A sign on a door labeled “Interrogation Booths” in both English and Arabic at Camp Honor military base in Baghdad’s Green Zone, taken before the government announced the prison was closed. (photo: Human Rights Watch) Rights Group: Iraq Torture Prison Still Open Human Rights Watch reports notorious Camp Honor prison still in use a year [...]
April 30, 2012 Retired analyst: Fiction fueled war By Joel PruettThe Norman Transcript NORMAN — Retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern said the war with Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Rather, it was about misinformation and fossil fuels. The analyst, who has appeared on CNN, NewsHour and other news [...]
CAMPAIGN TO SUPPORT FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN IRAQ by the Iraqi Civil Society Solidarity Initiative Press Release – 26th April, 2012 Iraq’s Journalist Protection Law, approved in August 2011 by the Iraqi Parliament which was facing international pressure to reform its laws concerning the media, in fact constitutes [...]
Almost half of Iraqis rely on food aid to survive [GALLO/GETTY] Salina, KS - In February 2011, with grassroots uprisings having toppled the governments of Tunisia and Egypt, unrest was swelling in Iraq as well. In response, the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki announced that it was postponing a planned purchase of F16 fighter planes from the [...]
Update On War Crime Those Laboratory Mice Were Children By Karlos Zurutuza April 15, 2012 “Information Clearing House” — FALLUJAH, Iraq, Apr 13, 2012 (IPS) – At Fallujah hospital they cannot offer any statistics on children born with birth defects – there are just too many. Parents don’t want to talk. “Families bury their [...]
Iraq: Massacre of a Country By Felicity Arbuthnot‘How can you make a war on terror when you are actually the terrorist?’ – (Unknown.) America’s 2003 assault on Iraq, already devastated by thirteen years of sanctions, infrastructure destruction consequently unrepaired from the 1991 bombing was, in the ridiculous annals of names the [...]
Israel Afraid of Iraq’s US-Provided Warplanes That Israel feels threatened by Iraq – America’s intended client – is a monument to the failure of the Iraq war by John Glaser, April 09, 2012 Print This | Share This Recent U.S. military aid and arms sales to Iraq are fueling concern in Israel amid intelligence reports that Baghdad is increasingly [...]
SOURCE: AP/Steve Ruark John R. Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, speaks to the Baltimore Council on Foreign Affairs in May 2006. By Eric Alterman | April 5, 2012 link http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/04/ta_040512.html In a front-page story in Sunday’s New York Times dealing with the specter of corrupted pre-Iraq invasion intelligence and its potential influence on the debate over whether the [...]
Man Whose WMD Lies Led to Iraq War Confesses All Defector tells how US officials ‘sexed up’ his fictions to make the case for 2003 invasion By Jonathan Owen April 01, 2012 “The Independent” – -A man whose lies helped to make the case for invading Iraq – starting [...]
A medic talks to an Iraqi civilian with help from a translator. (Photo: Jametiks) A young Iraqi interpreter named Ali was riding with members of the United States Army 1st Armored Division on a 2003 midnight raid outside of Baghdad when the driver made a mistake in the darkness and their armored Bradley vehicle flipped into [...]
Tony Blair meets British soldiers in Iraq in 2006. He repeatedly blamed the French president for failure to get a second UN resolution backing an invasion. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Foreign Office fights order to disclose ‘key phone call’ between Bush and Blair Conversation days before Iraq invasion believed to relate to whether France would [...]
Iraq VP Accuses Govt. of Torturing Bodyguard to Death; 22 Killed in Other Violence Tuesday: 22 Killed, 30 Wounded by Margaret Griffis, March 21, 2012 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi alleges the government tortured one of his bodyguards to death while in detention. The body of Amer Sarbut Zeidan al-Batawi [...]
Nine Years Later: More Shocked, Less Awed By David Swanson, Remarks at the Left Forum http://warisacrime.org/content/nine-years-later-more-shocked-less-awed When I lived in New York 20 years ago, the United States was beginning a 20-year war on Iraq. We protested at the United Nations. The Miami Herald depicted Saddam Hussein as a giant fanged [...]
America and the Middle East: Psycho Warriors Who Deceive Humanity By Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD March 18, 2012 “Information Clearing House” — In a knowledge-driven global culture of enhanced human communications and proactive visions for sustainable futuristic co-existence between Man and the encompassed Universe and divergent civilizations, we the educators and learners [...]
Haditha Massacre ‘Sentence’ Riles Iraqis, Seen as ‘Insult’ Staff Sergeant Faces Pay Cut Over Butchering of Civilians by Jason Ditz, January 24, 2012 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum In the mother of all plea bargains, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who was charged with leading the US Marines’ [...]
Sgt Frank Wuterich faced nine counts of manslaughter Continue reading the main story Related Stories Marine faces trial on Iraq deaths The final US Marine to face charges over the killing of unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005 has pleaded guilty to dereliction of duty. Sgt Frank Wuterich was one of [...]
The US has investigated a number of cases of alleged killings in Iraq A US soldier has been jailed for eight months after admitting playing a part in the killings of four Iraqi men in April 2007. Specialist Steven Ribordy, 25, admitted standing watch as fellow soldiers shot the four Iraqi prisoners, then threw their [...]
Iraqi demonstrators hold pictures of missing relatives during a weekly protest against corruption. Photograph: Ali Al-Saadi/AFP/Getty Images Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports from Baghdad where families of innocent detainees face extortion from corrupt officials The walls of Um Hussein’s living room in Baghdad are hung with the portraits of her missing sons. There are four of them, and [...]
Nick Broomfield’s reconstruction of the Haditha massacre drew cries of ‘unpatriotic’ from US marines at a Los Angeles screening of the film. Photograph: Channel 4 It was more than six years ago, but the massacre that took place at Haditha, western Iraq, in November 2005, still resonates in the Middle East. The now notorious war crime, [...]
A Momentum of Cynicism Wednesday, January 11th, 2012 “But no matter how futile, repulsive or dysfunctional war may be,” Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in her book Blood Rites, “it persists.” A fascinating story in the New York Times just after Christmas showed this persistence unfolding before our very eyes. The sale of arms to [...]
The Big Lie Marches on Wednesday, December 28th, 2011 The war is over, sort of, but the Big Lie marches on: that democracy is flowering in Iraq, that America is stronger and more secure than ever, that doing what’s right is the prime motivator of all our military action. [...]
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) — A former squad mate of a Marine implicated in one of the Iraq War‘s highest profile war crimes cases testified Tuesday that the group raced to nearby homes after a roadside bombing, firing rounds and tossing grenades for 45 minutes, even though the Marines [...]
Iraq plans to increase its oil production capacity up to 12 million barrels per day by 2017 [Al Jazeera] Baghdad, Iraq - While the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain. On November 27, 38 months after Royal Dutch Shell announced its [...]
In Sadr City, Bahgdad, the streets are cracked, filled with potholes, and strewn with refuse [Dahr Jamail/Al Jazeera] We in Australia should never forget our role in this tragedy, we must remember how simple it was for a politician infected with lies who was only too willing to pass the disease on to the nation to lead [...]
Whatever the realities of the incident at Haditha are the fact remains that there was atrial or there were trials and all defendants were found not guilty. It is always difficult to look at a trial after verdict unless you had the same advantages as the [...]
Ali Kinani, only nine years old at the time, was among the victims in the 2007 killings in Nisoor Square.The Charlotte Observer reports: Blackwater Settles Iraq Killings in Two Separate Legal Cases The mercenary company formely known as Blackwater has settled two separate wrongful death cases stemming from its notorious operations during the [...]
There is an Arabic proverb: “A criminal always hovers near the scene of the crime.” It is a saying that applies, in one way or another, to What America is doing in the Gulf 5 January 2012. [...]
Attacks in Shia areas of Sadr City and Kadhimiyah have raised the threat of a return to sectarian bloodshed [Reuters] BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq has been struck by a wave of bombings that killed more than 70 people, wounded at least 146 others, and has further deepened the country’s sectarian divide at a time of ongoing crisis [...]
Several blasts took place in Sadr City and Kadhimiyah, both predominantly Shia neighbourhoods in Baghdad [Reuters] Explosions in several mainly Shia Muslim neighbourhoods of eastern Baghdad have killed at least 24 people and wounded a further 66, Iraqi officials say. Thursday’s attacks were the worst since a series of explosions across the Iraqi capital [...]
Iraq. Began with big lies. Ending with big lies. Never forget By William Blum January 03, 2012 “Information Clearing House” – - “Most people don’t understand what they have been part of here,” said Command Sgt. Major Ron Kelley as he and other American troops prepared to leave Iraq in mid-December. “We have done [...]
Are We Witnessing the Final Disintegration of Iraq? by PATRICK COCKBURN Compared with many bombs in Iraq, it was not a big one. I had just arrived in the Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad on November 28 when there was the an explosion a few hundred yards away in front of the [...]
US soldiers stuck in sand in southern Afghanistan. (Wikimedia Commons) Debacle! Iraq, Afghanistan and the End of US Supremacy How Two Wars in the Greater Middle East Revealed the Weakness of the Global Superpower by Tom Engelhardt It was to be the war that would establish empire as an American fact. It would result in [...]
IBO: 162,000 Reported Deaths in Iraq War At Least 114,000 Were Civilians by Margaret Griffis, January 02, 2012 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum Iraq Body Count, a British non-governmental agency that tracks only confirmeddeaths, released its estimate of war fatalities. They calculated [...]
Bloodied Iraq limps into treacherous quagmire Far from leading the way in the Arab world, the Iraq of 2012 will find itself way behind the nations of the Arab Spring By Abdel Bari Atwan, Special to Gulf News Published: 00:00 December 28, 2011 [...]
US Sending Iraq $11 Billion in Arms, Despite Maliki’s Turn Towards Dictatorship John Glaser, December 29, 2011 Print This | Share This | Comment | Antiwar Forum Pointing out Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s turn towards dictatorship is no longer a fad for opposition members of parliament and voiceless Iraqi subjects. [...]
Crackpot Anti-Islam Activists, ‘Serial Fabricators,’ and the Tale of Iran and 9/11 by Gareth Porter, December 31, 2011 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum Behind a mysterious Dec. 22 Associated Press story about “finding of fact” by a district judge in Manhattan Friday that Iran assisted al-Qaeda in the planning of the 9/11 attacks is a tapestry [...]
. Saleh al-Mutlaq, a prominent Sunni politician, has been placed on ‘extended leave’ [EPA] Baghdad, Iraq - Less than 24 hours after the US military withdrew the last of its occupation forces from Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered an arrest warrant for Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi on terrorism charges. Maliki, a Shia, levelled the charges against the highest ranking [...]
The Agony of Iraq, the Country of My Birth by Adnan Al-Daini, December 30, 2011 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum As a 17-year-old in 1962, I was one of a group of about 10 Iraqi students doing A-levels in a college in the UK. The group included three Christians and one Kurd; [...]
Iraq Courting Iran to Mediate Political Dispute Kurds Won’t Attend Talks in Baghdad, Maliki Won’t Come to Arbil by Jason Ditz, December 27, 2011 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum A close aide of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has confirmed today that the government has begun holding talks [...]
New Photos Released of Iraq Atrocity, With Documents and Video By David Swanson December 19, 2011 “War Is A Crime” – Every American should read this letter: December 18, 2007 To: Mr. Randy Waddle, Assistant Inspector General, Ft Carson, Colorado CC: LTC John Shawkins, Inspector General, Ft Carson, Colorado Major [...]
War Without End, Amen: The Reality of America’s Aggression Against Iraq By Chris Floyd December 19, 2011 “Information Clearing House” - In March 2003, the United States of America launched an entirely unprovoked act of military aggression against a nation which had not attacked it and posed no threat to it. This act led directly [...]
Sadr Calls for New Elections in Iraq After Coalition Collapse Crisis Talks Expected This Week by Jason Ditz, December 26, 2011 | Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum Having lost the major secularist Iraqiya Party as well as both major Kurdish blocs,Prime [...]
. A security cordon outside a government building in Baghdad bore the brunt of Monday’s suicide car bombing A suicide attack killed five people at the interior ministry in Baghdad as a key political bloc called for early elections in a worsening standoff that has stoked sectarian tensions. The blast, which left dozens wounded on Monday, [...]
The latest bombings in Baghdad killed 72. (Via Aljazeera) By Ismail Salami – TehranThere is a new fear emerging in Iraq that the country will plunge even more into turmoil and political disequilibrium as the US troops cased in their colors and left behind a country which they helped lay bare to waste and dereliction. [...]
Fears of sectarian violence increased after bombings in mostly Shia areas of Baghdad on Thursday [Reuters] Iraq’s Sunni vice president, wanted for allegedly running an assassination squad, has accused Nouri al-Maliki, the country’s Shia prime minister, of waging a campaign against Sunnis and pushing the country toward sectarian war. In an interview with on Friday, Tariq al-Hashimi said [...]
US soldiers return to their barracks at a military base outside Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. Photograph: Stefan Zaklin/EPA It has been seven years since the end of the second siege of Fallujah – the US assault that left the city in ruins, killed thousands of civilians, and displaced hundreds of thousands more; the assault that [...]
War is brutal and inhumane. (Zoriah.net) By Ramzy Baroud Someone ought to let mainstream news producers know that the nearly 4,500 US soldiers killed in the Iraq war were not the only victims. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have also been killed as a result of the unwarranted US invasion, and many more [...]
With all the lies and deceptions used by the US to invade and commence a war in Iraq comes the grim reaper.The US and others who gave their sycophantic support, like Australia are directly responsible for the final product of their creation. There were far more forces at work in Iraq than an alleged dictatorial [...]
AP / Keystone / Peter Schneider By Robert Scheer Few journalists have greater influence on U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding the Middle East, than New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. But his tortured obit of a column this week on the official end of the neocolonialist disaster that has been the Iraq occupation reminds one that [...]
A poster outside Ahmed Hassan‘s trailer commemorates his three sons killed by militants in 2006 [Al Jazeera] Baghdad, Iraq – The legacy of the Iraq war for Ahmed Hassan can be reduced to a single image, the faded photograph of his three dead sons, all of them killed by armed groups, which hangs above [...]
