdish guerrillas in Iraq if U.S. forces did not stop the rebels infiltrating across the border into Turkey. - British MP (member of parliament) George Galloway told Al Bawaba on Wednesday that the Americans are losing the war in Iraq as he also warned that the forerunners of a civil war are peeking in on Lebanon. - "One thing is for certain -- Iraq will never be a truly sovereign nation as long as there is substantial oil under its sands. The U.S. military will remain in Iraq in permanent bases until the Age of Oil is over."
- Iraqi security forces and U.S. troops can kill you for almost any reason - and they often do. - More than 107 child prisoners, some as young as 10, are being raped and tortured by U.S. occupation forces in Iraqi jails, the Sunday Herald reported, citing witnesses. - An ex-CIA agent, who told superiors in 2001 that Iraq had abandoned part of its nuclear program, is asking the FBI to investigate allegations that the spy agency dismissed him for refusing to falsify intelligence.
- Before the start of the US-led war in Iraq in March 2003, the CIA reportedly recruited and trained a paramilitary group named the Scorpions to foment rebellion.
- It appears as if doctors have become something of a rarity in occupied Iraq whose medical system has been left in tatters since the US-led invasion and its ensuing violence. - The Respect MP accused the UK and America of "raping" Baghdad and said the US was losing the war. - Interrogated General's Sleeping-Bag Death, CIA's Use of Secret Iraqi Squad Are Among Details
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The Polish government has officially apologized for the widespread and in cases irreparable damage caused to ancient Babylon by its troops.
- You are on the verge of the abyss any time you dare wander the streets as trigger happy Iraqi guards and U.S. troops rarely miss their targets. - Work on the contract would be completed by June 30, 2009... - According to reports from Iraq and from a Web Site run by the Iraqi guerillas, U.S. forces have said that water, electricity, welfare, and other basic services will be returned to residents of Ramadi if – and only if – residents provide information on the bases and whereabouts of Iraqi resistance fighters. - According to Brian Harring, a computer data specialist...of the 158,000 US Military shipped to Iraq, 34,000 have either deserted, were killed or seriously wounded. DoD lists currently being quietly circulated indicate almost 9,000 dead, over 23,000 seriously wounded and a large number of suicides, forced hospitalization for ongoing drug usage and sales, murder of Iraqi civilians and fellow soldiers, rapes and courts martial. - A coalition of 14 media organizations and public interest groups organized by The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in U.S. District Court in New York urging the release of Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse photos... - The Project for the New American Century documents how Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his former deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, in the 1990’s, had outlined a plan for domination of the Middle East and its oil resources. The group included John Bolton, recently appointed as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. who has expressed his utter contempt for the world body. The attack on New York on September 11th, 2001, provided the excuse they needed to implement the plan.
- We shall transform our childhood tears into bullets of revenge - The raising of money for a 'soldiers fund' is found during an investigation of a California battalion.
- In Baghdad alone, more than 54,000 people have been identified as homeless, according to local government officials. - Hundreds of Iraqis angry at poor public services rioted in the town of Samawa south of Baghdad on Sunday and police opened fire on the crowd, killing one person and wounding 40, hospital sources and witnesses said. - According to the Arab Satellite TV, Al-Jazeera, Ghanaian workers are heading for Iraq for $100/month jobs. - A handful of American journalists have died in vehicle accidents or from illness.” In fact, as it now appears, Vincent was the victim of a death squad. “Suspicion for this killing,” writes Patrick Martin, “focuses not on Al Qaeda or Sunni-based insurgents, but on the police of the Shiite-based administration installed in Basra with the support of US and British occupation forces.”
- Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq last year, won't leave Crawford TX until she's arrested or personally meets with Bush. No trespassing signs are now going up near to the location where the group of about 50 anti-war protestors are camped out near the President's ranch while he vacations. In the event Sheehan and the group are told to leave, they have obtained legal counsel to protect their free speech rights.
- Although much public attention has been focused recently on the prospect of reducing U.S. forces next spring and summer, defense officials foresee the likelihood of first increasing troop levels. - "Of course, the shootings will increase support for the opposition," said Farraji, 49, who was named a police general with U.S. approval. "The hatred of the Americans has increased. I myself hate them." - Cndy Sheehan, who arrived in Crawford Saturday with a small group of about 50 anti-war protestors, now faces the possiblility of being jailed for trespassing. Coincidentally, the threat of a Thursday arrest comes on the day Condaleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld are arriving in Crawford for a visit with Bush. - Its time to launch a boycott of the trendy BayWalk chains that are having handcuffs placed on peaceful St. Pete for Peace anti-war protestors exercising their first amendment rights - US deeply involved in the gravest of international crimes - No electricity, no water, no fuel, no food rations, no security, no sewage and frequent arbitrary murder with out legal recourse of any kind is what the Gates of Hell look like, as described in this article from Iraqi newspaper Azzaman. - A growing number of Iraqi boys are being forced to join the commercial sex trade --many forced to do so by criminal gangs through threats and violence, intimidation, and blackmail in a country where "honor killings" of youths who engage in same-sex relations by their families is encouraged by Sharia law and religious fanaticism; and some out of poverty in a country where official government figures for youth unemployment at 48 % (although the real figure is undoubtedly much higher).
- The Iraqis discovered the largest CIA operation in the world in Irbil, northern Iraq. - The video, shown on Australian television after reportedly being aired on Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, shows the man holding an automatic rifle and warning of attacks while criticising British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President Geoge W. Bush. - Nearly $9 billion of money spent on Iraqi reconstruction is unaccounted for because of inefficiencies and bad management, according to a watchdog report published Sunday.
- This war cannot be won by America. Those pathetic Iraqis just will not stand and fight toe to toe. For some strange reason, the Iraqis are fighting to win, not to meet American wishes and expectations. Every day that Americans are in Iraq fighting the insurgency is another day that George Bush is losing ground. Every death of an American soldier is a nail in the coffin of the American Empire.
- Quietly, in their ones and twos, the professional classes of Baghdad are slipping out of the country to avoid becoming another fatal statistic.
- "I will not betray my honour and my conscience and testify against Saddam Hussein," Aziz said
- I find it quite curious that those who opposed Saddam Hussein now are dismembering Iraq. This shows that they had no plan whatsoever for the country, only the pursuit of their own selfish interests. - by Howard Zinn- More Americans are beginning to feel, like the soldiers in Iraq, that something is terribly wrong. More and more every day the lies are being exposed. And then there is the largest lie, that everything the US does is to be pardoned because we are engaged in a "war on terrorism", ignoring the fact that war is itself terrorism, that barging into homes and taking away people and subjecting them to torture is terrorism, that invading and bombing other countries does not give us more security but less. - Empire is expensive. Protecting far-flung "interests" costs money and, inevitably, lives. Do you want to know the price of empire? It's random searches of subway passengers in New York City. And that's just the beginning. - Guerrillas start from scratch. They need to collect the materials for a bomb, put it in place, and set it off without attracting attention. Imagine doing that in a crowded, noisy Baghdad street and you'll see that it wouldn't be possible without the cooperation of everybody in the neighborhood, from the Radio Shack guy who donates the trigger to the granny on the corner, timing the US patrols as she waves sweetly at the GIs. - Saddam Hussein could be tried and executed over a relatively minor and isolated case, before evidence on the full extent of his regime's crimes can be brought to the courtroom, according to a source close to the special court trying the former Iraqi leader. - U.S. hires notorious mercenary "Tumbledown Tim" Spicer -- veteran of coups and rebellions from Sierra Leone to Papua New Guinea. Now, he's bringing his brand of "security" to hapless Iraq. - ACLU Chief Calls Government Secrecy a Further Attempt to Avoid Accountability at Highest Levels - The important information about Iraqi Order 81 is that it was designed to have a major impact on the way farming is done in Iraq. This order prohibits Iraqi farmers from using the methods of agriculture that they have used for centuries. The practice of saving seeds from one year to the next is now illegal in Iraq. What a break for U.S. corporations, such as Monsanto.
- No oil for blood. The bumper sticker popular among left-leaning opponents of the conflict — no war for oil — has been turned on its head. There is no oil to be had for the shedding of American blood. Not for years anyway. - The Pentagon has moved forcefully to block the release of new video evidence of prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, arguing it would help recruit new fighters and endanger American lives. - The commander of US transportation and other logistics forces in Iraq has said the number of roadside bomb strikes against his soldiers throughout the country has doubled in the past year. - A US company operating out of Ecuador says it has signed up about 1,000 Colombian police and military staff to work as hired guns in Iraq, for less than half of their US counterparts' salaries. - The US transnational companies are taking over — and they'll benefit for years to come
- Italy, a month ahead of schedule, has started reducing its presence in Iraq by drawing down the first 130 forces in a planned 300-troop withdrawal, a Rome-based military source said today. - An attack on a US military patrol followed by heavy US gunfire has left 15 Iraqis, including eight children, dead and 17 wounded in a town west of Baghdad, residents said on Saturday. - "They offered us compensation. I refused. I lost my son, I told the officer. "I don't want the money - I don't think the money will bring back my son. You have killed the innocent and such things will lead the people to destroy you and the people will make a revolution against you. You said you had come to liberate us from the previous regime. But you are destroying our walls and doors." - Bomb seeking robots, spy planes and a handheld device that translates a soldier's English commands or questions into Arabic are some of the high-tech battlefield equipment developed for use by US forces in Iraq. - JESSICA LYNCH, the former US army supply clerk who became a national icon after her capture and rescue during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, says she was "used" by the Pentagon to "show the war was going great".
- At Fox News Bill O'Reilly is trashing Donald Rumsfeld for his incompetence, and Ann Coulter is chiding Mr. O'Reilly for being a defeatist. In an emblematic gesture akin to waving a white flag, Robert Novak walked off a CNN set and possibly out of a job rather than answer questions about his role in smearing the man who helped expose the administration's prewar inflation of Saddam W.M.D.'s. (On this sinking ship, it's hard to know which rat to root for.) - The Bush Butcher’s Bill: Officially, 46 US Military Deaths in Iraq from 1 through 10 August, 2005 – Official Total of 1,953 US Dead to date (and rising) - The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.
- It made no mention of Sharia -- Islamic religious law -- although Islam was named the official state religion. It prohibited all forms of discrimination, gender or other, and guaranteed freedom of expression as part of "the revolutionary, national and progressive trend." - ...while US physical violence in Iraq is occupying the center stage because of the continuing daily meat grinding of Iraqi citizens at the hands of the occupiers, a sizeable majority of the US population is still walking around like drugged-out zombies repeating a slogan impregnated with ignorance and permeated with support for violence: Support the troops! - Now only the pregnant mother, Anwar, her 13-year-old daughter are alive to tell how the bullets tore through the windscreen and how they screamed for the Americans to stop, but her plea fell on deaf ears... - US troops held five children as hostages to demand handover of insurgents near a northern Iraqi town on Tuesday, police said.
- According to the Iraq Index Project of the Brookings Institution, from Aug. 3 through Aug. 10, 44 U.S. soldiers were killed in Iraq in the first 10 days of August alone, compared with 28 killed the week of July 28 through Aug. 3.
- The Bush administration is insane. If the American people do not decapitate it by demanding Bush's impeachment, the Bush administration will bring about Armageddon. This may please some Christian evangelicals conned by Rapture predictions, but World War III will please no one else. - Bodies of 1,100 civilians brought to mortuary in July Pre-invasion, July figure was typically less than 200 Last Sunday alone, the mortuary received 36 bodies Up to 20 per cent of the bodies are never identified Many of the dead have been tortured or disfigured
- During Saddam Hussein's regime all food stuff entering the country was monitored for quality control and sell by dates were checked rigorously before entering shops - A former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said the public version of his capture was fabricated.
- An angry Iraqi crowd carried coffins through a Baghdad district on Thursday and threw rocks at American soldiers, accusing U.S. troops of killing three innocent middle-aged brothers, one of them in a wheelchair. - U.S. corporations march into Baghdad, at the expense of self-determination. - ... to protest the influence of the Military and Weapons Industries on Education, and the resulting wars that feed our kids as fodder to a system of profits created from intentionally created conflict. - Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi here Saturday said that the claims of US administrators on Iran's interference in Iraq are mere hallucinations.
- Iraq's transport minister says American troops and the U.S. administration are responsible for the terrorism, the insurgency and the corruption in the country, and says he blames the "occupation" for most of Iraq's ills. - ...some protesters were pepper sprayed and Tasered; he said a 68-year-old woman who was not resisting was bitten by a police dog. - The Army is planning for the possibility of keeping the current number of soldiers in Iraq — well over 100,000 — for four more years, the Army's top general said Saturday.
Pages for August, 2005
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