Iraq

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Australian PM, after being told what to say, vows to stand by US in Iraq. The orders of the Neocons must be followed (as Saddam Hussein found out)

Australian PM vows to stand by US

  • Australia's prime minister assures visiting President George W Bush that Canberra will not withdraw troops from Iraq.


All countries must stay course in Iraq, Bush tells Brown

  • The first signs of real divisions between George Bush and Gordon Brown over Iraq emerged as the President urged Britain to stay the course in the country.


Glad not all politicians in Australia are toeing the line : Aussie senator calls Bush 'dunderhead' for sending troops to Iraq.

  • An outspoken Australian politician has called US President George W. Bush a 'dunderhead' for sending troops to Iraq.
  • Bush, whose five-day visit has placed Australia's biggest city Sydney under a security lockdown, spent the day in talks with Prime Minister John Howard.
  • Meanwhile, Greens Party leader Senator Bob Brown said it was wrong to think that Australia's security depended on maintaining a military presence in Iraq.
  • Bush told a press conference in Sydney earlier Wednesday that it was important for Australia's security that 'we hang in there with the Iraqis and help them'.
  • "He would say that, because when it comes to Australia's interests, he's a dunderhead and Iraq has made us less safe," Brown told reporters on Wednesday.
  • The Greens leader, who was frogmarched out of Parliament House in Canberra in 2003 when he interrupted an address by Bush, said Australia should never have joined the US-led Iraq war.
  • "What John Howard should have been saying to George Bush is, 'we're withdrawing from Iraq and we are an independent country and we are on our own two feet, we're not deputy sheriff,'" Brown said.
  • Brown, who is yet to receive a response to a written request to meet with Bush during his visit, said, "Australia's got a wonderful regard for the United States, but not for George Bush."

Here we go again .. another mob hanging in Iraq to further inflame the Shia-Sunni Conflict

'Chemical Ali' sentence confirmed

  • A court in Iraq has upheld death sentences for crimes against humanity of a cousin of late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and two of his aides.
  • Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali", Hussein Rashid and Sultan Hashim were convicted in June of the killings of at least 100,000 Kurds during 1988.
  • Saddam Hussein was also being tried for his role in the campaign before he was hanged last December.

Left unsaid by the biased and complicit MSM is the fact that the USA blamed the Iranians for the gassing of the Kurds for many years, until they decided to turn on their patsy, Saddam Hussein, and blame him. In any case, the gas used by Iraq was supplied by the West, and they helped Saddam Hussein target and deliver it.

Also unsaid is that the UN/US failed to find the mass graves to justify the claimed "civilian death toll of up to 180,000" during this alleged "genocide" of the Kurds.

This was not a fair trial, but a kangaroo court worthy of a lynch mob puppet government which sold the country out to the US interests.

An excellent article by Robert Fisk indicating that an end to the injustice done in the Middle East by the UK and US administrations would be the best way to end the war on terror. At least that is achievable, whilst the extreme weather now affecting the planet might now be out of our control.

Robert Fisk: Fear climate change, not our enemies

  • Hans von Sponeck's gripping, painful account of his years as the UN's Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, A Different Kind of War, an analysis of the vicious, criminal sanctions regime levelled against the Iraqi people between 1990 and 2003. Here, for example, is what Sergei Lavrov, the Russian ambassador to the UN wrote in March 2000: "...the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq is inexorably leading to the disintegration of the very fabric of civil society." It was "a situation where an entire generation of Iraqis has been physically and morally crippled".
  • Did we really think that after we had impoverished them and destroyed so many of their children; after a generation of Iraqis had been "physically and morally crippled", they were going to welcome our "liberation"?
  • From this wreckage of Iraq was bound to come the insurgencies and the hatreds now tearing its people apart and destroying the presidency of George W. Bush and the prime ministership of Tony Blair.
  • What these men know, of course, while waffling about our "values", is that the only way to lessen the risk of attack in London or Washington is to adopt a moral, just policy towards the Middle East.


Are JUDGES now considered fair game for hanging / decapitation ?

The Mainstream Media try to sanitize/condone this by omitting to mention that one of the executed prisoners of war was a JUDGE, who was executed for DOING HIS WORK AS A JUDGE. Instead the Mainstream Media concentrate on phrase "Aide" .. well a cleaner is an Aide. Are we to go after cleaners next ? Is this the new "genocide", when you win a war you kill ALL your opponents (including civilians) ? Journalists, Lawyers and citizens world-wide are now intimidated, charged, and assassinated. This is the 21st Century's Global Holocaust.


Awad Hamid al-Bandar'

  • Awad Hamid al-Bandar, who has been hanged aged 60, was perhaps unique in being the first judge in history to be executed for running a sham trial. The

Saddam Hussein's top aides hanged

  • Two of Saddam Hussein's key aides have been hanged in Baghdad, two weeks after the chaotic execution of the former Iraqi president.
  • There were "no violations" this time, officials said, but Saddam Hussein's half-brother, Barzan al-Tikriti, was decapitated as he was hanged.

Criticism of Iraq hangings grows

  • United Nations and European Union leaders have condemned the executions in Baghdad of two of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's top aides.

Iraqis will never accept this sellout to the oil corporations

Questions raised by Iraq hangings

  • The Iraqi government again finds itself criticised by its closest Western allies - the United States and Britain - for carrying out "undignified" hangings.

BBC report : Secret US plans for Iraq's oil

  • The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.

Totally ungrateful Iraqi government THREATENS the world which just created it. How stupid is threatening the people who put you in power and who are protecting you ?

Iraq PM warns the world he may retaliate to any criticism made about Saddam hanging - Where's freedom of expression ?

  • Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has said his government could review relations with any country which criticised the execution of ex-leader Saddam Hussein.
  • Mr Maliki said the hanging was a "domestic affair" for the benefit of Iraq's unity, adding that the former president had received a fair trial.


Why did we not hear from Saddam Hussein's opponents these same words about it all being "domestic affairs" when Saddam Hussein's regime was in power ? Even Saddam Hussein would not have the gall to have threatened the world in order not to criticize anything done inside Iraq because it was "domestic affairs". How UTTERLY UNGRATEFUL. The West should turn round and then say, OK - FINE .. IT'S YOUR MESS .. WE ARE LEAVING IT ALL TO YOU .. BUT DON'T COME RUNNING TO US CRYING IF THE WHOLE THING IMPLODES INTO CIVIL WAR. What happened to FREEDOM OF SPEECH and democracy we are bringing to Iraq ? Would any Iraqi paper dare criticize the hanging ? If so, how will Maliki's henchmen will deal with them ? Unfortunately we know from experience : A raid by people wearing police-uniform taking away everyone, then absolute denial of any knowledge of where all the captives went. Wasn't bringing WESTERN FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION one of the belated "purported" purposes of the invasion ?

PULL OUT ALL THE FOREIGN TROOPS NOW ... LET MALIKI HAVE HIS WISH OF RUNNING HIS SHOW ALONE .. NOT ON THE BACK OF WESTERN BLOOD AND MONEY. Maliki's regime is a MONSTER potentially much worse than ANY previous Iraqi Regime. The US and Britain are happy to create such a monster AS LONG AS THE REGIME FOLLOWS THEIR ORDERS. How dare Maliki also tell the world that the upcoming hanging of two other Iraqi Officials found guilty will go ahead IRRESPECTIVE of world opinion. Maliki's Regime is an ARROGANT, STUBBORN, UNGRATEFUL, BLOOD THIRSTY AND DARE WE SAY STUPID REGIME WHICH FAILS TO LEARN FROM ITS PRIOR MISTAKES .. WHICH UNFORTUNATELY MIRRORS THE BUSH / BLAIR / ISRAELI REGIMES .. THE SAYING "YOU LEARN FROM YOUR PARENTS YOUR BAD HABITS" SEEMS TO APPLY HERE.


Robert Fisk: The whole bloody thing was obscene

Video **EXCELLENT**: Keith Olbermann - Special Comment on "sacrifice" (11 minutes)


Iranians 'up to no good' in Iraq

  • Five Iranians arrested by US troops in Baghdad last month were on a covert mission to influence Iraq's government, British officials have told the BBC. The five men were senior intelligence officers...

WPN Note : New NeoCon lexicon : Other side's diplomacy is "covert 'no good' mission to influence and interfere in internal affairs". Other side's non-diplomacy = "Terrorism". Israel's interference in US affairs : "Totally acceptable unless you are an anti-Semite racist"


Saddam Execution Rushed to Hide Information — Russian Ex-PM

  • The execution of Saddam Hussein was rushed to prevent the former Iraqi leader from revealing facts that could compromise the United States, former Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov has said.


Libya to build statue of Saddam


Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak : Hanging 'makes martyr of Saddam'


Evidence from Prosecutor: Americans allowed the mobile video of the hanging

Evidence from a senior Iraqi court official provides compelling evidence that Americans took all mobiles except two used openly by "high-ranking government officials". This confirms that the mobile phone video was not recorded secretly, but was done openly and with government approval, and that the Americans controlled who was allowed in with any mobile phone. This reinforces the belief that both the making, and the leaking of the video, was deliberate black propaganda to further inflame the civil war.


Execution Video Meant to Cause Shia-Sunni Conflict

  • The leaking of the videotape of hanging of Saddam and the dialogue that was exchanged between Saddam’s executioners, handpicked by Americans, and the subsequent planting of stories in mainstream media that Saddam's hanging will be seen by Shia's as a welcome sacrifice on one of the Holiest days of Islam was a deliberate act meant to create a backlash amongst Muslims and a Shia-Sunni conflict in the Muslim world.

THIS MUST BE AVOIDED. Israel would be the main beneficiary of such a conflict. The US people (outside of the arms/war industry), as well as the wider world, would be the major losers.


Iraqi prosecutor states "Two officials were holding mobile phone cameras," said Faroon, who was a deputy prosecutor in the case for which Saddam was hanged and is the chief prosecutor in a second trial that will continue against his aides for genocide against the Kurds. "One of them I know. He's a high-ranking government official," Faroon said, declining to name the man. "The other I also know by sight, though not his name. He is also senior. "I don't know how they got their mobiles in because the Americans took all our phones, even mine which has no camera."


WPN Note : The report above confirms that the mobile phone video was not recorded secretly, but was done openly, with government sanction, and that the Americans controlled who was, and was not, allowed in with a camera phone. This reinforces the belief that both the making, and the leaking, of the video was deliberate black propaganda to further inflame the civil war. This is reinforced by reports that Guards did not even allow Saddam to sleep on the night of the execution.


Comment by Mike Rivero at whatreallyhappened

  • It appears that the intent was to exhaust Saddam that he would break down emotionally on the gallows for the benefit of the unofficial official cameras. - M. R.


How to Start a Civil War

  • When the Shia mosque was bombed, it was Sadr who blamed the Americans for it.
  • According to many Iraqis, while there was a division between Kurds and Arabs in the north of Iraq, there never was a division between Sunnis and Shia before the war.
  • And although now, the Sadr militias are blamed for the sectarian violence, a few months back there came reports out of Iraq that the violence originated from some Badr brigade units, connected to Ahmed Chalabi, the ex-CIA assassin and neo-con agent responsible for the WMD lies.


These shameful events have humiliated the Arab world

  • Saddam's trial and mob execution reeked of western double standards. Yet Iraq's neighbouring states failed to speak out
  • The spectacle of Saddam Hussein's execution, shown in pornographic detail to the whole world, was deeply shocking to those of us who respect propriety and human dignity. The vengeful Shia mob that was allowed to taunt the man's last moments, and the vicious executioners who released the trapdoor while he was saying his prayers, turned this scene of so-called Iraqi justice into a public lynching. One does not have to be any kind of Saddam sympathiser to be horrified that he should have been executed - and, so obscenely, on the dawn of Islam's holy feast of Eid al-Adha, which flagrantly defies religious practice and was an affront to the Islamic world.
  • He was to be used as a trophy of a mindless and catastrophic war, to redeem America's dented image. But it was also essential to stop him revealing secrets about the west's past enthusiasm in supporting and arming his regime. Hence he was tried on the relatively minor charge of killing 148 people in the village of Dujail, after a plot to assassinate him. Far better to put him away safely for that rather than risk his exposing western hypocrisy, treachery and double-dealing.
  • For the Arab world, this has been a shameful, humiliating event that underlines its total surrender to western diktat. The execution was carried out under the auspices of a foreign occupying power, and with a clear western message: we give ourselves the right to invade a sovereign Arab state and remove its leader because he offends us; we think you Arabs are incapable of sorting out your own affairs in accordance with our interests, so we will do it for you.


Former Saddam judge says execution violates Iraqi law


George Galloway: Saddam Hussein execution: When will all the guilty pay?

  • The stupidity of the Baghdad puppets beggars belief. First, they commission a kangaroo court which refuses to consider charges relating to the invasion of Iran in 1980, or the gassing of the Kurds or any other event in which the Western powers were complicit.


George Galloway: Withdraw all the troops now

  • The Iraq Study Group led by the former US secretary of state James Baker and the former Democratic congressman Lee Hamilton is to recommend a gradual withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq.
  • "It’s a step," said George Galloway, "but not a quick enough step. US and British troops are only exacerbating the crisis and should be withdrawn now."


Robert Fisk: A dictator created then destroyed by America

  • Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed
  • And the mass killings we perpetrated in 2003 with our depleted uranium shells and our "bunker buster" bombs and our phosphorous, the murderous post-invasion sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, the hell-disaster of anarchy we unleashed on the Iraqi population in the aftermath of our "victory" - our "mission accomplished" - who will be found guilty of this?
  • But his execution will go down - correctly - as an American affair and time will add its false but lasting gloss to all this - that the West destroyed an Arab leader who no longer obeyed his orders from Washington, that, for all his wrongdoing (and this will be the terrible get-out for Arab historians, this shaving away of his crimes) Saddam died a "martyr" to the will of the new "Crusaders".


Saddam Hussein becomes an Arab folk hero

  • Simply put, Saddam Hussein's brutal reign was made by the USA. He worked for the CIA before be became politically prominent in Iraq. He was one of America's closet Mideast allies during the 1980s, and received substantial US military and financial aid.
  • When you hear references to his tyranny, his cruelty, the accounts are generally true -- he was one hell of a bastard. The 'unknown news', though, is that at the peak of Saddam's tyranny and cruelty, the Reagan administration didn't just tolerate having Saddam in charge of Iraq, they funded and armed his regime. He was America's ally, just like several of the world's most despotic bastards are America's allies now.
  • When he said Iraq had disarmed, it was true.


Saddam was Right and Bush was Wrong


BBC : Saddam execution: Your reaction

  • What is your reaction to the event? Was it right to execute him? Should he have faced other charges? Will the news of his hanging affect the violence in Iraq?
  • We have received over 20,000 messages on this topic. Whilst we try to publish as many comments as possible, we cannot guarantee your message will appear.

The overwhelming reply from the BBC viewers world-wide is of disgust with the Bush/Blair governments for orchestrating this, and wondering why Bush/Blair aren't in court answering charges of war crimes, e.g. 

Now that Saddam has been punished for his crime for the 
killing of 148 of his own people, for plotting his death. 
Who is accountable for Murdering the 500,000 innocent 
civilians since the occupation?

The thing that makes me angry the most is our hypocrisy: 
how many "Saddams" currently live free in the world? 
The point is: we wanted Saddam’s oil, we hanged him… 
Today is a bad day for the whole humanity.

Tyrants, depots, autocrats and assorted riffraff of the world:
Beware of the American hand that feeds you! Saddam was once a  loyal
ally in the war against Iran; Pinochet did his best against the communists.
You can terrorize your people and rape your country. 
Just don't become a US liability!

I do not see that hanging Saddam Hussein ends any dark history
The US and Great Britain are completely implicated in creating a
history darker than one I could ever imagine. We have imposed a
greater violence, a greater chaos in the Middle East than has ever
existed before. I see our collective "conviction" and hanging of
Hussein as a gothic horror. Violence begets violence.

To me it seems that we have gone back 600 years when one country
doesn't like the leader of another country so that country invades
the other country imprisoning the other leader and later executing him.
That doesn't mean Saddam was not a tyrant but lets not kid 
ourselves that that had anything to do with his execution.

It should be an international trial, not under occupation and under US orders. 
We had so many dictators: Franco, Pinochet, Marco and many war criminals 
backed by US who the US did not execute, but they came to US for protection.  
This is the ugliest face of masked "democracy".

I am so happy to see that I am not alone in my feelings of injustice
and corruption that is involved in government people! 
They set up a leader, then when he won't be their puppet, they hang him!

The very act of the execution was appalling. Execution of the head of 
state under a puppet government installed by another nation is not
only a mockery of justice, but an act degrading to the whole nation.
Saddam was charged with the 150 murders.  What about charging
the man responsible for the murder of 200,000 Iraqis? 
No one has the right to invade another country with the reason 
that the country was mismanaged.  Reminds one of the colonials
who invaded Mexico saying that they indulged in pagan rituals.

The death penalty is nothing other than state sponsored murder and for 
any UK MP to do anything other than condemn it while it's banned here 
is hypocrisy.  And equally how any Christian can, neatly ignoring one 
of the 10 commandments, I can imagine either.

He killed all those who crossed his red lines, he still enjoyed Western support.
American and British diplomats armed him and aided him in every way possible.
When he dared to cross their red lines, by launching rockets at Israel 
or tried to hurt other dictators serving Western interests, he was destroyed.
They killed him for crossing the red lines nothing to do with justice or the Iraqis

The most visible effect of Saddam's death is evidently the videos of his death: 
The official one, soundless, designed to fool the media around the world; 
and the second one taken on a mobile phone, with sound, 
revealing the shocking comments by some attendants. 
More than words this says a lot about the moral values of at least some of 
the people in charge right now in Iraq. Not very comforting for the future.

What's one more murder after all the deaths Iraq's suffered in the past few years?
First we starved them, then we bombed them and when that didn't
work we invaded and killed some more. And today dozens more 
will die as they did yesterday and as they will tomorrow.
One has to ask why Blair and Bush feel it is so important to kill Iraqi's. 
One must also remember that Iraq under Saddam was the one Muslim country 
that Al-Qaeda was to frightened to operate in, Iraq's never bombed us Al-Qaeda has

Now I understand why our government has bought an extra 12,000 
anti-terrorism suits for our police. Thanks Tony and Bush for 
putting my and my family's life at risk all the more.

3,000 Dead Americans in Iraq

  • Despite President George Bush’s attempt to overshadow the grim milestone with a political execution, the 3,000th dead American soldier was sent home today in a body bag. The soldier fell on the last day of 2006, ringing in the New Year with a march towards 4,000.
  • As meticulously recorded on the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count website, the 3,000th dead American was also the 111th for December – the highest U.S. body count since November 2004.
  • Meanwhile, the political lynching of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after a mock trial in a kangaroo court went off without a hitch in the Green Zone -- Iraq’s equivalent of Guatanamo Bay. The Americans wanted the hanging to take place on their soil and under their control, for fear that he might escape if his killing was left up to the Iraqis.
  • Ironic though it is that 43 years ago the United States put Saddam Hussein into power through a CIA-orchestrated coup The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.


US Officials lying and misleading the public again about Saddam Hussein .. and the Main Stream Media not barking ?


Assassinated. Saddam Hussein silenced so he can't talk about his US weapons, intel and support up to 1990.


Bush Silences a Dangerous Witness

  • Like a blue-blood version of a Mob family with global reach, the Bushes have eliminated one more key witness to the important historical events that led the U.S. military into a bloody stalemate in Iraq and pushed the Middle East to the brink of calamity.


Full Saddam Execution Video Leaked from Cellphone

At nearly midnight Iraq Time, US denies Saddam handed to Iraq

  • Last Updated: Friday, 29 December 2006, 20:17 GMT i.e. 23:17 local Iraq time
  • US officials have denied reports that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has been transferred to Iraqi custody, as speculation mounts about his execution.
  • "There has been no change in his (Saddam Hussein's) status," US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said late on Friday.

A few hours later, at dawn, indeed, before the sun had risen, he is hanged. Therefore was the US State Department deliberately misleading the world again ? Or was Saddam Hussein really in US custody all along. With Saddam Hussein being hanged by masked men, who can tell if these really were Iraqi, or US solders, or Mossad agents ? And even if they were Iraqi, is this a Mob lynching ? The "Sherif" handing a prisoner over to the gang outside at dawn to "settle the score" ? This has an old "Wild West" series feeling to it .. end of part "x", in the next series, the relatives seek revenge .. but the Sherif with his shiny badge and shiny weapons will be there .. stay tuned for the next exciting episode of "Iraq - bombed back to the Wild West days". Though the Iraqi citizens might prefer being "bombed back to the stone age" It was probably much safer then than it is now.

Saddam Hussein's lawyer pleads for "Prisonor of War" protection

  • Saddam Hussein's chief lawyer implored world leaders Thursday to prevent the United States from handing over the ousted leader to Iraqi authorities for execution, saying he deserves protection as a "prisoner of war."

WPN Note : If "victor's justice" allows execution of prisoners of war, then who in US (or anyone else's) custody is safe. Even the US Supreme Court ruled that prisoners under US detention globally have Geneva rights protection. If execution is allowed, then so surely is torture which leads to death .. and if the prisoner "talks" along the way, then is that a bonus ? We have already seen Geneva conventions broken by the US. If Saddam Hussein was executed after the US hands him to one faction in the midst of a bloody civil war, then it would unfortunately not be either shock or awe.

The WPN plan for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict (i.e. via the UN and international courts) is consistent with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group's (ICG) recommendation for the global community to get together diplomatically to resolve the Iraq quagmire - before it is too late.

France's Jacques Chirac on Iraq

  • Jacques Chirac will always be remembered abroad for having had the guts and foresight to resist the American-British invasion of Iraq in March 2003. He was monstered in the American and British press at the time for being a) a bad ally b) in financial hock to Saddam Hussein c) anti-American.
  • Let us recall what Chirac actually said. There is no urgent need to topple Saddam. Occupation of Iraq will be a nightmare. We should concentrate on the struggle against Bin-Ladenism. Real friends and allies do not blindly follow but point out possibly calamitous errors.
  • Americans especially might care to consider who was the more valuable (though ignored) ally in 2003, Jacques Chirac or Tony Blair.

Reminder of a story from 2003 : Israel seeks pipeline for Iraqi oil

  • US discusses plan to pump fuel to its regional ally and solve energy headache at a stroke

Pentagon Figures : Bush is now responsible for more US death than those killed in 911 (even ignoring death resulting from injuries or DU)

  • The total number of US military deaths in Iraq is said to have reached 2,972 since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to Pentagon figures.
  • Many commentators believe this to be a symbolic milestone, as it is close to exceeding the number of people who were killed in the 9/11 attacks - 2,973.
  • Those attacks launched the Bush administration's so-called war on terror.

Add today's deaths, and the total is above the "official" count of those killed in the 911 attacks.

Gates visited Baghdad to quell US soldiers mutiny in Anbar, US imminent attack on Ramadi soon

Iraq massacre: US Marines 'will point the finger of blame at senior officers'

  • Many critics have argued that the Haditha incident might have been written off as business as usual, were it not for graphic Iraqi documentation of the massacre that made its way into Time magazine last spring. The military initially claimed, erroneously, that the roadside bomb killed 15 of the Iraqis, and nominated Staff Sgt Wuterich for a medal for bravery.
  • Responding to the charges against his client, Mr McDermott said the top brass was well aware of what had happened, but condemned it only after it became glaringly public. "A lot of lieutenant colonels and colonels and generals knew what happened that day, and nobody said, 'let's do a thorough investigation of what happened'," he said. "By the end of the day, [my client's] superiors recognised the situation was so significant that they brought in air support.
  • "There were Harriers dropping 500lb bombs on buildings. If they're dropping 500lb bombs without knocking on the door first, how can you argue the troops on the ground did anything wrong?"
  • The Haditha case could not come at a worse time for US morale, as the White House pushes for a "surge" of extra troops to secure Baghdad and Sunni-controlled Anbar province against the better judgment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all but 12 per cent of the US public.

WPN Note : That makes 88% of US public against Bush's aim of putting in extra US troops.

THE CASE FOR FLIP-FLOPPING - When Resolve Turns Reckless

  • There's something much worse than being accused of "flip-flopping": refusing to flip when it's obvious that your course of action is a flop.
  • I say this to President Bush as someone who learned the hard way how embracing the world's complexity can be twisted into a crude political shorthand. Barbed words can make for great politics. But with U.S. troops in Iraq in the middle of an escalating civil war, this is no time for politics. Refusing to change course for fear of the political fallout is not only dangerous -- it is immoral.

WPN Note : If only John Kerry said this in his defense in the 2004 elections.

Bush: God told me to invade Iraq

  • President George Bush has claimed he was told by God to invade Iraq and attack Osama bin Laden's stronghold of Afghanistan as part of a divine mission to bring peace to the Middle East, security for Israel, and a state for the Palestinians.
  • In the programme "Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs", the former Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath says Mr Bush told him and Mahmoud Abbas, former prime minister and now Palestinian President: "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did."

WPN Note : For the man with his finger on the Nuclear button (plus access to unlimited WMDs and conventional weaponry), the above should be grounds for impeachment plus psychiatric evaluation. Imagine if any one else said God spoke to them, what you would think of that person? Bush has even used the word "Crusade" to describe what he is doing in the Middle East. How many millions will die due to Bush's Crusade (and let us not forget who won the original Crusade).'

Ten years later the price is still worth it

  • 2006: "There have been plenty of markers that show that this [Iraq] is a country that is worth the investment, because once it emerges as a country that is a stabilising factor, you will have a very different kind of Middle East." - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
  • 1996: Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it? "
  • US Ambassador at the United Nations (soon to become Secretary of State) Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price - we think the price is worth it." CBS - "60 Minutes", May 12, 1996

Rep: 'Everything depends' on bringing Christianity to Iraq

WPN Note : Almost as unbelievable as Bush calling his actions a Crusade, and he is following the instructions of God.

Secret US Mass Graves of Green Card Hopefuls.. a scoop in progress

  • Did the Pentagon order the assassination of a journalist in order to cover up secret mass burials of dead U.S. soldiers and U.S.- contracted mercenaries in the deserts around Baghdad? What is really behind the killing of my colleague and friend, the Palestinian Reuters cameraman, Mazen Dana, in Bagdad?
  • Ultimately he found a source, a U.S. mercenary, who told him that those buried were not Iraqis, but mercenaries who had been promised green cards and U.S. citizenship in return for serving in the U.S. Army.
  • During his last days, Mazen felt that the U.S. Army were observing him. Ten days before his death, he called home to Hebron and told his family that he feared for his life because of the story he was investigating, and he promised them to return as soon as he had finished his research. On Sunday, August 17, 2003, at noon and in bright sunshine, Mazen Dana was assassinated by the U.S. Army outside Abu Ghraib prison, where it had previously given him permission to film.

US charges over Haditha killings

  • There was no full US investigation into what happened until three months later when video footage that was taken by a local human rights activist of the aftermath reached Time Magazine.
  • Once their report showed flaws in the initial marine statement, an investigation began. The investigation is complete, and criminal charges are expected on Thursday.

WPN Note : This looks like a damage limitation exercise. The real issue is how many more cover ups are there by the Marines that they expect to get away with it? This only seemed to become a "PR problem" for the US once the video footage came out.

Bush 'brainwashed' Blair on Iraq

  • Iraq's vice-president claims Tony Blair was "brainwashed" by President Bush into not setting a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq.
  • Tareq al-Hashemi suggested Mr Blair had supported his idea of announcing a timetable, but then changed his mind after talking to Mr Bush.

Colin Powell: US losing Iraq war

  • Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has said overstretched US troops are *losing the conflict in Iraq.
  • Mr Powell told CBS News that bolstering troop numbers would be unlikely to reverse the "grave and deteriorating situation" in the country.
  • The military was too overstretched to send extra troops.


US Could Face Catastrophic Military Defeat In Iraq

  • What Baker And Hamilton Forgot

WPN Note : Doesn't sound so far fetched after Colin Powell's speech.

Tory think-tank attacks Blair on the Iraq war -- Iraq errors 'raised terror risk'

  • The invasion of Iraq is a failed policy that has made the UK more likely to be a terrorist target, says a think-tank's report for the Conservative Party.
  • The National and International Security Policy Group will warn against the UK being the "mute partner" of the US.
  • The document, to be unveiled on Monday, calls for an "international framework" uniting Islamic and Western states.
  • The document says foreign and domestic security policy has been hindered by a "lack of balance, lack of careful preparation and lack of coherence".
  • Tory leader David Cameron is set to back its call for a new body to study the impact of foreign policy.
  • The proposed UK National Security Council would have interdepartmental staff and would be responsible for making every policy "coherent in the sense that it takes fully into account the likely consequences at home and abroad".
  • It will call for a Middle East strategy with more "humility and patience", while condemning efforts to impose instant change through a "take it or leave it" set of demands.

Iraq aid agency 'attacked' by US

  • The Iraqi Red Crescent, the country's biggest humanitarian organisation, has accused United States troops of attacking its offices and vehicles.

Two days after the "Iraqi Red Crescent" filed the report above blaming the US of attacking it, Gunmen who looked like they were Interior Ministry's special commando forces raid the "Iraqi Red Crescent" offices and seizing up to 30 male staff and visitors. COINCIDENCE ???

Take This War and Shove It

  • Talk about stepping into the abyss. George Bush and his Pentagon allies are considering increasing the number of troops in Iraq by 40,000. The idea is supported by some members of Congress, although John McCain is the only one so far to express his support publicly. This is despite the fact that over 60% of US residents want the troops out of there sooner rather than later. Not only does the

WHO IS THE US CONGRESS LISTENING TO?

Bush’s Mad-dash to History’s Dustbin

So who is continuing to push the US into fighting their enemies, at huge cost in both US life and resources :

  • Israeli slams ISG ideas
    • A prominent Israeli analyst has warned that the new U.S. Middle Eastern policy proposed by the Iraq Study Group Wednesday poses "serious problems" to vital Israeli interests and urged Washington not to weaken its allies.

Depleted Uranium page on WPN spotlighting the health effects on civilians world-wide

Saudis and Iran prepare to do battle over corpse of Iraq

  • The gulf's two military powers, Sunni-Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, are lining up behind their warring religious brethren in Iraq in a potentially explosive showdown, as expectations grow in both countries that America is preparing a pull-out of its troops.
  • The Saudis, America's closest allies in the Arab World, were reported be considering providing anti-US Sunni military leaders with funding, logistical support and even arms - as Iran already does for Shia militia in Iraq - in an article last week by Nawaf Obaid, a senior government security adviser.

Saudi will intervene in Iraq if US withdraws-aide "using money, weapons or its oil power"

  • If the Saudis are prepared to flood the oil market to hurt the Iranians, why can't they put pressure on the Israelis by restricting supply ? Why is it OK to use Oil markets to "pressure" the Iranians, but not the Israelis ?

The great Iraq War lie. - Reminder of the lie which helped start this whole Iraq disaster in 1990

  • The pictured girl told the world under tears that she saw how Saddam Hussein's soldiers took babies out of their incubators and let them die on the cold floor.
  • In November 1990 Bush (Senior) told this lie to the poor soldiers. In truth she hadn't been in Kuwait at the time. The girl was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador in Washington, USA.
  • How the public relations industry sold the Gulf War to the US, the mother of all clients.

TV Interview with United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan

  • The violence in Iraq is worse than civil war, according to out-going United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan.
  • Mr Annan also said life for Iraqis was worse today than it was under Saddam Hussein.

Annan: Iraq in midst of civil war

  • Violence there 'much worse' than 15-year fight that divided Lebanon, U.N. chief says

Britain 'planned to cut off Nile'

  • The documents, released to the National Archives in Kew, also show the prime minister was urged to conceal the fact that his attorney-general had warned that the invasion was illegal. At the time, UK lawmakers were claiming that the action was legal. But Attorney General Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller - father of current MI5 head Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller - wrote a strong letter challenging this. "I am unable to devise any argument which could purport to justify in international law either our demand that she [Egypt]... should withdraw her forces from a part of her own territory which she is engaged in defending, or the threat to occupy her territory by armed forces should she fail to accede that demand," he wrote. Then-Cabinet Secretary Sir Norman Brooks told the prime minister that he should not raise the issue of the war's legality in future speeches. The Suez crisis damaged Sir Anthony's reputation and led to his resignation in 1957.
  • Above sounds v. v. familiar. Almost Iraq War "prototype". Another war started 50 years ago on lies and deception. Will we have to wait 50 years to find the official documents to prove it this time ? We can not give the governments the benefit of the doubt in face of overwhelming evidence of prior deceptions.
  • Isn't the plan to "drain" the Nile Delta similar (but on a much larger scale) to the accusation against Saddam Hussein for "crime against humanity" by "draining" the Marsh Lands in South of Iraq. Wonder who gave him the idea ?

MSNBC pole : Do you believe President Bush misled the nation in order to go to war with Iraq?

  • 98,402 responses, 94% Yes, 6% No

Are major atrocities "false flag" operations so civilians are scared into seeking the "protection" of the occupiers ? (i.e. more government "Fear Propaganda" ?)


Robert Fisk report "Seen through a Syrian lens, 'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Iraq"

  • They said to him: 'Come back in a week.' When he went back, they gave him a mobile phone and told him to drive into a crowded area near a mosque and phone them. He waited in the car but couldn't get the right mobile signal. So he got out of the car to where he received a better signal. Then his car blew up."

British “Pseudo-Gang” Terrorists Exposed in Basra

  • writing for Uruknet, reports two British soldiers held by “Iraqi authorities” in Basra (also described as “Shiite militiamen” in the corporate media), and subsequently freed after the British stormed a police jail, were working undercover as bombers.

Are the 70,000 Pentagon Mercs in Iraq killing Shias, Sunnis?

  • private firms, consisting of gun-wielding ex-soldiers, are also involved.

Iraq Nears the "Saigon Moment"

  • These days it is in Britain alone, or more specifically in Downing Street, that policies bloodily discredited in Iraq in the years since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein still get a hearing. I returned from Mosul to London earlier this month just in time to hear Tony Blair speaking at the Lord Mayor's banquet. It was a far more extraordinary performance that his audience appreciated. As the prime minister spoke with his usual Hugh Grant charm it became clear that he had learned nothing and forgotten nothing in three- and-a-half years of war. Misconception after misconception poured from his lips. Contrary to views of his own generals and every opinion poll assessing Iraqi opinion he discounted the idea that armed resistance in Iraq is fueled by hostility to foreign occupation. Instead he sees dark forces rising in the east, dedicated like Sauron in the Lord of the Rings to principles of pure evil. The enemy, in this case, is "based on a thoroughly warped misinterpretation of Islam, which is fanatical and deadly." Even by the standard of Middle Eastern conspiracy theories it was puerile stuff. Everywhere Blair saw hidden hands -- "forces outside Iraq that are trying to create mayhem"--at work. An expert on the politics of Iraq and Lebanon recently said to me: "The most dangerous error in the Middle East today is to believe that the Shia communities in Iraq and Lebanon are pawns of Iran." But this is exactly what the prime minister does believe.

BBC report "Iran: US exit key to Iraq peace"

From latimes.com (a US MSM paper) : "Bring back Saddam Hussein."

  • Is this softening up the US public for a switch BACK to arming the Sunni Baathists against the Shiites ? Talk about arming both sides at different times (and let's not forget that when Iran & Iraq were fighting in the 1980s, both sides were constantly re-armed enough to ensure a continuation of the war, with no absolute winner). You could say "He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it", but more likely it is the same tactics being played over and over again "divide and conquer"

Iraq: Civil War or Divide and Conquer

  • Everyday the US Corporate Media bombards America with the “huge spike in violence” that inevitably means that Iraq is descending into civil war. We’re told there are two choices, it’s a civil war, or its “al Qaeda” - but there is a third option the corporate media refuses to utter.
  • Even high-school slackers have heard of the age-old strategy “Divide and Conquer”. Is it possible that there are outside forces working this strategy in Iraq today? Perhaps rogue elements inside some government(s) would like to conquer Iraq for the oil, permanent bases, strategic position, etc.
  • Why is it that nobody in the TV news world can utter this possibility? Is it really that outrageous to think that perhaps the same people that lied to launch the war, are still lying today to prolong the war?

Pentagon Considers Moving Troops From al-Anbar Province to Baghdad

  • Another sign of switching from attacking Sunnis to attacking Shiites ?

Saudi will intervene in Iraq if US withdraws-aide "using money, weapons or its oil power"

  • A further sign of switching back to support Sunni Baathists against the Shiites -- Maybe even Saddam Hussein as ruler?
  • If the Saudis are prepared to flood the oil market to hurt the Iranians, why can't they put pressure on the Israelis by restricting supply ? Why is it OK to use Oil markets to "pressure" the Iranians, but not the Israelis ?

Maliki’s snub reverberates through Middle East

  • Rebuff to Jordan seen as sign of rising Shiite-Sunni tensions in the region
  • Iraq’s Shiite leader was firm, his aides say — he would not talk to President Bush with Jordan’s Sunni king listening.
  • Abdullah angered many Shiites when he warned two years ago of a Shiite “crescent” extending from Iran to Lebanon. Earlier this week, he said the region soon could face three civil wars — in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

http://www.spiderednews.com/Iraq_I.htm?url=@http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELjgVq6GtPA

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi was born to a Jewish mother and an Iraqi father. She recently put her medical career on hold to visit with family members in Iraq, and recently returned from a three-month stay in Basrah and Baghdad. Dr. Wasfi described her experience in Iraq and discussed the life of Iraqis under occupation on April 27, 2006 in Washington, DC.

quote from a viewer "This is an eloquent, factual and effective deposition said to have been delivered in the US Congress. An Iraqi young lady of Jewish mother and Iraqi father testifies about Iraq. At the end, you will say: WOW!"

Iraq's Palestinians in bull's-eye

Rumsfeld okayed abuses says former U.S. general

IRAQ Archives on whatreallyhappened

Help Needed

Does anyone know the background or any information on this movie clip on Google Video : http://www.spiderednews.com/Iraq_I.htm?url=@http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-801002960194633706

It is titled "Massacre of Civilians" - with a description "Massacre of Civilians - Iraq" (duration 53 seconds). Upload date to Google Video was 21-Nov-2006.

Feedback

  • Some readers at my web page, whatreallyhappened.com, are saying it is Fallujah -- Mike Rivero
  • I seem to remember it surfaced around the time of the first failed US attack on Fallujah, and it was claimed it came from Fallujah at that time. The copy I have was downloaded 25th Nov 2005, so it certainly predates that date. -- Anon.
  • I downloaded this same clip from Prisonplanet.com on July 24, 2004. It was the exact same clip only better resolution.

For further feedback, please use the "discussion tab" since the main page is now being "protected" to avoid accidental overwriting as occurred 02:02, 26 November 2006

How to end AP's "60 Minutes Moment" on Iraqi Sources

  • You've probably not read much about it because only a handful of mainstream media outlets have covered it, but the Associated Press - for decades America's largest and most trusted wire news service - is at the center of a credibility crisis largely of its own making. You probably have heard of the AP story that started it - a horrifying dispatch from Iraq the day after Thanksgiving claiming that six Sunnis had been doused with kerosene as they left their mosque following Friday prayers and burned alive by Shiite-aligned militiamen.
  • The story, which was quickly picked up by virtually every major news organization in the world, also claimed that "the Shiite-dominated police and Iraqi military" stood by doing nothing as the six people were gruesomely murdered. The story was sourced to "police Captain Jamil Hussein."
  • The problem is there appears to be no such person as Captain Jamil Hussein, at least not who is employed by the Iraqi police. The U.S. military says Hussein doesn't exist and has demanded that AP issue a correction. The Iraqi government says no such person is on its police payroll.
  • AP should ask the American Society of Newspaper Editors to oversee the appointment and conduct of an independent panel of respected journalists and outside evidentiary experts to determine the truth behind Captain Jamil Hussein and all other sources similarly in doubt.
  • To allow this controversy to continue to fester without taking decisive actions to resolve it to everybody's satisfaction could be disastrous for journalists everywhere.
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