Yahoo! News - Audit: $9 Billion Unaccounted for in Iraq: "Sun Jan 30, 6:20 PM ET | By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq (news - web sites) was unable to keep track of nearly $9 billion it transferred to government ministries, which lacked financial controls, security, communications and adequate staff, an inspector general has found.
- posted by Editor @ 6:55 PM

The New York Times > International > Middle East > 44 Die in Attacks; Turnout Heavy Among Shiites and Kurds: "44 Die in Attacks; Turnout Heavy Among Shiites and Kurds
By DEXTER FILKINS

Published: January 31, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 30 - Defying death threats, mortars and suicide bombers, Iraqis turned out in great numbers on Sunday to vote in this country's first free elections in 50 years, offering a powerful, if uneven, endorsement of democratic rule 22 months after Saddam Hussein was overthrown."
- posted by Editor @ 7:38 AM

KCTV5 - Roberts says insurgency will continue, questions Iraqi democracy: " January 29, 2005

TOPEKA, Kan. -- Iraqi insurgents are likely to continue attacks after elections, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said Friday. He also questioned whether American intervention can create democracy there.

Roberts, R-Kan., said he is concerned that majority Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the population, will dominate the new Iraqi government after Sunday's balloting and the new government will form an alliance with Iran, where Shiites also are in the majority.
...
Roberts spoke to an audience of about 150 Kansas business leaders and legislators during a forum sponsored by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce.

"We are in for some very challenging times," Roberts said. "If we are not successful, what kind of message does that send to the insurgents? What kind of message does that send to al-Qaida?" ...
- posted by Editor @ 7:47 PM

News: "The streets of Baghdad are empty. It feels like a city preparing for war | By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad | 29 January 2005

In the hours before tomorrow's election, Baghdad feels like a city preparing for war. American helicopters roar noisily overhead just above the roof- tops, setting off car alarms. Iraqi police nervously finger their assault rifles. Most people are taking no risks and stay at home, so streets are eerily empty.
...
Despite the security measures, insurgents killed 10 Iraqis and five US troops yesterday. In southern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded next to a police station, killing four civilians. A second bomb detonated nearby, close to a school that will be used as a polling station. In the western city of Ramadi, a guerrilla stronghold, six Iraqi soldiers were killed in ambushes.

The US military said a soldier was shot dead in northern Baghdad. A roadside bomb killed another and wounded two others in the south of the capital, and later another bomb killed three US soldiers in western Baghdad. A Kiowa observation helicopter crashed in southwest Baghdad, but there was no immediate information on casualties.
....
All the Iraqis we spoke to in the street yesterday blamed the US for their troubles, voters and non-voters, Sunnis and Shias alike. Even Mr Allawi's party website in Arabic said that that the interim Prime Minister wanted a staged withdrawal of the US forces. When the Americans protested he rapidly backtracked, giving interviews in English saying they should stay. ...
- posted by Editor @ 7:28 AM

News: "The streets of Baghdad are empty. It feels like a city preparing for war | By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad | 29 January 2005

In the hours before tomorrow's election, Baghdad feels like a city preparing for war. American helicopters roar noisily overhead just above the roof- tops, setting off car alarms. Iraqi police nervously finger their assault rifles. Most people are taking no risks and stay at home, so streets are eerily empty.
...
Despite the security measures, insurgents killed 10 Iraqis and five US troops yesterday. In southern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded next to a police station, killing four civilians. A second bomb detonated nearby, close to a school that will be used as a polling station. In the western city of Ramadi, a guerrilla stronghold, six Iraqi soldiers were killed in ambushes.

The US military said a soldier was shot dead in northern Baghdad. A roadside bomb killed another and wounded two others in the south of the capital, and later another bomb killed three US soldiers in western Baghdad. A Kiowa observation helicopter crashed in southwest Baghdad, but there was no immediate information on casualties.
....
All the Iraqis we spoke to in the street yesterday blamed the US for their troubles, voters and non-voters, Sunnis and Shias alike. Even Mr Allawi's party website in Arabic said that that the interim Prime Minister wanted a staged withdrawal of the US forces. When the Americans protested he rapidly backtracked, giving interviews in English saying they should stay. ...
- posted by Editor @ 7:26 AM

International News Article | Reuters.com: "British Soldier Tells of Forced Sex Simulations | Thu Jan 27, 2005 09:23 AM ET | By James Mackenzie

OSNABRUECK, Germany (Reuters) - The British soldier who took pictures of Iraqi detainees being abused by troops described on Thursday how captured looters were forced to simulate sex acts while laughing soldiers watched.

Fusilier Gary Bartlam was giving evidence at the court martial of three fellow British soldiers accused of abusing and sexually humiliating detainees caught in an operation to deter theft of aid supplies from a base near Basra in May 2003.

Describing a scene he witnessed after more than 20 suspected looters had been captured and brought into the base to tidy up the mess they caused by pillaging, Bartlam said two detainees had been taken to a warehouse in the base complex."
- posted by Editor @ 6:06 PM

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs: "Jan 27, 2005 | THE ROVING EYE | Vote or no vote, we will kill you | By Pepe Escobar

'And to George W Bush, we say, 'You have asked us to bring it on, and so have we. Like never expected. Have you another challenge'?'
- Message from the Sunni Iraqi resistance, January 12

History will salute it in kind: the US administration of George W Bush, parts 1 and 2, has introduced to the world the concept of election at gunpoint. The guinea pig: Iraq, on January 30. The rules: candidates must be anonymous (otherwise they will be killed). Voters cannot go out and vote (otherwise they may be killed). Even if they wanted to vote, they wouldn't know where, because the location of the polling stations will be known only the night before the election.

Of 1 million eligible expatriate voters, only 10% will actually vote. There are no Sunni Arab candidates (in part because the US military killed - or jailed - many Sunni party and tribal leaders). For any Iraqi in Jordan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Turkey, it will be impossible to cross the border and vote: borders will be closed for three days. Inside Iraq there will be curfews - and even traffic will be blocked. Half of all candidates have already withdrawn. And there will be no international monitors. As the names of the roughly 7,700 candidates on 80 party coalition lists are still unknown on the eve of polling day, no wonder the word on Baghdad's streets is that "the Americans gave us the first secret elections in history".
...
So far, 53 political parties - roughly half of the registered total - as well as all 30 independent candidates have abandoned the elections to protest that they are being held under occupation. A crucial absence is the Patriotic Front for Iraqi Tribes, a coalition of 40 major Sunni tribes. US troops recently killed Sheikh Abd al-Razzaq al-Ka'udd, one of the chiefs of the powerful Dulaim tribe of the western desert - a big, big mistake. The tribe responded that with no security, voting is out of the question. It also accused many parties of being involved in an industry of fake ballots.
...
But if the whole neo-conservative rationale for the invasion and occupation of Iraq was to facilitate the expansion of greater Israel and control a key energy source in the Middle East, how is it possible for Washington to even envision a retreat?

- posted by Editor @ 9:32 PM

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs: "Jan 27, 2005 | THE ROVING EYE | Vote or no vote, we will kill you | By Pepe Escobar

'And to George W Bush, we say, 'You have asked us to bring it on, and so have we. Like never expected. Have you another challenge'?'
- Message from the Sunni Iraqi resistance, January 12

History will salute it in kind: the US administration of George W Bush, parts 1 and 2, has introduced to the world the concept of election at gunpoint. The guinea pig: Iraq, on January 30. The rules: candidates must be anonymous (otherwise they will be killed). Voters cannot go out and vote (otherwise they may be killed). Even if they wanted to vote, they wouldn't know where, because the location of the polling stations will be known only the night before the election.

- posted by Editor @ 9:29 PM

No Foreign Observers to Monitor Iraq Vote (washingtonpost.com): "Only One Outsider From International Mission May Assess Elections on Site | By Robin Wright | Saturday, January 22, 2005; Page A12

When 1 million Palestinians voted for a successor to Yasser Arafat, 800 international observers poured into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to monitor the polling. Former president Jimmy Carter and former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt led one team. A former French prime minister led another, and there were two U.S. congressional delegations.

When 8 million Afghans voted in October, at least 122 international observers from across Europe and Asia monitored the presidential election -- and declared it an 'orderly and transparent process.'

But in Iraq, where 14 million people are eligible to vote, the elections next week may have only one outsider from the hastily organized International Mission for Iraqi Elections to evaluate the balloting. ...
- posted by Editor @ 7:11 AM

News: "Not even Saddam could achieve the divisions this election will bring | By Robert Fisk in Baghdad | 16 January 2005

Sunday 30 January will be the day when myth and reality come together with - I fear - an all too literal bang. The magic date upon which Iraq is supposed to transform itself into a democracy will no doubt be greeted as another milestone in America's adventure and, I suspect, another 'great day for Iraq' ...

The greatest threat to "democracy" is that with four provinces containing around half the population of Iraq in a state of insurgency and many of its towns under rebel control, this election is going to widen the differences between Sunnis, Shias and Kurds in a way that not even Saddam Hussein was able to achieve. If the Sunnis don't vote - save for those living in America, Syria and other exotic locations - then the Shia community, perhaps 60 per cent of the population, will take an overwhelming number of seats in the "Transitional National Assembly".

In other words, the Shias, who are not fighting the U.S. occupation of Iraq, will be voting under American auspices while the Sunnis, who are fighting, will refuse to participate in what the insurgents have already labeled a "quisling" election. The four million Kurds will vote. But however many seats they gain, they are not going to abandon their quasi-independence after the election. Thus the dangers of civil war - so trumpeted by the Americans and British - may be increased rather than suppressed by this much-touted experiment in democracy. In fact, Iraq is a tribal - not a religious - society and the real war, which some in the West might like to be replaced by the civil variety, will continue to be between Sunni insurgents and the United States military. ...
- posted by Editor @ 9:45 PM

Time Is a Weapon (washingtonpost.com): "By David Ignatius | Tuesday, January 11, 2005; Page A15

'Time is the condition to be won to defeat the enemy,' wrote Ho Chi Minh, the man whose insurgency drove U.S. forces from Vietnam 30 years ago. 'To protract the war is the key to victory,' agreed his revolutionary colleague Dang Xuan Khu. 'We shall weary and discourage them in such a way that, strong as they are, they will become weak and meet defeat.'
...
Time is now the crucial variable in the war in Iraq. President Bush maintains a resolute public stance, and talks about staying the course. But over the past few weeks, prominent military and political experts in Washington have become increasingly worried that the United States is running out of time. There is growing discussion, among impatient Republicans on Capitol Hill and senior military officers, about whether America needs to look for a quicker exit strategy from a war that is going badly.

U.S. commanders in Iraq reckon that, based on historical evidence, it takes about nine years to defeat the average insurgency. ...
...
Is there an alternative strategy that would serve the interests of the United States, Iraq and regional allies? Here are some thoughts, gathered from recent discussions with coalition military and intelligence officers:

• Reduce the U.S. target. Iraq's best hope for avoiding a civil war may be the fact that nearly all Iraqis are united in wanting the U.S. occupation to end ... Even if such a Shiite-Sunni alliance had an anti-American tone, it would be a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak landscape.

• Live with de facto partition. For all of the difficulties in the war, much of northern and southern Iraq is stable today. ...

• Make it deadly to be an insurgent. If a fledging agreement can be reached ... the Iraqi authorities must be ruthless in destroying opposition to that accord. Insurgents must wake up each morning afraid that they will die. This sort of dirty war isn't one I would like to see American forces fighting; ...

- posted by Editor @ 6:58 AM

Boston.com / News / World / Europe / US diplomatic shift seen on Europe's involvement: "By Tyler Marshall, Los Angeles Times | January 5, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The United States is backing away from efforts to pressure European allies to join or remain in the American-led military force in Iraq and instead is working to coax those countries into participating in other initiatives in the region, according to senior Bush administration and European officials.

The shift is occurring after 15 countries -- including Spain, Poland, and Hungary -- have either scaled back their already relatively small force levels in Iraq, announced pullouts, or withdrawn their troops altogether in the past year, despite the growing strength of the insurgency.

Last month, the Netherlands became the latest coalition member to signal its departure, when Defense Minister Henk Kamp reaffirmed that the 1,350 Dutch troops in Iraq would leave by the end of March. Although US forces account for the majority of foreign troops in Iraq, 28 other nations are contributing to the force, most with fewer than 500 troops. ...
- posted by Editor @ 9:57 PM

Iraq: The Devastation: "Dahr Jamail | 01/07/05 --

The devastation of Iraq? Where do I start? After working 7 of the last 12 months in Iraq, I'm still overwhelmed by even the thought of trying to describe this.
...
So Iraq is now a liberated country.

I've been in liberated Baghdad and environs on and off for 12 months, including being inside Fallujah during the April siege and having warning shots fired over my head more than once by soldiers. I've traveled in the south, north, and extensively around central Iraq. ...

Iraqis were then already bitter, confused, and existing amid a desolation that came from myriads of Bush administration broken promises. Quite literally every liberated Iraqi I've gotten to know from my earliest days in the country has either had a family member or a friend killed by U.S. soldiers or from the effects of the war/occupation. These include such everyday facts of life as not having enough money for food or fuel due to massive unemployment and soaring energy prices, or any of the countless other horrors caused by the aforementioned. The broken promises, broken infrastructure, and broken cities of Iraq were plainly visible in those early months of 2004 -- and the sad thing is that the devastation I saw then has only grown worse since. The life Iraqis were living a year ago, horrendous as it was, was but a prelude to what was to come under the U.S. occupation. The warning signs were clear from a shattered infrastructure, to all the torturing, to a burgeoning, violent resistance.
...
... "We are short of every medicine," he said and pointed out how rarely this had occurred before the invasion. "It is forbidden, but sometimes we have to reuse IV's, even the needles. We have no choice."

And then, of course, he -- like the other doctors I spoke with – brought up their horrendous water problem, the unavailability of unpolluted water anywhere in the area. "Of course, we have typhoid, cholera, kidney stones," he said matter-of-factly, "but we now even have the very rare Hepatitis Type-E…and it has become common in our area."

Driving out of the sewage filled, garbage strewn streets of Sadr City we passed a wall with "Vietnam Street" spray painted on it. Just underneath was the sentence -- obviously aimed at the American liberators -- "We will make your graves in this place."
- posted by Editor @ 9:12 PM

Robert Fisk Looks Back at 2004: The Mire of Death, Lies and Atrocities: "Who said this and when?

'The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient that the public knows... We are today not far from a disaster.'

Those were the words of T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia fame) in The Sunday Times in August, 1920.

'And,' Robert Fisk writes, 'every word of it is true today.� "
- posted by Editor @ 8:48 PM