23 December, 2005
Iraq: Game Over
By Robert DreyfussThe last hope for peace in Iraq was stomped to death this week. The victory of the Shiite religious coalition in the December 15 election hands power for the next four years to a fanatical band of fundamentalist Shiite parties backed by Iran, above all to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)
A New Phase Of Bright Spinning Lies About Iraq
By Norman SolomonWhat’s on the horizon for 2006 is that the Bush administration will strive to put any real or imagined reduction of U.S. occupation troop levels in the media spotlight. Meanwhile, the Pentagon will use massive air power in Iraq
The Farce Trial Of Saddam
By Ghali HassanPresident Saddam Hussein's “trial” before a U.S.-orchestrated Kangaroo Court is hailed as the “trial of the century”. Unfortunately, those who committed the crimes are rewarded and protected, while their victims put on a show trial. It is not Saddam who is on trial; it is the international legal system
22 December, 2005
Iraqis Reject Increased Fuel Costs
By Dahr Jamail and Arkan HamedFor two days demonstrations have continued across Iraq in protest against the government's decision to raise the price of petrol, cooking and heating fuels
Iraq And The Laws Of War
By Professor Francis A. BoyleText of Professor Boyle's Presentation to the Perdana Global Peace Forum, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 15 December 2005
21 December, 2005
Iraqis Glad 2005 Over, Dim Hopes For 2006
By Dahr Jamail and Arkan HamedDespite the parliamentary elections last week and temporary ease in violence, Iraqis remain bitter about the outgoing year, and sceptical of 2006
20 December, 2005
“There Were Only Local Anaesthetics
Available To Amputate Limbs”
By Inge Van de MerlenA young Iraqi doctor testifies on the horror in Iraq
Inside Iraq's Secret Prisons: An Iraqi Testimony
By SalamThis is now happening in Iraq, to my friends and family, on a daily basis, while you Americans are buying Christmas presents and preparing Turkey. Every Iraqi has a similar story to tell
War Crimes As ‘Democracy’
By Ghali HassanThere is an overwhelming prima facia evidence to indict George W. Bush and his accomplices with war crimes and crime against humanity. If the American people justify the death penalty for Americans who committed murderous crimes in America, they should not ignore those who committed mass murder in Iraq
19 December, 2005
Behind The Steel Curtain:
The Real Face Of The Occupation
By Sabah AliWhite flags on top of houses and cars, plenty of American and Iraqi military vehicles, too many check points and blocks on the road, many frightening walking patrols, curfew after sunset, heaps and heaps of destroyed houses, shops, offices, the only bridge, hospitals and medical care centers, walls covered with bullets shots, and elections posters…empty faces with bleak looks wonder in the streets. This is Al-Qaim picture after the Steel Curtain military operation which began on November 5, 2005 with 3000 thousands American and Iraqi troops participating in it
Iraqi Civilian Deaths Mount -- And Count
By Derrick Z. JacksonPresident Bush actually acknowledged that Iraqi civilians died in his war. ''I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis," Bush said to a questioner this week in Philadelphia. Up until now in Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush denied as much annihilation as possible
08 December, 2005
Young Iraqi Surgeon Testifies About
The Horrors Of The Iraq war
By Barbara Debusschere‘Even during operations, doctors were shot at by US soldiers’
30 November, 2005
Hospitals Come Under Siege
By Dahr Jamail and Harb Al-MukhtarHospital personnel are reporting regular raids and interference by the U.S. military as fighting continues in the volatile Al-Anbar province of Iraq
27 November, 2005
Violence Against Occupation Opponents
Continues In Lead-Up To Iraq Election
By James CoganIn contrast to Washington’s propaganda that a stable democracy is emerging in Iraq, a campaign of terror and intimidation is continuing against opponents of the US occupation in the weeks leading up to the December 15 election
25 November, 2005
Life Goes On In Fallujah's Rubble
By Dahr JamailA year after the U.S.-led "Operation Phantom Fury" damaged or destroyed 36,000 homes, 60 schools and 65 mosques in Fallujah, Iraq, residents inside the city continue to suffer from lack of compensation, slow reconstruction and high rates of illness
Assassinations...
By Baghdad BurningWhoever is behind the assassinations, Iraq is quickly losing its educated people. More and more doctors and professors are moving to leave the country
18 November, 2005
House Of Horrors...
By Baghdad BurningThe talk of the town is the torture house they recently found in Jadriya
17 November, 2005
Conventional Terror In Iraq
By Baghdad BurningThis war has redefined ‘conventional’. It has taken atrocity to another level. Everything we learned before has become obsolete. ‘Conventional’ has become synonymous with horrifying. Conventional weapons are those that eat away the skin in a white blaze; conventional interrogation methods are like those practiced in Abu Ghraib and other occupation prisons… Quite simply… conventional terror
US Admits Using White Phosphorous In Falluja
By Jamie WilsonUS forces yesterday made their clearest admission yet that white phosphorus was used as a weapon against insurgents in Iraq. A Pentagon spokesman told the BBC last night that it had been used as "an incendiary weapon" during the assault last year on Falluja in 2004
Thrill Of The Kill: The Other Tragedy In Iraq
By Julia BairdBooks by former soldiers, and journalists embedded with them, about the poorly planned and erratically fought war in Iraq are starting to shoot off the presses now: telling us how the soldiers have been driven mad by boredom, are desperately worried their girlfriends will stray, and thirst to kill
16 November, 2005
I Treated People Who Had Their Skin Melted'
By Dahr JamailAs an unembedded journalist, I spent hours talking to residents forced out of the city. A doctor from Fallujah working in Saqlawiyah, on the outskirts of Fallujah, described treating victims during the siege "who had their skin melted"
15 November, 2005
Film Documents American Use Of
Chemical Weapons In Iraq
By Rick KellyThe Italian state television network, RAI, has broadcast a documentary that contains footage and testimony proving that the American military has used chemical weapons in Iraq, including in civilian areas
Fallujah Revisited
By Dahr JamailNearly a year after they occurred, a few of the war crimes committed in Fallujah by members of the US military have gained the attention of some major media outlets
Movies And Dreams...
By Baghdad BurningThe Puppets the Americans empowered are advocates of every dream except the Iraqi one: The dream of Iraqi Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen… the dream of a united, stable, prosperous Iraq which has, over the last two years, gone up in the smoke of car bombs, military raids and a foreign occupation
31 October, 2005
US Admits It Has Counted 26,000 Iraqi Dead
By Daniel Howden and David UsborneThe Pentagon has admitted for the first time that it is keeping track of civilian casualties in Iraq. The figures, slipped into a bar graph in a lengthy report to the US congress this month, show that the daily number of Iraqi casualties has more than doubled in the past 18 months
27 October, 2005
Iraq Referendum Produces
A Divisive And Illegitimate Result
By James CoganThe result of the October 15 referendum in Iraq endorsing the draft constitution will only deepen the catastrophe caused by Washington’s attempt to establish a pro-US client state in the country
'We Don't Need Al-Qaida'
By Ghaith Abdul-AhadAbu Theeb is the leader of a band of Sunni insurgents that preys on US targets north of Baghdad. Last week he openly defied al-Qaida in Iraq by actively supporting the referendum. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad spent five days with him - and uncovered evidence of a growing split in the insurgency
Mr. "Bring 'em On"
By Dahr JamailI wonder how many of those military wives recall what Mr. Bush said 1,794 dead US soldiers ago when he proudly announced, "Bring 'em on" back on July 2, 2003?
20 October, 2005
Legal Lynching Of Saddam Hussein
By James CoganThe trial of Saddam Hussein that began yesterday in Baghdad, under the auspices of the US-created Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT) and the US-sponsored Iraqi government, is a legal travesty
16 October, 2005
Iraqis To Vote On Neo-Colonial Constitution
By James CoganThe referendum today in Iraq on the draft constitution is a cynical and, for the Iraqi people, humiliating event. Far from an exercise in self-determination, it is the next stage in a US-crafted, but increasingly crisis-ridden process aimed at turning Iraq into an American client state in the Middle East.
The Referendum...
By Baghdad BurningIraqis are going to be voting according to religious clerics and, in some areas, tribal sheikhs. They aren’t going to be voting according to their convictions or their understanding of what is supposed to be a document that will set the stage for Iraqi laws and regulations
10 October, 2005
How The US Erase Women’s Rights In Iraq
By Ghali HassanSince the U.S. invasion, Iraqi women’s rights have fallen to the lowest level in Iraq’s history. Under the new U.S.-crafted constitution, which will be put to referendum on the 15 October while the bloodbath mounts each day, women’s rights will be oppressed and the role of women in Iraqi society will be curtailed and relegated to the caring for “children and the elderly”
08 October, 2005
The Illegality Of Iraq’s Constitution
By Dahr JamailUS influence in the process of drafting a constitution for Iraq is excessive and "highly inappropriate", a United Nations official says
05 October, 2005
The Iraqis Rights To Be Free
By Ghali HassanWith the continuing US attacks on Iraqi population centres, the Bush administration appeared more desperate than ever to force the new US-crafted constitution on the Iraqi people
04 October, 2005
How The World Was Duped:
The Race To Invade Iraq
By Robert FiskWhen Colin Powell made his notorious final pitch for war at the UN Security Council, Robert Fisk was there. In the latest extract from his explosive new book, he recalls a tragi-comic occasion
Constitution Conversations...
By Baghdad Burning
Most of the people who do want to vote, will vote for or against the constitution based not on personal convictions, but on the fatwas and urgings of both Sunni and Shia clerics28 September, 2005
Iraq's Draft Constitution
By Baghdad BurningThe final version (Version 3.0) of the Iraqi draft constitution was finally submitted to the UN about ten days ago. It was published in English in the New York Times on the 15th of September
08 September, 2005
Another Massacre In Tal Afar?
By James CoganThe largest US military offensive on an urban area since the attack on Fallujah last year has been underway since September 2 in the city of Tal Afar, an ancient metropolis with a predominantly Sunni Muslim, ethnic Turkish population of some 300,000
06 September, 2005
U.S. Influence 'Too Much'
By Dahr JamailU.S. influence in the process of drafting a constitution for Iraq is excessive and "highly inappropriate", a United Nations official says
31 August, 2005
Field Health Clinic Bombed In Iraq
By Doctors For IraqDoctors for Iraq has received reports from medical staff in Al Qaim hospital, western Iraq that a field clinic in Al Karablaa village situated on the borders of Al Qaim has been bombed
Iraq’s Draft Constitution:A Recipe
For Neo-Colonial Rule
By James CoganThe constitution that was endorsed by Iraq’s presidential council on Sunday, and is to be put to a referendum by October 15, is an outrage against the Iraqi people. From beginning to end, it has been written to advance US imperialist ambitions in the Middle East, notably long-term control over Iraq’s oil reserves and permanent military bases in the country
30 August, 2005
How To Stop Civil War
By George MonbiotNicaragua and South Africa, not the US, should be the inspiration for the people framing Iraq's constitution
29 August, 2005
How Easily WeTake The Deaths In Iraq For Granted
By Robert FiskTaking things for granted. Or, as a very dear friend of mine used to say to me, "There you go." I am sitting in Baghdad airport, waiting for my little Flying Carpet Airlines 20-seater prop aircraft to take me home to Beirut but the local Iraqi station manager, Mr Ghazwan, has not turned up like he used to
28 August, 2005
Iraq War Approaching The Tipping Point
By Mounzer SleimanA Vietnam veteran offers an interesting and telling incident summing up his personal feelings about the war
Two “Green Zones”
By Dahr JamailBecause the price paid for this unimaginably huge misadventure of the neo-conservative driven Bush junta is being paid by real human beings who shed real blood and cry real tears. Because well over 100,000 Iraqis and over 1,800 US soldiers would be alive today if it wasn’t for the puppeteers of Mr. Bush
24 August, 2005
Birth Of A New Iraq, Or Blueprint For Civil War?
By Kim SenguptaIraq's new constitution, supposedly the blueprint for a democratic future, is threatening to drag the country into civil war
22 August, 2005
Theme Park Death
By Robert FiskMy guess is that whoever runs Iraq once the occupation collapses will turn the whole thing into a theme park. Or maybe just a museum
21August, 2005
Further Into The Iraqi Quagmire
By James CoganAs tensions increase, the Bush administration and the Iraqi government are presiding over a stepped-up campaign of repression against the population
What Does Democracy Really Mean In
The Middle East?Whatever The West Decides
By Robert FiskDemocracy, democracy, democracy. Take Egypt. President Mubarak allows opponents in the forthcoming elections. Bush holds this up as another sign of democracy in the Middle East
18 August, 2005
Iraq’s New Constitution
By Ghali HassanThe US is pushing the Iraqi “government” to agree on a draft constitution which will divide the Iraqi people and weaken their nation. The new draft constitution is based on the November 2003 US-crafted illegitimate interim constitution, the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), produced from the notes book of Paul Bremer, then the US Proconsul in Baghdad. Its aim is the colonisation of Iraq and the wholesale privatisation of Iraq’s economy
17 August, 2005
No Agreement Reached On Iraqi Constitution
By James CoganAfter six weeks of negotiations and intense pressure from Washington, the Iraqi political factions supporting the US occupation of Iraq failed to agree on the wording of a new constitution by the August 15 deadline set down by the Bush administration
16 August, 2005
A Constitution That Means Nothing
To Ordinary Iraqis
By Robert FiskBehind ramparts of concrete and barbed wire, the framers of Iraq’s new constitution wrestled yesterday to prevent - or bring about - the federalisation of Iraq while their compatriots in the hot and fetid streets outside showed no interest in their efforts
14 August, 2005
Ten Minutes
By Robert Fisk"Another suicide bombing in Baghdad. An attack on a police patrol. Four policemen dead." Welcome back to the city of one thousand and one nights
22 July, 2005
Remembering Srebrenica,Thinking Of Fallujah
By Ghali Hassan
Will Western leaders who commemorated Srebrenica “massacre” and promised to bring the indicted leaders to justice apply the same standards of justice to those who committed the Fallujah massacre?
21 July, 2005
Failure In Falluja
By Thomas RigginsWhat is true of Falluja is also true for the country itself. Falluja is a microcosm of Iraq
20 July, 2005
The Great Iraq Oil Giveaway
By Chris FloydJust one day after London's agony, the state terrorists who perpetrated the ongoing mass atrocity of aggressive war in Iraq celebrated an important victory in their campaign of violence and fear: 11 juicy oil fields are being put up for tender to international investors
Oil-Control Formula
By Robert DreyfussGeorge W. Bush’s war in Iraq may not be going as planned. But for those who’ve stopped believing the myth that prewar Iraq represented any sort of threat to the United States, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence mounting that the real reason for the American invasion of Iraq was the most obvious one: Oil
19 July, 2005
Get Out The Vote
By Seymour M. HershDid Washington try to manipulate Iraq’s election?
02 June, 2005
Operation Lightning Underway In Baghdad
By James CoganOperation Lightning—the massive deployment of 50,000 US and Iraqi government troops and police into the streets of Baghdad—began on Sunday and is unfolding amid a virtual media blackout and a complete absence of critical commentary
01 June, 2005
“Things Are Getting Worse By The Day”
By Dahr JamailAt least 740 Iraqis have been killed since the new “government” took power in late April, and with the ongoing operations sparking more attacks each day, it doesn’t look like there is an end in sight
Remember Muhsin Abdul Hameed?
By Baghdad BurningMuhsin Abdul Hameed, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political party that was basically the only blatantly Sunni party taking part in post-occupation politics in Iraq, was was “detained and interviewed” by the US forces the otherday.Was it meant to send a message to Sunnis? “None of you are safe- even the ones who work with us.”
15 May, 2005
A “Welcome Parade” Of Blood And Seething Anger
By Dahr JamailAs if to add insult to injury, with over 400 Iraqis killed in violence during the first two weeks of the newly sworn in Iraqi “government,” US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made a surprise one day visit to the newest US colony
09 May, 2005
Iraqi Women Under Occupation
By Ghali HassanUnder the US Occupation, the situation of Iraqi women has continued to deteriorate. In addition to torture and sexual violence perpetuated by U.S. Occupation forces, a great number of Iraqi women and girls are kept locked up in their homes by a very real fear of abduction and criminal abuse
Saved By The Carrots...
By Baghdad BurningThese last few days have been explosive- They say there were around 14 car bombs in Baghdad alone a couple of days ago- although we only heard 6 from our area. Cars are making me very nervous lately. All cars look suspicious- small ones and large ones. Old cars and new cars. Cars with drivers and cars parked in front of restaurants and shops. They all have a sinister look to them these days
29 April, 2005
The Rise Of Legitimate Resistance Movement
By Ghali HassanThe rise of the Iraqi Resistance took the Western world by surprise, not only because of its effectiveness against a militaristic 'superpower', but also because the West distorted and fabricated image of the Iraqi people
27 April, 2005
More Evidence Of US Military’s
Culture Of Torture In Iraq
By James CoganMaterial obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), under Freedom of Information, provides further evidence of the culture of torture and abuse that has prevailed among US military personnel involved in the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners
25 April, 2005
Fear: A Political Tool
By Ghali HassanThe rise of the politics of fear has become central to US imperial agenda.In order to sell its "war on terror" and the war on Iraq, the Bush administration turned to fear to manipulate the public
19 April, 2005
Who Is Iraq’s New Prime Minister
Ibrahim al-Jaafari?
By James CoganThe history of Daawa, and the past two years in particular, underscores the venality of the Shiite elite represented by Jaafari. At every turn its political manoeuvring has been guided by an ambition for a greater share of Iraq’s resources and wealth, at the expense of the needs and aspirations of ordinary Iraqis
The Senseless Death Of Marla Ruzicka
By Patrick Cockburn and Andrew BuncombeMarla Ruzicka, who had been working tirelessly in Iraq to help the victims of the Bush war has been killed in a suicide car bomb attack
The Hostage Crisis
By Baghdad BurningWe have an Iraqi government that bans news channels and newspapers because they *insist* on reporting about such routine things as civilian casualties and raids, yet the Puppets barely flinch over media sources spreading a rumor as dangerous and provocative as Madain hostage taking
18 April, 2005
Tarmiya: The Silent Agony
For security reasons the name of the writer
of this article can not be revealed"The other one kicked me, threw me to the ground and put his boot on my neck. The arteries were cut and dropping. His boot went into the open wound. He began pushing very hard. The other one, who killed B., came and stood over me. They were both over me, and then he stabbed me here"
15 April, 2005
Iraq's Northern Capital Stalked By Suicide Bombers
By Patrick CockburnAnybody who believes Iraq has turned the corner and violence is diminishing should pay a visit to its northern capital, though they must be extremely careful when doing so
Rumsfeld’s Mission To Baghdad
By Bill Van AukenRumsfeld’s intervention reveals in a nutshell the utter hypocrisy of Washington’s democratic pretensions. It points to the real aims and methods of the US occupation of Iraq, and the real nature of the relationship between the “sovereign” transitional government and its American overseers
The State Of Women In Iraq
By Hanna DahlstromDeteriorating politcal and economic crisis of women in Iraq under US occupying forces - A briefing paper of international educational development . Presented to The United Nations Commission on Human Rights 2005
13 April, 2005
Don't Be Fooled By The Spin On Iraq
By Jonathan SteeleThe weekend's vast protest shows that opposition is still growing, in spite of US and British government claims to have Iraqis' best interests at heart
12 April, 2005
Let Them Eat Bombs
By Terry JonesFar from improving the quality of life for Iraqi youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry, whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering
More US Troops Questioning Iraq Duty
By Christian HendersonAs the tally of Americans killed and wounded in Iraq continues to rise, so does the number of soldiers uneasy about serving in the two-year-old war.US army figures indicate that since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, about 5500 military personnel have absconded
11 April, 2005
Democracy Or Colonial Dictatorship?
By Ghali HassanAfter two months of wrangling and haggling over the forming of the new Iraqi "government", the US got what it wants, a US government. The Bush administration is using this farce as a model of colonial dictatorship, in which few (Iraqi) expatriates or natives are allowed to manage their own affairs, while the Occupation and US control of Iraq's oil resources will continue
A Black Cat In A Dark Room
By Malcom LagaucheWhen one looks back at statements and articles by Iraqis during the period of 1991 to 2003, it is uncanny how accurate they were. On the other hand, much of what the U.S. put forward has been shown to be nothing less than outright lies. Here is an op-ed written in by Nizar Hamdoon, former Iraqi ambassador to UN for the New York Times called "A Black Cat in a Dark Room "
10 April, 2005
" No To occupation":Iraqis March
By Baghdad BurningThousands of Iraqis were demonstrating against the occupation yesterday. But the mainstream media turned a blind eye to it
A Day Of Infamy
By Malcom Lagauche"I know a day will come when I will celebrate with the People of Iraq when the last invader leaves Iraq"
09 April, 2005
What's Behind The New Iraq
By Pepe EscobarIt took more than nine weeks, fiery haggling and backroom deals for Iraq's politicians to compose a new government. The big question now is how the Shi'ites and Kurds will deal with marginalized Sunni Arabs - paying close attention to their political grievances or clobbering them with peshmergas, Badr Brigades and Iraqi security forces. It's politics or civil war
04 April, 2005
'Shoot For Fun'
By Mark TownsendOne of the biggest private security firms in Iraq has created outrage after a memo to staff claimed it is 'fun' to shoot people
03 April, 2005
American Media Everywhere
By Baghdad BurningTwo years ago, the major part of the war in Iraq was all about bombarding us with smart bombs and high-tech missiles. Now there’s a different sort of war- or perhaps it’s just another phase of the same war. Now we’re being assailed with American media. It’s everywhere all at once
Girl Blog From Iraq Speaks
By Firas Al-AtraqchiBaghdad Burning Blogger who was one of the first to start a blog on conditions in the wake of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, in an interview with Aljazeera speaks how life has changed since the first bombs started falling and martial law was imposed
Witnessing War Crimes
By Paul RockwellAiden Delgado, an Army Reservist, was a witness to widespread, almost daily, U.S. war crimes in Iraq. His story contains new revelations about ongoing brutality at Abu Ghraib, information yet to be reported in media
02 April, 2005
Iraqi Children: On The Brink Of Disaster
By Ghali HassanSince the US invasion and occupation of Iraq every aspect of life in Iraq has deteriorated. A new report released to the UN Human Rights Commission found that malnutrition among Iraqi children under the age of 5 years have doubled to nearly 8 percent since the US invasion of Iraq as a result of lack of clean water, food, and adequate sanitation
The Gates Of Hell Are Open In Iraq
By Jawad al-KhalisiPublic opinion in the occupying countries, such as the US and Britain, needs to understand that the continuation of this unjust and dangerous situation in Iraq will create the conditions for a new and more general uprising which threatens truly to open the gates of hell in the region and beyond
01 April, 2005
“Life In Falluja Is A Horror Story”
By Eric Ruder & Dahr JamailDaily, there are many, many air missions being flown, and huge amounts of bombs being dropped. In fact, the vast majority of Iraqi civilians killed have died as a result of U.S. warplanes dropping bombs. In Falluja, it’s pretty safe to say that a large percentage of the estimated 3,000 people killed there were killed by U.S. warplanes
31 March, 2005
Children Starving In New Iraq
By BBCIncreasing numbers of children in Iraq do not have enough food to eat and more than a quarter are chronically undernourished. Malnutrition rates in children under five have almost doubled since the US-led invasion - to nearly 8% by the end of last year
30 March, 2005
New Documents Confirm Widespread Torture In Iraq
By Joseph KayA new series of documents released over the weekend provides fresh evidence of the pervasive US military abuse of prisoners in Iraq.An additional document posted on the ACLU’s web site on Tuesday provides evidence that the former top military official in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, directly authorized illegal interrogation techniques
Iraqi Women's New Battle Ground
By Rory CarrollAfter decades of oppression the Shia majority is now in the ascendant and free to express its version of Islam. Female students say the incidence of intimidation by classmates connected to Shia parties and militias is increasing
29 March, 2005
Iraq's Parliament: New Farce
By Ghali HassanA farce parliament produced by illegitimate elections in the shadow of war of aggression and occupation does not make a nation democratic, free and sovereign. It makes a colonial dictatorship
A Message From Falluja ToThe American People
By Mark ManningAll of the people I talked to had messages to the American people. They said: "We did not attack you! We have done nothing to the Americans. Why have you done this to us?"
27 March, 2005
More Torture Stories From Iraq
By David Randall and Andrew BuncombeDamning evidence of how prisoners were "systematically and intentionally mistreated" at a military base in Mosul, culminating in the death of one. Nobody was court-martialled over the abuse
Genocide In Fallujah
By Brussells TribunalReport on the current situation in the city of Fallujah presented to the 61st session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights For the period of 1st January to 25th March 2005 by Studies Center of Human Rights and Democracy - Brussells Tribunal
24 March, 2005
Two Years...
By Baghdad BurningTwo years ago this week.
We've completed two years since the beginning of the war. These last two years have felt like two decades, but I can remember the war itself like it was yesterdayHijacking Democracy In Iraq
By Scott RitterThe American 'cooking' of the Iraqi election is, in the end, a defeat for democracy and the potential of democracy to effect real and meaningful change in the Middle East. The sad fact is that it is not so much that the people of the Middle East are incapable of democracy, but rather the United States is incapable of allowing genuine democracy to exist in the Middle East
A Dozen Questions For Dahr Jamail
By Dahr Jamail &Douglas HermanAn interview with Dahr Jamail
23 March, 2005
Journalists Tell Of US Falluja Killings
By AljazeeraAll is quiet in Falluja, or at least that is how it seems, given that the mainstream media has largely forgotten about the Iraqi city. But independent journalists are risking life and limb to bring out a very different story
22 March, 2005
Shocked And Awed Into 'Freedom'
By Pepe EscobarTwo years after being shocked and awed into "freedom", freedom on the ground is a meaningless concept for large swathes of the Iraqi population
Sects And Solidarity In Iraq
By Dahr JamailDespite talk of civil war, Sunnis and Shiites seem more united than divided
18 March, 2005
Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq's Oil
By Greg PalastThe Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil
17 March, 2005
Independent Media: Enemy Target
By Ghali HassanSince the start of the 2003 War on Iraq, there have been 13 incidents involving the killing of journalists by US soldiers. All the journalists who have been killed were "unembedded" journalists. Were they accidents or intentional?
16 March, 2005
Italy To Pull Out Of Iraq
By Peter PophamSilvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, will begin withdrawing Italian troops from Iraq in September
On Empire And Those Who Fight It
By Tariq AliTwo years after the invasion of Iraq, writer and activist Tariq Ali spoke to Socialist Worker about US strategy in the Middle East and the growth of the Iraqi resistance to the occupation
The Brutality Of Occupation
By Dahr JamailEven the ancient city of Babylon has been turned into a US military base, and thousands of years of history and priceless artefacts are being crushed under the tracks of US tanks.On so many different levels Iraqi society and culture have been shattered by the occupation, and continue to be as it drags on
15 March, 2005
Extreme Cinema Verite
By Louise RougAmerican soldiers shoot Iraq battle footage and edit it into music videos filled with death and destruction. And they display their work as entertainment
The Checkpoint Experience
By Annia CiezadloAs a Westerner working in Iraq, Annia Ciezadlo has to brave military checkpoints just to get around town. It's an ordeal that never gets any less confusing or terrifying
Baghdad's Streets Now A Deadly Gantlet
By Patrick QuinnAdnan Shalaal left the Sheraton with his two sons, aged 3 and 6, and his 12-year-old daughter.Shalaal never made it down the tunnel of flying lead."He'll be forgotten in five minutes," one man murmured in Arabic after looking at Shalaal's bullet-riddled white compact car. "That's Iraq today."
13 March, 2005
"Are You The Journalist That Was Kidnapped?"
By Giuliana SgrenaThey were all young Americans. I couldn't breathe, my lungs were tightening up, I was constantly asking for water. Only then did they ask my name and nationality. Then whispering in my ear, one of them asked me: "Are you the journalist that was kidnapped?"
12 March, 2005
The Mystery Of The Second Sgrena Video
By Dave FryettIn a second video the kidnappers angrily charge that there is an "army of occupation in Iraq under the name of Al Zarqawi" and that it was sent there to destroy the Resistence by causing a fratricidal war among them. They did not actually say, but certainly left open the idea, that Al Zarqawi was Washington's man.Is the video genuine? Or in whose interest was this video produced?
11 March, 2005
Passive Genocide In Iraq
By Gideon PolyaThe Coalition funding of medical services in Occupied Iraq is miniscule and the consequence is a huge avoidable mortality that amounts to what bio-ethicists would call "passive genocide"
The Resort To Torture
By Ghali HassanThe new documents and other documents received by the ACLU reveal that the illegal practice of abuse and torture of Iraqi men, women and children took place immediately after the US-led invasion of Iraq. Iraqi POW and Iraqi detainees not only at Abu Ghraib, the West’s convenient propaganda, but also throughout Iraq were imprisoned, abused, tortured and murdered by British and US soldiers
Chalabi For The Nobel Peace Prize
By Baghdad BurningI got an interesting email today telling me about an internet petition to nominate Sistani, of all people, for the Nobel Peace Prize. That had me laughing and a little bit incredulous. Is that what the Nobel Peace Prize has come to?
10 March, 2005
Iraq Elections And The Liberal Elites:
A Response To Noam Chomsky
By Ghali HassanTo describe the Iraqi people resisting this violent and illegal Occupation of their nation as simply "bomb-throwers" is to ignore the gross atrocities committed against the Iraqi people by US forces
"Falluja Was Wiped Out"
By Rüdiger Göbel, Mahammad J. Haded and Mohammad AwadAn interview with the physician Mahammad J. Haded and Mohammad Awad, director of a refugee center, who were in the besieged and bombarded Iraqi city of Falluja during the large U.S. offensive called "Dawn" in November 2004
After The War Comes Cancer
By Jürgen HanefeldAfter two wars where oil wells were torched, chemical factories bombed and radioactive ammunition fired, the first thing Iraqi women ask when giving birth is not if it is a boy or a girl, but if it is normal or deformed. The number of cancer cases and children born with deformities has skyrocketed after the two Gulf Wars
The Heroic National Guards
By Baghdad BurningIt’s difficult to consider National Guardsmen as heroes with the image of them beating doctors in white gowns in ones head. It’s difficult to see them as anything other than expendable Iraqis with their main mission being securing areas and cities for Americans
08 March, 2005
Did The US Military Target Guiliana Sgrena?
By Peter SymondsThe incident highlights the ruthless methods employed by the US military in the face of continuing armed resistance and widespread hostility to the US occupation. But the reality could be even more sinister:that Sgrena, who had been held hostage for a month by a little known Islamic group, was deliberately targetted either to send a warning or to silence her
Video Shows More US Iraq Abuse
By AljazeeraUS Army soldiers in Iraq have filmed themselves kicking a gravely wounded prisoner in the face and making the arm of a corpse appear to wave.The video, made public on Monday, was shot by Florida National Guard soldiers
07 March, 2005
My truth (La mia verità)
By Giuliana Sgrena"At that point a rain of fire and bullets came at us, forever silencing the happy voices from a few minutes earlier. Nicola Calipari dove on top of me to protect me and immediately, and I mean immediately, I felt his last breath as he died on me".The Italian hostage who came under fire from the Americans write about her horrific exeprience
What Iraq's Checkpoints Are Like
By Annia CiezadloThe checkpoint experience perfectly encapsulates the contradictions and miseries and misunderstandings of everyone's common experience - both Iraqis and Americans - in Iraq
Atrocities Continue To Mount
By Haifa ZanganaDespite the election, ordinary Iraqis face a daily struggle to survive attacks, kidnappings and killings
06 March, 2005
US Attack Against Italians In Baghdad
was Deliberate: Companion
By AFPThe companion of freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena on Saturday leveled serious accusations at US troops who fired at her convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport, saying the shooting had been deliberate
03 March, 2005
Iraq's Crop Patent Law
A Threat To Food Security
By GM Free CymruAid agencies and NGOs across the globe have been reacting with horror to the news that new legislation in Iraq was carefully put in place last year by the US that will effectively bring the whole of the country's agricultural sector under the control of trans-national corporations
02 March, 2005
Disharmony In Kurdistan
By Seb WalkerThe most obvious Shiite-Kurd clash could be over the role of Islam in Iraqi society. Some senior figures in the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the winning Shiite bloc that secured nearly 50 percent of the national vote on January 30, have insisted that Islam be inscribed as the only source of legislation in the new Iraqi constitution
01 March, 2005
Bloodbath In Iraq
By Patrick Cockburn and David EndersIn the bloodiest single attack since the fall of Saddam Hussein, a suicide car bomber killed at least 115 people and wounded 132 when he blew himself up yesterday in the city of Hillah
23 February, 2005
Amnesty: Iraqi Women No Better Off Post-Saddam
By Jeremy LovellNearly two years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, women there are no better off than under the rule of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein
19 February, 2005
Groceries And Election Results...
By Baghdad BurningIt’s not about a Sunni government or a Shia government- it’s about the possibility of an Iranian-modeled Iraq. It’s not just Sunnis- it’s moderate Shia and secular people in general who have been marginalized
18 February, 2005
How The U.S. Murdered Fallujah
By Salam IsmaelDoctor Salam Ismael took aid to Fallujah last month. This is a report of his visit
Regaining My Humanity
By Camilo MejiaCamilo Mejia spent more than 7 years in the military and 8 months fighting in Iraq. On a furlough from the war, he applied for Conscientious Objector status, and was declared a Prisoner of Conscience by Amnesty International. He was convicted of desertion by the U.S. military for refusing to return to the war in Iraq and was imprisoned. Mejia was released from prison on February 15th
Iraqi Prisoner Died In CIA Interrogation
By AljazeeraAn Iraqi whose corpse was photographed with grinning US soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison died under CIA interrogation while being suspended by his wrists, with his hands cuffed behind his back
17 February, 2005
Iraq Election Results Reflect
Broad Hostility To US Occupation
By Peter SymondsFar from resolving the democratic and national questions that were suppressed by the Baathist regime, the US occupation has opened up and exacerbated longstanding sectarian and ethnic grievances in the Iraqi ruling elites
Why The Children In Iraq Make
No Sound When They Fall
By Bernard Chazelle"Blessed are the children whom the sea swallows, for they shall tug at our heartstrings. / Cursed are the children whom our bombs blow up, for they shall roam the dark alleys of our indifference."
16 February, 2005
Media Held Guilty Of Deception
By Dahr JamailA peoples tribunal has held much of Western media guilty of inciting violence and deceiving people in its reporting of Iraq
15 February, 2005
Post-Election Iraq: What Next?
By Gary LeuppDoes this election in any way validate an invasion justified as needed to rid Iraq of its nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, and to sever its nonexistent ties to al-Qaeda? Some preliminary questions for consideration
Iraqi Election Catapults Critic Of U.S. To Power
By T. Christian MillerThe triumph of a Shiite Muslim slate in Iraq's national elections is a victory for one of the nation's most enigmatic figures and a consistent critic of U.S. policy: senior cleric Abdelaziz Hakim
Hiroshima Mon Amour
By John ChuckmanThe total loss and devastation in Iraq are comparable to America's dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and likely exceed it. Those who say Bush was right are telling us that it was a sound decision to drop an atomic bomb just to change the government of Iraq
14 February, 2005
And Life Goes On...
By Baghdad BurningAt the end of the day, it’s not about having a Sunni or Shia or Kurd or Arab in power. It’s about having someone who has Iraq’s best interests at heart- not America’s, not Iran’s, not Israel’s
12 February, 2005
Stories From Fallujah
By Dahr JamailThese are the stories that will continue to emerge from the rubble of Fallujah for years. No, for generations…
02 February, 2005
What They’re Not Telling You
About The “Election”
By Dahr JamailThus, one might argue that the Bush administration has made a deal with the SCIR: Iraq's oil for guaranteed political power. The Americans are able to put forward such a bargain because Bush still holds the strings in Iraq
01 February, 2005
Some Just Voted For Food
By Dahr JamailMany Iraqis said Monday that their names were marked on a list provided by the government agency that provides monthly food rations before they were allowed to vote
The Vietnam Turnout Was Good As Well
By Sami RamadaniNo amount of spin can conceal Iraqis' hostility to US occupation
Triumph And Tragedy For Iraq
By Robert FiskIf this election produces a parliamentary coalition which splits the Shi'ites and turns their largest party into the opposition, then the Sunni insurgency will become a national uprising
Undermining Iraq’s Food Security
By Ghali HassanThe US Occupation Authority has imposed legislation, which could have detrimental and lasting impact on Iraqis farmers and Iraq’s ability to produce food for the Iraqi people
31January, 2005
Iraq Elections Set Stage For Deeper Crisis
By Patrick MartinEven the combined propaganda powers of the US government and the corporate-controlled media machine cannot transform an election held at gunpoint and under military occupation into a genuinely democratic event
Hollow Election Held On Bloody Sunday
By Dahr JamailMany Iraqis who had intended to vote stayed indoors as gunfire echoed around the downtown area of Baghdad. Mortar attacks on polling stations continued through the day
30January, 2005
The Shia Will Inherit Iraq
By Robert FiskShias are about to inherit Iraq, but the election that will bring them to power is creating deep fears among the Arab kings and dictators of the Middle East that their Sunni leadership is under threat
28 January, 2005
The Iraq Election: A Travesty Of Democracy
By James CoganMillions of Iraqis will refuse to vote on Sunday, not because of fear, but because they understand the election to be a sham designed to give a “democratic” gloss to an illegal neo-colonial occupation
Iraqi Democrats Can't Win
In This Desperate Election
By Jonathan SteeleSunday's election will show that you can manage to hold an election in the midst of an insurgency. It will therefore be hailed as a logistical and democratic triumph. But it will not solve Iraq's central problem: how to restore the country's sovereignty
Criminals The Lot Of Us
By Scott RitterThe invasion of Iraq was a crime of gigantic proportions, for which politicians, the media and the public share responsibility
Some See Hope, Others Civil War
By Dahr JamailSome Iraqis are hoping for a new unity following elections on Jan. 30, but others seem convinced that existing divisions will increase, leading possibly to civil war
27 January, 2005
Here Comes “The Freedom”
By Dahr JamailWhereas Baghdad is filled with Fallujah refugees, now villages and smaller cities on the outskirts of Baghdad are filling up with election refugees
24 January, 2005
Iraqis Discuss Voting, Or Not,
In Elections Held Amidst Chaos
By Dahr Jamail and Brian DominickWith confusion, obscurity and disarray defining the lead up to Iraq’s elections, even people who have not decided to boycott or stay away in fear of violence have a reason to dismiss participation in the Jan. 30 polls
The Invasion Of Falluja: A Study
In The Subversion Of Truth
By Mary Trotochaud and Rick McDowellThe illegal invasion, occupation, and subsequent violence perpetrated on the people of Iraq has lent considerable evidence to the assertion that truth is the first casualty of war
19 January, 2005
Car Bombs
By Dahr JamailIn a span of just 90 minutes five car bombs detonated in Baghdad killing at least 26 people
Odd Happenings In Fallujah
By Dahr Jamail“In the center of the Julan Quarter they are removing entire homes which have been bombed, meanwhile most of the homes that were bombed are left as they were. The military use bulldozers to push the soil into piles and load it onto trucks to carry away
18 January, 2005
Iraq Violence Spreads To 'Safe' Areas
By Rory McCarthy & Brian WhitakerInsurgents in Iraq intent on derailing elections due in less than two weeks stepped up a campaign of violence across the country yesterday, claiming dozens more lives in shootings and car bombings
Destroying Babylon
By Dahr JamailUS has failed to take into account the requirements of the Hague convention ... to protect major archaeological sites. So Babylon is being destroyed. Along with the Iraqi people
Not Even Saddam Could Achieve The
Divisions This Election Will Bring
By Robert FiskThe greatest threat to "democracy" is that with four provinces containing around half the population of Iraq in a state of insurgency and many of its towns under rebel control, this election is going to widen the differences between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds in a way that not even Saddam Hussein was able to achieve
Hotel Journalism Gives American Troops A Free Hand
By Robert Fisk"Hotel journalism" is the only way to describe it. More and more, Western reporters in Baghdad are reporting from their hotels rather than the streets of Iraq's towns and cities
17 January, 2005
The Phantom Weapons...
By Baghdad BurningThe weapons never existed. It's like having a loved one sentenced to death for a crime they didn't commit- having your country burned and bombed beyond recognition
The Tsunami Of Iraq
By Dahr Jamail
Nobody knows who these dead people are. The coolers are full. Others are full too, in the other hospitals. He finishes and begins to pray as I start my shower, trying to wash the bodies away. It helps, some.But it’s the eyes that got me. And they won’t go away
Collective Punishment
By Dahr JamailI just phoned the military press office in Baghdad and asked them if they can provide me information on why they are blocking roads, firing weapons, plowing down date palm groves, and cutting electricity in the Al-Arab Jubour Village in Al-Dora, as several of the residents there claim.The spokesman, who won’t give me his name, said he knew nothing about such things, but that there were ongoing security operations in the Al-Dora area
My Return To Baghdad
By Robert FiskThe brush fires are already being lit but fear not, Bush and Blair will tell us they knew things would get violent on polling day
14 January, 2005
The “Salvador Option” For Iraq
By Bill Van AukenFaced with intractable and growing armed resistance in Iraq, the Pentagon has drafted plans for the organization of death squads to assassinate political opponents of the US military occupation and terrorize the civilian population
A Restless Calm…
By Dahr JamailBaghdad feels restless during this “calm” time. There is an expectant energy in the air as the days tick off leading to January 30th. It’s as if we are all waiting for the bombs and fierce clashes to kick off at anytime
We Won't Go Home And We Won't Vote
By Robert FiskThey live beneath old fly-blown tents in the car-park of the Mustafa mosque and their canvas-roofed kitchen stands next to a pool of raw sewage, but the refugees from Fallujah will not return home.And they are very definitely not going to vote in the January 30 elections
13 January, 2005
Fear Stalks Baghdad
By Robert FiskBaghdad is a city of fear. Fearful Iraqis, fearful militiamen, fearful American soldiers, fearful journalists
City Of Ghosts
By Ali FadhilWhat really happened in the siege of Falluja? In a joint investigation for the Guardian and Channel 4 News, Iraqi doctor Ali Fadhil compiled the first independent reports from the devastated city, where he found scores of unburied corpses, rabid dogs - and a dangerously embittered population
Iraq Fighting Belies Bush's Claim
By Scott TaylorDespite the inability of the American troops and Iraqi security forces to quell the violence, Iraq's Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and his cabinet have repeatedly committed themselves to meeting the 30 January election deadline
12 January, 2005
“This Is Not A Life”
By Dahr Jamail“Look at what has become of Baghdad Dahr,” he tells me as the traffic finally begins to inch forward again, “All of us are suffering now. This is not a life.”
Abu Ghraib Inmates Recall Torture
By BBCA Syrian witness described Specialist Charles Graner as Abu Ghraib's "primary torturer", and said he was force-fed pork and alcohol, against Islamic law
11 January, 2005
Iraq Elections Loom As Debacle For US Occupation
By James CoganThe elections in occupied Iraq, scheduled to take place on January 30, are looming as a political debacle for the Bush administration. The US objectives are being thwarted by the mass opposition to the American presence in the country and the entrenched insurgency against the occupation
Baghdad, As Usual
By Dahr JamailThe horrible catastrophe that is occupied Iraq is getting worse by the day
10 December, 2004
Fallujah Pictures
By Dahr JamailTwo weeks ago someone was allowed into Fallujah by the military to help bury bodies. They were allowed to take photographs of 75 bodies, in order to show pictures to relatives so that they might be identified before they were buried. Here are the pictures
“Somebody Has To Do It"
By Dahr JamailWhile billions of US taxpayer dollars have been awarded in lucrative contracts to companies such as Bechtel and Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root, there are few signs that any reconstruction has actually taken place in war torn Iraq
09 December, 2004
Fallujah's Refugees
By Dahr JamailWith over 300,000 homeless residents of Fallujah scattered about central Iraq, daily life for these refugees is a reality filled with searching for food, medical attention, warmth and clean water
07 December, 2004
Fallujah As A “Model City”
By Dahr JamailThe goal of crushing the resistance and creating stability by destroying Fallujah has gone so well that resistance fighters here roamed freely about Haifa street today hunting for Iraqis collaborating with US forces
04 December, 2004
Fallujah Refugees Tell Of Life And Death
By Dahr JamailJournalists and residents who have fled Fallujah share accounts of US troops killing unarmed and wounded people; Dahr Jamail continues interviewing survivors as images of a city under US assault further emerge
03 December, 2004
The Quiet Of Destruction And Death
By Dahr Jamail“I need another heart and eyes to bear it because my own are not enough to bear what I saw. Nothing justifies what was done to this city. I didn’t see a house or mosque that wasn’t destroyed.”
02 December, 2004
'Improved' Napalm For Falluja
With 'Improved' Effect
By Mike WhitneyThe United States is using napalm in Falluja. So far, the military has denied the allegations, but the proof is mounting
01 December, 2004
Neglect Follows Siege Of Fallujah
By Dahr JamailThe Iraqi ministry of health is failing to provide enough support to hundreds of thousands who fled Fallujah, and doctors in Baghdad are perplexed
Low Crime Rate In Fallujah
By Dahr JamailAllawi continues to insist that violence in Iraq is decreasing since the siege of Fallujah
Iraq's Health Care Under US Occupation
By Ghali HassanSince the US military invasion and occupation of Iraq, Iraq's health care system has deteriorated as a result of deliberate destruction by the US administration. The most vulnerable victims of this destruction are the Iraqi children, particularly children under the age of five
Covering Up US War Crimes
By James PetrasThe US mass media “reports”, the style, content and especially the language, echo their Nazi predecessors of 70 years ago to an uncanny degree. Coincidence?
30 November, 2004
Tired In Baghdad...
By Baghdad BurningThere's a collective exhaustion that seems to have settled on Baghdad... it feels almost like an epidemic sometimes
'Unusual Weapons' Used In Fallujah
By Dahr JamailEye witnesses testify that the U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah
Living A Disaster In Iraq
By Dahr JamailThe cold winter winds sweep over Baghdad, with fuel shortages, gun battles, mortar attacks and suicide bombings, life in Baghdad is a disaster
26 November, 2004
Nearly 21,000 US casualties In Iraq
By AljazeeraUS military's Stars and Stripes European edition newspaper reports that nearly 21,000 wounded US troops have been treated at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre from injuries received in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom
Child Malnutrition Almost Doubles
After US Invasion
By Rick KellyA study conducted by the Fafo Institute for Applied Social Science found that acute malnutrition among Iraqi children between the ages of six months and five years has increased from 4 percent to 7.7 percent since the US-led invasion in March last year
Falluja's Health Damage
By Miles SchumanWhile the North American news media have focused on the military triumph of US Marines in Falluja, little attention has been paid to reports that US armed forces killed scores of patients in an attack on a Falluja health center and have deprived civilians of medical care, food and water
Smoking While Iraq Burns
By Naomi KleinIts idolisation of 'the face of Falluja' shows how numb the US is to everyone's pain but its own
25 November, 2004
Eye Witness Account
Farewell To Falluja
By Fadhil BadraniAn Iraqi journalist describes how he escaped from Falluja which became literally a ghost city under the relentless US assault
A History Lesson On Fallujah
By Rashid KhalidiFallujah embodies the interrelated tribal, religious and national aspects of Iraq’s history.The Bush administration is not creating the world anew in the Middle East. It is waging a war in a place where history really matters
24 November, 2004
Allawi's Dictatorship
By Dahr JamailThe rule of Ayad Allawi, the U.S. appointed interim prime minister of Iraq, is now more in the style of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein than a leader of a supposedly democratic state
Fallujah And The Laws Of War
By Richard HoffmanEven as US forces launch new offensives against Iraqi cities, the flow of reports of serious war crimes committed by the American military in the assault on Fallujah continues
The Life And Mysterious Murder
Of Margaret Hassan
By Ghali HassanMany people called for the release of Margaret Hassan. However, some voices are conspicuous by their absence: the White House and the Allawi puppet government. Neither has said a word. The British Prime Minister Tony Blair was ready to attack the Iraqi Resistance, but did nothing to free Margaret Hassan
23 November, 2004
Falluja - America's Hollow Victory
By Scott TaylorIn reporting that six police stations in Mosul had been overrun, no explanation was given as to how 5000 American-paid Iraqi police could have been "overwhelmed" without a single casualty on either side. Such collusion between police and fighters was evident in a number of other cities within the rebellious Sunni triangle
Iraqi Critics Speak Out On Occupation, Elections
By Dahr JamailWhile debate continues in the United States about how best to manage the occupation and nation building of Iraq, the ideas of Iraqis on the matter of what is to happen in their country have been all but completely muted in the West
20 November, 2004
US Forces Raid A Mosque And
Murder The Worshippers
By Dahr JamailU.S. soldiers raided the Al- Hanifa mosque in Baghdad during Friday prayers, killing at least four and wounding up to 20 worshippers
The War Is Over, But The Killings Go On
By Abbas Ahmed IbrahimThis is a strange time in Fallujah. They say the war is over, but there is no peace. Every day there is shooting, and there are still killings going on. There is also a terrible smell. We know what it is - it is the smell of dead bodies
A Return To Barbarity
By Amira HoweidyThe standards of the ongoing offensive seem far removed from the modern world's rules of war. The Iraqis are again faced with mediaeval images emerging from Fallujah of decomposing bodies floating in the river, children left to bleed to death in the wreckage of their homes and wounded and helpless prisoners summarily executed
19 November, 2004
The Streets Of Baghdad
By Dahr JamailWalking and driving on the streets Baghdad I find myself in a sea of chaos. Traffic is mayhem for many reasons. The current fuel crisis being the lead cause. Lines at petrol stations stretch for miles at some of the stations
Media Repression In 'Liberated' Land
By Dahr JamailJournalists are increasingly being detained and threatened by the U.S.-installed interim government in Iraq. Media have been stopped particularly from covering recent horrific events in Fallujah
What Constitutes A Legitimate Target?
By Faisal BodiIf, as the saying goes, truth is the first casualty of war, the second victim - in modern warfare at least - must be the distinction between combatants and civilians
18 November, 2004
Horrific Scenes From The Ashes Of Fallujah
By James CoganFallujah has been laid waste. It is a hell on earth of shattered bodies, shattered buildings and the stench of death. The city will enter history as the place where US imperialism carried out a crime of immense proportions in November 2004
Who Killed Margaret Hassan?
By Robert FiskIf Margaret Hassan can be kidnapped and murdered, how much further can we fall into the Iraqi pit? There are no barriers, no frontiers of immorality left
Slash And Burn
By Dahr Jamail“The first thing they did is they bombed the hospitals because that is where the wounded have to go. Now we see that wounded people are in the street and the soldiers are rolling over them with tanks"
17 November, 2004
Congratulations American Heroes
By Baghdad BurningThey killed a wounded man. It's hard to believe. They killed a man who was completely helpless- like he was some sort of diseased animal. I had read the articles and heard the stories of this happening before- but to see it happening on television is something else
Margaret Hassan 1944- 2004
By Jason BurkeThe reported murder of the aid worker Margaret Hassan is another one of those horror stories to have emerged from the slaughter house of Iraq
800 Civilians Feared Dead In Fallujah
By Dahr JamailAccording to estimates by a Red Cross official at least 800 civilians are believed to have been killed during the U.S. offensive in Fallujah
Mass Slaughter In Fallujah
By Doug LorimerThe deliberate destruction of Falljuah hospitals was a clear indication that the US military wants to ensure that dead or injured Fallujah residents are not brought to the city's hospitals — so as to conceal the scale of civilian casualties
Children Pay A Price For Assault On Falluja
By Rory McCarthy and Osama MansourEvidence began to emerge of civilians, including children, who were seriously injured in the US assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja
16 November, 2004
Aid Convoy Turned Back From Falluja
By AljazeeraAn aid convoy has been forced to turn back from the beleaguered city of Falluja as more evidence emerged of a mounting humanitarian crisis on the eighth day of a US offensive to crush resistance forces
AP Photographer Flees Fallujah
By Katarina KratovacBilal Hussein watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross the Euphrates. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands."
Doctor Is Haunted By Siege Of Fallujah
By Alissa J. Rubin"I think if the Americans let us treat the injured, even in the streets," Dr. Ahmed Ghanim said, "we could have saved hundreds."
The Other Face Of U.S. 'Success' In Fallujah
By Dahr JamailThe real face of the 'success' of the U.S. military assault in Fallujah is now beginning to present itself. Thousands of families remain trapped inside Fallujah with no food, clean water or medical assistance
Dogs Eating Bodies In The Streets Of Fallujah
By Dahr JamailThe media repression by the military around Fallujah continues to run thick, as a journalist for the al-Arabia network who attempted to get inside Fallujah was detained by the military
15 November, 2004
Fallujah Is A Ghost Town
By Michael Georgy and Kim SenguptaAnother body lay stretched out on the next block, its head blown off, perhaps in one of the countless explosions which rent the city day and night for nearly a week. Some bodies were so mutilated it was impossible to tell if they were civilians or militants, male or female
Inside Fallujah: One Family’s Diary Of Terror
By Dahr Jamail“I cannot get the image out of my mind of her foetus being blown out of her body.” One family reveals the horror of being caught in the conflict in Falluja
Eyewitness Account
Falluja Calls For Help
By Fadhil BadraniWhen people in Falluja feel the world is not interested in their fate, they start asking if the media is doing its job
13 November, 2004
Humanitarian Disaster In Falluja
By James CoganThe city, a Los Angeles Times reporter wrote, is “a tableau of destroyed buildings, burned-out cars, battered mosques and piles of rubble”. Embedded journalists have noted the stench of decomposing bodies that hangs over the city
Die, Then Vote. This Is Falluja
By Naomi KleinWith all the millions spent on "democracy-building" and "civil society" in Iraq, it has come to this: if you can survive attack by the world's only superpower, you get to cast a ballot. Fallujans are going to vote, goddammit, even if they all have to die first
Murder In Falluja
By Baghdad BurningPeople in Falloojeh are being murdered. The stories coming back are horrifying. People being shot in cold blood in the streets and being buried under tons of concrete and iron... where is the world? Bury Arafat and hurry up and pay attention to what's happening in Iraq
Iraq Is Burning With Wrath , Anger And Sadness…
By Dahr Jamail“Certainly the US military can eventually suppress Fallujah, but for how long? Iraq is burning with wrath, anger and sadness…the people of Fallujah are dear to us. They are our brothers and sisters and we are so saddened by what is happening in that city.”
Do You "Support The Troops"?
By Ghali HassanIf you relax your vigilance to "support the troops" and failed to bring them home soon, their sacrifice will be in vain
12 November, 2004
New Insurgency Confronts US Forces
By Rory McCarthy & Michael HowardThe violence suggests the four-day operation in Falluja may have cleared out the most important insurgent stronghold in Iraq, but has done little to curb the insurgency
Falluja Facing Humanitarian Crisis
By AljazeeraFighting in Falluja has created a humanitarian disaster. A pregnant woman and her child died in a refugee camp west of the city after the mother unexpectedly aborted and no doctors were on hand.In another case, a young boy died from a snake bite that would normally have been easily treatable
Eye Witness Account From Falluja
Smoke And corpses
By Fadhil BadraniIt is hard to know how much people outside Falluja are aware of what is going on here. I want them to know about conditions inside this city - there are dead women and children lying on the streets.People are getting weaker from hunger. Many are dying from their injuries because there is no medical help left in the city whatsoever. Some families have started burying their dead in their gardens
Prayers For Vengeance, More Death
By Dahr Jamail“When I was a child, it was common to have some family member who was killed in the war with Iran,” he says, “But now, everyone is dying everyday.”
Iraq: The Unthinkable Becomes Normal
By John PilgerMainstream media speak as if Fallujah were populated only by foreign "insurgents". In fact, women and children are being slaughtered
Re Reporting Iraq Civilian Deaths
By Gideon PolyaUsing UN and UNICEF data it has been conservatively calculated that total "excess mortality" (excess death, avoidable mortality) in war-ravaged Iraq since 1991 has been about 1.5 million (with under-5 infant mortality totalling 1.2 million) and that the "excess mortality" has been about 1.2 million in post-invasion Afghanistan (with the under-5 infant deaths totalling 0.9 million)
11 November, 2004
Fallujah In Ruins And Unknown Numbers Dead
By James Cogan“Every minute, hundreds of bombs and shells are exploding... The north of the city is in flames. I can see fire and smoke. Fallujah has become like hell..."
Squeezing Jello in Iraq
By Scott RitterFar from facing off in a decisive battle against the resistance fighters, it seems the more Americans squeeze Falluja, the more the violence explodes elsewhere. It is exercises in futility, akin to squeezing jello. The more you try to get a grasp on the problem, the more it slips through your fingers
Economy Hurting More Than Violence
By Dahr JamailViolence is taking a heavy toll in Iraq, but everyday economic difficulties could be hurting people more.Nearly 20 months into the occupation, Iraqis find themselves in a desperate situation, with countless struggling to survive
10 November, 2004
Carnage In Falluja
By AljazeeraMuhammad Abbud said he watched his nine-year-old son bleed to death at their Falluja home, unable to take him to hospital as fighting raged in the streets and bombs rained down on the Iraqi city
'I Got My Kills ... I Just Love My Job'
By Toby Harnden"It's like a video game. We've taken small arms fire here all day. It just sounds like popcorn going off."
Rule Of Assassins
By Baghdad BurningBeing a 'civilian' is a relative thing in a country occupied by Americans. You're only a civilian if you're on their side. If you translate for them, or serve them food in the Green Zone, or wipe their floors- you're an innocent civilian. Everyone else is an insurgent
The Siege Begins,Outrage In Baghdad
By Dahr Jamail“The first priority is that who makes the law should be legally authorized. Here in Baghdad, the martial law is genocide against the resistance in Iraq who are against the invasion. The theme of the law is to kill the resistance and to stop people even from thinking. Do you think they can limit how Iraqis think?”
The Fire Is Spreading…
By Dahr JamailThe fighting in Falluja will not end when the Americans take the city. The fighting will begin in other places like Baghdad, Baquba, Latifiya, Ramadi, Samarra, Khaldiya, Kirkuk and elsewhere
Falluja's Defiance Of A New Empire
By Sami RamadaniThe US generals will no doubt deliver Falluja to Bush and Blair after bombarding its neighbourhoods with artillery and rockets. But they are doomed to deliver neither the Fallujans nor the people of Iraq. Perhaps they are unaware that Fallujans defied Saddam's rule during his last years in power
Who Are The "Barbarians"?
By Ghali HassanDestroying and occupying the city of Fallujah will have no bearing on the Iraqi Resistance to US Occupation of Iraq. It will generate unity among the people and fuel more resistance against the Occupation
09 November, 2004
Assault On Falluja Under Way
By AljazeeraThousands of US and Iraqi troops backed by heavy air support and armour have stormed into Falluja in an effort to recapture the anti-US stronghold.Warplanes staged ferocious strikes on targets after interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi gave US-led forces the go-ahead for a full-scale attack on the city on Monday afternoon
Pray For Pain, Peace
By Shaik UbaidAn American muslim's anguished reflections on the Ramadan battle of Falluja
Falluja - All the Makings Of A War Crime
By Tony KevinFalluja, which has become a symbol of Sunni-Iraqi political resistance to the occupiers, is to be made an example of, to deter others. The message the siege of Falluja sends is brutally simple: resist us and we will destroy you
Falluja's Looming Gendercide
By Adam Jones"U.S. troops sealed all roads to Falluja and urged women, children and non-fighting age men to flee, but said they would arrest any man under 45 trying to enter or leave the city."
08 November, 2004
US Troops Surround Falluja
By AljazeeraFierce fighting has erupted east and south of Falluja, as a full-scale attack on the city seems imminent. Large numbers of US troops have taken up positions on the outskirts of the city as they prepare for an attack on Falluja
Carnage And Martial Law
By Dahr Jamail“My mom tells me to save money for the future, and I keep telling her that I’m a dead man. I’m going to die here, so what’s the use? I try to get her ready for it…but she can’t get used to the thought.”
Screams Will Not Be Heard
By Madeleine BuntingThis is an information age, but it will be months before we learn the truth about the assault on Falluja
07 November, 2004
The Psychopaths And Fallujah Resistance
By Ghali HassanThe world “only” superpower is posed to flatten the city of 300,000 people in order to pacify (kill) its citizens because of their opposition to US Occupation. This new massacre is sold by the Bush Administration and mainstream Western media as a “necessary step to hold election” in Iraq
06 November, 2004
Spiraling Into Occupied Iraq
By Dahr JamailToday Iraq is yet another country. As I type this a gun battle of automatic weapons rattles down the street, Falluja has been sealed prior to imminent attack and the mood in Baghdad is tense with gloomy expectation. The feeling is that of a war zone, people are downtrodden, tense and angry, chaos reigns and nobody is safe…anywhere
Fallujah And The Reality Of War
By Rahul MahajanThe assault on Fallujah has started. It is being sold as liberation of the people of Fallujah; it is being sold as a necessary step to implementing "democracy" in Iraq. These are lies
05 November, 2004
Massacre Looms In Fallujah
By James CoganThe reelection of the Bush administration is expected to be followed in short order by a massive US military push into the Iraqi city of Fallujah. The attack will be the spearhead of a broader offensive to bring 22 rebellious Iraqi cities and towns under US control by the end of the year
03 November, 2004
Meet Some Terrorists
By Baghdad Burning BloggerIt makes me crazy to see Bush and Allawi talking about the casualties in Falloojeh like every single person there is a terrorist lurking not in a home, but in some sort of lair, making plans to annihilate America
02 November, 2004
What Can The UN Do For Iraqis?
By Ghali HassanIf the UN is to return to its original purpose, and not to be used as a tool of Western imperialism, the UN has important duty to the Iraqi people. The UN should demand the US and Britain to withdraw their forces from Iraq,and hand sovereignty to the Iraqi people
01 November, 2004
Horrendous Iraqi Civilian Deaths -
The Cost Of Democratic Imperialism
By Gideon PolyaThe ruler is responsible for the ruled, and thus the US and its allies are clearly responsible for this horrendous 1.1 million post-invasion under-5 infant mortality in US-conquered Iraq and Afghanistan
29 October, 2004
100,000 Iraqi Civilians Dead
By Sarah BoseleyAbout 100,000 Iraqi civilians - half of them women and children - have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces
28 October, 2004
Falluja's April Civilian Toll Is 600
By Iraq Body CountThe Iraq Body Count came out with a shocking revelation of the civilian dealth toll in the April 2004 siege of Falluja. The analysis published on its website leads to the conclusion that betweeen 572 and 616 of the approximately 800 reported deaths were of civilians, with over 300 of these being women and children
Americans Prepare For The 'Final Assault' On Falluja
By Kim SenguptaFor the American military, Falluja is "the last battle", an overwhelming assault that will destroy the epicentre of the rebellion sweeping through the country, the beginning of the end of major American military action in Iraq. The question now is not if but when there will be an attack on Fallujah
27 October, 2004
Adventure Capitalism
By Greg PalastWhy were Iraqi elections delayed? Why was Jay Garner fired? Why are the troops still there? Investigative reporter Palast uncovers new documents that answer these questions and more about the Bush administration’s grand designs on Iraq
26 October, 2004
350 Tons Of Explosives Go Missing In Iraq
By Rupert CornwellIn a massive pre-election embarrassment for the Bush administration, nearly 350 tons of lethal explosives - which could be used to trigger nuclear weapons - have vanished from a military facility in Iraq supposed to have been guarded by US troops
The Terrorism Of War And Occupation
By Ghali HassanIf the USA is concerned about peace, democracy, and freedom in the world, US government should free the Iraqi people by withdrawing its troops and stop killing innocent Iraqi civilians
Chaos, Murder And Mayhem
By Haifa ZanganaKidnapping and killing is a daily reality in Iraq, but in the west the atrocities go unrecorded and the dead are unnamed
25 October, 2004
Massacre At Baquba
By Kim SenguptaThe Massacre of 49 Iraqi army recruits at Baquba is a significant step in the growing confidence and propensity to violence of the militants. Although hundreds have died in bombings and mortar attacks, this is the first time they had carried out a planned operation with such a high number of casualties
23 October, 2004
Who Are The Terrorists In Falluja
By Nermeen Al-MuftiWho are the terrorists in Falluja and how are they terrorising the civilian population?
21 October, 2004
Kidnapped - The Heroine Who Offered Hope For Iraq
By Robert FiskIs there no end to the kidnappers' targets? Margaret Hassan was abducted on her way to work running Care International's Iraq operation.She who said to me that soon, very soon, "there will be more than one lost generation" in Iraq?
20 October, 2004
The Iraqi Chimurenga
By Kenneth BellThere is no national leadership behind the Iraqi insurrection. Those who are waiting for a Ho Chi Minh or Fidel Castro Ruz to emerge and lead the people to independence are probably going to be disappointed
18 October, 2004
Anatomy Of A War Story
By Greg Guma
Greg Guma analyse how The Wall Street Journal staff member Farnaz Fassihi's email message became a "global chain letter"17 October, 2004
Bush or Kerry: The Atrocity Will Continue
By Ghali HassanWatching Bush-Kerry debates, I came to the conclusion that the two sides of American politics are actually, one. Bush and Kerry are out-competing on who took part in the atrocities of Vietnam, and on who will kill more Iraqis if elected
15 October, 2004
Liberating Iraq! What About Iraqi Women?
By Bhaskar DasguptaIraq's current lack of basic rights for women and the threat of a rise of political Islam are the result of a tyrannical rule, twelve years of economic sanctions, three devastating wars and an occupation
13 October, 2004
Deadly Diseases Rampage Iraq
By Jeremy LauranceSoaring rates of disease and a crippled health system are posing a new crisis for the people of Iraq, threatening to kill more than have died in the aftermath of the war
Of Valium, Drugs And Iraq
By Baghdad BurningIraq is being faced with a growing drug problem. But it hasn't gotten that much attention with the media because, while it's going to wreak havoc in the long run, drugs don't suddenly blow off an arm or a leg, and they don't explode inside of your car and they don’t come falling out of a plane to burn homes and families
12 October, 2004
Mehdi Army Start Surrendering Weapons
By Kim Sengupta
The Mehdi Army had begun to give up some weapons, in a trickle rather than a flood in exchange for concessions and incentivesThe Legacy Of Iraq
By Robert FiskFuture generations will struggle to escape the legacy of the disaster in Iraq
09 October, 2004
Sad, Bloody End To Bigley Saga
By Rory McCarthyKen Bigley, the Briton whose caged and shackled image was broadcast around the world pleading for his life has been murdered by his kidnappers
Iraq: 'Liberation' or War Crimes?
By Ghali HassanThe Duelfer report also Confirm earlier reports, including the UNSCOM's, that Iraq had no WMD and that the war was unnecessary and illegal. This alone should be enough ground to indict George Bush, Tony Blair and their "coalition" with war crimes committed since 1991 against the Iraqi people
08 October, 2004
Messy Business In Iraq
By Rory McCarthyIraq's state-run industries are crumbling and as yet little has been done to revitalise them
05 October, 2004
Civilians Bear Brunt As Samarra 'Pacified'
By Kim SenguptaLocal people in Samarra claimed that many of the 1,000 insurgents the Americans were targeting had escaped before the attack, and civilians had borne the brunt of the casualties. Of 70 bodies brought into Samarra General Hospital, 23 were children and 18 women
After the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore received a flood of letters and emails from disillusioned and angry American soldiers serving in Iraq. Here, in an exclusive extract from his new book
04 October, 2004
Cancer Cases In Iraq Are Increasing
IRIN ReportThe number of breast cancer cases appears to be rising rapidly in Iraq. It's unclear why this is, although it could be because of radiation left over from the 1991 Gulf War
Samarra Burning...
By Baghdad BurningWatching the military attacks on Samarra and hearing the stories from displaced families or people from around the area is like reliving the frustration and anger of the war. It's like a nightmare within a nightmare
You Can't Bomb Beliefs
By Naomi KleinSadr's calls for fair elections and an end to occupation demand our unequivocal support--not because we are blind to the threat he would pose if he were actually elected but because believing in self-determination means admitting that the outcome of democracy is not ours to control
01 October, 2004
A Letter From Baghdad
By Farnaz FassihiIraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral
A Casualty Of Bush's War
By Mark Clinton and Tony UdellJeffrey Lucey, a Marine veteran of the Iraq war and a student at the Holyoke Community College (HCC) in Western Massachusetts, committed suicide on June 22. He was 23. Horrific memories of Iraq being the possible reason for his suicide
Liar, Liar...
By Baghdad BurningI prepared myself for several minutes of nausea as Bush began speaking. I sit there talking back to him- calling him a liar, calling him an idiot, wondering how exactly he got so far and how they're allowing him to run for re-election
30 September, 2004
The Agony Of Kenneth Bigley
By Cahal MilmoIn a four-minute recording, broadcast on al-Jazeera, and designed to maximise the pressure on Tony Blair, Mr Bigley, 62, is shown accusing the Prime Minister of lying - before imploring him to meet his captors' demands
29 September, 2004
Anyone Remember Abu Ghraib?
By Robert FiskKidnappers demand the release of women held prisoner by the Americans. Abu Ghraib is what they are talking about. Abu Ghraib? Anyone remember Abu Ghraib? Remember those dirty little snapshots?
28 September, 2004
Toxic Pollution And Mass Killings In Iraq
By Ghali HassanThe American use of "depleted" uranium (DU) munitions to attack Iraq in the 1991 and 2003 wars has unleashed a toxic disaster that is much more dangerous and deadly than the crimes committed on Vietnam by the use of Agent Orange
24 September, 2004
Abuse, Torture And Rape Reported At
Unlisted U.S.-Run Prisons In Iraq
By Lisa Ashkenaz Croke"Nobody talks about it. All everyone talks about is Abu Ghraib because of the pictures," said Alomari. "But in these other places, there’s tons of acts of torture, abuse, rape."
23 September, 2004
Counting The Civilian Cost In Iraq
By Matthew DavisThousands of Iraqi civilians have died as a result of conflict and its bloody aftermath - but officially, no one has any idea how many. Unofficial estimates of the civilian toll vary wildly, from at least 10,000 to more than 37,000
22 September, 2004
After Abu Ghraib
By Luke HardingHuda Alazawi was one of the few women held in solitary in the notorious Iraqi prison. Following her release, she talks for the first time about her ordeal
18 September, 2004
Things Fall Apart
By Patrick CockburnThings are falling apart in Iraq.Between them, suicide bombers targeting Iraqi police and US air strikes aimed at rebels have killed some 300 Iraqis since last Saturday - many of them were civilians
US Soldiers Shoot First,No Questions Asked
By Gethin ChamberlainHis name was Ahmed Hameed and he was 36 years old. He had taken the wrong turning up to the checkpoint on the July 14 Bridge.And that was the end of him
The Final Verdict: Iraq Had No WMD
By Julian BorgerThe comprehensive 15-month search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has concluded that the only chemical or biological agents that Saddam Hussein's regime was working on before last year's invasion were small quantities of poisons, most likely for use in assassinations
16 September, 2004
Washington's Secret Nuclear War
By Shaheen ChughtaiIllegal weapons of mass destruction have not only been found in Iraq but have been used against Iraqis and have even killed US troops. The US has dropped tonnes of depleted uranium on Iraq
15 September, 2004
Iraq: A Descent Into Civil War?
By Luke HardingThe recent surge of violence in Iraq reveals a grim truth about the nature of evolving insurgency: Iraqis are killing Iraqis
"Take Pictures - Show The World
The American Democracy"
By Ghaith Abdul-AhadOn Sunday, 13 Iraqis were killed and dozens injured in Baghdad when US helicopters fired on a crowd of unarmed civilians. G2 columnist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who was injured in the attack, describes the scene of carnage - and reveals just how lucky he was to walk away
13 September, 2004
'Why I Turned against America'
By Jason BurkeThe confused psychology of the Iraqi resistance and meets a Sunni guerrilla who welcomed the Americans at first but is now happy to have black GIs in his sights
05 September, 2004
Living In Baghdad
By Kevin Williams And Helen WilliamsThis is my third day back in Iraq. The country is still in chaos and deteriorating. There are far more blast blocks, mass unemployment, and the security situation is far worse
01 September, 2004
No Space For The Dead In Sadr City
By AljazeeraThe doctors of the Imam Ali general hospital in Sadr City struggle against supply shortages and risk death to treat both the wounded and the many suffering from disease in the slum, where pools of sewage fill potholes and dead animals decay in the streets
31 August, 2004
New Evidence Of Recent Torture In Iraq
By Lisa Ashkenaz CrokeShereef Akeel, an attorney representing former detainees says his recent fact-finding mission to Baghdad uncovered dozens of cases of physical and psychological abuse, sexual humiliation, religious desecration and rape in ten US-run prisons throughout occupied Iraq
Days Of Plunder
By Zainab BahraniThe Occupation forces are doing little to prevent the widespread looting and destruction of Iraq's world-famous historical sites
27 August, 2004
Abu Ghraib Abuse More Wide Spread
By Elise AckermanThe Fay-Jones report revealed that the incidents of abuse - 44 in all - far exceeded the amount of mistreatment shown in the photographs and included 24 serious incidents of physical and sexual abuse
Abu Ghraib: Ordinary Folk or Human Aberrations?
By Linda S. HeardAlthough the Abu Ghraib torturers should be held to account, those further up the chain of command, responsible for the culture in which they worked, should not be exempt
26 August, 2004
Twin Kufa Attack Kills Peaceful Marchers
By AljazeeraTwo attacks in and around Kufa, including one on a mosque has left at least 47 people dead and scores wounded
24 August, 2004
Iraqi Editor's Experience In US Custody
By Ahmed JanabiDr Muthana al-Dhari, editor-in-chief of al-Basaer newspaper and media officer of the Association of Muslim Scholars speaks how he was picked by the American military in Baghdad and interrogated in custody
23 August, 2004
A Trip To Najaf
By Helen WilliamsHelen Williams writes about an eventful trip to Najaf
22 August, 2004
Iraqi Olympic Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
By Dave ZirinIn an incredible piece by Grant Wahl on Sports Illustrated.com, the Iraqi Olympic Soccer team has issued a stinging rebuke to George W. Bush's attempt to use them as election year symbols
Kufa Still Belongs To The Mehdi
By Donald MacintyreKufa, Najaf's sister city is totally in the control of the Mehdi Army, who patrol the streets with AK-47s, rocket launchers and light machine-guns, many of them with ammunition belts draped over their shoulders
A Taste Of Reality From Baghdad
By Helen WilliamsHelen Williams who is living in Baghdad writes her impressions of a city ravaged by war and sanctions
21 August, 2004
What exactly Is So "Radical" About Moqtada Sadr?
By Sharif Hikmat NashashibiCalling Moqtada Sadr a "radical" is not only a misrepresentation of his policies, it is an insult to all those who oppose foreign occupation and domination, religious in-fighting and regional instability
Medics Involved In Torture At Abu Ghraib
By Brian DominickAccording to charges made by an ethicist in a major medical journal, military physicians and medics in Iraq have been complicit or actively engaged in some of the worst known incidents of cruelty, torture and murder
20 August, 2004
What Does Muqtada Al-Sadr Want?
By Juan ColeJuan Cole lists Muqtada Al-Sadr's position from the sermons and interviews he gave in the past 16 months outlining his goals exactly
19 August, 2004
Muqtada Al-Sadr: A Voice Of Resistance
By Ghali HassanThe recent sectarian and ethnic tensions in Iraq are not the product of deep-seated cultural differences. They are the product of Western imperialism and colonialism in the Middle East. The only path for peaceful world is for the US to follow the path of civilised nations and stop acting violently and unjustly. The only path to peace is to end the occupation of Iraq. Iraqis must be free from US tyranny
18 August, 2004
Najaf Prompts Outrage, Talk Of Secession
Among Iraqi Politicians
By Lisa Ashkenaz CrokeFrom the disrupted Iraqi National Conference in Baghdad to the low-key threat of secession from Shi'ite leaders in Southern Iraq, the entire country's future may be determined by events in the holy city of Najaf
17 August, 2004
Najaf - City Of Defiance
By Donald MacintyreThey came from across Iraq, marching in solidarity with Shia brothers. Civilians they bear no arms, for the moment anyway who are willing die on the steps of the Imam Ali shrine. Thehuman shields have arrived in Najaf
13 August, 2004
Iraq's Phase II: Deadlier Than Ever
By Youssef M. IbrahimFrom Iran's perspective, there is little question what happens in Najaf is its business. Any damage there cannot leave a single Iranian ruler the option of remaining neutral, regardless of whether they are among moderates or hard-liners
Withdraw The Troops
By Tariq AliThe Withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq is the only solution. The media-hyped fiction of a handover of Power in Iraq is designed for US voters
From Inside The Imam Ali Shrine
By Rory McCarthyThe guadian's Rory McCarthy reports the Najaf battle from inside the Imam Ali Shrine
12 August, 2004
Sadr's Men Wait For Martyrdom
By Rory McCarthyOn his chest was a green ammunition belt, filled with loaded magazines and rusted hand-grenades. Written neatly on the belt was his name, address and telephone number. "In case I die, so they can reach my family"
From Israel To Abu Ghraib: Globalisation Of Torture
By Ghali HassanThe horror of abuse, torture and executions of Iraqi prisoners by the Anglo-American occupation soldiers are not "few isolated incidents" by "few bad apples". It is the tip of the iceberg of a wide spread systemic torture and violation of human rights of Iraqi citizens, including women and children, all over Iraq. The system is modelled on Israel's vicious system of Palestinians torture
08 August, 2004
Iraqi PM Bans Aljazeera
By Donald MacintyreThe Arab satellite TV network Aljazeera was banned from operating in Iraq for 30 days.Aljazeera has vowed to continue its Iraq coverage
Who Will Dig The Mass Graves Now?
By Girl Blog from IraqIn Najaf it has seen a rain of bombs and shells for the last few days. Twenty years from now who will be blamed for the mass graves being dug today?
Iyad Allawi-Saddam Sans Mustache
By Greg GumaBefore the invasion we heard that the United States needed to oust a tyrant and establish a democracy. Now the argument is that the unruly country needs a tough guy ready to impose martial law, ban protest, and use secret police to "annihilate" opponents. In other words, a tyrant
04 August, 2004
Over 37,000 Civilians Killed In Iraq
By Ahmed JanabiThe People's Kifah, or Struggle Against Hegemony, an Iraqi political group says more than 37,000 Iraqi civilians were killed between the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003 and October 2003
Unmasked War Against Iraqi Children
By Ghali HassanWhat rights do Americans have to commit such heinous crimes against the history of humanity and the Iraqi people?
03 August, 2004
Muslims Did Not Blow Up The Churches
By Sam HamodThis is another American cover-up to create more chaos in Iraq, just as America did in Viet Nam to keep us in that war. In this case, it is to rally the Christians of America against Iraq and to justify more attacks on Muslims groups in Iraq
Iraq Is About To Explode
By Robert FiskWatching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn’t Blair realize that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn’t Bush realize this? The American-appointed "government” controls only parts of Baghdad — and even there its ministers and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated
02 August, 2004
Heat, Death, Abduction In Iraq
By Girl Blog From IraqIs there sympathy with all these abductees? There is, but for every foreigner abducted, there are probably 10 Iraqis being abducted and while we have to be here because it is home, truck drivers, security personnel for foreign companies and contractors do not
01 August, 2004
Falluja- Documenting death
By Frank WallisThe Iraqi city of Falluja continues to be the target of US forces strikes which claim the lives of many innocent civilians. Frank Wallis looks back at the massacre which took place in April and argues that President George W Bush went to Falluja to destroy an enemy which did not really exist
31 July, 2004
The Secret File Of Abu Ghraib
By Osh Gray DavidsonNew classified documents implicate U.S. forces in rape and sodomy of Iraqi prisoners
Iraq And The Dollar
By John ChapmanThere were only two credible reasons for invading Iraq: control over oil and preservation of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Yet the government has kept silent on these factors
29 July, 2004
Baghdad Reeks Of The Stench Of The Dead
By Robert FiskThe smell of the dead pours into the street through the air-conditioning ducts. Hot, sweet, overwhelming. Inside the Baghdad morgue, there are so many corpses that the fridges are overflowing. The dead are on the floor. Dozens of them
27 July, 2004
Terror By Video
By Robert FiskAs the heads of Iraq's kidnap victims are sawn off, Koranic recitations--usually by a well-known Saudi imam--are played on the soundtrack. Terror by video is now a well-established part of the Iraq war
26 July, 2004
Iraqi Unemployment Rate Reaches 70%
By Ahmed JanabiA study by the college of economics at Baghdad University has found that the unemployment rate in Iraq is 70%. The study says the problem of high unemployment is going from bad to worse, with the security situation deterioriating and the reconstruction process faltering
Abducted, Beaten And Sold Into
Prostitution: A Tale From IraqBy Victoria Firmo-Fontan
When the gunmen came to the gate of their Baghdad home, the lives of the sisters-in-law Huda, 16, and Sajeeda, 24, were about to change for ever. It was 17 September 2003.After losing consciousness, she remembers waking up in the house of Um Ahmed, a female pimp, in the Saidiye district of Baghdad
25 July, 2004
The Resistance Will Win
By Scott RitterThe battle for Iraq's sovereign future is a battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. As things stand, it appears that victory will go to the side most in tune with the reality of the Iraqi society of today: the leaders of the anti-U.S. resistance
23 July, 2004
An Iraqi Woman's Ordeal At Abu Gharib
The rape ordeal she suffered at the hands of US soldiers, both males and females, in the notorious Abu Gharib prison will continue to haunt Nadia for the rest of her life
21 July, 2004
Who Control's Iraq?
By Robert FiskBut the evidence of my journey yesterday - through the southern Sunni cities which long ago rejected American rule, to the holiest Shia city where its own militia controls the shrines and the square miles around them - suggested that Mr Allawi controls a capital without a country
20 July, 2004
Iraq's New Terrorist Prime Minister
By Mike WhitneyIn an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, Paul McGeough tells of Allawi's involvement in the murder of six alleged insurgents' just days before he was handed over control of the interim government. "Informants told the Herald that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's personal security team watched in stunned silence."
Crisis Of Information In Baghdad
By Robert FiskHere is the central crisis of information in Iraq just now. With journalists confined to Baghdad--several have not left their hotels for more than two weeks - a bomb-free day in the capital becomes a bomb-free day in Iraq
16 July, 2004
Hospital In Najaf Remains Closed
IRIN ReportSadr Teaching Hospital in the southern city of Najaf has been closed since early April, a victim of the fighting between Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi militia and US-led Coalition forces, according to local people
14 July, 2004
The International Criminal Court: The Only Answer
To American Abuse In Iraq
By Renad Haj YahyaThe ongoing reports about war crimes in Iraq emphasize more than ever that the US must ratify the 1998 Rome Statute which established the International Criminal Court. Those reported crimes would have been amongst the crimes that the court would have prosecuted and punished since they are considered to be war crimes according to the Court statute
13 July, 2004
Abu Ghraib Prison: A Hell On Earth
By Edward T. Pound and Kit R. RoaneLife in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, newly available documents show, would have made Satan quake
10 July, 2004
Iraq War 'Waged On False Intelligence'
By Sarah LeftThe US launched a war on Iraq on the basis of false and overstated intelligence, according to a scathing US senate intelligence committee report
09 July, 2004
Iraq Is World's Living Wound
By Salim LoneThe unprecedented devastations visited upon Iraq's people twice in 12 years have made it a compelling, living wound for Muslims. Unless there is peace there, world instability will grow. But there is seemingly no end to the trauma in sight
Imported Democracy Of Iraq
By Robert FiskIraq has introduced legislation allowing the Iraqi authorities to impose martial law; curfews; a ban on demonstrations; the restriction of movement; phone-tapping; the opening of mail; and the freezing of bank accounts
08 July, 2004
Israeli Operatives Working In Occupied Iraq
By Jon ElmerBrigadier General Janet Karpinski told BBC Radio in an interview that she met with a man who claimed to be Israeli and that he "did some of the interrogation" at the Abu Graib facility
Death Of A Father
By Helen WilliamsThis is not a report, like I usually make, but it is the story of the heinous murder of a beloved father by American soldiers occupying this country. Please take the time to read the following account in memory of my friend's father
07 July, 2004
The Pillage Of Iraq
By Ghali HassanThe Attack on Iraq is an attack on the history of humanity by a new form of barbarism. The world will be safer only if this form of barbarism opposed and remained isolated
U.S. Gives Iraqi Hospitals Broken Promises
In Place Of Medicine
By Dahr JamailDespite promises of over $1 billion in US funding, hospital patients in Iraq continue to suffer ongoing hardship. Problems range from ongoing medicine and equipment shortages to an overall lack of proper medical infrastructure
06 July, 2004
Rumsfeld Gave Go-Ahead For Abu Ghraib Tactics
By Julian ComanThe former head of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad has for the first time accused the American Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, of directly authorizing Guantanamo Bay-style interrogation tactics
05 July, 2004
The New Iraq
By Robert FiskOne leftist group in Baghdad now claims that several women, allegedly raped by Iraqi policemen at the jail while Americans watched, have been murdered by their families for their "dishonour"
Pentagon Tried To Censor Saddam's Hearing
By Robert FiskA team of US military officers acted as censors over all coverage of the hearings of Saddam Hussein and his henchmen , destroying videotape of Saddam in chains and deleting the entire recorded legal submissions of 11 senior members of his former regime
03 July, 2004
Sowing The Seeds Of Civil War In Iraq
By Sami RamadaniThe immediate withdrawal of the US-led forces from Iraq is the only way to stop the impending "civil" war, in which the US will back a "sovereign" Iraqi government to crush the people and their aspirations for liberation and democracy
The Defiant Dicatator
By Robert FiskWatching that face, one had to ask how much Saddam had reflected on the very real crimes with which he was charged: Halabja; Kuwait; the suppression of the Shi'ite Muslim and Kurdish uprisings in 1991; the tortures and the mass killings
02 July, 2004
"I Am The President Of Iraq"
Saddam Trial Full Transcript"Everyone here knows this is a theatre carried out by Bush the criminal to win the election"
Another Circus In Bagdad
By Robert FiskNo mention of power cuts and violence at trial of the century
30 June, 2004
Iraqis Have Lived This Lie Before
By Haifa ZanganaWhat is happening in Iraq now, "liberation-mandate-nominal sovereignty" is a replay of what took place in the 1920s and afterwards
Alice In An Iraqi Wonderland
By Robert FiskWhat is supposed to be the most important date in Iraq's modern history was changed--like a birthday party--because it might rain on Wednesday
29 June, 2004
Leaving Iraq
By Dahr JamailHow does one reconcile being able to leave here? We all know it’s going to get so much worse, and I get to leave, while my dear friend must stay and do his best to get by day after day
28 June, 2004
US Exits Backdoor
By Alistair Lyon and Lin NoueihedThe United States has handed over sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government, formally ending a 14-month occupation two days earlier than expected to try to forestall guerrilla attacks
The Cost Of Liberty
By Ariana Eunjung ChaIn a Chaotic New Iraq, A Young Widow Turns to Prostitution
Where Children Laugh At Bombs
By Dahr JamailJust before lunch, several loud bombs exploded nearby. My friend Christian Parenti and I looked at each other. “This is normal, even my children laugh at the bombs now,” said the Sheikh.In the next room the children were laughing excitedly.
26 June, 2004
Inside The Iraqi Resistance
By Ghaith Abdul-AhadWho exactly are the Iraqi resistance? In a remarkable essay, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad joins the front-line anti-American fighters in Kerbala, Falluja and Sadr City, and discovers that they are not always the well-trained, highly motivated fanatics we imagine
25 June, 2004
Fighters Tactics Surprised The U.S.
Over 100 people were killed and 320 wounded in Thursday’s severe attacks that was targeting mainly Iraqi security personnel across the country, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's claimed responsibility. Reports said that most of the casualties were Iraqi civilians
Baqouba Sealed Off As U.S. Forces
Lose Control of City
By Dahr JamailInsurgents appeared to have taken control of the Al-Mufraq district in western Baqouba. Residents here said occupation forces had retreated from the area after being ambushed
24 June, 2004
Seven Questions And Answers With Dahr Jamail
By Brian DominickDahr Jamail answers readers queries
23 June, 2004
Struggling To Survive
By Dahr JamailThis is a hospital that can spend only $200 per day to feed its 308 in-patients. This is a hospital that is regularly invaded by US troops who, according to several of the doctors, walk straight into wards looking for fighters without consulting the doctors first
Exporting Violence
By Dahr JamailRamadi and Baqubah both remain tense with recent fighting; the potential of them turning into the next Fallujah remains quite present
22 June, 2004
This Is Just Like Afghanistan
By Dahr Jamail“They’ve destroyed the foundations of Iraq. What do you think we can do with no foundations. Even if the Americans stay here 15 years, there will be no security.”
20 June, 2004
Missile Strike Kills 22 Civilians In Iraq
By Patrick Cockburnand Raymond WhitakerUS air forces fired two missiles into a residential area of the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah , killing 22 people
The Iraqi Who Sold His Life To The Americans
By Peter BeaumontAn intelligence battle is going on in the streets of Baghdad, huge sums being paid out to the informants, and informants being gunned down in the streets
Three-Month-Old Baby Ali Dies in Iraq
By Scheherezade FaramarziA three-month old Iraqi baby who prompted an outpouring of sympathy around the world after he was photographed lying emaciated in an undersupplied Iraqi hospital has died, doctors said Saturday
19 June, 2004
Who Is Allawi?
By Ghali HassanAfter more than thirty years in exile (London and Washington) and a "bogus" medical degree, the Iraqi people expected "their" Prime Minister to speak their language, not broken English. Unfortunately, Dr. Allawi has failed the Iraqi people
18 June, 2004
Getting Used To Bombs In Baghdad
By Dahr Jamail"I used to read about how the Lebanese got used to the bombs in Beirut. I never thought that could happen to me, yet here I am.”
17 June, 2004
Good Morning Bomb
By Dahr Jamail“Morning, man,” I said. “Morning,” he replied as we both stare at the huge, brown mushroom cloud that rises above the buildings out our window. Our daily car bomb viciously welcomed another day of this wretched occupation of Iraq.
16 June, 2004
Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski who was in charge of Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison said she was being made a scapegoat for the abuse of detainees and claimed her counterpart at Guantanamo Bay once told her that prisoners were ``like dogs.''
15 June, 2004
Rioting Follows Bombings That Kill 21
In some of the worst rioting since the fall of Baghdad, hundreds of Iraqis threw stones at U.S. soldiers, burned an American flag and danced around the charred body of a foreign contractor
Report From Baghdad: What Went Wrong In Iraq
By Mark JuergensmeyerAs I discovered in a recent visit to Baghdad, Iraq is in dire need of reconstruction -- not only from the miseries of Saddam Hussein’s long dictatorship, but also from the failed policies of the one-year occupation by America’s Coalition administration, which has left demoralization, humiliation, and a weak security and economic infrastructure in its wake
Americans, Iraqis Vie For Control Of Security Forces
By Dahr JamailEven as authorities for the US-run occupation cede a greater share of security responsibilities to Iraqi forces, spokespeople for the Iraqi police and paramilitaries in many areas of the war-torn country say they lack the legitimacy and tools necessary to carry out their duties
14 June, 2004
Red Cross Ultimatum To US On Saddam
By Jonathan SteeleThe International Committee of the Red Cross has asked that Saddam Hussein must either be released from custody by June 30 or charged if the US and the new Iraqi government are to conform to international law
Violence Engulf Baghdad
By Dahr JamailSeveral of us are sitting in the hotel room having lunch, watching the news trying to keep up with the violence daily engulfing Iraq. Let me give you a quick rundown from the last 24 hours
13 June, 2004
Use Of Dogs Was Authorized
By Josh White and Scott HighamThe Washington Post releases new prison torture and abuse pictures
“I Can Still Remember Their Screaming.”
By Dahr JamailOvershadowed by more dramatic stories like car bombs and heavy fighting, the silent suffering that has become the daily reality here just isn’t catching much attention
Baghdad Fumes As The Americans Seek
Safety In 'Tombstone' Forts
By Patrick CockburnThe US army is paralyzing the heart of Baghdad as it builds ever more elaborate fortifications to protect its bases against suicide bombers
12 June, 2004
Civilian Death Toll Rises In Sadr City
By Dahr JamailAccording to Dr. Ali Jumali at Khadasiyah Hospital, the only facility in Sadr City with a morgue, 221 residents from the area who died as a result of the fighting were brought to the morgue between May 4 and May 31. Dr. Jumali said another 100 bodies were sent to Adnan Hospital in central Baghdad during the same time frame
Holiday In A War Zone
By Dahr JamailEven up in restful Kurdistan the symptoms of war and unrest remain. One must be patient at the checkpoints and be wary of where one parks the car
A Torturer's Charter
By Richard Norton-TaylorSecret documents show that US interrogators are above the law
08 June, 2004
Fake Sovereignty For Iraq
By Ghali HassanThe so called sovereignity is merely a name change, IGC to IIG. Mr. Negroponte, the American Proconsul (aka "U.S. Ambassador") will replace Mr. Bremer after June 30th
07 June, 2004
Pollution Chokes The Tigris
By Dahr JamailWith reconstruction of a highly inadequate water treatment and distribution system at a near standstill throughout much of Central Iraq, some residents of Baghdad are left with little choice but to drink highly polluted water from the Tigris River
06 June, 2004
Pattern Emerges of Sexual Assault
Against Women Held by U.S. Forces
By Chris ShumwayWell publicized images of US soldiers torturing and humiliating male Iraqi prisoners may be overshadowing evidence gathered by several human rights groups and Pentagon investigators indicating US military personnel have raped and sexually abused Iraqi women held at Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities
05 June, 2004
The Horror Of Mere Listening
By Dahr JamailEven just listening to the horror stories told by Iraqis is a harrowing experience. We end up crying with the victims
04 June, 2004
Violence In Baghdad,Wordplay In Falluja
By Dahr JamailCar bombs are becoming a daily occurrence in Baghdad, and there is nothing the locals can do about it
03 June, 2004
Iraq's New President Just Figurehead?
By Dahr JamailAl-Yawer has earned a reputation among Iraqis for standing up to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) when he felt it necessary. But the presidential role to be filled by Al-Yawer is ironically an all but powerless one under the mandate of the interim government
New President, New Car Bomb
By Dahr JamailRather than celebratory gunfire for the appointment of a new president, we have a car bomb, a huge mushroom cloud and whaling sirens in the center of the capital city today
Who Is Negroponte?
By Ghali HassanThe White House has just approved the appointment of John Dimitris Negroponte to be United States ambassador to Iraq.To appoint a Jew as ambassador to the Arab country that has been devastated because of the will of a cabal of Jewish neocons headed by Wolfowitz is like trying to put off a fire using buckets of gasoline
02 June, 2004Desperate For Food
By Dahr JamailThe increased number of women and children begging for dinars on the streets of Baghdad shows, more than anything else, how desperate the Iraqis are for food
