emphasis added by ican
revel wrote:Iraqi Parliament Approves New Cabinet
Quote:BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's parliament approved a national unity government on Saturday, achieving a goal the U.S. hopes will reduce widespread violence so that U.S. forces can eventually go home. But as the legislators met, at least 27 people were killed and dozens wounded in a series of attacks.
Police also found the bodies of 21 Iraqis who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured by death squads that plague the capital and another area. The wounded included two British soldiers whose convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in the southern city of Basra, police said.
In a show of hands, the 275-member parliament approved each Cabinet minister proposed by incoming Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The new ministers then took their oaths of office in the nationally televised session in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
That completed a democratic process that began following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
In his first address, al-Maliki told parliament that he would make restoring stability and security the top priority of his new administration. He said he would "work fast" to improve and coordinate Iraqi forces so they can reduce attacks by insurgent groups and militias.
Al-Maliki said he would set "an objective timetable to transfer the full security mission to Iraqi forces, ending the mission of the multinational forces."
But his failure to fill the top two security porfolios illustrated the challenges ahead. Al-Maliki, a Shiite, said he would be acting interior minister for now, and he made Salam Zikam al-Zubaie, a Sunni Arab, the temporary defense minister.
That angered some legislators, and before the Cabinet was approved by a show of hands, parliament turned down a motion by Sunni Arab leader Saleh al-Mutlaq to postpone the session.
Al-Mutlaq then walked out with about 10 other Sunni deputies.
[The rest of the article found at link]
I am sure that those who claim that the media distorts the news of Iraq would omit the bad news in the following article and just say "Iraq's parliament approved a national unity government on Saturday." These reports of violence and chaos in Iraq get in the way of their "happy talk" strategy.
It's not easy work, and it is slow progress, but it is progress.
MEASURABLE PROGRESS IN IRAQ TOWARD THE IRAQ SOLUTION -- AS OF May 21, 2006
ican711nm wrote:The USA and Iraq's solution is to establish a democracy in Iraq secured by the Iraqis themselves. Iraq and the USA have completed six of eight steps toward their solution:
(1) Select an initial Iraq government to hold a first election;
(2) Establish and begin training an Iraq self-defense military;
(3) Hold a democratic election of an interim government whose primary function is to write a proposed constitution for a new Iraq democratic government;
(4) Submit that proposed constitution to Iraq voters for approval or disapproval;
(5) After approval by Iraq voters of an Iraq democratic government constitution, hold under that constitution a first election of the members of that government;
(6) After that election, organize the newly elected Iraq government;
(7) Train, as specified by the new Iraq government, an Iraq military to secure that Iraq government;
(8) After the Iraq government is secured, remove the USA military from Iraq in a phased withdrawal.
The USA will withdraw from Iraq in phases in harmony with the evolution of Iraq's self-governance. As a consequence, both Iraqis and Americans will in their mutual self-interest achieve the following goals:
(A) Stop the terrorists and Saddamists from threatening Iraq's democracy;
(B) Enable Iraqi security forces to protect their own people;
(C) Prevent Iraq from becoming a potential safe haven for terrorists to plot attacks against the USA and other countries.
Ican
Your response is laughably ignorant.
ican wrote:Zarqawi established al-Qaeda sanctuary in Iraq in December 2001 after 9/11 and after the USA invaded Afghanistan.
True. Do you know who he got sanctuary with? The
Ansar al-
Islam - a group of Kurdish Islamists. I suppose the next thing your going to tell us is the Kurds and Saddam were the best of friends.
By the way, I suggest you check my sources. Do you know who's backing up my assertions? Bush administrations intelligence. I didn't know Bush was a flaming liberal. I knew he was a flaming idiot.
The two main ministries remained unfilled with Maliki and his deputy filling the spots until they can be filled, meanwhile violence continues unabated. But this was a turning point with victory right around the corner.
Quote:BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber killed at least 13 people and injured 17 when he blew himself up Sunday in a downtown Baghdad restaurant frequented by police. The attack came as Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged to soon fill vacancies in his two key security ministries.
The attack against the Safar restaurant was part of a spree of roadside bombs, mortar rounds and a drive-by shooting that killed at least 18 Iraqis and wounded dozens.
The 12 dead in the restaurant attack included three police officers, said Police Col. Abbas Mohammed. The explosion struck at 1:20 p.m. during the crowded lunch hour in Baghdad's mixed Karradah neighborhood. Blood was splattered on the restaurant's white tile walls, and wrought iron chairs were scattered throughout the corner store.
Al-Maliki's new government met for the first Sunday. The prime minister hopes the government will eventually improve Iraq's military and police forces, persuade the insurgents to lay down its weapons and disband militias, reduce sectarian violence and restore stability to Iraq.
If all that can be done, it would set the stage for the eventual withdrawal of tens of thousands of U.S. and other foreign troops.
But political infighting left three important posts in the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish Cabinet temporarily filled ?- the very ones responsible for managing Iraq's army, police forces and national security.
Al-Maliki, a Shiite, has said he was determined to soon find independent, nonsectarian officials to fill those three portfolios in his government.
"I do not think that the naming of defense and interior ministers will take more than two or three days," he said at a news conference.
The prime minister said his government would use "maximum force in confronting the terrorists and the killers who are shedding blood" in Iraq.
But he also said it would try to reduce public support for insurgent groups by promoting national reconciliation, improving the country's collapsing infrastructure, and setting up a special protection force for Baghdad, one of Iraq's most violent cities.
He said Baghdad "must end its crisis of sectarian violence that is causing many families to flee their homes."
Two roadside bombs exploded nearly simultaneously in a crowded fruit market in New Baghdad, a mixed Shiite, Sunni Arab and Christian area in an eastern part of the capital, said police Lt. Ali Abbas.
Police found the first bomb and detonated it after trying to evacuate the market, said Abbas. But a second hidden bomb exploded a moment later, killing three civilians and wounding 23, all of whom had ignored the evacuation order, Abbas said.
At about 8 a.m., four gunmen in a speeding BMW killed Ali Abdul-Hussein al-Kinani, 57, who was standing outside his food store in the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Ubaidi, said police Maj. Mahir Hamad Moussa.
In southwestern Baghdad, a roadside bomb missed its target ?- a police patrol ?- but wounded five civilians at 8 a.m., in the mostly Sunni Arab neighborhood of Saidiyah, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.
Three other attacks took place in Dora, one of Baghdad's most violent areas. Mortar rounds hit two separate houses, killing a 4-year-old girl and wounding her mother in one dwelling, and injuring a man and his son in the other, police said. A roadside bomb narrowly missed a U.S. convoy but wounded three civilians.
Al-Maliki's national unity government took office Saturday, five months after the election of Iraq's parliament and following prolonged bitter wrangling over the Cabinet posts.
At least 33 people were killed in a series of attacks across Iraq on Saturday, and police found the bodies of 22 Iraqis who apparently had been kidnapped and tortured by death squads that plague Iraq.
The new permanent government has been portrayed by Western officials as the best hope for ending violence in Iraq.
President Bush, who is facing rising criticism at home over Iraq, welcomed the new Cabinet and promised continued U.S. help.
"The United States and freedom-loving nations around the world will stand with Iraq as it takes its place among the world's democracies and as an ally in the war on terror," Bush said.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad repeated U.S. cautions against expectations of a quick pullout of the 132,000-strong American military contingent. But, he added, "strategically, we're going to be moving in the direction of downsizing our forces."
Bush's top ally in the war, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said: "Despite all the attempts to disrupt the political process they have a government, a government ... of national unity for the first time."
Blair said coalition soldiers hoped to transfer their duties to Iraqis as soon as possible, but that British troops would remain in Iraq for as long as they were needed.
Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said Saturday that the new government would begin planning the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq next week. Japan is also mulling a pullout.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060521/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Good point, xingu, get ready for a bunch of meaningless oft recylced posts in return though.
The more we exterminate/kill/slaughter, (words favoured in Ican's posts), the more enemies/terrorists/muslim combatants we create.
Is the penny anywhere near dropping yet? What we are doing is counter-productive, and we are engaged in a monumental crime.
McT, The sad fact is simply that people like ican thinks "we're making progress" while increasing more terrorists and terrorism around the world. Their thinking relies heavily on what Bushco tells us; "we're making progress with the new government of Iraq." Blind does as blind sees; nothing of the reality.
THE ARCHITECTS OF WAR: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
President Bush has not fired any of the architects of the Iraq war. In fact, a review of the key planners of the conflict reveals that they have been rewarded - not blamed - for their incompetence.
PAUL WOLFOWITZ
Role In Going To War: Wolfowitz said the U.S. would be greeted as liberators, that Iraqi oil money for pay for the reconstruction, and that Gen. Eric Shinseki's estimate that several hundred thousand troops would be needed was "wildly off the mark." [Washington Post, 12/8/05]
Where He Is Now: Bush promoted Wolfowitz to head the World Bank in March 2005. [Washington Post, 3/17/05]
Key Quote: "We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon." [Wolfowitz, 3/27/03]
DOUGLAS FEITH
Role In Going To War: As Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Feith spearheaded two secretive groups at the Pentagon ?- the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans ?- that were instrumental in drawing up documents that explained the supposed ties between Saddam and al Qaeda. The groups were "created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true." Colin Powell referred to Feith's operation as the Gestapo. In Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, former CentCom Commander Gen. Tommy Franks called Feith the "f***ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth." [LAT, 1/27/05; NYT, 4/28/04; New Yorker, 5/12/03; Plan of Attack, p.281]
Where He Is Now: Feith voluntarily resigned from the Defense Department shortly after Bush's reelection. He is co-chairman of a project at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government to write an academic book on how to fight terrorism. Feith's secretive groups at the Pentagon are under investigation by the Pentagon and the Senate Intelligence Committee for intelligence failures. [Washington Post, 1/27/05, 11/18/05; Washington Times, 3/3/06]
Key Quote: "I am not asserting to you that I know that the answer is ?- we did it right. What I am saying is it's an extremely complex judgment to know whether the course that we chose with its pros and cons was more sensible." [Washington Post, 7/13/05]
STEPHEN HADLEY
Role In Going To War: As then-Deputy National Security Advisor, Hadley disregarded memos from the CIA and a personal phone call from Director George Tenet warning that references to Iraq's pursuit of uranium be dropped from Bush's speeches. The false information ended up in Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. [Washington Post, 7/23/03]
Where He Is Now: On January 26, 2005, Stephen Hadley was promoted to National Security Advisor. [White House bio]
Key Quote: "I should have recalled at the time of the State of the Union speech that there was controversy associated with the uranium issue.
And it is now clear to me that I failed in that responsibility in connection with the inclusion of these 16 words in the speech that he gave on the 28th of January." [Hadley, 7/22/03]
RICHARD PERLE
Role In Going To War: Richard Perle, the so-called "Prince of Darkness," was the chairman of Defense Policy Board during the run-up to the Iraq war. He suggested Iraq had a hand in 9-11. In 1996, he authored "Clean Break," a paper that was co-signed by Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and others that argued for regime change in Iraq. Shortly after the war began, Perle resigned from the Board because he came under fire for having relationships with businesses that stood to profit from the war. [Guardian, 9/3/02, 3/28/03; AFP, 8/9/02]
Where He Is Now: Currently, Perle is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he specializes in national security and defense issues. He has been investigated for ethical violations concerning war profiteering and other conflicts of interest. [Washington Post, 9/1/04]
Key Quote: "And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation." [Perle, 9/22/03]
ELLIOT ABRAMS
Role In Going To War: Abrams was one of the defendants in the Iran-Contra Affair, and he pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of withholding information from Congress. He was appointed Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director on the National Security Council for Near East and North African Affairs during Bush's first term, where he served as Bush's chief advisor on the Middle East. His name surfaced as part of the investigation into who leaked the name of a undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. [Washington Post, 5/27/03, 2/3/05]
Where He Is Now: Abrams was promoted to deputy national security adviser in February of 2005. [Slate, 2/17/05]
Key Quote: "We recognize that military action in Iraq, if necessary, will have adverse humanitarian consequences. We have been planning over the last several months, across all relevant agencies, to limit any such consequences and provide relief quickly." [CNN, 2/25/03]
DAVID WURMSER
Role In Going To War: At the time of the war, Wurmser was a special assistant to John Bolton in the State Department. Wurmser has long advocated the belief that both Syria and Iraq represented threats to the stability of the Middle East. In early 2001, Wurmser had issued a call for air strikes against Iraq and Syria. Along with Perle, he is considered a main author of "Clean Break." [Asia Times, 4/17/03; Guardian, 9/3/02]
Where He Is Now: Wurmser was promoted to Principal Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs; he is in charge of coordinating Middle East strategy. His name has been associated with the Plame Affair and with an FBI investigation into the passing of classified information to Chalabi and AIPAC. [Raw Story, 10/19/05; Washington Post, 9/4/04]
Key Quote: "Syria, Iran, Iraq, the PLO and Sudan are playing a skillful game, but have consistently worked to undermine US interests and influence in the region for years, and certainly will continue to do so now, even if they momentarily, out of fear, seem more forthcoming." [Washington Post, 9/24/01]
ANDREW NATSIOS
Role In Going To War: Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Andrew Natsios, then the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, went on Nightline and claimed that the U.S. contribution to the rebuilding of Iraq would be just $1.7 billion. When it became quickly apparent that Natsios' prediction would fall woefully short of reality, the government came under fire for scrubbing his comments from the USAID Web site. [Washington Post, 12/18/03; ABC News, 4/23/03]
Where He Is Now: Natsios stepped down as the head of USAID in January and is currently teaching at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh's School of Foreign Service as a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and Advisor on International Development. [AP, 2/20/06; Georgetown, 12/2/05]
Key Quote: "[T]he American part of this will be $1.7 billion. We have no plans for any further-on funding for this." [Nightline, 4/23/03]
DAN BARTLETT
Role In Going To War: Dan Bartlett was the White House Communications Director at the time of the war and was a mouthpiece in hyping the Iraq threat. Bartlett was also a regular participant in the weekly meetings of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG). The main purpose of the group was the systematic coordination of the "marketing" of going to war with Iraq as well as selling the war here at home. [Washington Post, 8/10/03]
Where He Is Now: Bartlett was promoted to Counselor to the President on January 5, 2005, and is responsible for the formulation of policy and implementation of the President's agenda. [White House]
Key Quote: "President Bush understands that the need to disarm Saddam Hussein is necessary. He has made that case to the United Nations Security Council. He's made that case to the United States Congress. The entire world rallied behind this resolution that gives him one last chance. He has that chance, but time is running out." [CNN, 1/26/03]
MITCH DANIELS
Role In Going To War: Mitch Daniels was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from January 2001 through June of 2003. In this capacity, he was responsible for releasing the initial budget estimates for the Iraq War which he pegged at $50 to $60 billion. The estimated cost of the war, including the full economic ramifications, is approaching $1 trillion. [MSNBC, 3/17/06]
Where He Is Now: In 2004, Daniels was elected Governor of Indiana. [USA Today, 11/3/04]
Key Quote: Mitch Daniels had said the war would be an "affordable endeavor" and rejected an estimate by the chief White House economic adviser that the war would cost between $100 billion and $200 billion as "very, very high." [Christian Science Monitor, 1/10/06]
GEORGE TENET
Role In Going To War: As CIA Director, Tenet was responsible for gathering information on Iraq and the potential threat posted by Saddam Hussein. According to author Bob Woodward, Tenet told President Bush before the war that there was a "slam dunk case" that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction. Tenet remained publicly silent while the Bush administration made pre-war statements on Iraq's supposed nuclear program and ties to al Qaeda that were contrary to the CIA's judgments. Tenet issued a statement in July 2003, drafted by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, taking responsibility for Bush's false statements in his State of the Union address. [CNN, 4/19/04; NYT, 7/22/05]
Where He Is Now: Tenet voluntarily resigned from the administration on June 3, 2004. He was later awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom. [Washington Post, 6/3/04]
Key Quote: "It's a slam dunk case." [CNN, 4/19/04]
COLIN POWELL
Role In Going To War: Despite stating in Feb. 2001 that Saddam had not developed "any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction," Powell made the case in front of the United Nations for a United States-led invasion of Iraq, stating that, "There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction." [Powell, 2/5/03; Powell, 2/24/01]
Where He Is Now: Shortly after Bush won reelection in 2004, Powell resigned from the administration. Powell now sits on numerous corporate boards. He is poised to succeed Henry Kissinger in May as Chairman of the Eisenhower Fellowship Program at the City College of New York. In September 2005, Powell said of his U.N. speech that it was a "blot" on his record. He went on to say, "It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now." [ABC News, 9/9/05]
Key Quote: "?'You are going to be the proud owner of 25 million people,' he told the president. ?'You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll own it all.' Privately, Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage called this the Pottery Barn rule: You break it, you own it." [Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack]
DONALD RUMSFELD
Role In Going To War: Prior to the war, Rumsfeld repeatedly suggested the war in Iraq would be short and swift. He said, "The Gulf War in the 1990s lasted five days on the ground. I can't tell you if the use of force in Iraq today would last five days, or five weeks, or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that." He also said, "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months." [Rumsfeld, 11/14/02; USA Today, 4/1/03]
Where He Is Now: Despite increased calls for his resignation, Donald Rumsfeld continues to be the most vocal supporter of staying the course in Iraq. Recently, he claimed that an early U.S. pullout would be the equivalent of leaving Germany in the hands of Nazis. [Bill Kristol, Washington Post, 12/15/04; Reuters, 3/19/06]
Key Quote: "You go to war with the Army you have. They're not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." [CNN, 12/9/04]
CONDOLEEZZA RICE
Role In Going To War: As National Security Adviser, Rice disregarded at least two CIA memos and a personal phone call from Director George Tenet stating that the evidence behind Iraq's supposed uranium acquisition was weak. She urged the necessity of war because "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." [Washington Post, 7/27/03; CNN, 9/8/02]
Where She Is Now: In December of 2004, Condoleezza Rice was promoted to Secretary of State and is being widely-mentioned as a possible presidential candidate. [ABC News, 11/16/04]
Key Quote: "We did not know at the time - maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency - but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery. Of course it was information that was mistaken." [Meet the Press, 6/8/03]
DICK CHENEY
Role In Going To War: Among a host of false pre-war statements, Cheney claimed that Iraq may have had a role in 9/11, stating that it was "pretty well confirmed" that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence officials. Cheney also claimed that Saddam was "in fact reconstituting his nuclear program" and that the U.S. would be "greeted as liberators." [Meet the Press, 12/9/01, 3/16/03]
Where He Is Now: Cheney earned another four years in power when Bush won re-election in 2004. Despite recent calls from conservatives calling for him to be replaced, Cheney has said, "I've now been elected to a second term; I'll serve out my term." [CBS Face the Nation, 3/19/06]
Key Quote: "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." [Larry King Live, 6/20/05]
GEORGE W. BUSH
Role In Going To War: Emphasizing Saddam Hussein's supposed stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, supposed ties to al Qaeda, and supposed nuclear weapons program, Bush led the effort to build public support for an invasion of Iraq. [State of the Union, 1/28/03]
Where He Is Now: In November 2004, Bush won re-election. Since that time, popular support for the war and the President have reached a low point. [Washington Post, 3/7/06]
Key Quote: "Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof ?- the smoking gun ?- that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." [Bush, 10/7/02]
xingu wrote:Ican
Your response is laughably ignorant.
ican wrote:Zarqawi established al-Qaeda sanctuary in Iraq in December 2001 after 9/11 and after the USA invaded Afghanistan.
True. Do you know who he got sanctuary with? The ... Ansar_al-Islam
...
In December 2001, "Ansar_al-Islam" got established in its sanctuary in northeastern Iraq with the help of bin Laden. "Ansar_al-Islam" thereby became an al-Qaeda affiliate.
emphasis added by ican
Quote:9-11 Commission, 9/20/2004
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
...
2.4 BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION, DECLARING WAR ON THE UNITED STATES (1992-1996)
...
To protect his own ties with Iraq, Turabi reportedly brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam.
Bin Ladin apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he
continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad's control. In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin's help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.54
McTag wrote:The more we exterminate/kill/slaughter, (words favoured in Ican's posts), the more enemies/terrorists/muslim combatants we create.
Is the penny anywhere near dropping yet? What we are doing is counter-productive, and we are engaged in a monumental crime.
Some say the US effort to murder the inhuman terrorist malignancy (e.g., al-Qaeda) is causing it to expand. Some say the number of al-Qaeda in Iraq is small ... that is, too small to be much of a threat to the US. Please make up your minds!
emphasis added by ican
Quote:9-11 Commission, 9/20/2004
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
...
2.5 AL QAEDA'S RENEWAL IN AFGHANISTAN (1996-1998)
...
The Taliban seemed to open the doors to all who wanted to come to Afghanistan to train in the camps. The alliance with the Taliban provided al Qaeda a sanctuary in which to train and indoctrinate fighters and terrorists, import weapons, forge ties with other jihad groups and leaders, and plot and staff terrorist schemes. While Bin Ladin maintained his own al Qaeda guesthouses and camps for vetting and training recruits, he also provided support to and benefited from the broad infrastructure of such facilities in Afghanistan
made available to the global network of Islamist movements. U.S. intelligence estimates put the total number of fighters who underwent instruction in Bin Ladin-supported camps in Afghanistan from 1996 through 9/11 at 10,000 to 20,000.78
As I recall, the USA did not invade either Afghanistan or Iraq until after 9/11. So how did the USA cause the number of al-Qaeda fighters to grow to "10,000 to 20,000?" without invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Answer: That growth was
not caused by the USA. It was caused by al-Qaeda's 1992, 1996,and 1998 declarations of war against the USA.
LET'S NEGOTIATE!
YOU ALL STOP REPEATING YOUR FALSITIES AND I'LL STOP REPEATING MY TRUTHS IN RESPONSE TO YOUR FALSITIES.
DEAL?
Quote:9-11 Commission, 9/20/2004
www.9-11commission.gov/report/index.htm
...
2.4 BUILDING AN ORGANIZATION, DECLARING WAR ON THE UNITED STATES (1992-1996)
...
To protect his own ties with Iraq, Turabi reportedly brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he continued to aid a group of Islamist extremists operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad's control. In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin's help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.54
In case your unaware of this NE Iraq, Kurdish country, was off limits to Saddam Hussein. It was in the no fly zone. He was not allowed to send troops into the territory. He had no control over it.
If there was any aid it was not to support bin Laden but to fight the Kurds, which were his enemies. Bin Laden is a religious fanatic and Hussein was a secular leader. Religious fanatics hate secular leaders.
So lets not get ridiculous and use this as an excuse to invade Iraq.
ican, Your ability to ignore everything that makes up a real democracy shows your ignorance. The military force is composed of sectarian tribes controlling areas of Iraq with killings and torture of other tribes. Your blindness to the realities of what's going on in Iraq only shows your ignorance and stupidity.
Revealed: grim world of new Iraqi torture camps
Secret torture chambers, the brutal interrogation of prisoners, murders by paramilitaries with links to powerful ministries... Foreign affairs editor Peter Beaumont in Baghdad uncovers a grim trail of abuse carried out by forces loyal to the new Iraqi government
Sunday July 3, 2005
The Observer
The video camera pans across Hassan an-Ni'ami's body as it is washed in the mosque for burial. In life he was a slender, good-looking man, usually dressed in a dark robe and white turban, Imam at a mosque in Baghdad's Adhimiya district and a senior official of the Muslim Clerics Association.
When I first interviewed him a year ago he was suspected of contacts with the insurgency. Certainly he supported resistance to US forces.
More recently, an-Ni'ami had dropped out of sight. Then, a little over a month ago, relatives say, paramilitary police commandos from 'Rapid Intrusion' found him at a family home in the Sha'ab neighbourhood of northern Baghdad. His capture was reported on television as that of a senior 'terrorist commander'. Twelve hours later his body turned up in the morgue.
What happened to him in his 24 hours in captivity was written across his body in chapters of pain, recorded by the camera. There are police-issue handcuffs still attached to one wrist, from which he was hanged long enough to cause his hands and wrists to swell. There are burn marks on his chest, as if someone has placed something very hot near his right nipple and moved it around.
A little lower are a series of horizontal welts, wrapping around his body and breaking the skin as they turn around his chest, as if he had been beaten with something flexible, perhaps a cable. There are other injuries: a broken nose and smaller wounds that look like cigarette burns.
An arm appears to have been broken and one of the higher vertebrae is pushed inwards. There is a cluster of small, neat circular wounds on both sides of his left knee. At some stage an-Ni'ami seems to have been efficiently knee-capped. It was not done with a gun - the exit wounds are identical in size to the entry wounds, which would not happen with a bullet. Instead it appears to have been done with something like a drill.
What actually killed him however were the bullets fired into his chest at close range, probably by someone standing over him as he lay on the ground. The last two hit him in the head.
The gruesome detail is important. Hanging by the arms in cuffs, scorching of the body with something like an iron and knee-capping are claimed to be increasingly prevalent in the new Iraq. Now evidence is emerging that appears to substantiate those claims. Not only Iraqis make the allegations. International officials describe the methods in disgusted but hushed tones, laying them at the door of the increasingly unaccountable forces attached to Iraq's Ministry of the Interior.
The only question that remains is the level of the co-ordination of the abuse: whether Iraq is stumbling towards a policy of institutionalised torture or whether these are incidents carried out by rogue elements.
Six months ago, Human Rights Watch (HRW) laid out a catalogue of alleged abuses being applied to those suspected of terrorism in Iraq and called for an independent complaints body in Iraq.
But as the insurgency has grown hotter, so too, it appears, have been the methods employed in the dirty counter-insurgency war.
To add to HRW's allegations of beatings, electric shocks, arbitrary arrest, forced confessions and detention without trial, The Observer can add its own charges These include the most brutal kinds of torture, with methods resurrected from the time of Saddam; of increasingly widespread extra-judicial executions; and of the existence of a 'ghost' network of detention facilities - in parallel with those officially acknowledged - that exist beyond all accountability to international human rights monitors, NGOs and even human rights officials of the new Iraqi government.
What is most shocking is that it is done under the noses of US and UK officials, some of whom admit that they are aware of the abuses being perpetrated by units who are diverting international funding to their dirty war.
Hassan an-Ni'ami may well have been a terrorist. Or he may have had knowledge of that terrorism. Or he may have been someone who objected too loudly to foreign troops being in Iraq. We will never know. He had no opportunity to defend himself, no lawyer, no trial. His interrogation and killing were a breach of international law.
And it is not only the case of an-Ni'ami but others too, all arrested by units of the Ministry of the Interior, many of whom were tortured and subsequently killed. Post-mortem images show a dozen or so farmers from the insurgent hotbed of Medayeen who were apparently seized by police as they slept in one of Baghdad's markets and whose bodies were discovered on a rubbish dump in shallow graves to the north of the city. Like an-Ni'ami, their bodies also bore the marks of extensive torture before execution, most with a bullet to the head.
The face of the first body is blackened by strangulation or asphyxiation. Another has bruises to his forehead where he was been hit repeatedly with something heavy. Yet another, his hands still tied with cord, has been punched in the eye and had his ankle fractured. Yet another shows signs of burning similar to an-Ni'ami's. The last two have identical puncture wounds, fist-width apart, suggesting the use of a spiked knuckle-duster.
Then there is Tahar Mohammed Suleiman al-Mashhadani, seized from the Abu Ghraib neighbourhood from early prayers outside a mosque with a number of other men, again by paramilitary police from Rapid Intrusion. When his body was found by family members in the morgue - 20 days after his arrest - he had been tortured almost beyond recognition.
These are not isolated cases. For what is extraordinary is the sense of impunity with which the torture, intimidation and murder is taking place. It is not just in Baghdad. In the majority Shia south, far from the worst ravages of the insurgency, there are also emerging reports consistent with the abuses in the capital.
If there is a centre to this horror, it is Baghdad's Ministry of the Interior, and the police commando units that operate from there.
The ministry is a strange, top-heavy building, set apart in an area of open ground off the highway. Its entrance is guarded by concrete blast-walls and endless checkpoints on the dusty road that leads to its crowded reception.
I came here almost exactly a year ago, two days after sovereignty had been handed back to Iraq's interim government. The floors were occupied by civil servants and blue-uniformed officers of the Iraqi Police Service. It was easy to wander in.
These days the ministry is a very different place. The dusty hinterland that leads to it is busy with the new paramilitary forces that most often have been accused of human rights abuses - the Rapid Intrusion brigades, most notoriously the Wolf Brigade of 'Abu Walid'. There has been no investigation or official findings over the allegations.
It was here - 12 months ago - that there was the first intimation that something was going seriously wrong. On the second day of Iraq's new government, US military police were forced to raid the Guest House to 'rescue' dozens of alleged criminals, scooped up in a sweep of the city, who were being subjected to beatings and forced confessions of their crimes.
Back then officials were happy to justify the violence - and angry at the US intervention. Criminals and terrorists expected a good beating, one official said, proud of his 100 per cent confession rate.
Now it is impossible to reach those officials as they shelter on heavily guarded floors. There are no American MPs to come to the aid of those locked in the cells.
A year ago, the worst violence was meted out in the Guest House. Now officials say the abuse happens on the seventh floor, where those suspected of terrorist connections are brought.
One of those held at the ministry for 'terrorist interrogation' is 'Zaid'. It is not his real name. Since his release, the 25-year-old Sunni from the western suburbs of Baghdad lives in fear of being brought back.
A taxi driver, the college graduate stopped his car in March to buy food in a market. When a bomb exploded nearby, he went to look at the damage. Arrested at the scene by soldiers from the Iraqi National Guard, he says he was handed over to the Ministry of the Interior.
At first, said Zaid, he was put in a room, on the seventh floor, measuring 10ft by 12ft, with 60 others. He was crammed in so tightly he could not sit. In some respects Zaid was lucky. Early in his detention, a Ministry of Justice official appeared and, furious at the conditions, demanded the men be moved. 'He said, "You can't have this many people in a room this size," so they moved us to somewhere with more air and fed us. He asked too whether there had been any beatings and some said yes.'
For his part, Zaid says he was hung by his arms, but not for so long that it caused any permanent damage. His ordeal was largely to be subjected to threats of violence as up to eight guards circled him during his interrogation. But Zaid claims he witnessed what happened to men brought from another detention facility, a barracks run by the Wolf Brigade, who were kept in the same area as Zaid until his parents paid a hefty bribe for his release.
'I saw men from Samarra [another insurgent stronghold] and from Medayeen. Some appeared to have wounds to their legs,' he recalled. 'There were others who could not use their spoon properly. They had to hold it between their palms and move their heads to the spoon.'
His month in the ministry terrified Zaid. If the police came again for him, he said, he would rather throw himself off a balcony than go back. Zaid is not the first detainee to accuse the police of taking bribes for the release of prisoners. It is a common charge, as are descriptions of prisoners being brought from other, less accountable, interrogation facilities where the worst of the violence is taking place.
What is most important about Zaid's testimony is that it makes clear a link exists between the Ministry of Interior and the torture being conducted out of sight at other centres. Iraqi and international officials named several of these centres, including al-Hadoud prison in the Kharkh district of Baghdad.
A second torture centre is said to be located in the basement of a clinic in the Shoula district, while the Wolf Brigade is accused of running its own interrogation centre - said to be one of the worst - at its Nissor Square headquarters. Other places where abusive interrogations have been alleged include al-Muthana airbase and the old National Security headquarters.
'Abu Ali', a 30-year-old Sunni scooped up in a mosque raid in central Baghdad, was taken to the latter for a week in mid-May where he says he was beaten on his feet, subjected to hanging by his arms and, when he angered his guards by refusing to confess, threatened with being sat on 'the bottle' - being anally penetrated.
It is not just in Baghdad. Credible reports exist of Arab prisoners in Kirkuk being moved to secret detention facilities in Kurdistan, while other centres are alleged in Samarra, in the Holy Cities and in Basra in the south.
'There are places we can get to and know about,' said one Iraqi official. 'But there are dozens of other places we know about where there is no access at all.'
'It is impossible to keep track of detentions, and what is happening to people when they are taken away,' complained one foreign official involved in trying to building Iraq's respect for human rights.
'On top of that we have a whole culture that is permitting torture. The impression is the judiciary are simply not interested in responding to the issue of human rights. It is depressing.'
But it is not simply the issue of keeping track of where detainees are being taken that is a problem. Accountability has also become more opaque since the formation of the Shia-dominated government of Ibrahim Jaffari with ministers and senior officials at the Ministry of the Interior refusing to meet concerned international organisations including Human Rights Watch.
'We have been trying to break through to someone responsible to express our concerns,' said another international official.
'But it is impossible to meet the people we really need to see. What is so worrying is that allegations concerning the use of drills and irons during torture just keep coming back. And we have seen precisely the same evidence of torture on bodies that have turned up after they have been arrested. There is a dirty counter-insurgency war, led on the anti-insurgency side by groups responsible to different leaders. People are not appearing in court. Instead, what is happening to them is totally arbitrary.'
There is a significance to all this that goes beyond the everyday horror of today's Iraq. In the absence of weapons of mass destruction, the human rights abuses of Saddam Hussein's regime became more important as a subsidiary case for war.
It has been a theme that has been constantly reiterated: it was horrific then, and it is better now. The second may still just be true. In many aspects there may be some improvement, but the trajectory of Iraq now on human rights is in danger of undermining that last plank of justification.
True, there is a question of scale of the abuses. What is also different from Saddam's era is that Iraq is now host to multinational troops, to huge UK and US missions, and is a substantial recipient of foreign aid, including British and EU funds.
British and US police and military officials act as advisers to Iraq's security forces. Foreign troops support Iraqi policing missions. What is extraordinary is that despite the increasingly widespread evidence of torture, governments have remained silent. It is all the more extraordinary on the British side, as embassy officials have been briefed by senior Iraqi officials over the allegations on a number of occasions and individual cases of abuse have been raised with British diplomats.
In Iraq's Ministry of Human Rights, close to the Communications Tower and the location of one of the secret interrogation centres, they were marking the international day for the victims of torture. As officials gathered for chocolate cake and cola under posters that read 'Non to torture', some senior officials are in no doubt that torture in their country is again getting worse.
The deputy minister, Aida Ussayran, is a life-long human rights activist who returned from exile in Britain to take up this post. She concedes that abuses by Iraq's security forces have been getting worse even as her ministry has been trying to re-educate the Iraqi police and army to respect detainee rights.
'As you know, for a long time Iraq was a mass grave for human rights,' she says. 'The challenge is that many people who committed these abuses are still there and there is a culture of abuse in the security forces and police - even the army - that needs to be addressed. I do not have a magic solution, but what I can do is to remind people that this kind of behaviour is what creates terrorists.'
There is a sense of frustration too in the Ministry of Human Rights, for even as the security forces rapidly increase in size, the ministry tasked with checking abuses has only 24 monitors to pursue cases, at a time when officials believe it needs hundreds to keep Iraq's police and army effectively in check.
If Ussayran is robust about her country's problems with human rights abuses, others are convinced that, far from being the acts of rogue units, the abuse is being committed at the behest of the ministry itself - or at least senior officials within it.
'There are people in the ministry who want to use these means,' said one. 'It is in their ideology. It is their strategy. They do not understand anything else. They believe that human rights and the Convention against Torture are stupid.'
FACTBOX-Developments in Iraq on May 9
09 May 2006 13:26:43 GMT
Source: Reuters
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May 9 (Reuters) - Following are security and political developments in Iraq on Tuesday as of 1315 GMT.
Iraq is trying to form a government of national unity to combat a mostly Sunni Arab insurgency. Sectarian tensions have run high since the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in February, which unleashed a wave of reprisal attacks.
Asterisk denotes a new or updated item.
*BAGHDAD - One U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb on Monday in eastern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. It did not provide details.
BAGHDAD - Twelve bodies bearing signs of torture and gunshot wounds were found in various areas of Baghdad, police said.
BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb aimed at police guarding electricity installations exploded in northwest Baghdad, killing two civilians. Two policemen and three civilians were wounded, police sources said.
LATIFIYA - The bodies of three people, one wearing police uniform, were found with gunshot wounds and their hands bound in Latifiya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
SUWAYRA - Iraqi police retrieved the bodies of 11 people, nine of them beheaded, including a 10-year-old boy, in the Sunni town of Suwayra, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
KIRKUK - Gunmen killed an Iraqi soldier and wounded two others on the main road between Tikrit and Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.
OWJA - Gunmen kidnapped two people on Monday who work in supplying the Iraqi army with food in the town of Owja, near Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
RAMADI - Gunmen killed four police officers while they were driving out of police headquarters in the city of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, police said.
POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday he expected to form a national unity government in the next day or two, ending five months of stalemate since a December election.
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Sounds more like chaos and blood-letting than anything else I can think of.
xingu wrote:
...
In case your unaware of this NE Iraq, Kurdish country, was off limits to Saddam Hussein. It was in the no fly zone. He was not allowed to send troops into the territory. He had no control over it.
...
I REPEAT!
A "no fly zone" is not a
no go zone. Saddam could and did repeatedly send troops to mass murder Kurds on the ground under the "no fly zone."
Because Saddam could exert control of northeastern Iraq on the ground whenever he chose to do so, the USA repeatedly requested that Saddam remove the leadership of Ansar al-Islam. Saddam repeatedly ignored our requests. So we invaded Iraq and removed many of them ourselves.
We repeatedly requested that the Taliban remove al-Qaeda from Afghanistan. The Taliban repeatedly ignored our requests. So we invaded Afghanistan and removed many of them ourselves.
cicerone imposter wrote:ican, Your ability to ignore everything that makes up a real democracy shows your ignorance. The military force is composed of sectarian tribes controlling areas of Iraq with killings and torture of other tribes. Your blindness to the realities of what's going on in Iraq only shows your ignorance and stupidity.
I REPEAT!
I'm not blind to it. I have repeatedly reported it.
ican711nm wrote:The number of non-combatant civilians killed by violence since 01/01/2000, as of:
12/31/2002 (1096 days) -- total = 56,049 -- approximate average monthly rate / daily rate = 1,556.9 / 51.1.
The number of non-combatant civilians killed by violence since 01/01/2003, as of:
12/31/2005 (1095 days) -- total = 31,319 -- approximate average monthly rate / daily rate = 870.0 / 28.6.
Note: Less than 8,000 of these non-combatant civilians killed by violence, since 01/01/2003 as of 12/31/2005, were killed by coalition forces.
The number of non-combatant civilians killed by violence since 01/01/2003, as of:
01/31/2006 (1126 days) -- total = 31,928 -- approximate average monthly rate / daily rate = 862.9 / 28.4;
02/28/2006 (1154 days) -- total = 32,506 -- approximate average monthly rate / daily rate = 855.4 / 28.2;
03/31/2006 (1185 days) -- total = 38,161 -- approximate average monthly rate / daily rate = 978.5 / 32.2;
04/30/2006 (1215 days) -- total = 39,024 -- approximate average monthly rate / daily rate = 975.6 / 32.1.
Yes, the murders of civilians by the inhuman terrorist malignancy continues. The solution to the problem is not here yet. But it's on its way, albeit at a snail's pace.
"We shall see, my little chickadee."
