Turkmens continue to be targeted in Iraq: Hazim Akbar was shot in Tuz Khurmatu

Tuz Khurmatu:


Gunmen raided the home of Mr.Hazim Akbar, a Turkmen living in Tuz Khurmatu district, to the northeast of Tikrit, early Friday.

They shot Akbar, a 54 year old father of eight several times and ran off.
Akbar died soon after he reached the hospital.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq-daily-violence/story/80080.html

مجلة كردية تتهم عائلة مسعود البارزاني بنهب مدينة اربيل

مجلة كردية تتهم عائلة مسعود البارزاني بنهب مدينة اربيل
اربيل/القلعةاتهمت مجلة جيهان الكردية عائلة مسعود البارزاني، بنهب محافظة اربيل والاستيلاء على عدد كبير من الاراضي والمزارع والحقول.وقالت المجلة في عددها الصادر الاسبوع الماضي في شمال العراق ان شخصيات ذات نفوذ في عائلة مسعود البارزاني استولت بعد عودة الحزب الديمقراطي الكردي الى اربيل باسناد من

النظام السابق في 31 اب عام 1996 على اراض خاصة وعامة بطرق غير قانونية

See :
http://alkal3a.com/sub/11-198/articles/article4.htm

US Supreme Court suppresses torture photos

By Tom Eley

WSWS, 2 December 2009

The US Supreme Court on Monday nullified an appeals court order that would have obligated the Obama administration to release photographs depicting US soldiers subjecting prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq to horrific acts of torture.

In an unsigned three-sentence decision in the case, Department of Defense v. ACLU, 09-160, the Supreme Court granted an Obama administration petition vacating the order and sent the case back to the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York, telling the lower court it must review the case in light of a law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in October.

The law in question was written as a specific response to the circuit court’s ruling in October 2008 requiring that the photos be released. Attached to an appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and signed into law by Obama, it gave Secretary of Defense Robert Gates the power to suppress the torture photos if he determines they may threaten US military operations. Gates invoked the measure on November 13.

It is now anticipated that the circuit court will side with the Obama administration and rule against the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU.)

There are reportedly at least 21 specific photos at stake from Iraq and Afghanistan, although their release could open the way for hundreds more. In a brief to the Supreme Court, Obama’s solicitor general, Elena Kagan, wrote that among the photos are images of US soldiers "pointing pistols or rifles at the heads of hooded and handcuffed detainees," "a soldier hold[ing] a broom as if sticking its end into the rectum of a restrained detainee," and a soldier hitting a prisoner with the butt end of a rifle. There is every reason to believe that the photos Kagan did not describe show even more shocking scenes.

The Obama administration told the Supreme Court that release of the photos would "pose a clear and grave risk of inciting violence and riots against American troops and coalition forces." This is in fact a damning admission.

Obama confesses that making the photos public would increase opposition among Iraqis and Afghans, the great majority of whom already despise the occupations. It is at the same time tacitly understood that their publication would further reduce public support for the wars in the US.

A trial judge first ordered the release of the photos some four years ago. The Bush and Obama administrations have carried on a legal battle to keep them suppressed ever since.

The Bush administration argued that the photos could remain classified under a clause in FOIA applicable when "information compiled for law enforcement purposes" might "endanger the life or physical safety of any individual."The Second Circuit Court unanimously rejected that argument in October 2008, reasoning that it is "plainly insufficient to claim that releasing documents could reasonably be expected to endanger some unspecified member of a group so vast as to encompass all United States troops, coalition forces and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan." Such a claim could create "an alternative secrecy mechanism far broader than the government’s classification system," the court warned.

The Obama administration announced in April it would comply with the court order to release the photos. This announcement roughly coincided with the court-ordered release of Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel memos that had crafted a pseudo-legal justification for torture. In response, the military-intelligence apparatus, spearheaded by former vice president Dick Cheney, launched an attack on the Obama administration.

Obama reversed himself in May after revealing that high-ranking members of the military brass had intervened against the photos’ release. "The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals," Obama offered. "The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."The Justice Department then petitioned the Supreme Court against the release, and in the interim, Congress passed the law banning publication of the photos.

The way the Supreme Court justices voted was not made public, although the order acknowledged that the newly appointed Sonia Sotomayor, who served on the Second Circuit until August, did not participate.With the Supreme Court decision—itself an extraordinary concession by the judiciary to the legislative and executive branches—every branch of the US government has now joined in the effort to suppress the torture photos. In Congress, just six senators—and but one Democrat—voted against the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act that gave to Gates the presumptive right to block their publication. And the Obama administration has been leading the charge through its intervention with the Supreme Court and Gates’s dismissal of the circuit court ruling.

It should be recalled that Obama entered office promising Americans "a new era of openness" and that "transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency." His role in the suppression of the photos demonstrates once again the essential continuity of his administration with that of George W. Bush.

Yet the Obama administration’s victory at the Supreme Court in suppressing graphic evidence of torture in Afghanistan and Iraq will do nothing to obscure Washington’s bloody record since 2001. An incontrovertible body of evidence has been built up showing that it has put in place a worldwide regime of abduction, torture, and murder carried out by the US military and the CIA and their accomplices in a number of countries.

The most horrific forms of torture are extensively documented. These include beatings, extreme solitary confinement, simulated drowning, exposure to extreme cold, rape, sexual humiliation, and threatened executions and rape of prisoners’ family members.

The record also shows that many of these actions were ordered and overseen by the highest-ranking members of the Bush administration and with the direct knowledge and tacit support of leading congressional Democrats.

For its part, the US media for years covered up, ignored, or minimized the horrors that were common knowledge to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.

It should be clear enough that Obama defends the preceding administration not because of "mistaken" policy decisions, as his ex-liberal and ex-radical allies lament. He does so because the entire ruling class is implicated in the abuses, and because the US military is carrying on the same policies, up to and including torture, as recent revelations from Afghanistan demonstrate (see: "Torture continues at US prisons in Afghanistan").

Torture ultimately arises from the character of imperialist war itself, as history has taught time and again. Washington has not employed its military machine and hundreds of billions of dollars to "liberate" Iraqis and Afghans. Its goals are to control the region’s vast oil and natural gas supplies and strengthen its strategic position versus its major economic rivals.

These predatory aims inevitably require the use of brutal methods in order to suppress widespread popular opposition. Just as surely, they require the gutting of democratic rights in the US, including the right of the population to know the activities of the government.

Turkmens and Arabs fiercely oppose the inclusion of Kerkuk in the Kurds' autonomous region

Comment:

I have rephrased the title of the article by Waleed Ibrahim published in Turkish Weekly because it omits to mention the Turkmens.

It is not only Iraqi Arabs who fiercely oppose the inclusion of Kerkuk in the Kurds' autonomous region, all Iraqi Turkmens oppose the annexation of Kerkuk in the Kurd's autonomous region.

Kerkuk is the Turkmens' main cultural centre and capital city in Iraq.

It is the Turkmens who suffered most under the arabization policy of the former regime in their city Kerkuk.

Since 2003 the Turkmens of Kerkuk are the main victims of the Kurds' expansionism policy.

Kurds are kurdifying Kerkuk to the detriment of the Turkmens, who are the original inhabitants of the city.

Omitting to mention the Turkmens when writing about Kerkuk is bias and misinformation.



Another Iraq election law veto looms amid impasse.

Wednesday, 2 December 2009

Iraqi politicians have 24 hours to resolve an impasse over a law needed for next year's election to take place, otherwise the country's Sunni Arab vice president will veto the legislation again, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

U.N.-brokered talks have not made an agreement any more likely between Shi'ites, Kurds and Sunnis squabbling over the distribution of parliamentary seats, said Abdul Elah Kadhum, spokesman for Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi."A veto is inevitable if the current talks are not fruitful," Kadhum said.

Viewed as a critical juncture for Iraq's nascent democracy as it pulls itself out of sectarian slaughter and U.S. troops begin to withdraw, the election stands little chance of being held by its constitutional deadline of end-January.

A date in mid-February or early March is more feasible now, meaning there may be a period of political vacuum that could inflame the divisions between Iraqi factions, but a short delay should not affect U.S. plans to end combat operations in August.

The electoral law was initially held up by a struggle for Kirkuk, a city surrounded by oilfields that Iraq's minority Kurds want wrapped into their semi-autonomous northern enclave over the fierce opposition of Iraqi Arabs.

The law was approved after heavy lobbying by U.S. and U.N. officials only to be vetoed by Hashemi because it did not give sufficient seats to Iraqis who fled abroad after the 2003 U.S. invasion triggered horrific bloodshed. Many are Sunnis.

Rather than address Hashemi's complaints, lawmakers from the majority Shi'ite and Kurdish communities joined forces to pass an amended law that reduced the number of seats for Sunni areas.

That amended law was sent to the presidency council, which consists of President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and two vice presidents, including Hashemi. Only Hashemi has not signed the law and has until Thursday to veto it again if he wishes.

WHERE DID INITIAL DEAL GO?

Political groups last week struck an initial deal to allow the independent electoral commission to deal with Hashemi's concerns through mechanisms, rather than force parliament to amend the law again.

But that provisional agreement appeared to have hit a reef after U.N. officials said Iraqi politicians could not abdicate their responsibilities by assigning political decisions to the independent electoral commission."The U.N. response was they can't be dealt with as proposals. They need to be written in the law," said Omar al-Mashhadani, a spokesman for parliamentary speaker Ayad al-Samarai."She (the U.N. official) said, 'It can't be solved within a technical framework but within the political framework, which is not my job, but yours, you the politicians'," he added.

Efforts to find a solution were hampered by the Muslim Eid festival, which closed down the Iraqi government and parliament from Thursday last week till Wednesday.

Kadhum said the vice president's office had asked a federal court whether the Eid holiday could be legally excluded from the 10-day limit for the presidency council members to veto legislation. If it could, Hashemi would have more time."It is difficult now to pass the law. I wish the law would not be vetoed but it is up to Hashemi. He has the right," said Mashhadani.

By Waleed Ibrahim
http://www.turkishweekly.net/print.asp?type=1&id=93413



Turkish Weekly is an USAK Publication. USAK is the leading Ankara based Turkish think-tank.

COIN to Nowhere? Lessons from Iraq, Questions for Afghanistan

Posted by Reidar Visser on December 1, 2009


Excerpt:

What this all suggests is that the main problem in the Iraq “surge” was never related to military hardware at all but rather to deep epistemological issues. Through insisting on dealing with Iraq through ethno-sectarian lenses instead of adopting a genuinely post-sectarian approach, Washington has contributed to reifying those very political cleavages that the “surge” was supposed to transcend.

Through focusing on the formalities of getting an election law passed without causing too much Iraqi nationalist excitement over Kirkuk, the Obama administration does not appear to have realised how much momentum related to political development and maturation was lost during the Iraq policy vacuum in the first part of 2009.

In Washington, Iraqi nationalism is ignored at best and seen as harmful by some; as a consequence what is coming to the forefront in Iraq has the appearance of a Turco-Kurdish-Iranian project far more than an American-Iraqi one. While this may seem consonant with earlier ideas articulated by Biden about “regionalising” the conflict, it remains in stark contrast to the declared intention of the Obama administration to focus on Iraqi territorial integrity and unity. Unless Maliki wakes up and realises that he may end up being marginalised entirely by the other Shiite Islamists and the Kurds (who have always been sceptical about him and his centralism), it is hard to see how this trend can be reversed.



See:

http://gulfanalysis.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/coin-to-nowhere-lessons-from-iraq-questions-for-afghanistan/

Türkmenler, yine tetikçinin hedefinde!

Özdemir HÜRMÜZLÜ



Genel seçim muamması eşliğinde, Kurban Bayramı gelişi ülkede siyasi belirsizlik, Irak Türkmen Cephesi’nin üst siyasi kadrosu Musul İl Başkanı Yavuz Efendioğlu’nun şehit edilmesiyle başka boyuta yönlendirildiğini görülmektedir. Kerkük sorunu sayesinde Irak kamuoyunu Türkmenlerin sergiledikleri toprak birliği performansı iyi değerlendirmesi, karanlık güçlerin rahatsızlığına yol açtığını görmeye başladık..

Kerkük’ten sonra Türkmenler için jeopolitik platformunda önem taşıyan Musul kenti birkaç gün önce Türkmenlerin yeniden akıllarında soru işareti bırakan bir terörist eylemine sahne oldu. Terörist saldırısında ilk kes ITC’nin üst siyasi kadrosundan bir yetkili şehit edildi.

Ailesinin gözü önünde acımasızca öldürülen Yavuz Efendioğlu yapılması planlanan genel seçimler öncesi kentteki siyasi gelişmelere damgasını vurdu.

Ülkede suikast eylemleri olağanüstü bir durumda olması kaygılara neden oldu. Suikasta maruz kalanlar uzlaşıya, Irak’ın toprak birliğine ve herkesin meşru hakları alınası idealini savunan akademisyenler ve aydınlar ya da bu niteliğe sahip çıkan kurumlardır.

Tabii ki Efendioğlu Türkmeneli’in kutsal toprağına armağan ettiğimiz son Türkmen yiğidi olmayacaktı. Gelecek süreçte bu tür terörist eylemlerine eskisinden daha fazla maruz kalacağız, onun için toplum olarak hazırlıklı olmamız gerekir. Birsi özellikle Musul ve civarındaki ilçelerde ve köylerde Türkmenlerin bölgede hakiki ağırlığını ortaya koymamak için seçimlerin yapılmaması kapsamında çeşitli sinsi yöntemler kullanabilir; yeter ki Türkmen siyasi hareketi oradaki vatandaşlarımızı uyarmak gayreti içinde olsun.

Seçim yasası parlamentosundan çıktıktan sonra Cumhurbaşkanı yardımcısı Haşimi’in vetosuyla parlamentoya yeniden iade edildi. Ama işin ilginç tarafı parlamento, Haşimi’in veto ettiği maddeyi düzeltmeden başka maddeyi düzeltip yeniden Cumhurbaşkanlığı konseyine gönderdi. Ortada Musul kenti’nin parlamentoya gönderilecek milletvekili sayısı azaltıldı. Parlamentodaki Musul milletvekilleri ayağa kalktı. Kimi bu düzeltmemin arkasında Haşimi siyasi bir manevra yaptığını iddia ediyor. Şimdi Haşimi Kurban Bayramından sonra yasa ile görüşünü açıklayacağını belirtti. Şayet yasayı yeni haliyle Cumhurbaşkanı yardımcısı tarafından onaylanırsa Musul kentinde boykot sesleri yükselecek, buda eskiden muhalefetle bilinen şimdi iktidarda olan siyasi grupların yararında olacak. Musullular seçimlerde boykot ilan ederseler Irak’taki öngörülen bölme planları güçlenecek. Bundan en büyük darbeyi ülkenin milli çıkarı çerçevesinde siyasi çalışmalarını yürüten akımlar ve Türkmenler görecekler. O zaman ülkede bir siyasi oyun var. Bu siyasi oyunun arkasında büyük komplo var.

Bunlar hepsi bir analiz yani doğru olacak ya da olmayacak gelin beraber bakalım gelecek günler Iraklılar için ne tür siyasi gelişmeler saklamış!

Turkmens continue to be targeted in Iraq - Cui bono?

Hazim Yılangöz from Bayraktar-Çayırlılar family, one of the oldest families in Iraq has been killed

Aged 54 and father of eight Yilangöz was attacked by an unknown person in front of his home early in the morning. Having been seriously wounded he died in the car which was taking him to the hospital.

Yavuz Efendi, Musul's ITF Representative, had been killed three days before in Musul.

Les Turkmènes continuent à être la cible des attentats
En Irak, les attentats et attaques visant les Turkmènes, se poursuivent
Posted 29.11.2009 18:38:18 UTC
Updated 29.11.2009 18:38:18 UTC

http://www.trtfrench.com/trtinternational/fr/newsDetail.aspx?HaberKodu=4f441b5b-0fdc-4a05-a741-7616f8fab6cd


Hazim Yılangöz faisant parti de la famille Bayraktar-Çayırlılar, l'une des familles turkmènes les plus enracinées d'Irak, a été tué.
Agé de 54 ans et père de 8 enfants, Yılangöz a été attaqué par une personne dont l'identité n'est pas connue, devant chez lui dans les heures matinales.
Blessé grièvement au torse et à la jambe, Yılangöz est décédé sur la route lorsqu'il était acheminé à l'hôpital.
Lors des funérailles de Yılangöz, les attaques et attentats visant les Turkmène ont été condamnés.

Yavouz Efendi, un des autorités du front turkmène irakien, avait été tué il y a 3 jours à Mossoul.

A BLACK CAT IN A DARK ROOM

June 11, 1995 front page of Baghdad Observer with articles stating Iraq was free of WMD.

Click the image to enlarge it

by Malcom Lagauche

November 29, 2009

In Britain, hearings are being held about the lies leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. At first, the commission members attempted to whitewash all the incidents. But, parents of those killed in Iraq have put enough pressure on the commission to get at least some truth out. In the past week or so, they have changed their tune and have admitted to much of what we already knew, but it’s the first time public figures of the government of Britain are telling a portion of the truth. There is so much pressure being put on them, that they have opened up subjects, albeit mostly to save their own careers. The publicity being given these hearings is loud enough that if the commission members kept on lying, their falsities would be published in every newspaper in the country.

However, there is still one issue they evade: the fact that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) since 1992. Their statements say that they ignored information that Iraqi WMD may be degraded by 2002 and they would be of no use. Another swerve is that they say that Iraq lacked the delivery systems for WMD and could not use them. They still will not admit there were no WMD in Iraq and it was irrelevant whether the Iraqis had proper delivery systems. If there is nothing to deliver, the question of delivery is null and void.

The front page of the Baghdad Observer of June 11, 1995 is just one of the items that proves Iraq had no WMD. It shows a picture of Saddam Hussein in the middle, flanked by two articles ("Iraq’s Cooperation with UN Must Be Rewarded" and "Iraq Pins Hope on Next SC Report to UN Council") in which it is clearly stated the Iraq said all its WMD were destroyed. However, even this message has been tweaked by current journalists, historians, and politicians. After the embarrassment of not finding even one gram of WMD, the new story line was that Saddam hoodwinked the world by keeping them thinking Iraq had WMD when it didn’t. If this was the case, I doubt the two articles of the front page of the Baghdad Observer would display Saddam with two articles discussing the destruction of the country’s WMD in 1991 and 1992.

When one looks back at statements and articles by Iraqis during the period of 1991 to 2003, it is uncanny how accurate they were. On the other hand, much of what the U.S. put forward has been shown to be outright lies.

For instance, in October 2002, the U.S. issued a document called "Key Judgements: National Intelligence Estimate." It concluded that Iraq was constantly developing its stockpile of WMD and, at times, maintained that the 2002 inventory of Iraqi WMD may be larger than that of the country prior to 1991. The report included many doomsday scenarios.

This document was publicised world-wide. Virtually every daily newspaper in the U.S. carried it, or excerpts from it. Many foreign countries saw it as well and it helped convince some leaders who were on the fence about whether to support a war or not to come aboard the U.S. ship. In looking at the document today, one would have a hard time finding even one bit of truth. Even U.S. administration officials admitted it was way off; after the illegal invasion, of course.

On the other hand, in November 2002, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Naji Sabri, sent a letter to the Unite Nations refuting the report. Then, he gave in detail the standing of Iraq in regards to its WMD. He mentioned when they were destroyed and how programs were never re-started. The U.S. called the letter a big lie and condemned the Iraqis for again trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the world. In looking at the letter today, it is extremely accurate in every detail.
Sabri's letter received little attention, other than the obligatory denouncement by the U.S. Few people read it.

When Iraq and the U.S. shared diplomatic ties in the 1980s, Nizar Hamdoon was the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.S. In Washington, he was well-regarded and built many friendships. In the 1990s, with no diplomatic ties between the two countries, Hamdoon was called back to action and served as the Iraqi Ambassador to the U.N. In 2000, he was replaced and called back to Baghdad to serve in the Foreign Service.

Hamdoon was very visible in the U.S. and many people remember him from television appearances, although he was usually lambasted by interviewers. His was a lonely job. On July 4, 2003, a few months after the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq, Hamdoon died of cancer.

Let's to back to the latter part of 1998. The U.S. was accusing Iraq of concealing the most deadly chemicals on Earth and in December, Clinton ordered the bombing of Iraq and called the procedure Operation Desert Fox. Most people remember this as the "Iraq/U.N. standoff." Even the method of removing the inspectors from Iraq was a lie. The U.N. ordered the inspectors from Iraq a few days before the bombing, yet the U.S. always stated that Saddam Hussein kicked them out.

During this time, Nizar Hamdoon wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times called "A Black Cat in a Dark Room." The paper carried it, yet few people took it seriously. Go back to the time and refresh your memory and you will see how exact and precise Hamdoon was in his assessment. He did not lie, yet few listened. He clearly stated that Iraq was free of WMD.

"A BLACK CAT IN A DARK ROOM"
by Nizar Hamdoon

Much has been said and published about recent standoffs between Iraq and the United Nations arms inspectors. But those criticizing Iraq for suspending its cooperation with the United Nations special commission on arms inspection, better known as Unscom, give no recognition whatsoever to the underlying reason that led Iraq to adopt this position. It is time to set the record straight.

First, the whole world knows by now that Iraq has lost well over a million of its people as a direct result of the sanctions that have been in place for eight years. A former president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, was chillingly correct when he called sanctions a "peaceful, silent and deadly remedy." U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright herself characterized them as "the toughest multilateral sanctions in history." Many critics seem to think the government of Iraq is supposed to stand idle while watching a whole generation of its people melt away like snowflakes.

Second, Iraq has complied with all the fundamental requirements of disarmament in Security Council Resolution 687. Unscom itself admitted this reality in its April 11, 1997 report to the Security Council when it said, "The accumulated effect of the work that has been accomplished over six years since the cease fire went into effect between Iraq and the coalition is such that not much is unknown about Iraq's proscribed weapons capabilities." But the United States and Britain refuse to recognize this fact. Their role in preventing the Security Council from closing the clearly done nuclear file a few months ago is a case in point.

The disagreement between Iraq and the inspectors is not on existing weapons. No weapons or sites have been discovered by the Unscom inspectors on their own since 1991. Those that have been found have been produced by the Iraqi government itself. Rather, the recent disputes involve paper documentation that precedes the gulf war. Those issues can be pursued in the context of the already established ongoing monitoring regime.

There are two main questions that need to be asked when assessing Iraq's compliance with disarmament requirements: does Iraq still possess proscribed weapons or the means to produce them, and is the monitoring process working? The answer is no to the first, yes to the second. Unscom's allegations about documentation are nothing but excuses to manufacture a crisis whenever one is needed to prolong the sanctions.

Iraq has said all along that there must be a creative way to reconcile the two goals: the need for more documentation and the easing of the suffering of the Iraqi people. Unscom, unfortunately, is insisting on everything or nothing.

Iraq will never be able to satisfy Unscom because it is being asked to prove the negative: that it does not have any more weapons. There is, of course, no way Iraq can prove that it has nothing if it has nothing. How many more Iraqis will have to die because Richard Butler's team has not yet found another document, which cannot be located because there is no such document in the first place? The inspectors are searching for a black cat in a dark room where the cat does not exist.

Third, many American officials have stated that even if Iraq complies with the Security Council's resolutions, the United States will not approve the lifting of sanctions. The declared goal of Washington is to remove the current government of Iraq. We wonder of this goal is in line with the letter and spirit of international law and the United Nations resolutions. Iraq continues to believe that the resolutions are used by the United States as a cover for an illegal political agenda. The allocation of money to the Central Intelligence Agency for subversion in Iraq is just a unit in this series. One might wonder why Iraq should continue being part of this futile and endless game.

Fourth, Ms. Albright claims that every Iraqi receives a daily ration basket equivalent to the recommended caloric intake of the average American. Perhaps she needs to review the latest reports by the United Nations and other organizations which state that millions of Iraqi children and women are still suffering and that the oil-for-food program is not adequate. For instance, the 1998 World Disaster Report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies described Iraq as a country under siege and said 16 to 27 percent of the population is malnourished.

Finally, many high-ranking American officials keep speaking about Iraq as being a threat to American interests and the region. We would like to assure these officials, and through them the American people, that Iraqi is eager to live in peace with its neighbors and the world. But Iraq will not submit to intimidation, bullying and coercion. Peace will come only through dialogue based on mutual respect for the principles of independence, sovereignty and the observance of international law.

The Mother of All Battles is available. To order, please click on this link:
http://malcomlagauche.com/id8.html

http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=60593