http://abutamam.blogspot.com/2007/09/insidious-american-implanting-of.html
(Extract)
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED Not for distribution to personnel outside of the US Embassy in Baghdad IraqWorking Draft
From an email by a close friend:"Note, in pages 14 and 15 [of the above U.S. Embassy report] how Corruption cases are divided into Shia/Sunni/Kurd.
Since when do belief and ethnic background make a difference when it comes to stealing? Perhaps this demonstrates how the State Dept is preparing for partitioning Iraq?
"As for the the Democratic US Senator Joseph Biden who championed partitioning Iraq into three separate regions — Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni — with a central government in Baghdad since May 1, 2006 and whose bill was passed by the Senate on September 27, 2007:.""I am a Zionist," stated Senator Biden. "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist." (emphasis added)....
Senator Biden further stressed that without Israel, one could only imagine how many battleships and troops America would have to station in the Middle East.Meeting with Shalom TV President Rabbi Mark S. Golub in Washington, DC, the candidate for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination said that it's insulting for any American to suggest that Israel is somehow the cause of the war in Iraq."Exclusive network interview of Senator Joe Biden March 28, 2007 ."
In 1982, Oded Yinon [see FLASHBACK: A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties June 13, 1982], an official from the Israeli Foreign Affairs office, wrote, "To dissolve Iraq is even more important for us than dissolving Syria. In the short term, it's Iraqi power that constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. The Iran-Iraq war tore Iraq apart and provoked its downfall. All manner of inter-Arab conflict help us and accelerate our goal of breaking up Iraq into small, diverse pieces.""Rogue U.S. Troops Knowingly Bombed British In Iraq January 31, 2007
./...
Please click on link below to read full article in Free Iraq:
http://abutamam.blogspot.com/2007/09/insidious-american-implanting-of.html
dimanche 30 septembre 2007
Reconstruction work on the al-Askari shrine in Samarra
Iraqi sacred site to be rebuilt
Reconstruction work will begin next month on a revered shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra blown up in the current conflict, UN cultural body Unesco says.
Reconstruction work will begin next month on a revered shrine in the Iraqi city of Samarra blown up in the current conflict, UN cultural body Unesco says.
The al-Askari shrine, one of Iraq's most sacred Shia sites, was partly destroyed in two attacks over two years by suspected Sunni militants.
Thousands have died in sectarian violence triggered by the first attack.
The rebuilding work will be carried out by a Turkish company, and is being funded mostly by the EU and Unesco.
Officials said the work would begin after the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends in the middle of October.
The project is expected to cost $16m (£7.9m), of which $8m will come from the EU, $5m from Unesco and $3m from the Iraqi government.
Haqi al-Hakim, an aide to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, told the Associated Press news agency the initial phase of clearing the site could take 10 months.
The February 2006 attack on the shrine, in which its golden dome was destroyed, sparked violence which has led to thousands of deaths over the past 18 months.
A second attack, in June 2007, saw its ancient minarets destroyed.
Both attacks were blamed on Sunni militants.
Story from BBC NEWS:http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7020221.stm
Published: 2007/09/29 18:27:10 GMT© BBC MMVII
Iraq's WMD Myth - Why CLINTON is culpable
September 29 / 30, 2007
By ANDREW COCKBURN
A former senior UN diplomat has revealed to me details of how, just over 10 years ago, the Clinton administration deliberately sabotaged UN weapons inspections in Iraq.
American officials were fearful that Iraq would be officially certified as weapons-free, a development that was seen as a political liability for Bill Clinton. Thus the stage was set for the manufacture of the Iraqi WMD myth as the excuse for George Bush's catastrophic invasion of Iraq.
It was March 1997. For six years the UN inspectors had been probing the secrets of Saddam's weapons programs, in the process destroying huge quantities of chemical munitions and other production facilities. To enforce Saddam's cooperation, Iraq was subject to crushing sanctions.
Now, Rolf Ekeus, the urbane Swedish diplomat who headed the inspection effort, was ready to announce that his work was almost done. "I was getting close to certifying that Iraq was in compliance with Resolution 687," he confirmed to me recently.
At the time, he declared that although there were some loose ends to be cleared up, "not much is unknown about Iraq's retained proscribed weapons capabilities."
For the Clinton administration, this was a crisis. If Ekeus was allowed to complete his mission, then the suspension of sanctions would follow almost automatically.
Saddam would be off the hook and, more importantly for the Clintonites, the neo-conservative republicans would be howling for the president's blood.
The only hope was somehow to prevent Ekeus completing his mission.
Enter Madeleine Albright, newly appointed Secretary of State. On March 26, 1997, she strode on to the stage at Georgetown University to deliver what was billed as a major policy address on Iraq. Many in the audience expected that she would extend some sort of olive branch toward the Iraqi regime, but that was far from her mind.
Instead, she was set on making sure that Saddam effectively ended his cooperation with the inspectors. "We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted," she declared. Sanctions, she stated without equivocation, would remain unless or until Saddam was driven from power.
Ekeus understood immediately what Albright intended. "I knew that Saddam would now feel that there was no point in his cooperating with us, and that was the intent of her speech."
Sure enough, the following day he got an angry call from Tariq Aziz, Saddam's deputy prime minister and emissary to the outside world. "He wanted to know why Iraq should work with us any more."
From then on, the inspectors found their lives increasingly difficult, as Iraqi officials, clearly acting under instructions from Saddam, blocked them at every turn.
Ekeus resigned in July 1997, to be replaced by the Australian Richard Butler. Butler was soon embroiled in acrimonious confrontation with the Iraqis. Later the following year, all the inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq and the US mounted a series of bombing raids.
Clinton's strategy had been successful. Iraq remained under sanctions, while in Washington the neo-conservative faction spun the wildest conjectures as to what evil schemes Saddam, unmolested by inspectors, might be concocting with his weapons scientists.
In fact Saddam had long abandoned all his WMD programs, but as the CIA had no sources of intelligence inside Iraq, no one in the West could prove this.
Finally, following 9/11, the war party in George Bush Jr's administration was able to make the case for invasion on the grounds that Saddam had refused to comply with UN resolutions on disarmament by refusing to grant access to the weapons inspectors. The Iraq disaster has many fathers.
[Footnote: Ekeus knew from the mid-l990s on that Saddam Hussein had no such weapons of mass destruction. They had all been destroyed years earlier, after the first Gulf war.
Ekeus learned this on the night of August 22, l995, in Amman, from the lips of General Hussein Kamel, who had just defected from Iraq, along with some of his senior military aides. Kamel was Saddam's son-in-law and had been in overall charge of all programs for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
That night, in three hours of detailed questioning from Ekeus and two technical experts, Kamel was categorical. The UN inspection teams had done a good job. When Saddam was finally persuaded that failure to dispose of the relevant weapons systems would have very serious consequences, he issued the order and Kamel carried it out. As he told Ekeus that night, "All weapons, biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed." (The UNSCOM record of the session can ne viewed at http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.pdf).
In similar debriefings that August Kamel said the same thing to teams from the CIA and MI6. His military aides provided a wealth of corroborative details. Then, the following year, Kamel was lured back to Iraq and at once executed. Editors.]
Andrew Cockburn is the author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy.
By ANDREW COCKBURN
A former senior UN diplomat has revealed to me details of how, just over 10 years ago, the Clinton administration deliberately sabotaged UN weapons inspections in Iraq.
American officials were fearful that Iraq would be officially certified as weapons-free, a development that was seen as a political liability for Bill Clinton. Thus the stage was set for the manufacture of the Iraqi WMD myth as the excuse for George Bush's catastrophic invasion of Iraq.
It was March 1997. For six years the UN inspectors had been probing the secrets of Saddam's weapons programs, in the process destroying huge quantities of chemical munitions and other production facilities. To enforce Saddam's cooperation, Iraq was subject to crushing sanctions.
Now, Rolf Ekeus, the urbane Swedish diplomat who headed the inspection effort, was ready to announce that his work was almost done. "I was getting close to certifying that Iraq was in compliance with Resolution 687," he confirmed to me recently.
At the time, he declared that although there were some loose ends to be cleared up, "not much is unknown about Iraq's retained proscribed weapons capabilities."
For the Clinton administration, this was a crisis. If Ekeus was allowed to complete his mission, then the suspension of sanctions would follow almost automatically.
Saddam would be off the hook and, more importantly for the Clintonites, the neo-conservative republicans would be howling for the president's blood.
The only hope was somehow to prevent Ekeus completing his mission.
Enter Madeleine Albright, newly appointed Secretary of State. On March 26, 1997, she strode on to the stage at Georgetown University to deliver what was billed as a major policy address on Iraq. Many in the audience expected that she would extend some sort of olive branch toward the Iraqi regime, but that was far from her mind.
Instead, she was set on making sure that Saddam effectively ended his cooperation with the inspectors. "We do not agree with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted," she declared. Sanctions, she stated without equivocation, would remain unless or until Saddam was driven from power.
Ekeus understood immediately what Albright intended. "I knew that Saddam would now feel that there was no point in his cooperating with us, and that was the intent of her speech."
Sure enough, the following day he got an angry call from Tariq Aziz, Saddam's deputy prime minister and emissary to the outside world. "He wanted to know why Iraq should work with us any more."
From then on, the inspectors found their lives increasingly difficult, as Iraqi officials, clearly acting under instructions from Saddam, blocked them at every turn.
Ekeus resigned in July 1997, to be replaced by the Australian Richard Butler. Butler was soon embroiled in acrimonious confrontation with the Iraqis. Later the following year, all the inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq and the US mounted a series of bombing raids.
Clinton's strategy had been successful. Iraq remained under sanctions, while in Washington the neo-conservative faction spun the wildest conjectures as to what evil schemes Saddam, unmolested by inspectors, might be concocting with his weapons scientists.
In fact Saddam had long abandoned all his WMD programs, but as the CIA had no sources of intelligence inside Iraq, no one in the West could prove this.
Finally, following 9/11, the war party in George Bush Jr's administration was able to make the case for invasion on the grounds that Saddam had refused to comply with UN resolutions on disarmament by refusing to grant access to the weapons inspectors. The Iraq disaster has many fathers.
[Footnote: Ekeus knew from the mid-l990s on that Saddam Hussein had no such weapons of mass destruction. They had all been destroyed years earlier, after the first Gulf war.
Ekeus learned this on the night of August 22, l995, in Amman, from the lips of General Hussein Kamel, who had just defected from Iraq, along with some of his senior military aides. Kamel was Saddam's son-in-law and had been in overall charge of all programs for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
That night, in three hours of detailed questioning from Ekeus and two technical experts, Kamel was categorical. The UN inspection teams had done a good job. When Saddam was finally persuaded that failure to dispose of the relevant weapons systems would have very serious consequences, he issued the order and Kamel carried it out. As he told Ekeus that night, "All weapons, biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed." (The UNSCOM record of the session can ne viewed at http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.pdf).
In similar debriefings that August Kamel said the same thing to teams from the CIA and MI6. His military aides provided a wealth of corroborative details. Then, the following year, Kamel was lured back to Iraq and at once executed. Editors.]
Andrew Cockburn is the author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy.
Interview with investigative journalist Seymour HERSH
SPIEGEL ONLINE - September 28, 2007 URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,508394,00.html
'The President Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has consistently led the way in telling the story of what's really going on in Iraq and Iran. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke to him about America's Hitler, Bush's Vietnam, and how the US press failed the First Amendment.
AFP
For now, American troops are on the Iraq side of the border with Iran. Might that change?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was just in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, he said that he is only interested in civilian nuclear power instead of atomic weapons. How much does the West really know about the nuclear program in Iran?
Seymour Hersh: A lot. And it's been underestimated how much the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) knows. If you follow what (IAEA head Mohamed) ElBaradei and the various reports have been saying, the Iranians have claimed to be enriching uranium to higher than a 4 percent purity, which is the amount you need to run a peaceful nuclear reactor. But the IAEA's best guess is that they are at 3.67 percent or something. The Iranians are not even doing what they claim to be doing. The IAEA has been saying all along that they've been making progress but basically, Iran is nowhere. Of course the US and Israel are going to say you have to look at the worst case scenario, but there isn't enough evidence to justify a bombing raid.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is this just another case of exaggerating the danger in preparation for an invasion like we saw in 2002 and 2003 prior to the Iraq War?
Hersh: We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them. Khrushchev and Mao and of course Stalin, and for a little while Gadhafi was our Hitler. And now we have this guy Ahmadinejad. The reality is, he's not nearly as powerful inside the country as we like to think he is. The Revolutionary Guards have direct control over the missile program and if there is a weapons program, they would be the ones running it. Not Ahmadinejad.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where does this feeling of urgency that the US has with Iran come from?
Hersh: Pressure from the White House. That's just their game.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What interest does the White House have in moving us to the brink with Tehran?
Hersh: You have to ask yourself what interest we had 40 years ago for going to war in Vietnam. You'd think that in this country with so many smart people, that we can't possibly do the same dumb thing again. I have this theory in life that there is no learning. There is no learning curve. Everything is tabula rasa. Everybody has to discover things for themselves.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Even after Iraq? Aren't there strategic reasons for getting so deeply involved in the Middle East?
Hersh: Oh no. We're going to build democracy. The real thing in the mind of this president is he wants to reshape the Middle East and make it a model. He absolutely believes it. I always thought Henry Kissinger was a disaster because he lies like most people breathe and you can't have that in public life. But if it were Kissinger this time around, I'd actually be relieved because I'd know that the madness would be tied to some oil deal. But in this case, what you see is what you get. This guy believes he's doing God's work.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what are the options in Iraq?
Hersh: There are two very clear options: Option A) Get everybody out by midnight tonight. Option B) Get everybody out by midnight tomorrow. The fuel that keeps the war going is us.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of people have been saying that the US presence there is a big part of the problem. Is anyone in the White House listening?
Hersh: No. The president is still talking about the "Surge" (eds. The "Surge" refers to President Bush's commitment of 20,000 additional troops to Iraq in the spring of 2007 in an attempt to improve security in the country.) as if it's going to unite the country. But the Surge was a con game of putting additional troops in there. We've basically Balkanized the place, building walls and walling off Sunnis from Shiites. And in Anbar Province, where there has been success, all of the Shiites are gone. They've simply split.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is that why there has been a drop in violence there?
Hersh: I think that's a much better reason than the fact that there are a couple more soldiers on the ground.
SPIEGEL ONLINE:So what are the lessons of the Surge?
Hersh: The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not. When he first announced the Surge in January, he described it as a way to bring the parties together. He's not saying that any more. I think he now understands that ethnic cleansing is what is going to happen. You're going to have a Kurdistan. You're going to have a Sunni area that we're going to have to support forever. And you're going to have the Shiites in the South.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the US is over four years into a war that is likely going to end in a disaster. How valid are the comparisons with Vietnam?
Hersh: The validity is that the US is fighting a guerrilla war and doesn't know the culture. But the difference is that at a certain point, because of Congressional and public opposition, the Vietnam War was no longer tenable. But these guys now don't care. They see it but they don't care.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: If the Iraq war does end up as a defeat for the US, will it leave as deep a wound as the Vietnam War did?
Hersh: Much worse. Vietnam was a tactical mistake. This is strategic. How do you repair damages with whole cultures? On the home front, though, we'll rationalize it away. Don't worry about that. Again, there's no learning curve. No learning curve at all. We'll be ready to fight another stupid war in another two decades.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of course, preventing that is partially the job of the media. Have reporters been doing a better job recently than they did in the run-up to the Iraq War?
Hersh: Oh yeah. They've done a better job since. But back then, they blew it. When you have a guy like Bush who's going to move the infamous Doomsday Clock forward, and he's going to put everybody in jeopardy and he's secretive and he doesn't tell Congress anything and he's inured to what we write. In such a case, we (journalists) become more important. The First Amendment failed and the American press failed the Constitution. We were jingoistic. And that was a terrible failing. I'm asked the question all the time: What happened to my old paper, the New York Times? And I now say, they stink. They missed it. They missed the biggest story of the time and they're going to have to live with it.
Interview conducted by Charles Hawley and David Gordon Smith SEYMOUR HERSH
AP
Seymour Hersh began his career as a police reporter. But since then, he has risen to become one of the most important investigative journalists in the history of American journalism. Hersh first made a name for himself in 1969 by uncovering the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, for which he won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize. Hersh has worked for the New Yorker since 1992 and in 2004 was instrumental in uncovering the US military's abuses of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Hersh was in Berlin this week to accept the Democracy Prize handed out by the political journal "Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik."
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007
'The President Has Accepted Ethnic Cleansing'
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has consistently led the way in telling the story of what's really going on in Iraq and Iran. SPIEGEL ONLINE spoke to him about America's Hitler, Bush's Vietnam, and how the US press failed the First Amendment.
AFP
For now, American troops are on the Iraq side of the border with Iran. Might that change?
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was just in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. Once again, he said that he is only interested in civilian nuclear power instead of atomic weapons. How much does the West really know about the nuclear program in Iran?
Seymour Hersh: A lot. And it's been underestimated how much the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) knows. If you follow what (IAEA head Mohamed) ElBaradei and the various reports have been saying, the Iranians have claimed to be enriching uranium to higher than a 4 percent purity, which is the amount you need to run a peaceful nuclear reactor. But the IAEA's best guess is that they are at 3.67 percent or something. The Iranians are not even doing what they claim to be doing. The IAEA has been saying all along that they've been making progress but basically, Iran is nowhere. Of course the US and Israel are going to say you have to look at the worst case scenario, but there isn't enough evidence to justify a bombing raid.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is this just another case of exaggerating the danger in preparation for an invasion like we saw in 2002 and 2003 prior to the Iraq War?
Hersh: We have this wonderful capacity in America to Hitlerize people. We had Hitler, and since Hitler we've had about 20 of them. Khrushchev and Mao and of course Stalin, and for a little while Gadhafi was our Hitler. And now we have this guy Ahmadinejad. The reality is, he's not nearly as powerful inside the country as we like to think he is. The Revolutionary Guards have direct control over the missile program and if there is a weapons program, they would be the ones running it. Not Ahmadinejad.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Where does this feeling of urgency that the US has with Iran come from?
Hersh: Pressure from the White House. That's just their game.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What interest does the White House have in moving us to the brink with Tehran?
Hersh: You have to ask yourself what interest we had 40 years ago for going to war in Vietnam. You'd think that in this country with so many smart people, that we can't possibly do the same dumb thing again. I have this theory in life that there is no learning. There is no learning curve. Everything is tabula rasa. Everybody has to discover things for themselves.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Even after Iraq? Aren't there strategic reasons for getting so deeply involved in the Middle East?
Hersh: Oh no. We're going to build democracy. The real thing in the mind of this president is he wants to reshape the Middle East and make it a model. He absolutely believes it. I always thought Henry Kissinger was a disaster because he lies like most people breathe and you can't have that in public life. But if it were Kissinger this time around, I'd actually be relieved because I'd know that the madness would be tied to some oil deal. But in this case, what you see is what you get. This guy believes he's doing God's work.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So what are the options in Iraq?
Hersh: There are two very clear options: Option A) Get everybody out by midnight tonight. Option B) Get everybody out by midnight tomorrow. The fuel that keeps the war going is us.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: A lot of people have been saying that the US presence there is a big part of the problem. Is anyone in the White House listening?
Hersh: No. The president is still talking about the "Surge" (eds. The "Surge" refers to President Bush's commitment of 20,000 additional troops to Iraq in the spring of 2007 in an attempt to improve security in the country.) as if it's going to unite the country. But the Surge was a con game of putting additional troops in there. We've basically Balkanized the place, building walls and walling off Sunnis from Shiites. And in Anbar Province, where there has been success, all of the Shiites are gone. They've simply split.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is that why there has been a drop in violence there?
Hersh: I think that's a much better reason than the fact that there are a couple more soldiers on the ground.
SPIEGEL ONLINE:So what are the lessons of the Surge?
Hersh: The Surge means basically that, in some way, the president has accepted ethnic cleansing, whether he's talking about it or not. When he first announced the Surge in January, he described it as a way to bring the parties together. He's not saying that any more. I think he now understands that ethnic cleansing is what is going to happen. You're going to have a Kurdistan. You're going to have a Sunni area that we're going to have to support forever. And you're going to have the Shiites in the South.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: So the US is over four years into a war that is likely going to end in a disaster. How valid are the comparisons with Vietnam?
Hersh: The validity is that the US is fighting a guerrilla war and doesn't know the culture. But the difference is that at a certain point, because of Congressional and public opposition, the Vietnam War was no longer tenable. But these guys now don't care. They see it but they don't care.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: If the Iraq war does end up as a defeat for the US, will it leave as deep a wound as the Vietnam War did?
Hersh: Much worse. Vietnam was a tactical mistake. This is strategic. How do you repair damages with whole cultures? On the home front, though, we'll rationalize it away. Don't worry about that. Again, there's no learning curve. No learning curve at all. We'll be ready to fight another stupid war in another two decades.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Of course, preventing that is partially the job of the media. Have reporters been doing a better job recently than they did in the run-up to the Iraq War?
Hersh: Oh yeah. They've done a better job since. But back then, they blew it. When you have a guy like Bush who's going to move the infamous Doomsday Clock forward, and he's going to put everybody in jeopardy and he's secretive and he doesn't tell Congress anything and he's inured to what we write. In such a case, we (journalists) become more important. The First Amendment failed and the American press failed the Constitution. We were jingoistic. And that was a terrible failing. I'm asked the question all the time: What happened to my old paper, the New York Times? And I now say, they stink. They missed it. They missed the biggest story of the time and they're going to have to live with it.
Interview conducted by Charles Hawley and David Gordon Smith SEYMOUR HERSH
AP
Seymour Hersh began his career as a police reporter. But since then, he has risen to become one of the most important investigative journalists in the history of American journalism. Hersh first made a name for himself in 1969 by uncovering the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War, for which he won the 1970 Pulitzer Prize. Hersh has worked for the New Yorker since 1992 and in 2004 was instrumental in uncovering the US military's abuses of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Hersh was in Berlin this week to accept the Democracy Prize handed out by the political journal "Blätter für Deutsche und Internationale Politik."
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007
samedi 29 septembre 2007
Iraqi media professionals killed in Iraq under US-Occupation
LIST UPDATED : 270 Iraqi and 24 non-Iraqi media professionals killed until 29/09/2007
The betrayal of Iraq’s media professionals.
(Dirk Adriaensens, member BRussells Tribunal executive Committee, 29 September 2007)
A new landmark in the Iraq catastrophe, and a new landmark in history altogether: at least 300 media professionals have died in Iraq.
Suhad Al-Khalidi, reporter for Iraqi Media Network, was killed by US troops on 4 February 2007 when their patrol passed by her car in Hilla. Three guards working for the government funded al-Iraqiya TV were killed by fire of foreign security guards in central Baghdad on 7 February 2007. Foreign security guards accompanying a delegation shot and killed the three guards. Rasoul Abdul Hussein, a reporter, was killed together with his wife in Diwaniya on 21 February 2007. Hamid Mohammed Salih, a program director for the Dijlah radio station, was assassinated in the Jami'a district 0n 19 March 2007. Mohammed Jassim Yousif, a reporter for the Iraqi Media Network, was assassinated west of Baghdad on 31 March. An unknown correspondent for the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram was killed in a car bomb explosion targeting the Shi’ite Khillani mosque in a crowded area of central Baghdad on 19 June 2007. Abdul Khaliq al-Habir al-Anbaki, a caricaturist in al-Mutamar newspaper, was killed along with his 11-member-family in the car bombing attack that took place on 27 July 2007 in Karrada, central Baghdad.
The two things these murders have in common is that these persons were Iraqi media professionals and that their assassination, which occurred in 2007, went unreported by CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists), and RSF (Reporters Without Borders). These casualties are listed on the BRussells Tribunal website (http://www.brusselstribunal.org/JournalistKilled.htm) and their cases were taken from different press reports.
What’s happening with the Western journalist ethics? What’s happening with the solidarity between Western media professionals and their Iraqi colleagues? The above mentioned killings, did they not take place? Were they not mentioned in one or another press report? Why are they not listed then?
Different journalists organisations defend the interests of their colleagues and/or compile lists of killed media professionals in occupied Iraq: CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists), RSF (Reporters Without Borders), INSI (International News Safety Institute) – closely linked with the IFJ (International Federation of Journalists), ICasualties (Iraq Coalition Casualty Count), (IFEX) International Freedom of Expression Exchange - who collect most of their data from RSF-, and others, like UNESCO.
CPJ considers a journalist to be killed on duty if the person died as a result of a hostile action—such as reprisal for his or her work, or crossfire while carrying out a dangerous assignment. CPJ does not include journalists killed in accidents, such as car or plane crashes, unless the crash was caused by aggressive human action (for example, if a plane were shot down or a car crashed trying to avoid gunfire). Nor does CPJ include journalists who died of health ailments. They list only 26 Media professionals killed in 2007, of which 5 in a list of pending investigations into suspicious deaths, called Killed: Motive Unconfirmed.
The Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial (Newseum) staffers claim to compile their list from information circulated by the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Press Institute, the International Freedom of Expression Clearing House, Reporters Sans Frontières, the International Federation of Journalists, the Inter American Press Association, news stories and other sources. A whole lot of sources, it seems. They list only 28 journalists killed in Iraq in 2007.
Reporters without Borders lists only 50 killed media professionals in 2007. INSI lists 57 casualties in 2007.
The BRussells Tribunal lists 300 deceased media professionals since the illegal invasion until now, of which 271 are Iraqi Nationals. 6 died of “non-violent” causes. All the others are violent deaths. The number for 2007 stands at 72 killed media professionals, of which 71 are Iraqis. The latest casualty being an Iraqi newspaper correspondent who was fatally wounded in a rocket attack in Mosul on 28th September 2007.
All the mainstream media worldwide take over the ridiculous figures of CPJ and RSF. Here’s what one usually reads in an article about yet another killing of a media professional:
“According to Reporters Without Borders at least X journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003; two are missing and 13 are currently being held hostage. Their number may be higher than the CPJ figure quoted above because it includes media assistants as well as journalists.”
“The CPJ count is the most widely cited number in reporting on journalist deaths in Iraq. But the CPJ tally of 61 is misunderstood and incomplete because it excludes dozens of journalists and news organization employees killed or who otherwise died on assignment in Iraq.”, Eason Jordan writes in the IHT on 08 February 2006.
The US Administration, the Brookings Institution, you name it, they all use CPJ, RSF and ICasualties figures of killed media professionals. One would expect that lists of murdered colleagues are compiled with the greatest care, given the importance official bodies attach to these figures. That is not the case. The negligence with which the lists are compiled is revolting. It is another sign of either self-censorship or deliberate downplaying of casualties, something we’re seeing happening with the surveys of civilian casualties in Iraq. The media don’t use the scientific studies of the Lancet or the credible polls of ORB, the media use the ridiculous figure of Iraq Bodycount, an organisation that lists only what the Western media reports. A clear case of inbreeding. A clear case of imitating “His Master’s Voice”.
Please have a look at some figures. These include Journalists, Media workers and unconfirmed cases.
SINCE 2003:
CPJ
Committee to Protect Journalists
Not reported: 132 violent deaths
RSF
Reporters Without Borders
Not reported: 92 violent deaths
INSI
International News Safety Institute
Not reported: 68 violent deaths
ICAS
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
Not reported: 163 violent deaths
NEWSEUM
Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial
Not reported: 170 violent deaths
In 2007: (until 29 September)
CPJ
Committee to Protect Journalists
Not reported: 45 violent deaths
RSF
Reporters Without Borders
Not reported: 20 violent deaths
INSI
International News Safety Institute
Not reported: 14 violent deaths
ICAS
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
Not reported: 42 violent deaths
NEWSEUM
Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial
Not reported: 44 violent deaths
Al-Iraqiya director general Habib al-Sadr told AFP last month that at least 75 members of his staff have been killed since he took over the channel in 2005 and another 68 wounded. The BRussells Tribunal list of killed media professionals has less than 1/3rd of this number in its database. So by extrapolation we could conclude that we have listed only about 1/3rd of the real casualties of media professionals in the Iraq war. Why is this claim not being further investigated? Habib al-Sadr’s words are meant for sceptic people who think that the BRussells Tribunal figures have been artificially inflated.
Do I sound too harsh for the Western media organisations? I don’t think so. I’ve written to CPJ and received a meaningless answer. I wrote to RSF and received no answer. I’ve written to many media outlets and received no reaction. I’ve also sent them a previous article: “At least 78 media professionals killed in Iraq in 2006.”, dated 21 February 2007. No reactions, no comment.
By the way: after further research, I discovered that at least 90 media professionals have been killed in 2006, not 78.
Here is the number of killed media professionals by year, according to different press accounts.
Please click on the link below for full article:
http://brusselstribunal.org/
The betrayal of Iraq’s media professionals.
(Dirk Adriaensens, member BRussells Tribunal executive Committee, 29 September 2007)
A new landmark in the Iraq catastrophe, and a new landmark in history altogether: at least 300 media professionals have died in Iraq.
Suhad Al-Khalidi, reporter for Iraqi Media Network, was killed by US troops on 4 February 2007 when their patrol passed by her car in Hilla. Three guards working for the government funded al-Iraqiya TV were killed by fire of foreign security guards in central Baghdad on 7 February 2007. Foreign security guards accompanying a delegation shot and killed the three guards. Rasoul Abdul Hussein, a reporter, was killed together with his wife in Diwaniya on 21 February 2007. Hamid Mohammed Salih, a program director for the Dijlah radio station, was assassinated in the Jami'a district 0n 19 March 2007. Mohammed Jassim Yousif, a reporter for the Iraqi Media Network, was assassinated west of Baghdad on 31 March. An unknown correspondent for the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram was killed in a car bomb explosion targeting the Shi’ite Khillani mosque in a crowded area of central Baghdad on 19 June 2007. Abdul Khaliq al-Habir al-Anbaki, a caricaturist in al-Mutamar newspaper, was killed along with his 11-member-family in the car bombing attack that took place on 27 July 2007 in Karrada, central Baghdad.
The two things these murders have in common is that these persons were Iraqi media professionals and that their assassination, which occurred in 2007, went unreported by CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists), and RSF (Reporters Without Borders). These casualties are listed on the BRussells Tribunal website (http://www.brusselstribunal.org/JournalistKilled.htm) and their cases were taken from different press reports.
What’s happening with the Western journalist ethics? What’s happening with the solidarity between Western media professionals and their Iraqi colleagues? The above mentioned killings, did they not take place? Were they not mentioned in one or another press report? Why are they not listed then?
Different journalists organisations defend the interests of their colleagues and/or compile lists of killed media professionals in occupied Iraq: CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists), RSF (Reporters Without Borders), INSI (International News Safety Institute) – closely linked with the IFJ (International Federation of Journalists), ICasualties (Iraq Coalition Casualty Count), (IFEX) International Freedom of Expression Exchange - who collect most of their data from RSF-, and others, like UNESCO.
CPJ considers a journalist to be killed on duty if the person died as a result of a hostile action—such as reprisal for his or her work, or crossfire while carrying out a dangerous assignment. CPJ does not include journalists killed in accidents, such as car or plane crashes, unless the crash was caused by aggressive human action (for example, if a plane were shot down or a car crashed trying to avoid gunfire). Nor does CPJ include journalists who died of health ailments. They list only 26 Media professionals killed in 2007, of which 5 in a list of pending investigations into suspicious deaths, called Killed: Motive Unconfirmed.
The Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial (Newseum) staffers claim to compile their list from information circulated by the Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Press Institute, the International Freedom of Expression Clearing House, Reporters Sans Frontières, the International Federation of Journalists, the Inter American Press Association, news stories and other sources. A whole lot of sources, it seems. They list only 28 journalists killed in Iraq in 2007.
Reporters without Borders lists only 50 killed media professionals in 2007. INSI lists 57 casualties in 2007.
The BRussells Tribunal lists 300 deceased media professionals since the illegal invasion until now, of which 271 are Iraqi Nationals. 6 died of “non-violent” causes. All the others are violent deaths. The number for 2007 stands at 72 killed media professionals, of which 71 are Iraqis. The latest casualty being an Iraqi newspaper correspondent who was fatally wounded in a rocket attack in Mosul on 28th September 2007.
All the mainstream media worldwide take over the ridiculous figures of CPJ and RSF. Here’s what one usually reads in an article about yet another killing of a media professional:
“According to Reporters Without Borders at least X journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since the start of the war in March 2003; two are missing and 13 are currently being held hostage. Their number may be higher than the CPJ figure quoted above because it includes media assistants as well as journalists.”
“The CPJ count is the most widely cited number in reporting on journalist deaths in Iraq. But the CPJ tally of 61 is misunderstood and incomplete because it excludes dozens of journalists and news organization employees killed or who otherwise died on assignment in Iraq.”, Eason Jordan writes in the IHT on 08 February 2006.
The US Administration, the Brookings Institution, you name it, they all use CPJ, RSF and ICasualties figures of killed media professionals. One would expect that lists of murdered colleagues are compiled with the greatest care, given the importance official bodies attach to these figures. That is not the case. The negligence with which the lists are compiled is revolting. It is another sign of either self-censorship or deliberate downplaying of casualties, something we’re seeing happening with the surveys of civilian casualties in Iraq. The media don’t use the scientific studies of the Lancet or the credible polls of ORB, the media use the ridiculous figure of Iraq Bodycount, an organisation that lists only what the Western media reports. A clear case of inbreeding. A clear case of imitating “His Master’s Voice”.
Please have a look at some figures. These include Journalists, Media workers and unconfirmed cases.
SINCE 2003:
CPJ
Committee to Protect Journalists
Not reported: 132 violent deaths
RSF
Reporters Without Borders
Not reported: 92 violent deaths
INSI
International News Safety Institute
Not reported: 68 violent deaths
ICAS
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
Not reported: 163 violent deaths
NEWSEUM
Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial
Not reported: 170 violent deaths
In 2007: (until 29 September)
CPJ
Committee to Protect Journalists
Not reported: 45 violent deaths
RSF
Reporters Without Borders
Not reported: 20 violent deaths
INSI
International News Safety Institute
Not reported: 14 violent deaths
ICAS
Iraq Coalition Casualty Count
Not reported: 42 violent deaths
NEWSEUM
Freedom Forum Journalists Memorial
Not reported: 44 violent deaths
Al-Iraqiya director general Habib al-Sadr told AFP last month that at least 75 members of his staff have been killed since he took over the channel in 2005 and another 68 wounded. The BRussells Tribunal list of killed media professionals has less than 1/3rd of this number in its database. So by extrapolation we could conclude that we have listed only about 1/3rd of the real casualties of media professionals in the Iraq war. Why is this claim not being further investigated? Habib al-Sadr’s words are meant for sceptic people who think that the BRussells Tribunal figures have been artificially inflated.
Do I sound too harsh for the Western media organisations? I don’t think so. I’ve written to CPJ and received a meaningless answer. I wrote to RSF and received no answer. I’ve written to many media outlets and received no reaction. I’ve also sent them a previous article: “At least 78 media professionals killed in Iraq in 2006.”, dated 21 February 2007. No reactions, no comment.
By the way: after further research, I discovered that at least 90 media professionals have been killed in 2006, not 78.
Here is the number of killed media professionals by year, according to different press accounts.
Please click on the link below for full article:
http://brusselstribunal.org/
STOP THE WAR March in London on 8th October 2007
STOP THE WAR COALITION
28 September 2007
Email office@stopwar.org.uk
T: 020 7278 6694
Web: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
1) URGENT - ATTEMPT TO BAN STOP THE WAR MARCH
2) DEMONSTRATE: PARLIAMENT MONDAY 8 OCTOBER
3) NOT ONE MORE DEATH POSTCARD
4) GORDON BROWN OPEN LETTER PUBLISHED 3 OCTOBER
****************************************
1) URGENT - ATTEMPT TO BAN STOP THE WAR MARCH On Monday 8 October the Stop the War Coalition will be marching from Trafalgar Square to Parliament calling for all troops in Iraq to be brought home immediately.
After a series of relatively co-operative meetings, the police now say they have been instructed not to allow the march to take place and that all demonstrations are banned within a mile of Parliament whilst in session.
This is a new development which threatens our democratic rights.
When Gordon Brown became prime minister he promised to liberalise the laws on protest, saying that one of his principles would be, "civil liberties safeguarded and enhanced".
Government ministers, including Gordon Brown, have lined up to support the right to protest in Burma. It is important that these same ministers also defend the rights of people in this country to protest peacefully.
We are determined to march to make our views known to parliament on 8 October, when Gordon Brown will make his long awaited statement on Iraq. We urge everyone who opposes the war policies of our government to join the call for all British troops to come home immediately and to help defend our civil liberties now under attack. We have produced a petition calling on the authorities to review the decision to ban the march.
SIGN THE PETITION ONLINE aimed at defending our right to protest peacefully. You can do this here: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
DOWNLOAD AND PRINT THE PETITION
Collect as many signatures as you can and send filled petition sheets to Stop the War Coalition, 27 Britannia Street, WC1X 9JP Download for printing here: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
Please spread the word as widely as you can about the demonstration on Monday 8 October (full details below).
****************************************
2) DEMONSTRATE: PARLIAMENT MONDAY 8 OCTOBER NOT ONE MORE DEATH - BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW ASSEMBLE FOR RALLY 1.0 PM TRAFALGAR SQUARE Speakers include:
TONY BENN
MARK STEEL, comedian and writer
BEN GRIFFIN, ex-soldier who served in Iraq BOB WAREING MP GEMMA TUMELTY, president, National Union of Students LINDSEY GERMAN, national convenor, Stop the War BILLY HAYES general secretary, Communication Workers Union For more details, see: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
****************************************
3) NOT ONE MORE DEATH POSTCARD
The Stop the War Not One More Death postcard, designed by eminent artist David Gentleman, is now available from the Stop the War office. The postcard is being used in a write-in campaign to Gordon Brown, calling for a change in government policy, to break Britain's subservience to George Bush's warmongering. Stop the War local groups plan to distribute the postcard at every tube station, bus terminal, train station, in workplaces and community centres, churches and mosques.
Contact the Stop the War Office to order postcards in bulk. If you would like to distribute the postcards in your local community, college, school or workplace or among friends and relatives, please contact us.
Phone: 020 7278 6694
Email: office@stopwar.org.uk
SEE THE POSTCARD DESIGN HERE:
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
****************************************
4) GORDON BROWN OPEN LETTER PUBLISHED 3 OCTOBER Stop the War's open letter to Gordon Brown calling for the withdrawal of all British troops from Iraq will be published in a full page advert, funded by supporters of Stop the War, in The Guardian on Wednesday 3 October (See http://tinyurl.com/3xafku).
Among the hundreds of signatories are:
Tariq Ali, Iain Banks, Tony Benn, Ian Brown, Caryl Churchill, Harry Cohen MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Bob Crow (Gen Sec RMT) Brian Eno, George Galloway MP, Rose Gentle (MFAW) David Gentleman, Lindsey German, (Convenor STWC), Bill Greenshields (National VP, NUT), Ben Griffin (ex SAS soldier), Kelvin Hopkins MP, Kate Hudson (Chair CND), Jean Lambert MEP, Dr Caroline Lucas MEP, Alice Mahon, Prof Kamil Majid, Miriam Margolyes, John McDonnell MP, Adrian Mitchell, Greg Mulholland MP, Andrew Murray (Chair STWC), Michael Nyman, Adam Price MP, Sami Ramadani, John Rees (Sec Respect Coalition), Yvonne Ridley, Paul Rowen MP, Mark Rylance, Prof David Seddon, Alan Simpson MP, Linda Smith, Chair Respect Coalition, Prof Andrew Spencer, Hans von Sponeck, Prof Phil Taylor, Mark Thomas, UNISON (London Fire Authority), Walter Wolfgang, Tony Woodley (Joint Gen Sec UNITE), Cllr Salma Yaqoob, Susannah York, Haifa Zangana, Benjamin Zephaniah
28 September 2007
Email office@stopwar.org.uk
T: 020 7278 6694
Web: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
1) URGENT - ATTEMPT TO BAN STOP THE WAR MARCH
2) DEMONSTRATE: PARLIAMENT MONDAY 8 OCTOBER
3) NOT ONE MORE DEATH POSTCARD
4) GORDON BROWN OPEN LETTER PUBLISHED 3 OCTOBER
****************************************
1) URGENT - ATTEMPT TO BAN STOP THE WAR MARCH On Monday 8 October the Stop the War Coalition will be marching from Trafalgar Square to Parliament calling for all troops in Iraq to be brought home immediately.
After a series of relatively co-operative meetings, the police now say they have been instructed not to allow the march to take place and that all demonstrations are banned within a mile of Parliament whilst in session.
This is a new development which threatens our democratic rights.
When Gordon Brown became prime minister he promised to liberalise the laws on protest, saying that one of his principles would be, "civil liberties safeguarded and enhanced".
Government ministers, including Gordon Brown, have lined up to support the right to protest in Burma. It is important that these same ministers also defend the rights of people in this country to protest peacefully.
We are determined to march to make our views known to parliament on 8 October, when Gordon Brown will make his long awaited statement on Iraq. We urge everyone who opposes the war policies of our government to join the call for all British troops to come home immediately and to help defend our civil liberties now under attack. We have produced a petition calling on the authorities to review the decision to ban the march.
SIGN THE PETITION ONLINE aimed at defending our right to protest peacefully. You can do this here: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
DOWNLOAD AND PRINT THE PETITION
Collect as many signatures as you can and send filled petition sheets to Stop the War Coalition, 27 Britannia Street, WC1X 9JP Download for printing here: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
Please spread the word as widely as you can about the demonstration on Monday 8 October (full details below).
****************************************
2) DEMONSTRATE: PARLIAMENT MONDAY 8 OCTOBER NOT ONE MORE DEATH - BRING ALL THE TROOPS HOME NOW ASSEMBLE FOR RALLY 1.0 PM TRAFALGAR SQUARE Speakers include:
TONY BENN
MARK STEEL, comedian and writer
BEN GRIFFIN, ex-soldier who served in Iraq BOB WAREING MP GEMMA TUMELTY, president, National Union of Students LINDSEY GERMAN, national convenor, Stop the War BILLY HAYES general secretary, Communication Workers Union For more details, see: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
****************************************
3) NOT ONE MORE DEATH POSTCARD
The Stop the War Not One More Death postcard, designed by eminent artist David Gentleman, is now available from the Stop the War office. The postcard is being used in a write-in campaign to Gordon Brown, calling for a change in government policy, to break Britain's subservience to George Bush's warmongering. Stop the War local groups plan to distribute the postcard at every tube station, bus terminal, train station, in workplaces and community centres, churches and mosques.
Contact the Stop the War Office to order postcards in bulk. If you would like to distribute the postcards in your local community, college, school or workplace or among friends and relatives, please contact us.
Phone: 020 7278 6694
Email: office@stopwar.org.uk
SEE THE POSTCARD DESIGN HERE:
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
****************************************
4) GORDON BROWN OPEN LETTER PUBLISHED 3 OCTOBER Stop the War's open letter to Gordon Brown calling for the withdrawal of all British troops from Iraq will be published in a full page advert, funded by supporters of Stop the War, in The Guardian on Wednesday 3 October (See http://tinyurl.com/3xafku).
Among the hundreds of signatories are:
Tariq Ali, Iain Banks, Tony Benn, Ian Brown, Caryl Churchill, Harry Cohen MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP, Bob Crow (Gen Sec RMT) Brian Eno, George Galloway MP, Rose Gentle (MFAW) David Gentleman, Lindsey German, (Convenor STWC), Bill Greenshields (National VP, NUT), Ben Griffin (ex SAS soldier), Kelvin Hopkins MP, Kate Hudson (Chair CND), Jean Lambert MEP, Dr Caroline Lucas MEP, Alice Mahon, Prof Kamil Majid, Miriam Margolyes, John McDonnell MP, Adrian Mitchell, Greg Mulholland MP, Andrew Murray (Chair STWC), Michael Nyman, Adam Price MP, Sami Ramadani, John Rees (Sec Respect Coalition), Yvonne Ridley, Paul Rowen MP, Mark Rylance, Prof David Seddon, Alan Simpson MP, Linda Smith, Chair Respect Coalition, Prof Andrew Spencer, Hans von Sponeck, Prof Phil Taylor, Mark Thomas, UNISON (London Fire Authority), Walter Wolfgang, Tony Woodley (Joint Gen Sec UNITE), Cllr Salma Yaqoob, Susannah York, Haifa Zangana, Benjamin Zephaniah
U.S. soldiers shooting and bombing unarmed civilians in Iraq
Soldier: Sgt. ordered me to shoot Iraqi man
By Katarina Kratovac - The Associated Press
Thursday Sep 27, 2007
BAGHDAD — A U.S. soldier broke down in tears Thursday as he testified that he was ordered to shoot an unarmed Iraqi man, and that his sergeant, a North Carolina man, laughed and told the trooper to finish the job as the man convulsed on the ground.
Sgt. Evan Vela’s testimony came during the court-martial of Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval, of Laredo, Texas. Sandoval is on trial for allegedly killing Iraqis and trying to cover up the deaths by planting weapons at the scene.
Vela, Sandoval and Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley of Candler, N.C., are all charged in the case.
Vela testified that Hensley told him to shoot the Iraqi man, although he was not armed and had his hands in the air when he approached the soldiers.
“He asked me if I was ready. I had the pistol out. I heard the word ‘shoot.’ I don’t remember pulling the trigger. It took me a second to realize that the shot came from the pistol in my hand,” he said, crying and speaking barely above a whisper.
Vela said that as the Iraqi man was convulsing on the ground, “Hensley laughed about it and hit the guy on the throat and said shoot again.”
“After [the Iraqi man] was shot, Sergeant Hensley pulled an AK-47 out of his rucksack and said, ‘This is what we are going to say happened,’” Vela said. He was dismissed from the witness stand to compose himself.
Vela said Sandoval, who was nearby providing security, was not present during the killing outside Iskandariyah, a mostly Sunni Arab city 30 miles south of Baghdad.
Sandoval faces five charges, including an April 27 murder of an unknown Iraqi male, placing a detonation wire on his body, premeditated murder of the Iraqi on May 11, placing an AK-47 rifle on his body and failing to ensure humane treatment of a detainee — the victim.
He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.
Vela, of Rigby, Idaho, was flown from Kuwait to testify under a deal that would bar his words from being used against him when he stands before a court-martial.
The investigation began after military authorities received reports of alleged wrongdoing from fellow soldiers, the Army has said. Sandoval was arrested in June while on a two-week leave visiting his family.
Vela’s defense attorney, Gary Myers, claimed earlier this week that Army snipers hunting insurgents in Iraq were under orders to “bait” their targets with suspicious materials, such as detonation cords, then kill those who picked up the items. He said his client was acting on “orders.”
The Washington Post, which first reported the “baiting” program, said it was devised by the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, which advises commanders in unconventional conflicts.
Within months of the “baiting” program’s introduction, Sandoval, Vela and Hensley were charged with murder for allegedly using those tactics to make shootings seem legitimate, according to the Post.
The Army has declined to confirm such a program existed.
The Iraq war has seen U.S. service members face prosecution in several high-profile incidents, including abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, the killings of 24 civilians by Marines in Hadithah, and the rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl and the slaying of her family south of Baghdad. Iraqis have accused American soldiers of unnecessary killings or abuse.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/09/ap_iraqsoldiertrial_070927/
Note: The U.S. Army Sniper/killer Jorge G Sandoval has been acquitted !
A Military Panel has found him Not Guilty of Murder and has convicted this killer of Planting Evidence only!
The New York times reports:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&ref=world&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
American forces said Thursday that they were investigating the deaths of nine civilians in a village about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad. The bodies — five women and four children — were found after a raid in Babahani village by American forces on Tuesday, according to a news release.
“Coalition Forces conducted operations in the area using ground and air assets prior to the discovery of the bodies,” the release said.
According to Iraqi military sources, the American raid began around 11 p.m. when a bomb was dropped on one of the houses in which the women and children apparently were staying. Shortly afterward, a second house was struck, killing two men and wounding two others, according to an officer from the Iraqi Army’s Eighth Division, First Brigade. Soldiers then entered a mosque and detained the imam, Mohammed Hassan al-Janabi, the officer said, and the operation was over by 1 a.m.
By Katarina Kratovac - The Associated Press
Thursday Sep 27, 2007
BAGHDAD — A U.S. soldier broke down in tears Thursday as he testified that he was ordered to shoot an unarmed Iraqi man, and that his sergeant, a North Carolina man, laughed and told the trooper to finish the job as the man convulsed on the ground.
Sgt. Evan Vela’s testimony came during the court-martial of Spc. Jorge G. Sandoval, of Laredo, Texas. Sandoval is on trial for allegedly killing Iraqis and trying to cover up the deaths by planting weapons at the scene.
Vela, Sandoval and Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley of Candler, N.C., are all charged in the case.
Vela testified that Hensley told him to shoot the Iraqi man, although he was not armed and had his hands in the air when he approached the soldiers.
“He asked me if I was ready. I had the pistol out. I heard the word ‘shoot.’ I don’t remember pulling the trigger. It took me a second to realize that the shot came from the pistol in my hand,” he said, crying and speaking barely above a whisper.
Vela said that as the Iraqi man was convulsing on the ground, “Hensley laughed about it and hit the guy on the throat and said shoot again.”
“After [the Iraqi man] was shot, Sergeant Hensley pulled an AK-47 out of his rucksack and said, ‘This is what we are going to say happened,’” Vela said. He was dismissed from the witness stand to compose himself.
Vela said Sandoval, who was nearby providing security, was not present during the killing outside Iskandariyah, a mostly Sunni Arab city 30 miles south of Baghdad.
Sandoval faces five charges, including an April 27 murder of an unknown Iraqi male, placing a detonation wire on his body, premeditated murder of the Iraqi on May 11, placing an AK-47 rifle on his body and failing to ensure humane treatment of a detainee — the victim.
He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.
Vela, of Rigby, Idaho, was flown from Kuwait to testify under a deal that would bar his words from being used against him when he stands before a court-martial.
The investigation began after military authorities received reports of alleged wrongdoing from fellow soldiers, the Army has said. Sandoval was arrested in June while on a two-week leave visiting his family.
Vela’s defense attorney, Gary Myers, claimed earlier this week that Army snipers hunting insurgents in Iraq were under orders to “bait” their targets with suspicious materials, such as detonation cords, then kill those who picked up the items. He said his client was acting on “orders.”
The Washington Post, which first reported the “baiting” program, said it was devised by the Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, which advises commanders in unconventional conflicts.
Within months of the “baiting” program’s introduction, Sandoval, Vela and Hensley were charged with murder for allegedly using those tactics to make shootings seem legitimate, according to the Post.
The Army has declined to confirm such a program existed.
The Iraq war has seen U.S. service members face prosecution in several high-profile incidents, including abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, the killings of 24 civilians by Marines in Hadithah, and the rape and killing of a 14-year-old girl and the slaying of her family south of Baghdad. Iraqis have accused American soldiers of unnecessary killings or abuse.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/09/ap_iraqsoldiertrial_070927/
Note: The U.S. Army Sniper/killer Jorge G Sandoval has been acquitted !
A Military Panel has found him Not Guilty of Murder and has convicted this killer of Planting Evidence only!
The New York times reports:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&ref=world&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
American forces said Thursday that they were investigating the deaths of nine civilians in a village about 60 miles southwest of Baghdad. The bodies — five women and four children — were found after a raid in Babahani village by American forces on Tuesday, according to a news release.
“Coalition Forces conducted operations in the area using ground and air assets prior to the discovery of the bodies,” the release said.
According to Iraqi military sources, the American raid began around 11 p.m. when a bomb was dropped on one of the houses in which the women and children apparently were staying. Shortly afterward, a second house was struck, killing two men and wounding two others, according to an officer from the Iraqi Army’s Eighth Division, First Brigade. Soldiers then entered a mosque and detained the imam, Mohammed Hassan al-Janabi, the officer said, and the operation was over by 1 a.m.
vendredi 28 septembre 2007
Blackwater Guards Killed 16 as US touted progress
By Leila Fadel McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday 27 September 2007
Baghdad - On Sept. 9, the day before Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told Congress that things were getting better, Batoul Mohammed Ali Hussein came to Baghdad for the day.
A clerk in the Iraqi customs office in Diyala province, she was in the capital to drop off and pick up paperwork at the central office near busy al Khilani Square, not far from the fortified Green Zone, where top U.S. and Iraqi officials live and work. U.S. officials often pass through the square in heavily guarded convoys on their way to other parts of Baghdad.
As Hussein walked out of the customs building, an embassy convoy of sport-utility vehicles drove through the intersection. Blackwater security guards, charged with protecting the diplomats, yelled at construction workers at an unfinished building to move back. Instead, the workers threw rocks. The guards, witnesses said, responded with gunfire, spraying the intersection with bullets.
Hussein, who was on the opposite side of the street from the construction site, fell to the ground, shot in the leg. As she struggled to her feet and took a step, eyewitnesses said, a Blackwater security guard trained his weapon on her and shot her multiple times. She died on the spot, and the customs documents she'd held in her arms fluttered down the street.
Before the shooting stopped, four other people were killed in what would be the beginning of eight days of violence that Iraqi officials say bolster their argument that Blackwater should be banned from working in Iraq.
During the ensuing week, as Crocker and Petraeus told Congress that the surge of more U.S. troops to Iraq was beginning to work and President Bush gave a televised address in which he said "ordinary life was beginning to return" to Baghdad, Blackwater security guards shot at least 43 people on crowded Baghdad streets. At least 16 of those people died.
Two Blackwater guards died in one of the incidents, which was triggered when a roadside bomb struck a Blackwater vehicle.
Still, it was an astounding amount of violence attributed to Blackwater. In the same eight-day period, according to statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers, other acts of violence across the embattled capital claimed the lives of 32 people and left 87 injured, not including unidentified bodies found dumped on Baghdad's streets.
The best known of that week's incidents took place the following Sunday, Sept. 16, when Blackwater guards killed 11 and wounded 12 at the busy al Nisour traffic circle in central Baghdad.
Iraqi officials said the guards were unprovoked when they opened fire on a white car carrying three people, including a baby. All died. The security guards then fired at other nearby vehicles, including a minibus loaded with passengers, killing a mother of eight. An Iraqi soldier also died.
In Blackwater's only statement regarding the Sept. 16 incident, Anne Tyrell, the company's spokeswoman, denied that the dead were civilians. "The 'civilians' reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies," she said in an e-mail, "and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire."
A joint commission of five U.S. State Department officials, three U.S. military officials and eight Iraqis has been formed to investigate the incident, though almost two weeks later, the commission has yet to meet. A U.S. Embassy statement on Thursday, the first official written comment from the embassy since the al Nisour shooting, said that the group was "preparing" to meet.
Blackwater and the U.S. Embassy didn't respond to requests for information about the other incidents.
But interviews with eyewitnesses and survivors of each incident describe similar circumstances in which Blackwater guards took aggressive action against civilians who seemed to pose no threat.
"They killed her in cold blood," Hussein Jumaa Hassan, 30, a parking lot attendant, said of Hussein.
Hassan pointed to the bullet-pocked concrete column behind him. He'd hidden behind it.
"I was boiling with anger, and I wished that I had a weapon in my hands in those minutes," he said. "They wanted to kill us all."
Anyone who moved was shot until the convoy left the square, witnesses said. Also among the dead was Kadhim Gayes, a city hall guard.
It took two days for Hussein's family to retrieve her body from the morgue. Before they could, her sister signed a sheet acknowledging the contents of her purse, which had been collected by security guards at the Baghdad city hall - a Samsung cell phone, a change purse with six keys and 37,000 Iraqi dinars ($30), gold bracelets, a notebook, pens, and photos of her and her children.
Three days later, Blackwater guards were back in al Khilani Square, Iraqi government officials said. This time, there was no shooting, witnesses said. Instead, the Blackwater guards hurled frozen bottles of water into store windows and windshields, breaking the glass.
Ibrahim Rubaie, the deputy security director at a nearby Baghdad city government office building, said it's common for Blackwater guards to shoot as they drive through the square. He said Blackwater guards also shot and wounded people in the square on June 21, though there are no official reports of such an incident.
On Sept. 13 - the same day Bush gave his "ordinary life" speech - Blackwater guards were escorting State Department officials down Palestine Street near the Shiite enclave of Sadr City when a roadside bomb detonated, ripping through one of the Blackwater vehicles.
The blast killed two Blackwater guards. As other guards went to retrieve the dead, they fired wildly in several directions, witnesses said.
Mohammed Mazin was at home when he heard the bang, which shattered one of his windows.
Then he heard gunfire, and he and his son, Laith, went to the roof to see what was going on.
What they saw were security contractors shooting in different directions as a helicopter hovered overhead. Bullets flew through his home's windows, he said.
No civilians were killed that day, but five were wounded, according to Iraq's Interior Ministry.
The following Sunday, Blackwater guards opened fire as the State Department convoy they were escorting crossed in front of stopped traffic at the al Nisour traffic circle.
While U.S. officials have offered no explanation of what occurred that day, witnesses and Iraqi investigators agree that the guards' first target was a white car that either hadn't quite stopped or was trying to nudge its way to the front of traffic.
In the car were a man whose name is uncertain; Mahasin Muhsin, a mother and doctor; and Muhsin's young son. The guards first shot the man, who was driving. As Muhsin screamed, a Blackwater guard shot her. The car exploded, and Muhsin and the child burned, witnesses said.
Afrah Sattar, 27, was on a bus approaching the square when she saw the guards fire on the white car. She and her mother, Ghania Hussein, were headed to the Certificate of Identification Office in Baghdad to pick up proof of Sattar's Iraqi citizenship for an upcoming trip to a religious shrine in Iran.
When she saw the gunmen turn toward the bus, Sattar looked at her mother in fear. "They're going to shoot at us, Mama," she said. Her mother hugged her close. Moments later, a bullet pierced her mother's skull and another struck her shoulder, Sattar recalled.
As her mother's body went limp, blood dripped onto Sattar's head, still cradled in her mother's arms.
"Mother, mother," she called out. No answer. She hugged her mother's body and kissed her lips and began to pray, "We belong to God and we return to God." The bus emptied, and Sattar sat alone at the back, with her mother's bleeding body.
"I'm lost now, I'm lost," she said days later in her simple two-bedroom home. Ten people lived there; now there are nine.
"They are killers," she said of the Blackwater guards. "I swear to God, not one bullet was shot at them. Why did they shoot us? My mother didn't carry a weapon."
Downstairs, her father, Sattar Ghafil Slom al Kaabi, 67, sat beneath a smiling picture of his wife and recalled their 40-year love story and how they raised eight children together. On the way to the holy city of Najaf to bury her, he'd stopped his car, with her coffin strapped to the top. He got out and stood beside the coffin. He wanted to be with her a little longer.
"I loved her more than anything," he said, his voice wavering. "Now that she is dead, I love her more."
--------
Special correspondents Mohammed al Dulaimy, Hussein Kadhim and Laith Hammoudi contributed to this report.
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Thursday 27 September 2007
Baghdad - On Sept. 9, the day before Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told Congress that things were getting better, Batoul Mohammed Ali Hussein came to Baghdad for the day.
A clerk in the Iraqi customs office in Diyala province, she was in the capital to drop off and pick up paperwork at the central office near busy al Khilani Square, not far from the fortified Green Zone, where top U.S. and Iraqi officials live and work. U.S. officials often pass through the square in heavily guarded convoys on their way to other parts of Baghdad.
As Hussein walked out of the customs building, an embassy convoy of sport-utility vehicles drove through the intersection. Blackwater security guards, charged with protecting the diplomats, yelled at construction workers at an unfinished building to move back. Instead, the workers threw rocks. The guards, witnesses said, responded with gunfire, spraying the intersection with bullets.
Hussein, who was on the opposite side of the street from the construction site, fell to the ground, shot in the leg. As she struggled to her feet and took a step, eyewitnesses said, a Blackwater security guard trained his weapon on her and shot her multiple times. She died on the spot, and the customs documents she'd held in her arms fluttered down the street.
Before the shooting stopped, four other people were killed in what would be the beginning of eight days of violence that Iraqi officials say bolster their argument that Blackwater should be banned from working in Iraq.
During the ensuing week, as Crocker and Petraeus told Congress that the surge of more U.S. troops to Iraq was beginning to work and President Bush gave a televised address in which he said "ordinary life was beginning to return" to Baghdad, Blackwater security guards shot at least 43 people on crowded Baghdad streets. At least 16 of those people died.
Two Blackwater guards died in one of the incidents, which was triggered when a roadside bomb struck a Blackwater vehicle.
Still, it was an astounding amount of violence attributed to Blackwater. In the same eight-day period, according to statistics compiled by McClatchy Newspapers, other acts of violence across the embattled capital claimed the lives of 32 people and left 87 injured, not including unidentified bodies found dumped on Baghdad's streets.
The best known of that week's incidents took place the following Sunday, Sept. 16, when Blackwater guards killed 11 and wounded 12 at the busy al Nisour traffic circle in central Baghdad.
Iraqi officials said the guards were unprovoked when they opened fire on a white car carrying three people, including a baby. All died. The security guards then fired at other nearby vehicles, including a minibus loaded with passengers, killing a mother of eight. An Iraqi soldier also died.
In Blackwater's only statement regarding the Sept. 16 incident, Anne Tyrell, the company's spokeswoman, denied that the dead were civilians. "The 'civilians' reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies," she said in an e-mail, "and Blackwater personnel returned defensive fire."
A joint commission of five U.S. State Department officials, three U.S. military officials and eight Iraqis has been formed to investigate the incident, though almost two weeks later, the commission has yet to meet. A U.S. Embassy statement on Thursday, the first official written comment from the embassy since the al Nisour shooting, said that the group was "preparing" to meet.
Blackwater and the U.S. Embassy didn't respond to requests for information about the other incidents.
But interviews with eyewitnesses and survivors of each incident describe similar circumstances in which Blackwater guards took aggressive action against civilians who seemed to pose no threat.
"They killed her in cold blood," Hussein Jumaa Hassan, 30, a parking lot attendant, said of Hussein.
Hassan pointed to the bullet-pocked concrete column behind him. He'd hidden behind it.
"I was boiling with anger, and I wished that I had a weapon in my hands in those minutes," he said. "They wanted to kill us all."
Anyone who moved was shot until the convoy left the square, witnesses said. Also among the dead was Kadhim Gayes, a city hall guard.
It took two days for Hussein's family to retrieve her body from the morgue. Before they could, her sister signed a sheet acknowledging the contents of her purse, which had been collected by security guards at the Baghdad city hall - a Samsung cell phone, a change purse with six keys and 37,000 Iraqi dinars ($30), gold bracelets, a notebook, pens, and photos of her and her children.
Three days later, Blackwater guards were back in al Khilani Square, Iraqi government officials said. This time, there was no shooting, witnesses said. Instead, the Blackwater guards hurled frozen bottles of water into store windows and windshields, breaking the glass.
Ibrahim Rubaie, the deputy security director at a nearby Baghdad city government office building, said it's common for Blackwater guards to shoot as they drive through the square. He said Blackwater guards also shot and wounded people in the square on June 21, though there are no official reports of such an incident.
On Sept. 13 - the same day Bush gave his "ordinary life" speech - Blackwater guards were escorting State Department officials down Palestine Street near the Shiite enclave of Sadr City when a roadside bomb detonated, ripping through one of the Blackwater vehicles.
The blast killed two Blackwater guards. As other guards went to retrieve the dead, they fired wildly in several directions, witnesses said.
Mohammed Mazin was at home when he heard the bang, which shattered one of his windows.
Then he heard gunfire, and he and his son, Laith, went to the roof to see what was going on.
What they saw were security contractors shooting in different directions as a helicopter hovered overhead. Bullets flew through his home's windows, he said.
No civilians were killed that day, but five were wounded, according to Iraq's Interior Ministry.
The following Sunday, Blackwater guards opened fire as the State Department convoy they were escorting crossed in front of stopped traffic at the al Nisour traffic circle.
While U.S. officials have offered no explanation of what occurred that day, witnesses and Iraqi investigators agree that the guards' first target was a white car that either hadn't quite stopped or was trying to nudge its way to the front of traffic.
In the car were a man whose name is uncertain; Mahasin Muhsin, a mother and doctor; and Muhsin's young son. The guards first shot the man, who was driving. As Muhsin screamed, a Blackwater guard shot her. The car exploded, and Muhsin and the child burned, witnesses said.
Afrah Sattar, 27, was on a bus approaching the square when she saw the guards fire on the white car. She and her mother, Ghania Hussein, were headed to the Certificate of Identification Office in Baghdad to pick up proof of Sattar's Iraqi citizenship for an upcoming trip to a religious shrine in Iran.
When she saw the gunmen turn toward the bus, Sattar looked at her mother in fear. "They're going to shoot at us, Mama," she said. Her mother hugged her close. Moments later, a bullet pierced her mother's skull and another struck her shoulder, Sattar recalled.
As her mother's body went limp, blood dripped onto Sattar's head, still cradled in her mother's arms.
"Mother, mother," she called out. No answer. She hugged her mother's body and kissed her lips and began to pray, "We belong to God and we return to God." The bus emptied, and Sattar sat alone at the back, with her mother's bleeding body.
"I'm lost now, I'm lost," she said days later in her simple two-bedroom home. Ten people lived there; now there are nine.
"They are killers," she said of the Blackwater guards. "I swear to God, not one bullet was shot at them. Why did they shoot us? My mother didn't carry a weapon."
Downstairs, her father, Sattar Ghafil Slom al Kaabi, 67, sat beneath a smiling picture of his wife and recalled their 40-year love story and how they raised eight children together. On the way to the holy city of Najaf to bury her, he'd stopped his car, with her coffin strapped to the top. He got out and stood beside the coffin. He wanted to be with her a little longer.
"I loved her more than anything," he said, his voice wavering. "Now that she is dead, I love her more."
--------
Special correspondents Mohammed al Dulaimy, Hussein Kadhim and Laith Hammoudi contributed to this report.
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