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Iraq
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News from around the world
- Former senior law lord, Lord Bingham, says Britain broke international law by invading Iraq - Britain violated "international law and the rule of law" by supporting the US invasion of Iraq five years ago, the country's most respected judge believes.
Source: The Telegraph [18th Nov 2008]
- U.S. Spied on Iraqi Leaders, Book Says - The Bush administration has conducted an extensive spying operation on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, his staff and others in the Iraqi government, according to a new book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward.
Source: Washington Post [27th Oct 2008]
- Cabinet Office ordered to release secret memos on Iraq dossier - Richard Thomas, the information commissioner, has told civil servants to release undisclosed material which could provide "evidence that the dossier was deliberately manipulated in order to present an exaggerated case for military action".
Source: The Independent [4th Sep 2008]
- Bush ordered fake letter linking Iraq to 9/11 - A blockbuster new book from investigative journalist Ron Suskind adds another revelation to the growing canon demonstrating the lengths to which President Bush and members of his administration lied, misled and deceived the American people to pursue its invasion of Iraq.Bush allegedly ordered the CIA to forge a handwritten letter from the head of Iraq's intelligence service to Saddam Hussein that purported to link the Iraqi dictator to the ringleader of the hijackers who toppled the Twin Towers on 9/11, according to news accounts of Suskind's new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Such use of an intelligence service to influence domestic political debate could be an impeachable offense, Suskind writes.
Source: The Raw Story [6th Aug 2008]
- Crisis grows in Iraq over U.S. raid that killed Maliki relative - Senior Iraqi government officials said Saturday that a U.S. Special Forces counterterrorism unit conducted the raid that reportedly killed a relative of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, touching off a high-stakes diplomatic crisis between the United States and Iraq. U.S. military officials in Baghdad had no comment for the second day in a row, an unusual position for a command that typically releases information on combat operations within 24 hours.
Source: McClatchy News [29th Jun 2008]
- US builds 4 bases on Iraq-Iran border - The US military has constructed four advanced bases 20 miles from Iraq's border with Iran, a senior Iraqi police officer has announced. The bases, equipped with missile launch pads, have been set up over the past four months on the Iraq-Iran border; Iraqi al-Noor newspaper quoted the official as saying. He added that one of the bases has been located 30 km (20 miles) from the first border town with Iran and houses remote-controlled launching pads as well as radar systems similar to ones used in Kuwait during the first Persian Gulf war.
Source: Press TV (Iran) [26th Jun 2008]
- Ex-British Army Chief in Iraq Confirms Peak Oil as Motive for War - Brigadier-General James Ellery CBE, the Foreign Office's Senior Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad since 2003, confirmed the critical role of Iraqi oil reserves in potentially alleviating a "world shortage" of conventional oil. The Iraq War has helped to head off what Brigadier Ellery described as "the tide of Easternisation" – a shift in global political and economic power toward China and India, to whom goes "two thirds of the Middle East's oil."
Source: OEN [20th Jun 2008]
- Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control - A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.
Source: The Independent [5th Jun 2008]
- MoD admits Hercules bomb attack coverup - The Ministry of Defence covered up the fact that Iraqi insurgents destroyed a £30million RAF Hercules transport aircraft by planting bombs next to a runway.Military spokesmen claimed publicly that the C-130J aircraft, with 64 people on board, had been accidentally damaged on landing - and that there was no evidence of enemy action. The cover-up was an attempt to deny the Iraqis a further propaganda coup following the earlier loss of another Hercules.
Source: Daily Mail [18th May 2008]
- Captured UK sailors were not in Iraqi waters, documents confirm - Fifteen British sailors and marines captured by Iran last year were not in Iraq's maritime territory as the UK government claimed, official documents released under the Freedom of Information Act confirm.
Source: Mathaba News [18th Apr 2008]
- Factbox: U.S. marched to Iraq with inaccurate intelligence - The Bush administration marched to war with Iraq armed with inaccurate intelligence, mistaken assumptions and extravagant hopes that have cost the United States dearly in blood and treasure.
Source: Reuters [15th Mar 2008]
- Water makes US troops in Iraq sick - Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney 's former company, the Pentagon 's internal watchdog says.
Source: Associated Press [10th Mar 2008]
- ICO tells Cabinet Office to release Iraq docs - The Information Commissioner Richard Thomas has told the Cabinet Office that it must release documents relating to Cabinet debates over the invasion of Iraq. The order refers to discussions between 7 and 17 March 2003 when the Attorney General's advice on the legality of any invasion was discussed. This decision potentially goes against the convention of cabinet collective responsibility; the idea that once a Cabinet decision has been reached then all members will publicly defend that decision, regardless of whether they originally, privately, supported it or not.
Source: The Register [26th Feb 2008]
- Government forced to publish dodgy dossier - The Government has today been forced to publish the secret first draft of the infamous dodgy dossier which led the country into war with Iraq. Ministers have fought through the courts for three years to prevent the revelation of the draft, written in September 2002 by John Williams, then-head of communications at the Foreign Office.
Source: The Telegraph [18th Feb 2008]
- Iraqi scientist gave CIA information that should have prevented war - When Saad Tawfiq watched then-US Secretary of state Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, he shed bitter tears as he realized he had risked his life and those of his loved ones for nothing. As one of Saddam Hussein's most gifted engineers, Tawfiq knew that the Iraqi dictator had shut down his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs in 1995 - and he had told his handlers in US intelligence just that.
Source: Lebanon Daily Star [6th Feb 2008]
- The farce of sovereignty - The coalition made much of bringing democracy to the 'liberated' country by handing the reins to the Iraqi government. But, as Jonathan Steele relates in this final extract from his new book, it also ensured that it retained complete control
Source: The Guardian [23rd Jan 2008]
- Holocaust Denial, American Style - Institutionally unwilling to consider America's responsibility for the bloodbath, the traditional media have refused to acknowledge the massive number of Iraqis killed since the invasion.
Source: AlterNet [30th Nov 2007]
- The Secret History of the Impending War with Iran That the White House Doesn't Want You to Know - Two former high-ranking policy experts from the Bush administration say the U.S. has been gearing up for a war with Iran for years, despite claiming otherwise. It'll be Iraq all over again.
Source: Esquire [30th Nov 2007]
- US War Contracts Top $25 Billion: Study - US contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan more than doubled from 2004 to 2006 to over 25 billion dollars but government oversight of the firms involved has slackened, a watchdog group said Monday.
Source: Common Dreams [22nd Nov 2007]
- Iraqi Dam Seen In Danger of Deadly Collapse - Possible terrorist target? - The Mosul Dam, the largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials.
Source: Washington Post [31st Oct 2007]
- U.N. Report on Iraq Details An 'Ever-Deepening' Crisis - A U.N. report issued Thursday outlined an "ever-deepening humanitarian crisis" in Iraq , with thousands of people driven from their homes each month, ongoing indiscriminate killings and "routine torture" in Iraqi prisons.
Source: The Washington Post [13th Oct 2007]
- Dubai-based security company in Baghdad shooting - A foreign security company said it was involved in a shooting in central Baghdad on Tuesday, making it the second time a private contractor has been accused of killing Iraqi civilians in less than a month.
Source: Reuters [10th Oct 2007]
- Guards in Iraq Cite Frequent Shootings - Most of the more than 100 private security companies in Iraq open fire far more frequently than has been publicly acknowledged and rarely report such incidents to U.S. or Iraqi authorities, according to U.S. officials and current and former private security company employees.
Source: The Washington Post [3rd Oct 2007]
- Saddam asked Bush for $1bn to go into exile - Saddam Hussein offered to step down and go into exile one month before the invasion of Iraq, it was claimed last night.
Source: Daily Mail [27th Sep 2007]
- Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike - The United States Air Force has set up a highly confidential strategic planning group tasked with “fighting the next war” as tensions rise with Iran. Project Checkmate, a successor to the group that planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign, was quietly reestablished at the Pentagon in June. It reports directly to General Michael Moseley, the US Air Force chief, and consists of 20-30 top air force officers and defence and cyberspace experts with ready access to the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Detailed contingency planning for a possible attack on Iran has been carried out for more than two years by Centcom (US central command), according to defence sources.
Source: The Sunday Times [26th Sep 2007]
- U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With 'Bait' - A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of "bait," such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.
Source: Washington Post [24th Sep 2007]
- Greenspan, Kissinger: Oil Drives U.S. in Iraq, Iran - Alan Greenspan had acknowledged what is blindingly obvious to those who live in the reality-based world: the Iraq War was largely about oil. Meanwhile, Henry Kissinger says in an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post that control over oil is the key issue that should determine whether the U.S. undertakes military action against Iran.
Source: Huffington Post [24th Sep 2007]
- Invasion of Iraq was driven by oil, says Greenspan - Alan Greenspan, the consummate Washington insider and long-time head of the US central bank, has backed the position taken by many anti-war critics - that the invasion of Iraq was motivated by oil.
Source: The Guardian [24th Sep 2007]
- Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil - America?s elder statesman of finance, Alan Greenspan, has shaken the White House by declaring that the prime motive for the war in Iraq was oil. In his long-awaited memoir, to be published tomorrow, Greenspan, a Republican whose 18-year tenure as head of the US Federal Reserve was widely admired, will also deliver a stinging critique of President George W Bush?s economic policies.
Source: The Times [16th Sep 2007]
- Iraq eyes big drop in foreign forces by end of 2008 - Foreign troop levels in Iraq could drop to less than 100,000 by the end of 2008 if Iraq's own forces were ready and security threats had diminished, Iraq's national security adviser said on Wednesday [12th Sep].
Source: Reuters [12th Sep 2007]
- Riddle of the Czech body armour found with Iraqi insurgents - Iraqi insurgents killed or captured in battle by American-led coalition forces have been found to be wearing state-of-the-art Czech-manufactured body armour. The latest findings have added to mounting concern about the quantity and sophistication of military equipment reaching Islamist fighters, sectarian death squads and al-Qaeda terror gangs inside Iraq.
Source: Sunday Herald [9th Sep 2007]
Links to third-party websites
- 17,000 Wounded - The images that the United States does not want anyone to see. - Warning: Contains graphic images of war, which may disturb some viewers
Source: Voltaire Net [29th Apr 2006]
- Tens of Thousands in New York march against war - Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters marched Saturday through Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq just hours after an American soldier died in a roadside explosion in Baghdad - the 70th U.S. fighter killed in that country this month.
Source: CNN [29th Apr 2006]
- US charges ex-Abu Ghraib officer - The US military has charged the former head of the interrogation centre at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison over the abuse of Iraqi detainees.
Source: BBC News [29th Apr 2006]
- What was the British SAS doing in Basra? - The September 19 arrest of two undercover Special Air Service officers in Basra, traveling in an unmarked car containing weapons and explosives, has led to numerous accusations that they were acting as agents provocateurs.
Source: Judicial.biz [28th Sep 2005]
- Two undercover agents rescued nu British may have been Israelis
Source: Judicial.biz [29th Sep 2005]
- Basra warrant for two UK soldiers - Although UK Defence Secretary John Reid said no warrant had been received - and British personnel were immune from Iraqi laws.
Source: BBC News [24th Sep 2005]
- Iraq probe into soldier incident - The Iraqi government has launched an inquiry into recent events, as the soldiers were confirmed as SAS special forces.
Source: BBC News [21st Sep 2005]
- Iraqi police accuse British soldiers of planting bombs - Monday's clashes stemmed from the arrest by Iraqi police on Sunday of two Britons, whom Iraqi police accused of planting bombs.
Source: Washington Post [20th Sep 2005]
- British special forces caught pretending to be Iraqi 'insurgents' - British soldiers have been caught posing as Arabs and shooting Iraqis in the occupied city of Basra in Southern Iraq.
Source: Keld Bach's Press Cuttings [20th Sep 2005]
- Who's blowing up Iraq? - New evidence that bombs are being planted by British Commandoes.
Source: OpEdNews [20th Sep 2005]
- British Undercover Soldiers caught driving Booby Trapped Car - Reuters Report raises some disturbing questions.
Source: Glocal Research [20th Sep 2005]
- British Special Forces Caught Carrying Out Staged Terror In Iraq? - In another example of how the Iraqi quagmire is deliberately designed to degenerate into a chaotic abyss, British SAS were caught attempting to stage a terror attack and the media have dutifully shut up about the real questions surrounding the incident.
Source: Prison Planet [20th Sep 2005]
- British Casualties -The official Ministry of Defence list of British casualties.
- US will lose the Iraq War - An article by former UN weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, on the problems facing the US.
- Politics oils the military machine - An analytical look at the strategic interventions by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
- Dear Raed - A weblog of a young man in Baghdad, who posts under the name Salem Pax.
- Iraq Newsfeed - An up-to-the-second newsfeed giving all the latest information about the war in Iraq. Excellent first port of call.
- Muslim law trumps Geneva Convention - POW treatment to be dictated by religion, official threatens beheadings.
- AlJazeera video - A copy of the controversial video showing US bodies being arranged for the camera. This video has been censored in the US and UK. Warning - 8.5MB long .avi file.
- Iraq War - A Russian news site which bypasses a lot of Western censorship problems.
- War in Iraq - preparing for battle - An interesting Russian article on preparing for battle in Iraq.
- Iraq Body Count - A website keeping a running tally of civilian deaths in the Iraq war is attracting a lot of traffic, and appears to be emerging as an authoritative source of information on the gruesome subject.
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