Source: Reuters Foundation

Date: 22 May 2007

Factbox - Security developments in Iraq

May 22 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Iraq at 0900 GMT on Tuesday:

* denotes new or updated item.

* BAGHDAD - At least 25 people were killed and 60 wounded when a car bomb exploded near a popular market in Amil district in southwestern Baghdad, police said.

* BAGHDAD - At least four college students were killed and 25 wounded in a mortar attack at Ibn al-Haitham college in Adhamiya district in northern Baghdad, police said.

* RIYADH - The bodies of two Arbil airport employees were found shot and tortured in the town of Riyadh, 60 km (40 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said.

* BAGHDAD - U.S. forces detained 15 suspected insurgents, including two alleged insurgent cell leaders, during raids around Iraq targeting al-Qaeda, the U.S. military said.

* NEAR GARMA - U.S. forces killed nine insurgents in a ground and air attack and freed 12 hostages held near the town of Garma, about 50 km (35 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

* MAHMUDIYA - One person was killed and five wounded, all from the same family, by a mortar round in the town of Mahmudiya, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

* HAWIJA - A roadside bomb killed one person and wounded another near the town of Hawija, 70 km (40 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb exploded near a police station, killing one person and wounding three others in Zayouna district in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb wounded five people in Mansour district in western Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - The bodies of 24 people were found shot in different districts of Baghdad on Monday, police said.

BAGHDAD - Two people were killed and 15 wounded by a mortar round in al-Shurta al-Rabiae district in southwestern Baghdad on Monday, police said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed one person and wounded five in al-Iskan district in western Baghdad on Monday, police said.

BASRA - One British soldier was killed when gunmen attacked a military fuel truck on Monday in Basra, 550 km (340 miles) south of Baghdad, the British military said.

Opium: Iraq's deadly new export

Amid the anarchy, farmers begin to grow opium poppies, raising fears that the country could become a major heroin supplier

By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 23 May 2007

Farmers in southern Iraq have started to grow opium poppies in their fields for the first time, sparking fears that Iraq might become a serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan.

Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent.

The shift to opium cultivation is still in its early stages but there is little the Iraqi government can do about it because rival Shia militias and their surrogates in the security forces control Diwaniya and its neighbourhood. There have been bloody clashes between militiamen, police, Iraqi army and US forces in the city over the past two months.

The shift to opium production is taking place in the well-irrigated land west and south of Diwaniya around the towns of Ash Shamiyah, al Ghammas and Ash Shinafiyah. The farmers are said to be having problems in growing the poppies because of the intense heat and high humidity. It is too dangerous for foreign journalists to visit Diwaniya but the start of opium poppy cultivation is attested by two students from there and a source in Basra familiar with the Iraqi drugs trade.

Drug smugglers have for long used Iraq as a transit point for heroin, produced from opium in laboratories in Afghanistan, being sent through Iran to rich markets in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Saddam Hussein's security apparatus in Basra was reportedly heavily involved in the illicit trade. Opium poppies have hitherto not been grown in Iraq and the fact that they are being planted is a measure of the violence in southern Iraq. It is unlikely that the farmers' decision was spontaneous and the gangs financing them are said to be "well-equipped with good vehicles and weapons and are well-organised".

There is no inherent reason why the opium poppy should not be grown in the hot and well-watered land in southern Iraq. It was cultivated in the area as early as 3,400BC and was known to the ancient Sumerians as Hul Gil, the "joy plant". Some of the earliest written references to the opium poppy come from clay tablets found in the ruins of the city of Nippur, just to the east of Diwaniya.

There has been an upsurge in violence not only in Diwaniya but in Basra, Nassariyah, Kut and other Shia cities of southern Iraq over the past 10 days. It receives limited attention outside Iraq because it has nothing to do with the fighting between the Sunni insurgents and US forces further north or the civil war between Shia and Sunni in Baghdad and central Iraq. The violence is also taking place in provinces that are too dangerous for journalists to visit. Aside from Basra, few foreign soldiers are killed.

The fighting is between rival Shia parties and militias, notably the Mehdi Army, who support the anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Badr Organisation - the military wing of the recently renamed Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). In many, though not all, areas of southern Iraq, the latter group controls the police.

The intra-militia violence in southern Iraq is essentially over control of profitable resources and the establishment of power bases. According to one report the violence in Diwaniya has been escalating for two months and was initially motivated by rivalry over control of opium production but soon widened into a general turf war.

The immediate cause of the fighting in Diwaniya that began on 16 May was the arrest of several members of the Mehdi Army. Other militiamen tried to rescue them and attacked the police (whom the Sadrists say are controlled by the SIIC). Troops from the Iraqi army and the US army were drawn into the fighting. The Sadrists sent 200 men as reinforcements into the city. Some 11 people, eight of them civilians, were killed on a single day. An American soldier was killed and two wounded in a Mehdi Army attack on Saturday. Diwaniya's Governor, Khaleel Jaleel Hamza, who has moved his family to Iran for safety, announced "a pact of honour" to end the fighting on Monday. The agreement provides for foreign forces to be kept out of the city.

As in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, these conditions of primal anarchy are ideal for criminal gangs and drug smugglers and producers. The difference is that Afghanistan had long been a major producer of opium and possessed numerous laboratories experienced in turning opium into heroin. The Taliban, on the orders of its leader, Mullah Omar, had stopped its cultivation by farmers in the parts of Afghanistan it controlled. Farmers near the southern city of Kandahar grubbed up cauliflowers and planted poppies instead as soon as the US started bombing.

The grip of the British Army around Basra and other southern provinces was always tenuous and is now coming to an end. Although the government in Baghdad speaks of gradually taking control of security in the provinces from US and Britain, the winners in the new Iraq are the militia, often criminalised, that have colonised the Iraqi security forces. Diwaniya is in Qaddasiyah province, which was never under British control but the pattern in all parts of Shia Iraq is very similar.

The one factor currently militating against criminal gangs organising poppy cultivation in Iraq on a wide scale is that they are already making large profits from smuggling drugs from Iran. This is easy to do because of Iraq's enormous and largely unguarded land borders with neighbouring states. Iraqis themselves are not significant consumers of heroin or other drugs.

But it is evident from the start of opium production around Diwaniya that some gangs think there is money to be made by following the example of Afghanistan. Given that they can guarantee much higher profits from growing opium poppies than can be made from rice, many impoverished Iraqi farmers are likely to cultivate the new crop.

White House says bin Laden ordered Iraq plots
23 May 2007 00:25:56 GMT

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON, May 22 (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden ordered al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to form a cell in 2005 to plot attacks outside of Iraq and make the United States his main target, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.

Citing newly declassified intelligence, Fran Townsend, President George W. Bush's adviser for homeland security, said the information backs the administration's assertion that U.S. troops must stay in Iraq for now to prevent it from becoming a "terrorist sanctuary."

Mindful of its trouble selling its war strategy to the American public, the White House is trying to put the spotlight on bin Laden's connections to Zarqawi, the head of Iraq's al Qaeda wing who was killed in a U.S. air strike in June 2006.

Bush's critics accuse him of trying to de-emphasize the role of sectarian fighting in Iraq's chaos and justify an unpopular war by focusing on links to bin Laden and al Qaeda, the authors of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

The administration has abandoned earlier charges that al Qaeda had ties to the government of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein before he was toppled in a 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Townsend spoke to reporters on the eve of a Bush speech at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy to give an update on the war on terrorism, and as congressional Democrats backed off for now on demands Iraq war funding be tied to a troop pullout timetable.

Townsend said U.S. intelligence officials had pieced together accounts of some of Zarqawi's dealings with bin Laden, who has eluded U.S.-led efforts to track him down. more

Army denies 'secret surge'

Hearst Newspapers - The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year, an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders indicated.

The number of combat soldiers could rise from 52,500 in early January to as many as 98,000 by the end of this year, if the Pentagon overlaps arriving and departing combat brigades.

When additional support troops are included in this second troop surge, the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq could increase from 162,000 now to more than 200,000 - a record number - by the end of the year.

The little-noticed efforts to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq are being carried out without the fanfare that accompanied President Bush's initial troop surge in January.

The second surge of troops to Iraq is being carried out by sending more combat brigades to the country, plus extending tours of duty for troops already there.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, the U.S. commander who led NATO troops into Bosnia in late 1995, said Monday: "It doesn't surprise me that they're not talking about it. I think they would be very happy not to have any more attention paid to this."

_{"George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," Shmuley Boteach}

23 May 2007
''Sectarian Fighting Overshadows Oil Law Debate in Iraq''

Iraq's national oil law has been touted as a major step toward the political reconciliation of the country's major sects. The U.S. military surge in Baghdad is, in part, designed to provide the sectarian-defined political groups breathing room to pass this and other measures that would give every group a greater stake in the political and economic future of a unified Iraq. Yet, as negotiations over the oil law drag on, and grow increasingly bitter, such reconciliation seems less and less likely.

It now appears impossible for Iraq's parliament to pass the national oil law by the government-imposed deadline of May 31, 2007. The immediate cost of this failure will be economic -- while many of the Western majors would not invest in Iraq due to the remaining security risks, Eastern and smaller oil firms appear willing if the political risks were first removed through legislation.

However, the long-term damage done by the failure to reach a consensus on the oil law will be a hardening of the sectarian fractures in Iraq's political landscape. The debates surrounding the oil law do not center on what is best for the country as a whole, but only on what is best for each sectarian group. By defining the debate as yet another zero sum competition, Iraq's politicians have made it impossible to emerge from the negotiations without at least one group feeling like the losers. The U.S. Embassy in Iraq has only encouraged this situation by insisting on a greater role for foreign firms in future investments.

As such, reconciliation will never emerge from the passage of an oil law in Iraq. This darkens the prospects of success from the U.S. military surge.

much more at PINR

23 May 2007, 10:30 GMT 11:30 UK

Missing US soldier 'found dead'

Iraqi police say they have found the body of one of three US soldiers missing in Iraq since 12 May.

The body was found in the Euphrates river in Musayyib, south of Baghdad. The US has not confirmed its identity.

The men disappeared after an ambush on a patrol south of Baghdad, and have been the subject of a massive search.

In separate developments, 20 Iraqis have died in a suicide bomb attack on a cafe and US forces reported the deaths of another nine service personnel.

The cafe blast, in which 15 people were also injured, was in Mandali, a town of mainly Shia Muslim Kurds near the Iranian border.

Seven of the nine US troops killed on Tuesday died in four separate roadside bomb and shooting attacks in and around the capital Baghdad. The other two were marines killed in Anbar.

Bullet wounds

The body found in the Euphrates has now been taken by US forces to check if it is indeed one of the missing men.

Iraqi police say the body discovered on Wednesday was dressed in what appeared to be US army trousers and boots, and had a tattoo on the left arm.

There were bullet wounds to the head and chest, Babil police Capt Muthana Khalid said.

more

Iraq attacks kill 9 U.S. troops

By RAVI NESSMAN Associated Press Writer
News Fuze
Article Launched:05/23/2007 04:08:26 AM PDT

BAGHDAD- Roadside bombings and gunbattles across Iraq killed nine U.S. servicemen, and U.S. authorities were examining a body found in a river south of Baghdad that Iraqi police believe is one of three U.S. soldiers seized in an ambush nearly two weeks ago, officials said Wednesday.

U.S. authorities have not determined if the body found in the Euphrates River was one of three missing American soldiers from the May 12 ambush of their patrol near Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad. Four Americans and one Iraqi soldier were killed in that attack.

The military said seven soldiers and two Marines were killed in separate attacks Tuesday, bringing the U.S. death toll for the month to at least 80. Last month, 104 U.S. troops were killed in Iraq.

U.S. officials have warned that American casualties were likely to increase as troops made more frequent patrols during the three-month-old U.S.-led security crackdown in Baghdad.

Six of the soldiers were killed by roadside bombs and the seventh was killed by small arms fire. The military said only that the two Marines were killed in combat operations in Anbar province.

In the town of Mandali, on the Iranian border 60 miles east of Baghdad, meanwhile, a suicide bomber walked into a packed market cafe and blew himself up Wednesday, killing 15 people and wounding 20 others, police said.

The cafe in the mixed Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish city, was usually frequented by police, but no police officers were there at the time, police said. Police said a man of in his 30s wearing a heavy jacket despite the searing heat was seen walking into the cafe just seconds before the blast.

In another devastating attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up in the house of two brothers who were supporting a Sunni alliance opposed to al Qaida in the Anbar province, killing 10 people, including the men, their wives and their children, police Lt. Col. Jabar Rasheed Nayef, said Wednesday.

The attacker, a 17-year-old neighbor, broke into the house of the two men, Sheik Mohammed Ali and police Lt. Col. Abed Ali, and detonated his bomb belt about 11 p.m. Tuesday in Albo Obaid, about 60 miles west of Baghdad.

The targeted men were part of the Anbar Salvation Council, a group of local Sunni tribal leaders who had banded together with government support to fight al Qaida, Nayef said.

more

They try really hard to make the soldiers sound good but it only shows that the trainers schedule seem more based on political needs. These guys are not getting the training they need:

Some of the biggest challenges involve time. New U.S. Marines spend 13 weeks at boot camp, plus another 52 days of training for infantrymen. The Iraqi recruits have six weeks, with only two days on the firing range.

Marine-run course preps Iraqis for the real fight
By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Wednesday, May 23, 2007

CAMP HABBANIYAH, Iraq — About 500 Iraqi soldiers graduated Saturday from boot camp, a six-week course that teaches sheep herders, college professors and even suspected former roadside bomb triggermen how to shoot, aim and fire.

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=46095

Iranian money found in Baghdad raid-U.S. military
23 May 2007 15:20:49 GMT

BAGHDAD, May 23 (Reuters) - A large quantity of Iranian currency was found when U.S. troops uncovered a cache of bomb-making materials in a raid on a Shi'ite stronghold in western Baghdad on Wednesday, the U.S. military said.

The United States has accused Iran of fomenting violence in Iraq by backing Shi'ite militias, and of providing weapons and the technology for particularly deadly roadside bombs.

The military said two militants were killed in Wednesday's raid and 19 people were detained during a search of 11 buildings in Sadr City, a sprawling Shi'ite slum which is a stronghold of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"The individual targeted during the raid is suspected of facilitating weapons shipments from Iran to secret cell terrorist elements in Baghdad, Basra and Maysan provinces," the U.S. military said in a statement.

A search of the buildings uncovered "a large quantity of Iranian money" as well as $6,000 and bomb-making materials, the statement said.

Ambassadors from the United States and Iran will meet in Iraq on May 28 to discuss security in the country, a rare meeting between the two bitter rivals.

Iran denies it is fomenting violence in Iraq and accuses the United States of igniting tension between Iraq's Shi'ites and Sunni Muslims.

The U.S. military said on Monday it had killed Azhar al-Dulaimi, the mastermind of an audacious attack in January on a government compound in the holy Shi'ite city of Kerbala.

One U.S. soldier was killed during the raid on the Kerbala compound by men dressed in U.S. military uniforms. Four other U.S. soldiers were abducted and later killed.

U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Christopher Garver said there was no evidence Iranian elements had been involved in that attack but said Dulaimi had reported back to Iran afterwards.

Dulaimi was cornered on a rooftop in Sadr City last Friday. He surrendered and was shot when he grabbed for a soldier's gun, Garver said.

Truthdig

Congressman Dennis Kucinich commandeered the House floor for an hour Wednesday to discuss “in detail the Congressional and White House efforts to privatize the oil of Iraq.” Before he spoke, he announced the speech in a public e-mail. The talk is excerpted here.

I did inhale.

Bruce Campion-Smith | Kandahar | May 23

Toronto Star - Canadian troops are making a difference in Afghanistan but “your work is not complete,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper told them in a morale-boosting speech here this morning.

The progress made so far in Afghanistan wouldn’t be possible “unless people like you put yourselves on the line,” said Harper on his second day of a surprise visit to Afghanistan.

Harper lauded the troops as “unsung heroes” and took a dig at opposition parties back in Ottawa that have been pressing the Conservatives to set a firm deadline to bring them home.

“You know that our work is not complete. You know that we cannot just put down our arms and hope for peace,” Harper said. “You know that we can’t get set arbitrary deadlines and simply wish for the best.”

20 occurrences of the word "Iran" in the above stories, only 15 of Afghanistan.

New title...

Iran,Iraq and Afghanistan Triple Affronts.

There is only ever one enemy, and that is the military. It doesn't matter which side they purport to be on.

that is one of the four "benchmarks" (yes, they do exist!) for "national political reconciliation", as the Americans would have it. Well, as usual, the devil is in the detail, and Karon spells out (with several article links) what the real stakes are:

Iraq: The Slimiest Benchmark

The art of political hegemony is achieved when a narrow group of people is able to convince a wider society that the group’s own, narrow interests, in fact, represent the general interest or the “greater good.” Nowhere is there currently a more visible (if artless) example of such a pursuit of hegemony than in Washington’s efforts to get Iraq’s politicians to pass the oil law drafted under U.S. tutelage.

For months, now, we’ve heard the Bush Administration — and many leading Democrats — scolding the Iraqis over their lack of progress towards national reconciliation. And the most concrete litmus test cited for establishing Iraqi bona fides appears to be the passing of the draft oil law, which is currently stalled in the legislature and facing growing opposition in Iraq. Washington is not hiding its belief that passing of the oil law a primary test for the viability of the Maliki government. But in the great Rove-ian tradition of Orwellian political communication, the Bush Administration is certainly camouflaging its significance: An oil law whose primary beneficiaries appear to be the major U.S. oil companies has become, in Rove-speak, the foundation-stone of national reconciliation in Iraq — the U.S. media for the most part dutifully parrots the idea that the purpose of the law is to ensure an equitable distribution of oil revenues between Iraq’s regions, defined as they are by ethnicity and sect. But that, in fact, is a relatively minor part of the oil law. The Christian Science Monitor tells us that, in fact, a major reason for the Iraqis’ reluctance to pass it may be that “the draft law in fact says little about sharing oil revenues among Iraqi groups and a lot about setting up a framework for investment that may be disadvantageous to Iraqis over the long term.”
(lots more...)

http://tonykaron.com/2007/05/20/iraq-the-oiliest-benchmark/

The MSM needs to publish the draft law in its entirety, and allow full disclosure to the US public in order for the whole issue of the fate of Iraqi oil to be placed in the bright glare of open scrutiny. The "equality of regions" business is a blatant red herring, as pointed out in the article, but that is where the media - pointed in the general direction by the Rove Machine - is concentrating its attention, and NOT upon the real essence of the law - which was drafted largely with US Embassy "consulting": the actual conditions of the envisioned Production Sharing Agreements. The only way the draft will become actual law will be by executive fiat, after a coup replaces al-Maliki with a US-appointed "strong man", who promptly disbands Parliament and makes all new law under the rubric of "transitional government", bet on it.

Iran deeply involved in Iraq, Petraeus says

By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 24, 2007 11:09:45 EDT
Military Times"> LINK FIXED
EXCLUSIVE

BAGHDAD — The Iranian government has spent the last few years training elite “secret cells” of renegade Shi’a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, while funding that group and other Shi’a militias in Iraq to the tune of “hundreds of millions of dollars,” said Army Gen. David Petraeus, the senior U.S. commander in Iraq.

snip

Sadr’s profile rising

Tehran’s influence over Sadr has raised his profile in the Middle East, according to Lt. Col. (P) Rick Welch, an advisor on political, tribal, religious and cultural issues to Multinational Division-Baghdad commander Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil.

“I thought Sadr at one point was just fighting a defensive fight: ‘I’m here, we’re not going to let the Sunni power elite who were in the former regime dominate us again,’ and he was the defender of Iraq,” Welch said. “But then Iran started really meddling here, and he now has become a bigger symbol, beyond just nationalism here. It has a purpose to extend the influence from Iran here, in the same way Hezbollah does it in Lebanon” through its leader Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Indeed, Sadr, who has modeled his organization on Hezbollah, another Shi’a group that is part political party, part social services organization and part guerrilla army, is strengthening his ties to the Lebanese group, officials here say. “It looks like folks in his organization are connecting to other, similar Shi’a kind of groups around the Middle East, and they’re coalescing together,” Welch said.

But there are signs that Sadr fears his links to Tehran might be costing him popular support at home. “There may be some sense that he’s thinking he went a little bit too far, and now he’s trying to ... clean himself up a little bit, but maybe at some point he will say he’s lost his national identity and is now seen as a pawn of Iran, and he doesn’t like that,” Welch said. “Maybe he’s trying to get back a sense of nationalism here so he doesn’t lose influence over people.

“He has started trying to spread influence through tribal networks and tribal councils, and that’s not having a real potent effect yet. He’s trying to encourage them to join him and to follow him. He’s not calling on them for violent resistance, openly. He’s saying ‘peaceful’ opposition to the coalition presence, so he’s trying to build a bridge, again trying to paint himself as a nationalist working for Iraq, as opposed to a pawn of Persia.”

This instinct accounts for the sudden appearance of Iraqi flags flying throughout Baghdad’s Shi’a neighborhoods in recent weeks, according to Welch.

“My religious contacts told me that back [in early] May when Sadr called for the national demonstration, he also put out the order that everyone should be flying an Iraqi flag,” he said. “And the word was that they put out that if you weren’t flying it, you were going to get a visit from a militia member and disciplined or punished for it. ... Again, that’s in line with Sadr trying to promote himself as the Nasrallah of Iraq, so that he could say, ‘I can call the people to nationalism any time I want.’”

But these moves may be too little, too late for Sadr, who is said to be currently taking refuge in Tehran. Welch said Sadr’s ties to Iran are already so tight that they guarantee he will be seen as beholden to Tehran.

Gay Arab linguists continue to be discharged

Congressmen seek hearing on specialists dismissed under ‘don’t ask’ policy
By Lolita C. Baldor - The Associated Press
Posted : Wednesday May 23, 2007 21:14:27 EDT

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers who say the military has kicked out 58 Arabic linguists because they were gay want the Pentagon to explain how it can afford to let the valuable language specialists go.

Seizing on the latest discharges, involving three specialists, members of the House of Representatives wrote the House Armed Services Committee chairman that the continued loss of such “capable, highly skilled Arabic linguists continues to compromise our national security during time of war.”

One sailor discharged in the latest incident, former Petty Officer 2nd Class Stephen Benjamin, said his supervisor tried to keep him on the job, urging him to sign a statement denying that he was gay. He said his lawyer advised him not to sign it, because it could be used against him later if other evidence ever surfaced.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Benjamin said he was caught improperly using the military’s secret level computer system to send messages to his roommate, who was serving in Iraq. In those messages, he said, he may have referred to being gay or going on a date.

“I’d always been out since the day I started working there,” Benjamin said. “We had conversations about being gay in the military and what it was like. There were no issues with unit cohesion. I never caused divisiveness or ever experienced slurs.”

He was discharged under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law passed in 1994. The law allows gays to serve if they keep their sexual orientation private and do not engage in homosexual acts. It prohibits commanders from asking about a person’s sex life and requires discharge of those who acknowledge they are gay.

Democratic Rep. Marty Meehan, who has pushed for repeal of the law, organized the letter sent to Skelton requesting a hearing into the Arab linguist issue.

“At a time when our military is stretched to the limit and our cultural knowledge of the Middle East is dangerously deficient, I just can’t believe that kicking out able, competent Arabic linguists is making our country any safer,” Meehan said.

The letter, signed by about 40 House members, says that, with the latest firings, 58 Arab linguists have been dismissed from the military under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. It said Congress should decide whether this application of the policy “is serving the nation well.”

more

every death will hang on Bush and the democrats heads this summer

Bush says summer critical for Iraq strategy

By Steve Holland and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush predicted heavy fighting this summer for U.S. troops in Iraq as the U.S. Congress moved on Thursday toward a tense vote that would give Bush the money he wants for the unpopular war.

With an evening vote possible on a $120 billion bill that mostly funds the war in Iraq, Senate Democratic leaders who had tried but failed to get Bush to accept a troop pullout timetable urged Democrats to set aside their anger and support the troops.

"I hope the bill is in a position where we can fund the troops without a lot of animosity at this stage," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "People can make whatever statements they want in regard to the war, and I'm sure that will happen. But I think that we need to get to this as quickly as we can."

Bush used a Rose Garden news conference to urge passage of the legislation in order to support the troops he said face a difficult summer of heavy fighting and more casualties.

He predicted Iraqi insurgents and al Qaeda will attempt to influence the U.S. debate on the war by launching spectacular attacks in advance of the U.S. military's assessment of the war's progress in September.
.
"It could be a bloody -- it could be a very difficult August," Bush said.

more

'Hammer and anvil' operation designed to push fighters into an area controlled by coalition forces

Murray Campbell | May 25 | Ma'sum Ghar

The Globe and Mail - Canadian troops today launched their most ambitious assault on the Taliban in nearly two months.

Shortly after dawn, a multinational force including Canadians, Afghans, Portuguese and British, began an operation designed to flush out Taliban believed to be in the area near the Arghandab River.

Illuminating flares lit the sky in the middle of the night and as day broke Afghan, Canadian and other coalition forces fell into place on the north bank of the river. Within minutes, the troops began a sweeping operation near Ghundy Ghar, about 14 kilometres from Ma'sum Ghar, in an attempt to drive Taliban forces into an entrenched force of Canadian and other coalition soldiers.

This was accompanied by a push by a large number of Canadian tanks and armoured vehicles. As they got into position, one tank was hit by a buried bomb - an improvised explosive devise - as the battle began. The vehicle was immobilized but no injuries were reported.

Afghan troops arrived on the scene in pickup trucks and many of the soldiers dismounted to pray by the side of the road before the fighting began.

Aircraft, including British Harrier jets, provided cover for the operation. Shortly after 7 a.m., Portuguese troops called for an air strike on the insurgents they were fighting.

"Political Islam is a dream or a nightmare, but not a sociological reality." - Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah

Thomas E. Ricks and Sudarsan Raghavan | May 25 | Baghdad

WaPo - Moqtada al-Sadr, the influential Shiite cleric and militia leader who went into hiding before the launch of a U.S.-Iraqi security offensive in February, is in the southern city of Kufa, senior U.S. military commanders said Thursday.

Sadr, who has long opposed the U.S. occupation and is ratcheting up pressure for a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, has returned from neighboring Iran, perhaps as recently as this week, they said.

"He's been very quiet since he's come back," said Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., commander of the U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, which is spearheading the offensive in and around Baghdad, now in its fourth month. Sadr's aides said their leader has remained in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, adjacent to Kufa.

"Political Islam is a dream or a nightmare, but not a sociological reality." - Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah

ICRC still seeking access to Iraqi-run prisons

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA, May 24 (Reuters) - The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday he was not optimistic about a breakthrough in talks with Iraqi officials to gain access to up to 20,000 people held in Iraqi-run prisons.

The neutral humanitarian agency is already visiting some 17,500 people in Iraq who are detained either by American, Kurdish or British authorities, ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger said.

The ICRC announced six months ago that it was close to an agreement with Iraqi authorities to allow its officials to visit inmates at Iraqi detention centres, where Sunnis have alleged inmates are tortured, but talks have dragged on.

"We are still in negotiation about an agreement with them. It is the modalities of our visits which we have to negotiate with them," Kellenberger told a news conference.

Asked about the impasse, he replied: "I don't think that I am expressing extreme optimism."

There was no timeline for concluding a deal over access to Iraqi-held detainees who number "between 18,000 and 20,000", according to the former Swiss diplomat.

"Once we have the agreement it is quite clear that for security reasons, there may be places where we cannot go or where for a certain time we cannot go," Kellenberger added.

The ICRC has "strict" rules, requiring governments to allow it to interview detainees in private and make follow-up visits, he said. Its confidential reports on conditions and treatment are sent only to the detaining authorities.

"Under present conditions, it is already a huge challenge for our staff to visit more than 17,000 detainees in Iraq, because that's almost one half of the detainee population in Iraq," Kellenberger said.

Some 16,000 detainees are in American hands, while another 1,500 are held by local Kurdish authorities in the semi-autonomous regions of the north, and a small number are held by British forces, according to the ICRC chief.

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Six more U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq
Fri May 25, 2007 9:05AM EDT

By Paul Tait

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. military announced on Friday the deaths of six more soldiers in Iraq, hours after U.S. President George W. Bush predicted a bloody summer lay ahead.

Five of the soldiers died on Thursday while another was killed on Tuesday by a roadside bomb in Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, the military said.

April was the worst month this year for the U.S. military since the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003, with 104 soldiers killed. About 90 have been killed in May so far.

The total death toll for U.S. troops since the invasion now stands at 3,440.

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but didn't dare ask....

I urge Agonistas to keep a keen eye on the reports and/or films of Canadian journalist and film maker, Arthur Kent (aka "the skud stud" circa GW 1). He's been reporting from Afghanistan for nearly 30 years and he's started a blog at Arthur Kent

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Eight more U.S. soldiers killed in new Iraq attacks
26 May 2007 20:39:40 GMT

BAGHDAD, May 26 (Reuters) - Eight more U.S. soldiers have been killed in five previously unreported attacks in different areas of Iraq over the past four days, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

May is on track to be the bloodiest month this year for U.S. forces, with 101 soldiers killed so far. April was the worst month so far this year for U.S. forces, when 104 soldiers were killed.

A total of 3,452 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

In the worst of the latest attacks, three soldiers were killed and another two were wounded when their patrol was hit by an explosion in Salahaddin province north of Baghdad on Saturday.

Another two soldiers were killed and three were wounded by a roadside bomb east of Baghdad, the military said.

In other attacks, one soldier was killed and two were wounded by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad on Saturday. Another soldier was killed and three more were wounded in Taji, 20 km (12 miles) north of Baghdad, on Friday, the military said.

A U.S. Marine was also killed in western Anbar province on Saturday.

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U.S. to Tell Iran How It Could Help Steady Iraq
Analysts Say Washington Will Have Little Pull in Talks

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 27, 2007; Page A20

The United States intends to lay out a comprehensive account of Iran's growing military role in Iraq -- including the array of arms provided to both Shiite and Sunni militias -- during critical talks between U.S. and Iranian diplomats scheduled for tomorrow in Baghdad, according to senior U.S. officials.

Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, will also outline steps Iran could take to help stabilize war-ravaged Iraq, both politically and militarily. Any subsequent meeting will depend on the quality of the dialogue and Iran's cooperation in the coming weeks, the sources added.

"If the meeting is productive and there's a promise that these meetings will be worthwhile, we'll agree to a second meeting," said a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate diplomacy.

However, the Bush administration enters the dialogue with limited leverage, analysts said.

"Iran has every advantage in these talks -- in geography, demography and time -- and they know it. Iran has better relations with every political party, militia and warlord in the Shiite and Kurdish communities than we do. It has the best intelligence apparatus in Iraq. And it has the advantage of a religious relationship with the majority population that is unique," said Bruce Riedel, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution who previously served at the National Security Council and the CIA.

U.S. and Iraqi forces uncovered a new cache of bomb-making equipment from Iran and large amounts of Iranian cash in a Wednesday raid on Baghdad's Sadr City, according to U.S. military officials. The Bush administration will lay out details tomorrow about Iranian war material used by Iraqi extremists against U.S. troops, a pattern that has increased since late last year, U.S. officials said. Washington is particularly concerned about explosively formed projectiles, which can pierce armor and have killed many U.S. troops in Iraq.

A senior Iranian official said yesterday that the agenda of Iran's ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, will be to discuss "practical" ways to help the Iraqi government. But expectations are low on both sides. The talks, expected to last at least two hours, are seen as a test of intent, U.S. and Iranian officials say.

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U.S. Security Contractors Open Fire in Baghdad
Blackwater Employees Were Involved in Two Shooting Incidents in Past Week

By Steve Fainaru and Saad al-Izzi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 27, 2007; A01

Employees of Blackwater USA, a private security firm under contract to the State Department, opened fire on the streets of Baghdad twice in two days last week, and one of the incidents provoked a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

A Blackwater guard shot and killed an Iraqi driver Thursday near the Interior Ministry, according to three U.S. officials and one Iraqi official who were briefed on the incident but spoke on condition of anonymity because of a pending investigation. On Wednesday, a Blackwater-protected convoy was ambushed in downtown Baghdad, triggering a furious battle in which the security contractors, U.S. and Iraqi troops and AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were firing in a congested area.

Blackwater confirmed that its employees were involved in two shootings but could neither confirm nor deny that there had been any casualties, according to a company official who declined to be identified because of the firm's policy of not addressing incidents publicly.

Blackwater's security consulting division holds at least $109 million worth of State Department contracts in Iraq, and its employees operate in a perilous environment that sometimes requires the use of deadly force. But last week's incidents underscored how deeply these hired guns have been drawn into the war, their murky legal status and the grave consequences that can ensue when they take aggressive action.

Matthew Degn, a senior American civilian adviser to the Interior Ministry's intelligence directorate, described the ministry as "a powder keg" after the Iraqi driver was shot Thursday, with anger at Blackwater spilling over to other Americans working in the building.

Degn said he was concerned the incident "could undermine a lot of the cordial relationships that have been built up over the past four years. There's a lot of angry people up here right now."

Details about that incident remained sketchy. The Blackwater guards said the victim drove too close to their convoy and drew fire, according to the three American officials. Concerned about a possible car bomb or other threat, the guards said they tried to wave off the vehicle, shouted, fired a warning shot into the radiator, then shot into the windshield when the driver failed to pull back, the officials said. Such steps are recommended under the rules for the use of force by contractors in Iraq specified in Memorandum 17, a set of guidelines adopted in 2004 by the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led occupation government, and still in effect.

The Iraqi official said the driver encountered the Blackwater convoy after leaving a gas station just outside the Interior Ministry. Some witnesses said the shooting was unprovoked, the official said. He said the driver had wounds in his shoulder, chest and head.

The Blackwater employees refused to divulge their names or details of the incident to Iraqi authorities, according to two of the U.S. officials and the Iraqi official. The officials described a tense standoff that ensued between the Blackwater guards and Interior Ministry forces -- both sides armed with assault rifles -- until a passing U.S. military convoy intervened.

Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said the company did not discuss specific incidents. In a statement via e-mail, she wrote: "Blackwater investigates any reports of hostile action in Iraq. Per the terms of our US Government contracts, as a matter of routine, Blackwater is required to file after action reports on any such incidents."

Dan Sreebny, a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Baghdad, said: "The security contractors are an important part of our embassy here. We expect all people within the mission to conform to the rules and procedures of professional behavior. We take allegations of misbehavior very seriously, and when there are such allegations we investigate thoroughly."

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U.S. forces raid an Al Qaeda in Iraq site north of Baghdad, acting on a tip from locals.

Los Angeles Times, By Alexandra Zavis, May 28

BAGHDAD — U.S. forces freed at least 41 kidnapped Iraqis during a raid Sunday on an Al Qaeda hide-out northeast of Baghdad, the military said. Some of the victims had broken bones and appeared to have been tortured.

The raid came on a day when at least 64 Iraqis were killed or found slain in violence across the country, and the U.S. command announced the deaths of two more American soldiers.

Acting on a tip from local residents, U.S. forces in violence-racked Diyala raided a compound in palm groves south of the province's capital, Baqubah. There were conflicting accounts of the number of Iraqis freed, with some officers putting the figure at 41 and others at 42.

Individuals believed to have been guarding the site were seen fleeing, but none were detained, said Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly, a spokesman for U.S. forces in northern Iraq.

Some of the captives appeared to be suffering from heat exhaustion. Others gave harrowing accounts of being hung from the ceiling and tortured, said Army Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, another military spokesman. Evidence of abuse, including broken limbs, appeared to back up their account.

Some of the captives said they had been held for as long as four months, Garver said. Most were middle-aged men, but one said he was 14.

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Iraq: Stalled justice is just one of Ramadi's woes

Rebuilding efforts begin in the ruined city, which lacks a judicial system and basic services such as water, power, and garbage collection.

By Chris Kraul, Times Staff Writer
May 28, 2007

RAMADI, IRAQ — Heidar Ajeni would welcome reconstruction of this war-torn city where he has been cooped up in a 12-by-30-foot jail cell with 20 other prisoners for more than two months. He was arrested on murder charges but can't get his day in court because there is no functioning judicial system.

"They say I killed someone, and they have no proof," said Ajeni, 22, speaking through the bars of his squalid cell in the basement of a water pump house taken over by Iraqi police. "But there is no judge to hear my case. You can see the conditions I live in," he said, gesturing toward his cellmates who lay like spoons in their cramped quarters.

Exercise is sporadic and the only food he and the other prisoners receive is leftovers donated by Iraqi and U.S. soldiers who take pity on them.

Iraqi police Capt. Abdul Rahman, who is in charge of the lockup, is sympathetic. The conditions of the jail are unjust, he said. "But after I finish the interrogation, what can I do next? There are people brought here with no evidence, as a result of a family problem or a vendetta. But I can't release them on my own…. The justice system should move a little faster."

U.S. officials worry that keeping Ajeni and 400 other suspects in jail without legal redress only runs the risk of turning them into social misfits or insurgents.

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BBC, May 29

A number of Westerners have reportedly been kidnapped from a finance ministry building in central Baghdad.

There is confusion over the number and nationality of those involved.

They are believed to include at least one finance expert, thought to be German, and at least four bodyguards, believed to be British.

"We are aware of reports that a group of westerners have been kidnapped. We are urgently looking into them," the UK foreign office said.

At least 8 U.S. soldiers killed on Memorial Day
2 of the victims were in downed chopper; at least 112 GIs killed this month

BAGHDAD - At least eight U.S. soldiers were killed in restive Diyala province north of Baghdad on Memorial Day, two of the victims in a helicopter that went down, the military reported Tuesday.

All the dead were Task Force Lightning soldiers. The military said six soldiers died in explosions near their vehicles, but gave no further information.

It was not immediately known if the helicopter was shot down or suffered mechanical difficulties.
Story continues below ↓advertisement

The names of the soldiers were withheld until their families could be notified.

The latest casualties raised the U.S. military death toll to at least 112 this month, making May the deadliest month since December 2006, when the same number were killed.

In other violence, three German computer consultants were kidnapped Tuesday from the Iraqi Finance Ministry in Baghdad, an Iraqi government official said, and two car bombings killed 38 people in the capital, police said.

NYT -For more than three years after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iraqi prostitution in Syria, like any prostitution, was a forbidden topic for Syria’s government. Like drug abuse, the sex trade tends to be referred to in the local news media as acts against public decency. But Dietrun Günther, an official at the United Nations refugee agency’s Damascus office, said the government was finally breaking its silence.

Mouna Asaad, a Syrian women’s rights lawyer, said the government had been blindsided by the scale of the arriving Iraqi refugee population. Syria does not require visas for citizens of Arab countries, and its government had pledged to assist needy Iraqis. But this country of 19 million was ill equipped to cope with the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of them, Ms. Asaad said.

“Sometimes you see whole families living this way, the girls pimped by the mother or aunt,” she said. “But prostitution isn’t the only problem. Our schools are overcrowded, and the prices of services, food and transportation have all risen. We don’t have the proper infrastructure to deal with this. We don’t have shelters or health centers that these women can go to. And because of the situation in Iraq, Syria is careful not to deport these women.

From Damascus it is only about six hours by car, passing through Jordan, to the Saudi border. Syria, where it is relatively easy to buy alcohol and dance with women, is popular as a low-cost weekend destination for groups of Saudi men.

And though some women of other nationalities, including Russians and Moroccans, still work as prostitutes in Damascus, Abeer, a 23-year-old from Baghdad working at the same club as Hiba, explained that the arriving Iraqis had pushed many of them out of business.

“From what I’ve seen, 70 percent to 80 percent of the girls working this business in Damascus today are Iraqis,” she said. “The rents here in Syria are too expensive for their families. If they go back to Iraq they’ll be slaughtered, and this is the only work available.”

more at link

_{"George Washington did not cross the Delaware for Capitalism," Shmuley Boteach}

May 31, 2007

Kurds drawn into Iraq's firing line
By Ali al-Fadhily

BAGHDAD - A massacre by members of Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army on Sunni worshippers this month sparked clashes between patrolling Kurdish militiamen in southwest Baghdad and the Mahdi Army, raising tensions that fighting between the groups could spread.

Muqtada, who emerged from hiding last Friday, delivered a fiery anti-occupation sermon at a mosque in the city of Kufa, south of Baghdad and near Najaf. On the same day, Iraqi police told reporters that the leader of the Mahdi Army in the southern city of Basra, Abu Qadir, had been killed in a gun battle with British soldiers.

These recent developments could have far-reaching implications, even into the volatile city of Kirkuk in the Kurdish-controlled north, where tensions run high between Arab Shi'ites and Kurds. Kurdish groups are intent on controlling the city and forcing other groups out, so as to control the oil-rich surrounding area to facilitate the creation of an independent Kurdish state.

Dressed in official police uniforms to gain access through a checkpoint to detain Sunni worshippers at a mosque in the area, Mahdi Army members told Kurdish members of the Iraqi Army who were participating in the crackdown in the southwestern areas of Baghdad that they were following orders from the Ministry of Interior.

A member of the local council in the area of Baghdad where the incident took place spoke with Inter Press Service (IPS) at his office on condition of strict anonymity: "The dispute started when the Mahdi Army members raided the Bayaa and Amil area to arrest 14 worshippers at a Sunni mosque while broadcasting a message through loudspeakers that they were conducting the raid by orders from Brigadier-General Nizar, the Kurdish platoon leader."

The Kurdish unit was placed in the Amil and Bayaa areas of southwest Baghdad in March as part of the security crackdown there led by the US military.

"The detainees were found executed later, so we understood that the force was in fact a death squad working for the Ministry of Interior," he said. "Brigadier Nizar later revealed that fact to the media, saying the attacking force had an official warrant from the Ministry of Interior and that was why he allowed them to go through his checkpoints."

Local police believe that the Shi'ite militia, operating out of the Ministry of Interior as they have been for more than two years, also attempted to provoke a fight between the Kurdish unit in Baghdad and the local community in the area they were deployed, which is heavily Sunni.

Two weeks ago Mahdi Army members attacked the Kurdish unit. It is unknown whether anyone was killed or wounded from either side, since orders from the leaders of the Kurds and the Mahdi Army blocked media coverage of the event.

Sources from inside the Kurdish unit involved in the incident, who spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity since they were instructed not to speak with the media, explained that Kurdish soldiers and officers remain angry about the attack on their unit, but they had received strict orders from their command in northern Iraq not to fight back against the Mahdi Army at the moment, but "to deal firmly with any further attacks in the future".

As a result, tensions are high and the urge to blame someone for the instability in the area has increased.

A witness to the 14 Sunni men being detained by the Mahdi Army spoke with IPS, also requesting that his name withheld. He said he believes the US military has taken sides between the militias and is pitting them against one another.

"This area was peaceful and the mixture of Shi'ite and Sunni had no dispute whatsoever," he said. "It's the militias who started all the killing in order to divide people and rule them."

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oh Africa is gonna be fun, wherever we go these days..chaos follows

May. 30, 2007

NATO: Helicopter down in Afghanistan
NOOR KHAN
Associated Press

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - NATO said one of its helicopters went down in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday evening, and a Taliban spokesman claimed the militant group had shot it down.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said the helicopter went down around 9 p.m. local time. It released no other details. A U.S. military spokesman at Bagram Air Base referred all questions to ISAF headquarters.

A purported Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, claimed in a phone call to The Associated Press that militants had shot the helicopter down in Helmand province. That claim could not be immediately verified.

Ahmadi said the helicopter was shot down in the Kajaki district and that everyone on board died. He did not offer any proof of the claim.

"We have weapons that we have used to target helicopters before," he said.

Kajaki is the site of a large hydroelectric dam that is being repaired. It has been the scene of heavy fighting in recent months, mostly by British troops who operate in the region. A battalion of U.S. forces with the 82nd Airborne have also been in combat in Helmand province recently.