06 May, 2008
Hospital Struck As US Military Tightens
Siege Of Baghdad’s Sadr City
By Peter SymondsUS missile strikes on a small building adjacent to a major hospital in Baghdad’s Sadr City on Saturday left more than 20 people injured, destroyed ambulances and shook the entire neighbourhood. The incident provides a glimpse of the hellish conditions created for residents of the huge working class slum through the month-long siege by American and Iraqi government forces
03 May, 2008
Iraq: Corruption Eats Into Food Rations
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr JamailAmidst unemployment and impoverishment, Iraqis now face a cutting down of their monthly food ration – much of it already eaten away by official corruption
Is Sadr City Becoming The Next Gaza?
By Rannie AmiriThe ripples of the March 25th Basra offensive-turned-fiasco initiated by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have been transformed into waves of bloodletting, crashing rhythmically northward onto Sadr City. According to one governmental official, more than 900 people were killed and 2600 wounded in the teeming slum of three million in April
02 May, 2008
Iraq After Basra
By Ashley SmithThe assault on Basra has ended the false calm of the surge and sparked both increasing resistance to the occupation as well as ethnic and sectarian conflict between and among Iraq’s three great communities
30 April, 2008
US Escalates Siege In Baghdad’s Sadr City
By Kate RandallUS forces continued their siege against Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood on Tuesday, leaving dozens dead. The US military said a four-hour firefight broke out around 9:30 a.m. between US forces and militiamen as a US soldier injured by small-arms fire was being evacuated
28 April, 2008
Poverty Gets The Survivors
By Maki al-Nazzal & Dahr JamailMore than a million Iraqis were lucky enough to flee into Syria. But in this relatively safe haven, there is no getting away from poverty
18 April, 2008
Iraq: Chaos Hardening Sectarian Fiefdoms
By Ali GharibThere are an estimated 2.7 million Iraqis who have been displaced within their own country. No house; no food; no security. Who do they turn to for help? The international community's humanitarian organisations? The occupying United States government? The central Iraqi government based in Baghdad? According to a report released Tuesday by Refugees International (RI), none of these has been able to provide sufficient assistance to the most vulnerable Iraqis
15 April, 2008
Basra Battles: Barely Half The Story
By Ramzy BaroudWhen it comes to Iraq, reporters appear intent on omitting or fabricating news. The latest battles in Basra, Iraq's second largest city and a vital oil seaport, furnished ample instances of misleading and manipulative practice in corporate journalism today. One commonly used tactic is to describe events using self-styled or "official" terminology, which deliberately confuses the reader by giving no real indication or analysis of what is actually happening
From One Dictator To The Next
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr JamailMany Iraqis have come to believe that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is just as much a dictator as Saddam Hussein was
Five Years On, Fallujah In Tatters
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr JamailFallujah remains a crippled city more than two years after the November 2004 U.S.-led assault. Unemployment, and lack of medical care and safe drinking water in the city 60 km west of Baghdad remain a continuous problem. Freedom of movement is still curtailed
10 April, 2008
Congressional Hearings Set Stage For
Wider War—Inside And Outside Of Iraq
By Bill Van AukenAs the mass media’s attention remained focused Wednesday on the rerun of testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker—this time before two House committees—a sparsely attended hearing on the Senate side heard a key architect of the year-old “surge” in Iraq tell Democrats that there ultimately isn’t much difference between their position and that of the administration
07 April, 2008
Romancing The War
By Mustapha MarrouchiIraq, the seat of the glorious Abbassid period , which gave us the Golden Age of Islam, is a contaminated place, full of dust, blood, and stench
02 April, 2008
Iraq: 'Handed Over' To A Government Called Sadr
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr JamailDespite the huge media campaign led by U.S. officials and a complicit corporate-controlled media to convince the world of U.S. success in Iraq, emerging facts on the ground show massive failure. The date March 25 of this year will be remembered as the day of truth through five years of occupation
01 April, 2008
US-Backed Assault On Basra Ends In
Humiliation For Maliki Government
By Bill Van AukenIn both major cities, as well as elsewhere in Iraq’s south, residents buried their dead, cleared away rubble and stocked up on food and water in anticipation of renewed fighting. Official tallies put the number killed since the US-backed government of Nouri al-Maliki launched its abortive military offensive last Tuesday at close to 500, though the real death toll may well be considerably higher. At least 1,200 people are known to have been wounded
31 March, 2008
Repeated US Air Strikes In Basra And Baghdad
By Peter SymondsHundreds of people have died in six days of fierce fighting as the US puppet regime in Baghdad has sought to stamp its control over the port city of Basra, centre of Iraq’s southern oil fields. As operations by some 30,000 Iraqi security personnel stalled, US and British air strikes repeatedly hit densely populated areas of Basra, as well as other strongholds of supporters of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad and southern towns and cities
29 March, 2008
Where Are The Iraqis In The Iraq War?
By Ramzy BaroudFive years after the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, mainstream media is once more making the topic an object of intense scrutiny. The costs and implications of the war are endlessly covered from all possible angles, with one notable exception -- the cost to the Iraqi people themselves
28 March, 2008
Stalled Assault On Basra Exposes
The Iraqi Government's Shaky Authority
By Patrick CockburnThe Iraqi army's offensive against the Shia militia of the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in Basra is failing to make significant headway despite a pledge by the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to fight "to the end"
Iraqi Government Offensive In Basra
Threatens To Trigger Shiite Uprising
By Peter SymondsFighting between Iraqi security forces, backed by the US military, and militia loyal to Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr continued unabated yesterday following a government offensive launched in the southern port city of Basra on Tuesday. Up to 200 people have been killed, many of them civilians, in clashes over the past three days in Basra, as well as the southern towns of Kut, Diwaniya, Hilla and Amara, and the sprawling slums of Sadr City in eastern Baghdad
27 March, 2008
Iraq Implodes As Shia Fights Shia
By Patrick CockburnA new civil war is threatening to explode in Iraq as American-backed Iraqi government forces fight Shia militiamen for control of Basra and parts of Baghdad
Iraq: Fever Named After Blackwater
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr JamailIraqi doctors in al-Anbar province warn of a new disease they call "Blackwater" that threatens the lives of thousands. The disease is named after Blackwater Worldwide, the U.S. mercenary company operating in Iraq
Classified Memo Reveals Iraqi Prisoners
As "Starving"
By Jason LeopoldA classified memo written by a top military official stationed in Western Iraq reveals that a prison in downtown Fallujah is so overcrowded and dirty that it does not even meet basic “minimal levels of hygiene for human beings.”
Five Years On - Invasion And occupation
By Peter HaddenAs the fifth anniversary of the fateful decision to launch the invasion of Iraq passes, the claims by the US administration that the 2007 troop surge has succeeded in quelling the insurgency and checking the slide to sectarian break up - claims that were being made loudly at the start of this year - are becoming fainter by the day
26 March, 2008
Iraqi Regime Launches Assault On Basra
By David WalshFighting between Iraqi government forces and militias loyal to Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr erupted Tuesday in the southern port city of Basra, as well as other towns and certain districts of Baghdad. Dozens were killed in the conflicts, according to the media and hospital officials
25 March, 2008
Five Years Of War Crimes
By Ghali HassanFive years of illegal and murderous Occupation, the Iraqi people continue to endure an unimaginable suffering under the highest form of tyrannical dictatorships. Credible surveys estimated at least 1.3 million innocent Iraqis — the majority of them women and children — have been brutally murdered in cold blood, making the Iraq’s Genocide the biggest single mass murder of modern time. Almost every Iraqi family has lost at least one close relative. The mayhem is continuing in an endless genocide waged by the world's largest and most offensive military machine, almost entirely against defenceless population
White House Signals Continued Iraq Escalation
As US Death Toll Tops 4,000
By Bill Van AukenBush held a two-hour video conference with the chief commander of the US forces occupying Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and the American ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, the day after a roadside bomb killed four US troops in southern Baghdad, bringing the total American death toll in the five-year war to 4,000
Bush Blisters The Truth On Iraq
By Ralph NaderOn the occasion of the fifth anniversary of Bush's illegal war of aggression in Iraq, the Fabricator-in-Chief made a speech at the Pentagon, whose muzzled army chiefs had opposed his costly, ruinous adventure from the start for strategic, tactical and logistical reasons
Winter Soldiers Sound Off
By Dahr JamailJason Moon suffers from persistent insomnia as he wrestles with memories of his time in Iraq. “While on our initial convoy into Iraq in early June 2003, we were given a direct order that if any children or civilians got in front of the vehicles in our convoy, we were not to stop, we were not to slow down, we were to keep driving,” says the former National Guard and Army Reserve member
21 March, 2008
The Making Of “Operation Iraqi Freedom”
By Jason LeopoldThe Iraq war, which was predicated on the existence of weapons of mass destruction, has resulted in the deaths of nearly 4,000 US troops and has cost taxpayers roughly half-a-trillion dollars. As the war now enters its sixth year it's worth revisiting how prewar Iraq intelligence was cooked in the months leading up toward the preemptive strike and how the handful of dissenters who objected to Iraq policy were sidelined
19 March, 2008
US-UK-Australian Iraqi Holocaust And Iraqi Genocide
By Dr Gideon PolyaOn the 5th anniversary of the illegal, war criminal, Australian, UK and US invasion of Iraq we see an ongoing Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide - post-invasion non-violent and violent excess deaths 1.7-2.2 million, post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 0.6 million, and 4.5 million refugees out of a current population of about 28 million i.e. about one quarter of Iraqis dead or homeless
The Only Lesson We Ever Learn
Is That We Never Learn
By Robert FiskAnd I will hazard a terrible guess: that we have lost Afghanistan as surely as we have lost Iraq and as surely as we are going to "lose" Pakistan. It is our presence, our power, our arrogance, our refusal to learn from history and our terror – yes, our terror – of Islam that is leading us into the abyss. And until we learn to leave these Muslim peoples alone, our catastrophe in the Middle East will only become graver. There is no connection between Islam and "terror". But there is a connection between our occupation of Muslim lands and "terror". It's not too complicated an equation. And we don't need a public inquiry to get it right
This Is The War That Started With Lies,
And Continues With Lie After Lie After Lie
By Patrick CockburnIt has been a war of lies from the start. All governments lie in wartime but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the past five years has been more untruthful than in any conflict since the First World War
Iraq: A Humanitarian Crisis Of
Catastrophic Dimensions
By Kate RandallFive years of the US-led war and occupation of Iraq have created a humanitarian crisis affecting all aspects of Iraqi society. This catastrophe is illustrated by the millions of Iraqis either killed or displaced, the daily toll of death and violence, the fracturing of families and communities, and the crumbling of basic infrastructure and social services
How To Get Out Of Iraq
By Sharat G. LinWhy U.S. withdrawal will actually help stabilize the country
18 March, 2008
Iraq: Five Years, And Counting
By Dahr JamailDevastation on the ground and largely held Iraqi opinion contradicts claims by U.S. officials that the situation in Iraq has improved towards the fifth anniversary of the invasion March 20
13 March, 2008
Riding To War On A Poison Cloud
By Sharat G. LinHow the Forgotten City of Halabja became the Launch Pad for War on Iraq. When the Bush administration went to war with Iraq in March 2003, the centerpiece of its justification for war was weapons of mass destruction. But its precise timing was driven, in large part, by the anniversary of the poison gas attack on the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja. On the fifth and twentieth anniversaries of these two tragic events, a study of the connection between them reveals a deliberate pattern of twisting and fabricating intelligence to meet policy objectives
11 March, 2008
Childhood Is Dying In Iraq
By Dahr Jamail & Ahmed AliIraq's children have been more gravely affected by the U.S. occupation than any other segment of the population. The United Nations estimated that half a million Iraqi children died during more than 12 years of economic sanctions that preceded the U.S. invasion of March 2003, primarily as a result of malnutrition and disease. But childhood malnutrition in Iraq has increased 9 percent since then, according to an Oxfam International report released last July
Iraqi Women Quietly Endure Horrors Of War
By Cyril MychalejkoMarch 8 marks the 99th celebration of International Women's Day, a day to commemorate the political, social, and economic struggles and achievements of women globally. This year we should use the holiday to observe and reflect on the suffering of Iraqi women, who have become invisible "collateral damage" in our country's war in this now defenseless Middle Eastern nation. A good place to start would be by picking up and reading Haifa Zangana's book, "City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance."
07 March, 2008
Women's Day-Iraq: Surviving Somehow
Behind A Concrete Purdah
By Dahr JamailIraq, where women once had more rights and freedom than most others in the Arab world, has turned deadly for women who dream of education and a professional career
27 February, 2008
US Military Announces 10,000 More
Post-“Surge” Troops In Iraq
By Naomi SpencerOn Monday, the US military announced that the number of troops in Iraq following the “surge” begun last year will be some 10,000 more than pre-surge levels. What was originally presented as a temporary increase of US occupation forces will result in the indefinite presence of 140,000 US soldiers in Iraq
Baquba Losing Life – And Hope
By Ahmed Ali & Dahr JamailLife has been bad enough in Diyala province north of Baghdad after prolonged violence, unemployment and loss of all forms of normal living. What could be worse now is the loss of hope that anything will ever be better
25 February, 2008
The Enduring Trap In Iraq
By Adil ShamooA showdown is brewing between Republicans and Democrats over the Iraq War once again. The Bush administration is stirring the pot once again by negotiating an agreement with the "sovereign" Iraqi government to place U.S. military troops and bases permanently on Iraqi soil despite strong objections from many Democrats
The Door To Iraq's Oil Opens
By M K BhadrakumarAs can be expected, Washington is keen to exploit the vastly improved security situation in Iraq. The Bush administration is leaning on Shahristani not to wait for the fractious Iraqi Parliament to approve the Iraqi oil law that would have provided a legal framework for foreign investment in the oil industry. As the first step, the executives of some of the world's oil majors have been meeting with Iraqi Oil Ministry officials since January 24 in Amman, Jordan, for discussing the terms of technical support contracts, which are in the nature of shorter-term deals
21 February, 2008
Iraq: Unemployment Too Becomes An Epidemic
By Ahmed Ali & Dahr JamailFor a few, salaries have soared. For the rest, unemployment has. Many Iraqi workers enjoyed huge salary increases following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. But unemployment rose more sharply under policies introduced by the Coalition Provisional Authority
Risk Of Cholera Multiplied By
Sewage Collapse In Baghdad
By Oscar GrenfellFive years after the illegal invasion of Iraq, the absence of adequate sewerage treatment, clean water and reliable power supplies are glaring exposures of the lie that the US occupation has any concern for the well-being or rights of the population. Every death and illness that is caused by the infrastructure crisis is the responsibility of the Bush administration
20 February, 2008
Making Iraq Disappear
By Tom EngelhardtHow Never to Withdraw from Iraq
19 February, 2008
X-Rated Iraq: A Tortured Story
By Captain Eric H. MayAn anonymous man wearing a US Special Forces T-shirt is a war criminal, if his three-minute YouTube interview is to be believed. In it, he claims to have taken part in routine torture of Iraqis — Hajji’s in soldier slang — in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, and to have been part of a scheme with other guards to prostitute a 15-year-old Iraqi girl who later hung herself
The Lights Have Gone Out, Who Cares
By Ahmed Ali & Dahr JamailLack of electricity in Baquba has shattered businesses, and the lives of families. Months of power failures has darkened morale everywhere
A New Force Called Sahwa Shows Its Muscle
By Ahmed Ali & Dahr JamailThe Awakening Councils in Diyala province are stepping up their protests against the government in Baghdad. The Awakening Councils, or the Sahwa as they are called, are a mostly Sunni Muslim force set up by the U.S. to draw in resistance fighters into their ranks, and then to help U.S. forces fight other anti-U.S. groups
12 February, 2008
A Tidal Wave Of Misery Is Engulfing Iraq
By Michael SchwartzA tidal wave of misery is engulfing Iraq—and it isn't the usual violence that Americans are accustomed to hearing about and tuning out. To be sure, it's rooted in that violence, but this tsunami of misery is social and economic in nature. It dislodges people from their jobs, sweeps them from their homes, tears them from their material possessions, and carries them off from families and communities. It leaves them stranded in hostile towns or foreign countries, with no anchor to resist the moment when the next wave of displacement sweeps over them
Iraq: The Road To Learning Can Be Dangerous
By Ahmed Ali & Dahr JamailThe Road To University professors now enjoy increased pay, but in the face of threats and isolation, there is little they are able to do in the world of academics
More Bombing Creates New Enemies
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr JamailMany Iraqis view the attack Jan. 10 by bombers and F-16 jets on a cluster of villages in the Latifiya district south of Baghdad as overkill
28 January, 2008
Return To Fallujah
By Patrick CockburnFallujah is more difficult to enter than any city in the world. On the road from Baghdad I counted 27 checkpoints, all manned by well-armed soldiers and police. "The siege is total," says Dr Kamal in Fallujah Hospital as he grimly lists his needs, which include everything from drugs and oxygen to electricity and clean water
Iraqis On "Success" And "Progress"
In Their Country
By Dahr JamailAmericans may argue among themselves about just how much “success” or “progress” there really is in post-surge Iraq, but it is almost invariably an argument in which Iraqis are but stick figures — or dead bodies. Of late, I have been asking Iraqis I know by email what they make of the American version (or versions) of the unseemly reality that is their country, that they live and suffer with. What does it mean to become a “secondary issue” for your occupier?
25 January, 2008
Iraq: 'US The Biggest Producer Of Terror'
By Ahmed Ali & Dahr JamailBroken promises have brought a dramatic increase in anti-U.S. sentiment across the capital city of Iraq's Diyala province. Many people in Baquba, capital of Diyala 40 km northeast of Baghdad, had supported U.S. forces when they ousted former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But failed reconstruction projects and muddled policies mean the U.S. has lost that support
24 January, 2008
Iraq: Under Curfew, This Is No Life
By Ahmed Ali & Dahr JamailContinuing curfew has brought normal life to a standstill in Baquba, capital of the restive Diyala province north of Baghdad
A Lesson In How To Create Iraqi Orphans
By Robert FiskIt's not difficult to create orphans in Iraq. If you're an insurgent, you can blow yourself up in a crowded market. If you're an American air force pilot, you can bomb the wrong house in the wrong village. Or if you're a Western mercenary, you can fire 40 bullets into the widowed mother of 14-year-old Alice Awanis and her sisters Karoon and Nora, the first just 20, the second a year older. But when the three girls landed at Amman airport from Baghdad last week they believed that they were free of the horrors of Baghdad and might travel to Northern Ireland to escape the terrible memory of their mother's violent death
23 January, 2008
The Uncounted Dead Of Iraq
By Nicole ColsonThe mainstream media are trumpeting a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) that estimates the number of Iraqis who died from violence in the three years following the U.S. invasion as “only” 151,000. This figure is less than a quarter of a previous Johns Hopkins University estimate of approximately 600,000 dead as the result of violence since the U.S. invasion of 2003
22 January, 2008
Iraq: Police And Army Getting Sidelined
By Ahmed Ali & Dahr JamailNew military operations in Diyala province north of Baghdad have exacerbated a growing conflict between U.S.-backed Sunni fighters on the one hand and Iraqi army and police forces on the other
15 January, 2008
Iraq: Awoken To A New Danger
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr JamailThe newly formed 'Awakening' forces set up by the U.S. military are bringing new conflict among people
Stress: In Iraq And USA
By Layla AnwarStress is when you have no job because some f... backward retard came and occupied your country, pillaged it and stripped you of your livelihood. That is stress.Stress is when you run from hospital ward to hospital ward, from prison to prison, from militia to militia looking for your loved one only to recognize them from their teeth fillings in some morgue...That is stress alright
14 January, 2008
Layla Anwar – An Arab Woman Blues:
Indicting The Reader
By Garda GhistaLayla Anwar is the pseudonym for an Iraqi blogger, in her early to mid-forties, who appears to be writing directly from Baghdad, right in the line of fire, so to speak. She comes from a secular, upper-middle class, Sunni background and remains loyal to Saddam Hussein. Unlike the blogger Baghdad Burning, Layla does not write for the American left. Rather, she writes to all Americans, including the American left, and condemns us all along with the Bush-Cheney regime. She indicts every single American for being a part of the destruction and devastation of her motherland. She writes to the enemy
12 January, 2008
US Carries Out Massive Bombing
On Outskirts Of Baghdad
By James CoganThe US military unleashed a huge bombardment on the Arab Jubour district just 15 kilometres south-east of Baghdad on Thursday. In the space of 10 minutes, B-1 Stealth bombers and F-16 fighter-bombers pounded 47 targets with 47,500 pounds of high explosive bombs. A military spokesman, Major Alayne Conway, boasted that the operation “was one of the largest air strikes since the onset of the war”. The blasts were seen, heard and felt in the suburbs of Iraq’s capital
Iraq: Less Violent But Not Less Hellish
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr JamailU.S. and Iraqi officials claim that security is improving across al-Anbar province and much of Iraq. Security during the last half of 2007 was indeed better than in the period between February 2006 and mid-2007. But this has brought little solace to many Iraqis, because violence is still worse than in 2005 and early 2006
07 January, 2008
Iraq Death Rate Belies US Claims Of Success
By Kim SenguptaThe death rate in Iraq in the past 12 months has been the second highest in any year since the invasion, according to figures that appear to contradict American claims that the troop "surge" has dramatically reduced the level of violence across the country
Iraq: Killer Of U.S. Soldiers Becomes A Hero
By Ali al-Fadhily & Dahr JamailThe recent killing of two U.S. soldiers by their Iraqi colleague has raised disturbing questions about U.S. military relations with the Iraqis they work with
06 January, 2008
Cutbacks To Iraqi Food Rations
Threaten Malnutrition And Starvation
By James CoganUnder conditions of widespread malnutrition, run-away inflation and mass unemployment, the Iraqi Trade Ministry is preparing to slash the provision of subsidised food and basic hygiene necessities under the Public Distribution System
The Iraq Charade
By Ramzy BaroudIn recent months, we have been inundated by media reports bringing good news from Iraq, with countless testimonials to the great improvement in security enjoyed by the country in general and the Baghdad area in particular. This progress is attributed solely to the judicious ‘surge’ of US military presence, and the astute tactics enacted by occupation forces in a place that once personified despair and violence
05 January, 2008
The Myth Of Sectarianism
By Dahr JamailIf the U.S. leaves Iraq, the violent sectarianism between the Sunni and Shia will worsen. This is what Republicans and Democrats alike will have us believe. This key piece of rhetoric is used to justify the continuance of the occupation of Iraq
Iraqis Resort To Selling Children
By Afif SarhanLocal officials and aid workers have expressed concern over the alarming rate at which children are disappearing countrywide in Iraq's current unstable environment
02 January, 2008
The State Of Iraq As It Enters 2008
By James CoganMedia reports about New Year parties in parts of Baghdad cannot disguise the fact that Iraqis have little to look forward to in 2008, and even less to celebrate about 2007. Last year was yet another of death, destruction and suffering
31 December, 2007
Iraqi Refugees Turn To Sex Trade In Syria
By Alistair LyonThe idea repels many of the 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria, but the struggle to make ends meet has forced some to share tiny apartments with other families in the slums of Damascus, put their children out to work or marry off teenaged daughters. Sometimes such early marriages are simply a cover for prostitution as young brides are swiftly trafficked, according to Hana Ibrahim, head of the Iraqi Women's Will Association
30 December, 2007
Iraq Progresses To Some Of Its Worst
By Dahr JamailDespite all the claims of improvements, 2007 has been the worst year yet in Iraq
28 December, 2007
Saddam Provided More Food Than The U.S.
By Ahmed Ali & Dahr JamailThe Iraqi government announcement that monthly food rations will be cut by half has left many Iraqis asking how they can survive.The government also wants to reduce the number of people depending on the rationing system by five million by June 2008
21 December, 2007
Iraq: Who Are The Insurgents?
By Dahr Jamail"Suppose Iraq invaded America. And an Iraqi soldier was on a tank passing through an American street, waving his gun at the people, threatening them, raiding and trashing houses. Would you accept that? This is why no Iraqi can accept occupation, and don’t be surprised by their reactions," says "The Imam," a young man from a mixed Sunni-Shia family, as he explains the genesis of the insurgency in Iraq and its exponential growth
Iraq: Outsourcing The War
By Chris GelkenCorporate government leads to corporate war and leads to corporate abuse
19 December, 2007
US Backs Turkish Military
Attacks On Northern Iraq
By Peter SymondsWith the backing and assistance of the Bush administration, the Turkish military has launched two attacks in the past three days on Kurdish villages in northern Iraq. While targetted against the guerrilla forces of the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the operations are threatening to provoke a broader conflict involving Turkey and Iraq
Iraq: Looking To Security From Paper Police
By Ali al-FadhilyIn a country with no security and no jobs, just about anyone can work as a policeman. "To survive in Iraq under U.S. occupation, there are only two jobs; police and garbage collection," Baghdad journalist Mohammad al-Dulaymi told IPS. "Unemployment is leading many Iraqis to join the security forces despite the risk involved."
18 December, 2007
Mirage Of Improvement In Iraq
By Dahr JamailIraq’s population at the time of the US invasion in March 2003 was roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23 million. Elementary arithmetic indicates that currently over half the population of Iraq are either refugees, in need of emergency aid, wounded, or dead
15 December, 2007
Iraq Does Exist
By Ghali HassanIn a recent interview ("Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore") with the self-described ‘leftists’ blogger Mick Whitney, Nir Rosen made untruthful and unsubstantiated statements regarding the situation on the ground in Iraq and the Occupation of that country by U.S. forces and their collaborators
Not Even The Hajj Is Free Of Corruption
By Ali al-FadhilyMany Iraqis are angry that the government seems to be picking favourites for the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca
06 December, 2007
Refugees Caught Between
Deportation And Death Threats
By Ali al-FadhilyHundreds of thousands of Iraqis driven out of their country by violence are now faced with detention abroad, or a homecoming to death threats.More than two million Iraqis, in a population of about 25 million, have taken refuge in many countries. Only a few have won official status as refugees. Most refugees in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and many other countries stay on as illegal residents, facing threats of deportation and imprisonment
03 December, 2007
Iraq: Government Fragments Further
By Ali al-FadhilyAs sectarian tensions escalate politically, a new fissure is appearing within the already fragmented Iraqi government
Iraq As A Pentagon Construction Site
By Tom EngelhardtWhen, in the future, you read in the papers about administration plans to withdraw American forces to bases "outside of Iraqi urban areas," note that there will continue to be a major base in the heart of the Iraqi capital for who knows how long to come. As the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler put it, the 21-building compound "is viewed by some officials as a key element of building a sustainable, long-term diplomatic presence in Baghdad." Presence, yes, but diplomatic?
30 November, 2007
Why American Troops Can't Go Home
By Michael SchwartzAs long as that government is determined to install a friendly, anti-Iranian regime in Baghdad, one that is hostile to "foreigners," including all jihadists, but welcomes an ongoing American military presence as well as multinational development of Iraqi oil, the American armed forces aren't going anywhere, not for a long, long time; and no relative lull in the fighting -- temporary or not -- will change that reality. This is the Catch-22 of Bush administration policy in Iraq
A Tenuous 'Peace' In Al-Anbar
By Ali al-FadhilyA semblance of calm belies an undercurrent of violence, detentions and fear across Iraq’s volatile al-Anbar province
29 November, 2007
The Iraqi Miracle: From Invasion To “Partnership”
By James RothenbergThe morning newspaper carries an Associated Press story detailing the signing by President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki of a “declaration of principles” between the two countries, which, for those still interested in the real reason we invaded Iraq, amounts to a full confession. Not in front of the International Criminal Court (that’s not for us) but mainstreamed, normalized, now fit to print
Iraq :'Internationally Sponsored Genocide'
By Felicity ArbuthnotIf anyone treated a domestic or farm animal in the West, as the Iraqis have been treated for over seventeen years: denied a proper diet, medication, clean water, a safe environment, that person would end up in Court and likely in prison
28 November, 2007
US Signs Deal For Long-Term Occupation Of Iraq
By Jerry WhitePresident Bush and the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki signed an agreement Monday paving the way for the long-term occupation of the Middle Eastern country and its transformation into a semi-colonial protectorate of the US.The “Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship” outlines plans for the establishment of permanent US military bases in Iraq to suppress internal opposition to the US-installed regime and protect US economic and political interests throughout the region. It also provides for preferential treatment for US energy conglomerates and investors to exploit Iraq’s newly opened up oil resources
Detentions Escalate In Diwaniyah
By Ali al-FadhilyDetentions have become commonplace in Iraq, but now more than ever before people are being detained after being accused of membership in "militias supported by Iran."
27 November, 2007
Iraq Has Only Militants, No Civilians
By Dahr JamailFrom the beginning of the American occupation in Iraq, air strikes and attacks by the U.S. military have only killed “militants,” “criminals,” “suspected insurgents,” “IED [Improvised Explosive Device] emplacers,” “anti-American fighters,” “terrorists,” “military age males,” “armed men,” “extremists,” or “al-Qaeda.”The pattern for reporting on such attacks has remained the same from the early years of the occupation to today
26 November, 2007
Iraq’s Sovereignty Revisited
By Ghali HassanThe current state of Iraq is a U.S.-installed colonial dictatorship. The puppet government is a façade legitimising the Occupation and covering-up its murderous crimes against the Iraqi people. There is no sovereignty when 175,000 U.S. troops and some 180,000 foreign mercenaries rampaging through the streets of Iraqi towns and cities and killing Iraqis with impunity. So, what “sovereignty” Mr. Bush was talking about?
23 November, 2007
Executions Not Leading To Reconciliation
By Ali al-FadhilyThe executions of former regime officials are creating greater division, rather than reconciliation, among Iraqis. Special courts formed by the American occupation authorities in Iraq are issuing death sentences -- like that carried out on former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, on 30 December 2006 -- on what many Iraqis are interpreting as a political basis
22 November, 2007
Iraq: Infighting Increases Instability
By Ali al-FadhilyIncreasing conflict and finger pointing between leading Shi'ite political blocs are heightening instability in war-torn Iraq
20 November, 2007
Fallujah Now Under A Different Kind Of Siege
By Ali al-FadhilyThree years after a devastating U.S.-led siege of the city, residents of Fallujah continue to struggle with a shattered economy, infrastructure, and lack of mobility
Radioactive Ammunition Fired In Middle East
May Claim More Lives Than Hiroshima And Nagasaki
By Sherwood RossBy firing radioactive ammunition, the U.S., U.K., and Israel may have triggered a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East that, over time, will prove deadlier than the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan
17 November, 2007
Jordan’s Iraqi Social Revolution Is Politically-Loaded
By Dr Marwan AsmarThe social revolution in the country has been building up for the last 17 years, today the Iraqi communities in Jordan have started to build roots, and it would be difficult for—apart from the fact they may not personally want to—to go back their traditional home place which they have been alienated from, firstly by the former Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent Iraqi governments in the wake of the American occupation of the country
16 November, 2007
Two Months After Deadly Shooting, No Charges
Against Blackwater Mercenaries
By Kate RandallTwo months after the deadly September 16 shooting in Baghdad by contractors of Blackwater Worldwide, no charges have been filed against any of the mercenaries involved. The incident left 17 civilians dead and as many as 27 wounded
15 November, 2007
Corruption Adds To Baquba's Problems
By Ahmed AliFacing violence, unemployment and poverty, the capital city of Iraq's volatile Diyala province now finds itself confronting also corruption
14 November, 2007
Outrage In A Time Of Apathy
By Aaron GlantzUnlike most U.S. journalists who went to Iraq to cover a war, Dahr Jamail went to try to stop it. Once in Iraq, Jamail set about reporting the stories of regular Iraqi people. He spent months in Iraq's hospitals, morgues and mosques. His journalism covers some of the most mundane, but important, aspects of the U.S. occupation -- like gas lines, checkpoints, and bombed out telephone switching stations. His stories appeared in numerous outlets around the world
13 November, 2007
Oil-Protection Base Being Built In Iraq
By Patrick MartinThe US Navy, with the assistance of British and Australian commandos, is building a permanent base to guard two oil-export platforms in Iraqi waters at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, according to a report Monday in the Wall Street Journal
A Tale Of One City, Now Two
By Ali al-FadhilyThe separation of religious groups in the face of sectarian violence has brought some semblance of relative calm to Baghdad. But many Iraqis see this as the uncertain consequence of a divide and rule policy
06 November, 2007
Millions Trapped In Their Own Country
By Ahmed AliAt least five million Iraqis have fled their homes due to the violence under the U.S.-led occupation, but half of them are unable to leave the country, according to well-informed estimates.According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are more than 4.4 million displaced Iraqis, an estimate that many workers among refugees find conservative
Targeting Iraqis As "Big Game"
By Nick TurseFrom the commander-in-chief to low-ranking snipers, a language of dehumanization that includes the idea of hunting humans as if they were animals has crept into our world -- unnoticed and unnoted in the mainstream media. Perhaps a few linguistics professors or other social scientists might like to step into the breach and offer their views on the subject -- unless, of course, they've already been mustered into those Human Terrain Teams
05 November, 2007
Humanitarian Tsunami Sweeping Across Iraq
By Haroon SiddiquiUp to 1.2 million of them, out of a population of 21 million, may have been killed since 2003. And one in five Iraqis has been displaced. Two million, maybe more, have fled to neighbouring nations, and another 2.2 million have been displaced internally. Of the latter, the world knows the least, and for a reason
04 November, 2007
Britain In The Collective Memory Of Iraq
By Marwan AsmarBefore the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I used to think about Britain regularly, having lived there in the 1970s and 1980s. After the invasion and the straddling of British and American troops on Iraqi soil, I consciously tried to blot the UK out of my collective memory
31 October, 2007
A Family Tree
By Layla AnwarI console myself with the thought that I, at least, have the memory of a Tree. Something to give me strength, verticality, and a sense of belonging even if it is on some fictional, imaginary level...I have serious doubts that the increasing number of Iraqi orphans can console themselves with that same thought
30 October, 2007
When Blackwater Kills,No Questions Asked
By Ali al-FadhilyThe Iraqi investigators said Blackwater should be expelled from the country, and demanded eight million dollars compensation for the family of each victim. Officials decided last week to establish a committee to find ways to repeal a 2004 directive issued by L. Paul Bremer, head of the former U.S. occupation government in Iraq, which placed private security companies outside Iraqi law, making them immune to prosecution. Many Iraqis are angry that Blackwater enjoys special rights
The Catastrophic Military Occupation Of Iraq
Is Rarely Described Accurately In The U.S. Media
By Kevin Zeese & Dahr JamailAn Interview with independent journalist Dahr Jamail “The bogus idea that if the U.S. leaves things will worsen is both inherently racist and ignorant.”
25 October, 2007
Turkey Begins Bombing In Iraq
By Patrick Cockburn
in the Qandil mountains, IraqTurkey used its helicopters and artillery to attack Kurdish guerrillas inside northern Iraq yesterday as the Turkish army massed just north of the border. The helicopter gunships penetrated three miles into Iraqi territory and warplanes targeted mountain paths used by rebels entering Turkey
Iraqi Refugees Turn To prostitution
By Omar SinanThis club in northwest Damascus represents one of the most troubling aspects of the Iraqi refugee crisis — Iraqi women and girls who are turning to prostitution to survive in countries that have taken them in but won't let them or their families work at most other jobs
Ill-Equipped Soldiers Opt For "Search And Avoid"
By Dahr JamailIraq war veterans now stationed at a base here say that morale among U.S. soldiers in the country is so poor, many are simply parking their Humvees and pretending to be on patrol, a practice dubbed "search and avoid" missions
23 October, 2007
Bloggers Without Borders...
By Baghdad BurningBy the time we had reentered the Syrian border and were headed back to the cab ready to take us into Kameshli, I had resigned myself to the fact that we were refugees. I read about refugees on the Internet daily… in the newspapers… hear about them on TV. I hear about the estimated 1.5 million plus Iraqi refugees in Syria and shake my head, never really considering myself or my family as one of them
22 October, 2007
It’s The Oil
By Jim HoltIraq is ‘unwinnable’, a ‘quagmire’, a ‘fiasco’: so goes the received opinion. But there is good reason to think that, from the Bush-Cheney perspective, it is none of these things. Indeed, the US may be ‘stuck’ precisely where Bush et al want it to be, which is why there is no ‘exit strategy’
US Raid On Baghdad’s Sadr City Leaves
Many Dead And Wounded
By Bill Van AukenA violent US assault on Baghdad’s Sadr City Sunday left many people dead—49 according to the military’s own count—and scores more wounded. The foray into the crowded and impoverished Shia neighborhood, home to an estimated 3 million people, was launched before dawn and quickly escalated as American forces called in air strikes that left houses, stores and cars destroyed and in flames
19 October, 2007
Assassination Of Sheikh Shakes US Claims
By Ali al-FadhilyResistance to occupation seems to have risen after the assassination last month of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, head of the al-Bu Risha tribe. Abu Risha had begun to cooperate actively with U.S. forces
17 October, 2007
The Iraqi Genocide
By Paul Craig RobertsOne can only marvel at the insouciance of the US Congress to the current Iraqi Genocide while condemning Turkey for one that happened 90 years ago
The Forgotten Refugees Of The U.S. War On Iraq
By Lee SustarMore refugees than Darfur. A humanitarian disaster. The largest displaced population in the Middle East since the mass expulsion of Palestinians with the formation of Israel in 1948. That’s the reality of the Iraqi refugee crisis--denied by the U.S. government and routinely ignored in the mainstream media
15 October, 2007
US Air Strikes Kill 34 Iraqis
By Naomi SpencerOn October 11, US forces killed 34 Iraqis during air strikes on a home northwest of Baghdad. The military has acknowledged that at least 15 among the dead were civilians, including nine children, making the civilian toll one of the largest admitted by US forces since the 2003 invasion
'Swimming Up The Tigris'
By Felicity ArbuthnotBook Review: 'Swimming Up The Tigris' By Barbara Nimri Aziz."Barbara Nimri Aziz opens many gates, to unique, astute and eye misting, insights. Every American and British politician should read this book and sink to their knees in shame."
12 October, 2007
Divide And Rule
By Galal NassarUS plans to partition Iraq have been on the back burner for almost two decades. Now the future of the Arab world for generations to come hangs on whether or not they succeed
2008: Safari Tourism In Iraq
By Pablo OuzielI wonder if the publicised incident of Blackwater USA will serve as the wakeup call for western nations to realise what we have become, or it will pave the way towards an eventual Iraqi Safari Park for those westerners who flourish in capitalism to indulge themselves in the 'pleasure' of shooting Iraqi civilians
10 October, 2007
Private Contractors Kill Two Iraqi Women
By Kate RandallTwo Iraqi women were killed Tuesday afternoon when their vehicle was fired on by a private security convoy in central Baghdad. The guards were from the Unity Resources Group, an Australian-owned company
08 October, 2007
Iraq's National Liberation Front
By Ibrahim Ebeid & Husayn Al-KurdiOn September 22 Iraqi Resistance groups convened a Unification Congress in a liberated area of Baghdad. The Congress resolved to unite all the groups who were in attendance on the basis of achieving the total liberation of Iraq, however long that may take. The Congress also decided that membership in the unified Resistance Front would be open to other groups or fighters wishing to join. A Supreme Command of the Jihad and Liberation Struggle was created and Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Ba'ath Secretary-general and President of Iraq, was elected the Supreme Commander of the Front
Iraqi Probe Finds Blackwater Mercenaries Fired
Without Provocation In Baghdad Massacre
By Kate RandallAn official Iraqi investigation into the deadly shooting involving Blackwater USA found that the security contractors opened fire without provocation on September 16 in a main square in Baghdad, killing 17 Iraqis and wounding 22
07 October, 2007
The Paid (and Protected) Terrorists
By Ghali HassanOn Sunday 16 September 2007, at least 28 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, were murdered by Blackwater mercenary army. The cold-blooded massacre was an unprovoked violence designed to terrorise and strike fear among the Iraqi population living under murderous Occupation
05 October, 2007
Iraq Body Count: “A Very Misleading Exercise”
By Media LensThe mainstream media are continuing to use figures provided by the website Iraq Body Count (IBC) to sell the public a number for total post-invasion deaths of Iraqis that is perhaps 5-10% of the true death toll
29 September, 2007
Iraq: A Bush Family Jihad?
By Felicity ArbuthnotThomas Nagy is a Member of the Association of Genocide Scholars, who concluded that the deliberate destruction of Iraq's water system in 1991 was genocide. It seems they have a lot more work ahead. Oh, and the invasion of Iraq was sold to the American public, by their Administration linking Saddam Hussein to 11th September 2001 and Osama bin Laden. It was not Saddam, but the Bush family who were in business with the Bin Ladens.What wickedness
26 September, 2007
"Pick Up The Gun"(Fishing for evildoers)
By Mickey Z.As reported in the New York Times, US snipers in Iraq are "using fake weapons and bomb-making material as bait and then killing anyone who picks them up."
23 September, 2007
Ignorance Of Iraqi Death Toll No Longer An Option
By Les Roberts & Gilbert BurnhamNot wanting to think about civilian deaths in Iraq has become almost universal. The average American believed approximately 9,900 Iraqis had died as a result of the war according to a February 2007 AP poll. Unfortunately, recent evidence suggests that things in Iraq may be one-hundred times worse than Americans realize
17 September, 2007
It Is The Death Of History
By Robert FiskThe near total destruction of Iraq's historic past – the very cradle of human civilisation – has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation
Tail Between Legs
By Sukant ChandanBritain seems intent on continuing its course of military confrontation with the Islamic world. Is it any surprise that there are people from Basra to Helmand who feel that it is only the language of armed resistance that can enable them to knock any sense into the British?
15 September, 2007
More Than One Million Iraqi Deaths Since US Invasion
By Patrick MartinThe British polling agency ORB reported Thursday that the death toll in Iraq since the 2003 US invasion has passed the one million mark.According to ORB, US-occupied Iraq, with an estimated 1.2 million violent deaths, has “a murder rate that now exceeds the Rwanda genocide from 1994 (800,000 murdered),” with another one million wounded and millions more driven from their homes into internal or external exile
Education Iraq: Back To School,Back To Horror
By Ali al-FadhilyAs another school year begins in Iraq, parents approach it with dread, fearing for the safety of their children.With the security situation grimmer than ever all over the country, just stepping out of one's house means a serious threat to life
14 September, 2007
An Assassination That Blows Apart
Bush's Hopes Of Pacifying Iraq
By Patrick CockburnLast week George Bush flew into Iraq to meet Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, leader of Anbar province.This week General David Petraeus told the US Congress how Anbar was a model for Iraq. Yesterday Abu Risha was assassinated by bombers in Anbar
12 September, 2007
Fighting Amongst Shias Adds To Violence
By Ali al-FadhilyClashes between rival Shia militas in Kerbala have spread across southern Iraq and Baghdad, adding a new dimension to sectarian violence
The “Surge” In Iraq’s Atrocity
By Ghali HassanWhile world’s attention is diverted by the U.S. flawed threat to attack Iran and replace the elected government in Tehran with a puppet one, U.S. troop “surge” in Iraq continues to murder, displace and imprisoned Iraqis en masse. The aim is to manipulate public opinion at home, and divert attention away for the Occupation and the destruction of Iraq
11 September, 2007
Clerics Begin To Take Over
By Ali al-FadhilyReligious clerics are beginning to play an increasingly powerful role in Iraq. Many Iraqis now fear that they are endangering human rights and religious freedom in the once largely secular country
08 September, 2007
The Shiite Power Struggle:
Hardly Good News For The US In Iraq
By Ramzy BaroudThe decision made by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to halt his Mahdi Army’s attacks on occupation forces and Iraqi security is likely to be considered the single most promising breakthrough for the US military in Iraq. Although the move comes ahead of several reports to be presented to the US Congress later this month, the decision was ultimately an outcome of a long-brewing intersectarian conflict between Shiite Iraqis, which will further complicate the devastating American failure in Iraq
07 September, 2007
The Girl Blogger From Baghdad Leaves Home
By Baghdad BurningBaghdad Burning, the girl blogger from Baghdad who so movingly chronicled the fall, destruction and deterioration of a city leaves her home and becomes a refugee in Syria
Samarra Under U.S. Attack
By Ali al-FadhilyResidents are fleeing Samarra city in the face of fierce fighting between U.S. forces and resistance groups
With Donkeys For Transport,All Is Well
By Ali al-FadhilyA brave new attempt is under way to project that all is well now with Fallujah. Residents know better -- or worse
30 August, 2007
Families Of Detainees Losing Hope
By Ali al-FadhilyHopes are fading for early release of the large number of Iraqis detained under the so-called surge.The number of detainees held by the U.S. military has increased by more than 50 percent since the U.S. administration announced the surge six months ago, bringing the detainee population to at least 24,500, according to U.S. military officers in Iraq. The officers have said the detainee population was 16,000 in February of this year
29 August, 2007
Fallujah Finds A False Peace
By Ali al-FadhilyFallujah is quiet these days. After all the fighting and destruction of 2004, U.S. and Iraqi forces call this success. Many residents are not so sure
28 August, 2007
The Great Iraq Swindle
By Rolling Stone MagazineHow Bush Allowed an Army of For-Profit Contractors to Invade the U.S. Treasury
22 August, 2007
Another U.S. Military Operation,More Unrest
By Ali al-FadhilyNew U.S. military operations across Iraq appear to be worsening the situation
Why Iraqis Oppose U.S.-Backed 'Oil Law'?
By David BaconThe USA said it went in to liberate Iraq. The ‘oil law’ they seek to ram down the Iraqi throats proves the intent all along was to control its oil
20 August, 2007
The UN: An Instrument Of Terror
By Ghali HassanOn 10 August 2007, the United Nations Security Council has voted to give the UN an “extended role” in U.S.-British occupied Iraq after more than four years in which the UN was ignored and considered irrelevant by the U.S. and its few willing allies. The new UN Resolution, sponsored (as usual) by the U.S. and Britain, is a propaganda designed to manipulate the public and legitimise ongoing U.S.-British terror in Iraq
Iraq Progress Report: A Time To Assess And Reflect
By Stephen LendmanIn the end, Iraq may surrender as Vietnam did and lose everything now being fought for. How this plays out will only be known in the fullness of time. Millions of Iraqis hope equity and justice will triumph over greed and are betting their lives on it. May their struggle not be in vain
Iraq, The Unavoidable Global Trauma
By Pablo OuzielSo while as westerners we count the number of "our" soldiers wounded or dead as a measurement of success or failure in this immoral war, we tend to ignore the fact that all those Iraqis dead, injured or displaced are having a long-term impact on our everyday life. If we wait for our governments to decide when the killing has gone on long enough, I cannot help but wonder whether in the not so distant future, we as westerners will be facing a moral trial and the subjugate trauma attached to it
Caught Between The U.S. And Al-Qaeda
By Ahmed AliThe major U.S. military operation in Baquba city north of Baghdad has ended, but it has left continuing suffering for residents in its wake
Dutiful Daughters...
By Layla AnwarAnd there are also, dutiful daughters lingering in overcrowded prisons with no trials, waiting for their names to be called to the gallows. And of course there are dutiful daughters being hunted down.One of them is Raghad Saddam Hussein Al Majid. The daughter of the legitimate President of Iraq
16 August, 2007
Hide And Seek...Again !
By Layla AnwarI maintain that the Iraq Body Count figure of 70'000 is shameful to say the least.I have also said on numerous occasions, that even the Lancet figure of 655'000 Iraqis dead is obsolete by now. I was slightly relieved to see that some websites did publish the more accurate figure of 1 million +. I reiterate yet again, the figure is greater than 1 million+.
14 August, 2007
Iran Ties Weaken Government Further
By Ali al-FadhilyIraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's increasing ties with Iran have triggered a splintering of his government.Several groups, both Sunni and Shia, have followed the Sunni al-Tawafuq bloc (Iraqi Accord Front) in quitting the U.S.-backed government. But Maliki refuses to make the concessions necessary to bring his "unity" government back together
13 August, 2007
Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
By Layla AnwarI just read in the Observer, the Guardian's sister, that the US army in Iraq is crippled by fatigue. The article says that those poor soldiers are suffering from sleep disorders, the proverbial PTSD, conjugal problems, exhaustion, lassitude and bouts of acute superstition... They also live on "Red Bull" and "Rip it"
12 August, 2007
The Cracks In Saddam's Dam
By Patrick CockburnAs world attention focuses on the daily slaughter in Iraq, a devastating disaster is impending in the north of the country, where the wall of a dam holding back the Tigris river north of Mosul city is in danger of imminent collapse
11 August, 2007
Iraqi Government On Brink Of Collapse
By James CoganThe political survival of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is in doubt following the withdrawal from his cabinet of two political blocs that derive the bulk of their support from Iraq’s Sunni Arab population. A variety of sectarian and ethnic cliques in Baghdad are reportedly involved in discussion with the Bush administration over ousting Maliki and forming a new government when the Iraqi parliament resumes in September
10 August, 2007
Those Summertime Blues
By Layla AnwarFridges, freezers, air coolers, AC, fans, ventilators, forget it...only in the Green zone. Only in the comfort zone of the Brothel.Thirst, infants dying of thirst and the river still eaten up by the brothel holders...
09 August, 2007
Iraqis Oppose Oil Privatization
By Aaron GlantzA new public opinion poll has found nearly two thirds of Iraqis oppose plans to open the country’s oilfields to foreign companies.The poll found a majority of every Iraqi ethnic and religious group believe their oil should remain nationalized. Some 66 percent of Shi’ites and 62 percent of Sunnis support government control of the oil sector, along with 52 percent of Kurds
Sectarianism Splits Security In Diyala
By Ahmed AliMilitia from the Shia organisation Badr have taken over the police force in Diyala province north of Baghdad. The government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is believed to have backed such infiltration, and this has reportedly led to clashes with U.S. military leaders
03 August, 2007
A Nail In Maliki Government's Coffin?
By Ali al-FadhilyThe recent resignations of Iraq's Army Chief of Staff and several of his council military leaders underscore a continuing decomposition of Iraq's U.S.-backed government
01 August, 2007
The Resort To Indiscriminate Killings
By Ghali HassanThousands of innocent Iraqi civilians were killed every day in one of the most premeditated and unprovoked acts of aggression in history. Why the U.S. is resorting to indiscriminate killings of Iraqi civilians?
A Little Easier To Occupy From The Air
By Ali al-FadhilyMany Iraqis believe the dramatic escalation in U.S. military use of air power is a sign of defeat for the occupation forces on the ground
31 July, 2007
Humanitarian Disaster In Iraq
By Jerry WhiteEight million Iraqis—or one third of the country’s population—urgently require water, sanitation, food and shelter, according to a new report issued by the British-based relief organization Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee of Iraq, a network of nearly 300 international and Iraq-based non-governmental organizations
Iraqi Team Wins Asian Cup,
Captain Condemns US Occupation
By Patrick MartinThe 1-0 victory by the Iraqi soccer team in Sunday’s Asian Cup featured a brilliant goal on a header by Younis Mahmoud, the team’s 24-year-old captain. This was followed by an “own goal” for the Bush administration and its Iraqi stooge regime, which had hoped to reap a propaganda windfall from the event. Instead, Mahmoud told a worldwide television audience that he dared not return to his homeland because of the conditions created by the US occupation. “I want America to go out,” he said. “Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn’t invade Iraq and hopefully it will be over soon.”
30 July, 2007
Football Succeeds Where Politics Fails
By Ali al-FadhilyAn Iraqi football victory seems to have united Iraqis across the country where politicians only divide it
26 July, 2007
Baquba Denied The Healing Touch
By Ahmed AliDiyala General Hospital in the provincial capital Baquba has been hit by severe lack of supplies amid ongoing attacks by militants. The shortages coupled with a lack of basic infrastructure have left the largest hospital in Diyala province short of supplies, and staffed by terrorised doctors often unable to do their job
25 July, 2007
Iraqis Blame US Depleted Uranium For
Surge In Cancer
By RIA NovostiIraq’s environment minister blamed Monday the use of depleted uranium weapons by U.S. forces during the 2003 Operation Shock and Awe for the current surge in cancer cases across the country. As a result of “at least 350 sites in Iraq being contaminated during bombing” with depleted uranium (DU) weapons, Nermin Othman said, the nation is facing about 140,000 cases of cancer, with 7,000 to 8,000 new ones registered each year
24 July, 2007
Living Becomes Hard In A Dead City
By Ahmed AliLife in the violence-plagued capital city of Iraq's Diyala province has become a struggle for day-to-day survival.Heavy U.S military operations, sectarian death squads and al-Qaeda militants have combined to make normal life in Baquba, 50 km northeast of Baghdad, all but impossible
19 July, 2007
Carnage In Kirkuk Amid Conflicts Over City’s Future
By James CoganA suicide bomber detonated an explosives-filled truck on Monday in the busy political and commercial district of the oil-rich Iraqi city of Kirkuk, just as hundreds of people were going for their lunch-break. The carnage was horrendous. At least 85 people were killed and more than 180 wounded. The victims were predominantly ethnic Kurds. Given the crisis-stricken state of the country’s health system, many of the injured are unlikely to survive
18 July, 2007
Mass Graves Dug To Deal With Death Toll
By Ahmed AliThe largest morgue in Diyala province is overflowing daily. Officials told IPS they have had to dig mass graves to dispose of bodies
17 July, 2007
Iraqi River Carries Grotesque Cargo
By Mona Mahmoud & Sebastian UsherFive hundred mutilated bodies dumped into the River Tigris have been washed up in two years in the town of Suweira, 100km south of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad
Just Another Day In Iraq
By Patrick CockburnThe United States surge, the use of the American troop reinforcements to bring violence in Iraq under control, is bloodily failing across northern Iraq. That was proved again yesterday when a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives in Kirkuk killing at least 85 people and wounding a further 183
Most Foreign Insurgents In Iraq Are Saudis
By Peter SymondsAn article in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times detailing the national origins of foreign insurgents in Iraq has punctured a large hole in the Bush administration’s relentless propaganda against Iran. Most foreign fighters, however, come, not from Iran, but Saudi Arabia, a close American ally, with which the Bush administration in particular has intimate ties
16 July, 2007
Partition Fears Begin To Rise
By Ali al-FadhilyMany Iraqis are now beginning to see the rising sectarian violence as part of a larger plan to partition the country
12 July, 2007
The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness
By Chris Hedges & Laila Al-ArianOver the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts
06 July, 2007
Under Sustained US Pressure, Iraqi Cabinet
Sends Oil Law To Parliament
By James CoganIraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki went before the media on Tuesday to announce that his cabinet had “unanimously” approved US-backed draft legislation covering the future development of Iraq’s vast oil resources. The parliament, he declared, would begin debating the oil law the following day. He trumpetted his achievement as a key step towards finalising the “most important law in Iraq”
Killing 15,000 Iraqis Every Month
By Michael SchwartzA state-of-the-art research study published in October 12, 2006 issue of The Lancet (the most prestigious British medical journal) concluded that—as of a year ago—600,000 Iraqis had died violently due to the war in Iraq. That is, the Iraqi death rate for the first 39 months of the war was just about 15,000 per month. That wasn’t the worst of it, because the death rate was increasing precipitously, and during the first half of 2006 the monthly rate was approximately 30,000 per month, a rate that no doubt has increased further during the ferocious fighting associated with the current American surge
02 July, 2007
Massacre In Baghdad’s Sadr City
By Patrick MartinIn one of the largest raids into the largely Shiite Sadr City district of eastern Baghdad, US forces killed some 26 people and detained another 17, according to an announcement by a military spokesman Saturday. The early-morning raid produced an explosion of violence, with US tanks and helicopters opening fire in the densely populated working-class neighborhood and destroying both vehicles and entire buildings
29 June, 2007
Fallujah On The Boil Again
By Ali al-FadhilyStrict curfew and tight security measures have brought difficult living conditions and heightened tempers to residents of this besieged city.The siege in this city located 60km west of Baghdad has entered its second month. There is little sign of any international attention to the plight of the city. Fallujah, which is largely sympathetic to the Iraqi resistance, was assaulted twice by the U.S. military in 2004
26 June, 2007
Fallujah-Style Offensive Underway In Baqubah
By Peter SymondsA huge US offensive codenamed “Operation Arrowhead Ripper” is underway in the Iraqi city of Baqubah, as part of extensive American operations aimed at suppressing insurgent groups in Baghdad and areas to the north and south of the capital. US troops, backed by armoured vehicles, artillery, helicopter gunships and warplanes, have sealed off the city of 300,000
24 June, 2007
Victory In Iraq?
By Adil E. Shamoo & Bonnie BrickerWhile the American people are seeking a way to bring the troops home from Iraq, the President and his administration are aiming to stay for much longer by redefining “victory” in Iraq once again—this time as a permanent occupier
21 June, 2007
Sceptical After Second Shrine Attack
By Ali al-FadhilyThe second bombing of the Shiite shrine of al-Askari in Samarra, Iraq, last week brought reprisal attacks, but it also brought solidarity against the occupiers
20 June, 2007
US Military Launches Massive Assault In Iraq
By Bill Van AukenBacked by armored columns and helicopter gunships, some 10,000 US troops have launched a massive assault on the provincial capital of Baquba and other areas north and east of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.The operation, dubbed Arrowhead Ripper, is one of the largest since the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003
Northern Iraq’s Tangled Web
By Conn HallinanThere are few areas in the world more entangled in historical deceit and betrayal than northern Iraq, where the British, the Ottomans, and the Americans have played a deadly game of political chess at the expense of the local Kurds. And now, because of a volatile brew of internal Iraqi and Turkish politics, coupled with the Bush administration’s clandestine war to destabilize and overthrow the Iranian government, the region threatens to explode into a full-scale regional war
19 June, 2007
A Dream Called Electricity
By Ali al-FadhilySimmering in the summer heat, Iraqis now have a dream called electricity.It is a part of the bigger dream of reconstruction that collapsed. On all measurable levels, the infrastructure is worse than under the former regime of Saddam Hussein, even when it was crippled by the harshest economic sanctions in modern history
18 June, 2007
US Needs To Exit Iraq
By Mikhail GorbachevU.S. withdrawal from Iraq is inevitable. But is it not better to withdraw when the major players inside and outside of Iraq agree on key issues?
13 June, 2007
Bush Administration Embarks On
Reckless New Tactic In Iraq
By Peter SymondsWith its much-vaunted “surge” showing no signs of success and American casualties continuing to rise, the US military has begun to arm and equip sections of the Sunni insurgency, supposedly to fight against intransigent layers such as Al Qaeda-linked groups. Weapons, ammunition, cash, fuel and supplies are being provided to selected Sunni militia
12 June, 2007
106 Journalists Killed In Iraq
By Patrick CockburnSahar al-Haideri, an Iraqi journalist, had received 13 death threats before she was murdered in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul last week. Her killing brings to 106 the number of journalists, almost all Iraqi, murdered in the country since the US invasion in 2003 along with 39 support staff
10 June, 2007
Lawmaker Confirms Kurd-Shia Clashes In Baghdad
By Ali al-FadhilySpeaking on condition of strict anonymity inside the heavily-fortified Green Zone of central Baghdad where the Iraqi government meets, the MP told IPS that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "sold Kirkuk in exchange for Kurdish support for his collapsing government, and other matters such as not being in the way of Shiite militias in Baghdad
08 June, 2007
Turkish Troops Chase Kurd Guerrilla Into Iraq
By Patrick CockburnSeveral thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish guerrillas early Wednesday. The incursion, though limited in scope, gives the crisis in Iraq a new twist
01 June, 2007
The Destruction Of Iraqi Healthcare Infrastructure
By Adil ShamooTen thousand doctors have fled the country