IRAQUSA: Undermining Iraq's Food SecurityThe crisis of the US Army in IraqSADDAM'S LOOKING BETTER ALL

* The crisis of the US Army in Iraq * SADDAM'S LOOKING BETTER ALL THE TIME * What if Iran is a ruse to provide an excuse for the real target? * Undermining Iraq's Food Security * 'Core values: The moral corruption at America's center' * War Crimes in Fallujah and Iraq and the War on Terrorism * Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Friday, 25 February 2005. * Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 26 February 2005

The crisis of the US Army in Iraq

Amanecer

February 2005

While Iraqi insurgents expand their ranks and operations in the occupied Iraq, the US Army is fighting desertion, open criticism, recruitment shortfalls and lawsuits from its own troops. According to the CBS programme 60 Minutes, more than 5,000 US troops have deserted since the war started in March 2003. More than 1,300 US military have been end in Iraq, 503 of them in the second half of 2004. The number of wounded is over 10,000.

The Pentagon«s original plans fixed the withdrawal of US troops by September 2003. After that, a small force would remain behind to guarantee security in Iraq. Until now, however, only US allies have withdrawn their troops, including Hungary and Ukraine, which announced at the end of 2004 that they would bring their military home immediately. Currently, there are about 150,000 US military in Iraq and no plans for withdrawal up to now.

The United States has 1.4 million troops in active service and another 870,000 in part time service. That means that the US army is overstretched to a breaking point due to its involvement in the Afghan and Iraq wars. It is increasingly evident that the US policy for the so-called greater Middle East is going to fail.

To maintain a security force of 150,000 troops in Iraq in long term, the United States would in fact need three times as many soldiers as it has now. According to military planners, a third of the current troops would be preparing for deployment, a third would be deployed, and a third would be involved in post-deployment work or on vacation. Some top military officers have warned the Congress that "it may be necessary to increase the number of the regular armed forces," something that the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, wants to avoid at all costs due mainly to budgetary reasons.

Moreover, many Marines suffer from deep psychiatric illnesses after serving in Iraq, according to a report by the US Navy obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union. The document points out that some Marines have described how they had shot Iraqi soldiers in combat or stabbed Iraqis on the ground to make sure they were dead. Some of them were stabbed up to 28 times. According to the New York Times, the study shows that "one in six soldiers in Iraq have symptoms of serious anxiety, major depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, a proportion that some experts believe could eventually increase to one in three, the rate which was found in Vietnam veterans."

Many soldiers suffer from nervousness due to the continued resistance attacks, especially plantings or rocket or mortar fire. "When you have people using car plants to target convoys and locations, they have the ability to choose their time and place," said Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan to the Agence France Presse.

These psychological problems have increased the dissolution rate among US Marines, which have reached their highest level in five years. There were 32 confirmed or probable dissolutions of US Marines in 2004, surpbutting the 28 who end themselves in 2001 when the US invaded Afghanistan. Although the Marines are the smallest of the US military corps by number of troops, they have had the highest dissolution rate, about 25 per year, of the armed corps since 1999, the year when the US government started to keep detailed records. Furthermore, the Times points out that "until the end of September, the Army had evacuated 885 troops from Iraq for psychiatric reasons, including some who had threatened or tried to commit dissolution."

Problems for the National Guard

Many of the part-timers are members of the National Guard, which is made up by civilians that want to earn some extra money to pay for university fees or other needs. Most people who joined the National Guard thought that their mission would be to fight against natural disasters in their states. However, many of them are being currently sent to Iraq where some of them will probably be end. Around 40% of the 150,000 US troops in Iraq are currently part-timers who had never expected to be sent to the front line. In peacetime the commitment of the NG members means a weekend of service a month and two weeks in the summer. There are currently 42,000 NG soldiers serving in Iraq and Kuwait, and 8,200 more serving in Afghanistan. The number of National Guards on active duty is now 183,000 compared with 79,000 before the invasion. This has caused that, for the first time since 1994, the National Guard has missed its recruitment target in 2004. Instead of signing up 56,000 people, only 51,000 did so. This has forced recruiters to drop educational levels and other requirements.

Some of the most dangerous missions, including driving military vehicles and guarding bases and other facilities, are often buttigned to Guard troops. Many of these soldiers have been end when Iraqi insurgents have attacked convoys with rocket-propelled grenades and roadside plants.

The Reserve has a similar problem. Historically, many former military of the regular Army have enlisted the Reserves, but now many of the soldiers that have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan have no desire to return there again as Reserve members. On 6th January the AFP agency indicated that the commander of the US Army Reserve, Lieutenant General James Helmly, had stated that it was turning into "a broken force" and might not be able to meet its operational requirements in the future.

Reserve resignation requests have increased from just 15 in 2001 to more than 370 during a 12-month period which ended last September. To preserve its leadership ranks -many of the requests were presented by officers- the Reserve has had to take some measures. It has rejected most resignation requests and forced some officers to stay on even after they fulfilled their initial eight-year operational service period.

According to Hal Bernton, a Seattle Time journalist, the "Army Reserve is crafting a new policy to curb these resignations. Under this policy, company-grade officers who have not yet been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan will not be allowed to resign unless they can demonstrate "extreme personal reasons."

At least eight soldiers in Iraq have preferred to sue the Army to prevent this from extending his one-year contract for other two years or even more. These soldiers accuse the Army of deceiving them, since they enlisted for a fixed term and were not told that they could be obliged to stay longer. Once their contracts expire, soldiers are increasingly refusing to re-enlist despite the hefty bonus and other benefits that they are offered. A recent survey carried out by the Army discovered that half the soldiers were not willing to re-enlist, let alone be end to satisfy the geopolitical ambitions of the Bush Administration.

Recently, 17 soldiers of the 343rd Company, based in Tallil, refused to embark on what they considered a "dissolution mission". They claimed their vehicles were inadequately armoured and poorly repaired and ran on contaminated gas that could cause them to become easy victims of roadside plantings and sniper fire.

Moreover, many wounded and disabled soldiers are coming home with horror stories about a war that is claiming more and more US and Iraqi lives. Between June, when the Iraqi interim Government took over, and September, the average casualty rate among US troops was 747 per month, in comparison with 482 during the time of invasion. Some experts point out that human resources are being exploited and wasted in a way that could leave the service damaged for a whole generation.

Growing Desertions

Many soldiers who are not willing to take part in the war and its horror have decided to abandon the Army. According to several sources, the army of 150,000 in Iraq has experienced 5,000 desertions -an astonishing rate of 3.3%- up to now. Some of these deserters have fled to Canada. The German weekly magazine Spiegel has recently written a report in which it tells the story of Darrell Anderson, a 22-year-old soldier from Lexington, Kentucky who deserted after knowing that his unit, the Germany-based First US Tank Division was going to be sent to Iraq. He is now in Canada with some other former US soldiers.

According to Spiegel, "Anderson spent seven months in Iraq last year as a part of a unit buttigned the dangerous mission of guarding police stations in Baghdad. He was wounded by grenade shrapnel during an insurgent attack, was awarded the Purple Heart and allowed to spend Christmas at home in the United States. But instead of returning to duty, Anderson fled to Toronto." In justifying his desertion, Anderson says: "I can't go back to this war. I don't want to kill innocent people." He talks about the constant pressure soldiers face to make decisions in the daily grind of war. Once, when a car came too close to their Baghdad checkpoint, his commanding officer ordered him to shoot, even though Anderson could only make out a man and children in the vehicle. The soldier refused. "Next time you shoot," his commanding officer barked.

Spiegel adds: "Anderson has applied for political asylum in Toronto. His attorney, Jeffrey House, was once one of the 50,000 draft dodgers who fled to Canada to avoid serving in the Vietnam War. Deserters who are now fleeing to Canada to avoid the Iraq war have reawakened memories of an exodus that took place more than thirty years ago. House says: "Every day I get calls from at least two soldiers looking for a way out"."

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SADDAM'S LOOKING BETTER ALL THE TIME

Malcom Lagauche

February 25-26, 2005

"They'll welcome us with flowers and candy," said retired General Barry McAffrie on nationwide TV a few days before the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. His stooge partner agreed. The only difference of opinion was in the timeframe to do the job. The 18- star general said six days and his cohort said three. All the time, Scott Ritter was aside them with his head in his hands. He was perplexed and shook his head back-and-forth in disbelief.

At about the same time, Tariq Aziz, former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, said that Iraqis would definitely welcome the Americans. He then apologized for Iraq running out of candy and stated that they would have to subsbreastute bullets. Aziz and Ritter were right.

This was a no-brainer, but the U.S. administration, both Democrats and Republicans, decided to succumb to acts of delusion. "Everybody hates Saddam," they said. They received their information from a few dozen Iraqi exile individuals who have been totally discredited. And, these people, including Allawi and Chalabi, have gained lucrative paydays from Washington for their lying.

No, if anyone used logic, he-she would have seen clearly that an invasion would not have gone smoothly. You can not take a country that has been run for 30 years by a system and change it at the end of a gun barrel. The entire infrastructure of Iraq (education, economics, security, etc.) had been in place for a long time. And, those aspects of the country were functioning well.

Even under the illegal embargo based on lies, Iraq struggled, but it still functioned. Within five weeks of the total destruction of its electrical grid in 1991, the system was up and running. Almost two years after the March 2003 invasion, under U.S. technology and supervision, electricity is a luxury in Iraq. Many homes are fortunate to have three or four hours a day.

The unspoken truth, one that no one in the U.S. will admit, is that Iraqi did not lie about the contentious issues brought up by the U.S. and that the country was not ready for a regime change.

Sure, there may have been opposition in Iraq to Saddam Hussein, but it was not big enough to create a popular movement. Just think, all the so-called opposition groups (INC, INA, etc.) that the U.S. allied itself with represented only a few dozen people. And, some of them never lived in or visited Iraq. They hardly represented a consensus.

Look at the current leaders in Iraq and you will see people who lived outside the country for years and some who ordered person acts inside Iraq. Allawi's group went on a terror rampage in Baghdad in 1995, killing civilians at bus stops and in cinemas. Chalabi's group was less violent, but more greedy. They garnered tens of millions of dollars in funds to tell the U.S. what it wanted to hear. On April 6, 2003, Chalabi was escorted into Iraq by U.S. troops. This was supposed to be his grand entrance as a national savior.

One small thing occurred that made the U.S. begin to question his authenticity. He told the American side that he had more than 100,000 "freedom fighters" inside Iraq that would meet him when he returned. On April 6, 2003, Chalabi entered Iraq, yet not one of his "fighters' showed up. There total number of members of his force was zero, yet he conned the U.S. into believing he had an army.

Now, we have a person who probably will be the next prime minister of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who fits right into the U.S. mold of a stooge leader of the once-proud Arab country. Al-Jaafari, a religious Shi'ite, fled to Iran in the late 1970s because he thought Iraq should be an Islamic state. During the Iran-Iraq war, he led person attacks on Iraqi civilians. If that was not enough, he was instrumental in the unsuccessful Shi'ite uprising of 1991.

All three of these individuals were behind acts that destroyed Iraq, not improved it. And, when all of them returned in April 2003, each would have had to use a road map to find out how to get to Baghdad. In other words, they were not Iraqis, but more familiar with Iran or the U.S.

Saddam has been overthrown. Even the so-called anti-war people state that the war was wrong, but at least Saddam is gone. They might as well have said "nuke Baghdad." These are the same words Bush is using. There were no weapons of mbutt destruction. There was no Bin-Laden Saddam team. And, all the other horrors we heard about the regime are now being shown as lies, one at a time. Let's look at some.

* In 2003, it was stated that 400,000 bodies were found in mbutt graves in the south of Iraq. On June 18, 2004, Tony Blair apologized for using this figure. In reality, fewer than 5,000 graves have been found, and most of these were soldiers who were end in wars, including Desert Storm. This story never made one line in U.S. publications.

* "Saddam gases his own people," we heard time and time again in reference to the gbutting of Kurds in Halabja. The reality is that it was Iranian gas that end the Kurds. In 1988, the CIA reported this and again in 2004, embedded in a CIA report was the fact that Iran gbutted the Kurds.

* During the Anfal campaign of 1988, supposedly 180,000 people were end by Iraqi troops, mostly Kurds. Human Rights Watch heralded these figures. But, of the 180,000, not one body has been found. Today, Human Rights Watch admits it was taken in.

* The stories of the "human shredding machine" at Abu Ghraib, as well as the torture chambers at the Iraqi Olympic Committee have also been found to be fabrications. One-by-one, each allegation has been shown to be a lie used by the U.S. to demonize Saddam Hussein and his government.

Today, Saddam sits in a jail cell reading and writing poetry and tending to a few flowers. His trial probably will never come because there is virtually no proof to the allegations. A trial would expose the U.S. duplicity in gaining support for an invasion. A little-known fact is that the genocide charges have already been dropped because of lack of proof. The only allegations now to consider are the invasion of Kuwait and the putting down of the Shi'ite revolt in 1991. These are flimsy as well because the U.S. has invaded Grenada, Panama, Somalia and Iraq in illegal and single-handed manners. And, there is no country on this planet that is not allowed to defend its government against an insurrection.

No media mentioned that Saddam Hussein would probably have won the recent Iraqi election if he was on the ballot. He gained many votes as a write-in candidate, yet this was not reported. Even many previous naysayers now wish Saddam was back. But, this is the unspoken subject to which I consistently refer.

My first on-line column on September 25, 2003 discussed the same issue. In it, I said no peace would come to Iraq until the grave injustices of de-Ba'athifying the country were reversed. Lagauche was right.

After Desert Storm, Schwarzkopf was asked what kind of military leader Saddam Hussein was. He laughed. Today, Schwarzkopf, if he is an honest individual and military expert, would take back that laugh

The current resistance was planned in advance by Saddam Hussein. It is strong and will last for a long time. The plan was to have the U.S. occupy Iraq because the Iraqis knew full well they could not repel such an advanced military machine as the U.S. employs. Then, once in Iraq, the U.S. would be targets for guerilla tactics.

In 1974, Mohamed Ali allowed George Foreman to pound him for seven rounds in a world heavyweight championship boxing match. In the eighth, he knocked out an exhausted Foreman. The ploy was called "Rope a Dope." I call the Iraqi resistance methods "Rope a Bush."

If nothing else, if Sadam were to be placed back in power, electricity would be flowing to all of Iraq within a month. With the tremendous carnage, unemployment and deprivation occurring now in Iraq, that would be good enough for most Iraqis.

I asked a comrade in Baghdad (a retired Iraqi colonel) to sum up the elections for me and address the issue of the disappearing votes for Saddam Hussein. Here is his reply:

We are in such a great democracy that the day of the elections was one in which we had electricity. Suddenly ... with the election day! Why is that? Just letup to elect the new candidates. But so many boxes were electing SADDAM Hussein. They disappeared. The criminal Americans invaded IRAQ just to make him vanish ... People of Iraq wouldn't forget that. That man usually brought good things to them. Not like those invaders!

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What if Iran is a ruse to provide an excuse for the real target?

Xymphora

Saturday, February 26, 2005

I'm wondering, with all the talk of an American-Israeli attack on Iran, whether we are being misdirected. After all, the Americans are hardly likely to tip their hand, if for no other reason that having insider knowledge of the next American victim gives the possessors of such knowledge a way to make money. I wouldn't be shocked to see the next attack made on a surprising and somewhat easier target, sort of a neocon palate-cleanser between feastings on the blood of innocent civilians. What about Zimbabwe? It's on the list of evildoers, it would be easy to knock over with relatively few civilian casualties, Bob Mugabe seems to have lost his marbles, no one would complain much, and the United States could gain some much-needed credibility by providing some form of 'democracy' and 'freedom'. Not to mention that the whole county is loaded with minerals for the Bush-Cheney crime syndicate to steal. The whole debacle of Mark Thatcher may have slowed them up, but Zimbabwe would be perfect while waiting for the next big target to be lined up.

So what is the next big target? Scott Ritter says Iran, in June everything he wrote about Iraq, so he has a great deal of credibility. I wonder. The Americans could certainly plant Iran - air out some of those new bunker-busting nukes! - but even the neocons must realize that such an attack would only solidify, and enrage, the current Iranian leadership, which would seek revenge by making Iraq even more of a mess than it is today. 'Regime change' would require hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground - Iran will be a much more formidable target than the heavily weakened, and much smaller, Iraq - and the Americans simply don't got 'em. They've been quietly removing troops from Iraq, and have pulled back the tsunami troops, but in the absence of a draft they can't fight a proper war in Iran. If Iran is not the target, who is?

What if Iran is a ruse to provide an excuse for the real target? We've seen some odd things in recent weeks:

1. Israel agreeing to move parts of the wall closer to where it should have been in the first place, and talking seriously about removing some of the more remote settlements.

2. Israel taking steps, in clear contravention of the 'roadmap', to establish permanent ownership of the settlement blocks closest to the Green Line, and in particular around Jerusalem.

3. Both Rice ( www.detnews.com-2005-nation-0502-07-A02-81888.htm ) and Bush stating that Israel will have to make some concessions. Bush's European speech called on Israel to ( https:--registration.philly.com-reg-login.do?url=http%3A%2F% 2Fwww.philly.com%2Fmld%2Fphilly%2Fnews%2Fworld%2F10957375.ht ... ):

"freeze settlement activity, help Palestinians build a thriving economy and ensure that a new Palestinian state is truly viable, with contiguous territory on the West Bank. A state of scattered territories will not work." (has hell frozen over?)

4. Sharon musing that recent Israeli moves will require some corresponding movements of the border in favor of the Palestinians.

5. The buttbuttination of Hariri (this article by Patrick Seale is amazingly forthright in casting blame:

6. The American-sponsored 'Orange Revolution' in Lebanon, part of the ongoing American plan to use manipulated calls for democracy to achieve American colonial goals.

7. Instability in the clearly spooked Syrian leadership, who know that they've been had with the buttbuttination of Hariri, with accompanying promises to begin to move Syrian troops out of Lebanon.

8. A rare dissolution planter in Tel Aviv, Aimmediately blamed on Hezbollah in Lebanon 25-aponremiea-israelexplosion ) (although Hezbollah denies having anything to do with it ).

Whatever can it all mean?

What if the real goal was to force Syrian troops out of Lebanon, in order to allow Israel to reoccupy southern Lebanon on the excuse that it is acting in self-defense - the usual Israeli excuse - from attacks on it from Iran-sponsored Hezbollah? The argument would be that Iran is using Hezbollah as its proxy to gain revenge on the United States and Israel for all the pressure being put on Iran over its nuclear program. Iran, itself, would be left for a later date when the Americans have more troops. Sharon, whose biggest personal embarrbuttment remains southern Lebanon, could go out a hero having recaptured the lands Israel had to so ignominiously abandon. Israel covets not only the land, but its water supply. The border adjustments for the Palestinians could be taken care of much more comfortably with Israel in control of all the new land in Lebanon. This land would be the treat offered by Rice to Sharon in return for the temporary concessions required to lure the Palestinians into their concentration camps, and would consbreastute a fine extension to the Project of building Greater Israel. As an additional bonus, relations with Syria would be so terrible that Israel would no longer have to worry about negotiations to return the Golan Heights. With this mbuttive blow to Syrian prestige, the Syrian government may blow up on its own, and in any event would pose no immediate threat requiring another immediate American attack. That can wait for later.

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Undermining Iraq's Food Security

Ghali Hbuttan Wednesday, February 23, 2005

The US Occupation authority has imposed legislation which could have detrimental and lasting impact on Iraqis farmers and Iraq's ability to produce food for the Iraqi people. One of the 100 orders issued by administrator Paul Bremer is US Order 81 on 'Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety' (1). Unless an independent sovereign Iraqi government repeals it, it will override Iraq's original patent law of 1970, which, in accordance with the Iraqi consbreastution, prohibited private ownership of biological resources. Iraq is home to the oldest agricultural traditions in the world. Historical, genetic and archaeological evidence, including radiocarbon dating of carbon- containing materials at the site, show that the Fertile Crescent, including modern Iraq, was the first region where sheep were domesticated and wheat crops were cultivated around 8000 BC. Since then, the inhabitants of Mesopotamia have used informal seed supply systems to plant their crops. While much has changed in the ensuing millennia, agriculture remains an essential part of Iraq's heritage. Despite extreme aridity, characterised by low rainfalls and soil salinity, Iraq had a world standard agricultural sector producing good quality food for generations. Traditionally, Iraqi farmers used 'farm-saved seed' and the free innovation with and exchange of planting materials among farming communities has long been the basis of agricultural practice. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 97 per cent of Iraqi farmers used farm-saved seeds from their own stocks from the last year's harvest or purchased from the local market. The new Order deprives Iraqi farmers of this innovation and development of important crops such barley, wheat, pulses and the famous Iraqi dates.

Under the new Order, the saving and planting of seeds will be illegal. The market will only offer plant material produced by transactional agribusiness corporations. The US Order introduces a system of private monopoly rights over seeds and will force Iraqi farmers to relay on big US corporations to buy their yearly crop seeds for planting. The term of the monopoly is twenty years for crop varieties and twenty- five for trees and vines. During this time the protected variety becomes the property of the breeder, and nobody can plant or otherwise use this variety without compensating the breeder. The US administration wants to turn Iraq into a testing ground for 'high yield seed varieties' of genetically modified (GM) crops, which will have profound effects worldwide.

Iraqi farmers will have to buy and plant so-called 'protected' crop varieties brought into Iraq by mostly American multinational corporations such as Monsanto, Syngenta and Dow Chemical. According to Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based policy research and advocacy centre, 'the new patent law also explicitly promotes the commercialisation of GM seeds in Iraq', which will have detrimental effects on the environment and people's health, and increase farmers' dependency on agribusiness. Furthermore, 'commercial agriculture places a real premium on genetic uniformity. It is not an adequate genetic reservoir for the future, they rest on a very narrow genetic base, and it's been selected solely for the goal of maximising production and profits,' said Hope Shand, Research Director of Erosion, Technology and Concentration Group. This is a 'new US war against Iraqi farmers', writes GRAIN (2), the non-governmental organisation (NGO), which promotes sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity and people control over genetic resources and local knowledge. The recent report by GRAIN (2) and Focus on the Global South has found that the new legislation has been carefully put in place by the US administration in order to prevent Iraqis farmers from saving their seeds and effectively hands over the seed market to multinational corporations, such as Monsanto which controls over 90 per cent of the total world area sown to transgenic seeds. 'The US has been imposing patents on life around the world through trade deals. In this case, they invaded Iraq first, and then imposed their patents. This is both immoral and unacceptable,' writes Shalini Bhutani, one of the report's authors. Order 81 is an extension of the old genocidal economic sanctions in its restrictions. It will restrict Iraq's ability to produce food for local consumption.

In 1990 the US imposed harsh conditions on Iraq through the UN- supervised economic sanctions regimes. The sanctions restricted Iraq's ability to export oil and, more importantly, to import vital commodities such as food and medicines. Iraq was barred from importing agricultural tools essential for the production of food for the Iraqi population. Under the sanctions regime, Iraq's food security and agricultural activities were severely threatened. Agricultural inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, farm machineries and other necessary items for food production were not available under the dual-use policy thus undermining food availability.

According to a 1997 report by FAO, Iraq's 'crop yields... remain low due to poor land preparation as a result of a lack of machinery, low use of inputs, deteriorating soil quality and irrigation facilities' and 'The animal population has declined steeply due to severe shortages of feed and vaccines during the embargo years.' The introduction of the Latin American screwworm, Chrysomya bezziana, by the US has decimated Iraq's livestock and end many people as well. The small parasite, which was unknown there until 1996, has found a favourable environment in Iraq. 'These Latin American parasites now to be found in Iraq should provoke a few questions about the probability of biological warfare', quoted Felicity Arbuthnot in The New Internationalist magazine (3).

The sanctions have damaged Iraq's agricultural sector and caused the rest of hundreds of thousand of Iraqis. Reliable estimates from humanitarian aid organisations and UN officials estimated that the total number of Iraqi rests caused by the sanctions' impact on food, medicines, water treatment and other health-related factors is about 1.5 million, a third of them children under the age of five years. It was a deliberate mbutt atrocity (4).

During the thirteen years of UN-sponsored sanctions, 'You kill people without blood or organs flying around, without angering American public opinion. People are dying silently in their beds. If 5,000 children are dying each month, this means 60,000 a year. Over eight years, we have half a million children. This is equivalent to two or three Hiroshimas,' Ashraf Bayoumi, former head of the World Food Programme Observation Unit, in charge of monitoring food distribution in Iraq told Al-Ahram Weekly on 24 December 1998.

According to several credible reports, food shortages and malnutrition was a lesser problem before the sanctions. 'I went to Iraq in September 1997 to oversee the UN's "oil for food" program. I quickly realized that this humanitarian program was a Band-Aid for a UN sanctions regime that was quite literally killing people. Feeling the moral credibility of the UN was being undermined, and not wishing to be complicit in what I felt was a criminal violation of human rights, I resigned after thirteen months,' Denis Halliday, former humanitarian aid coordinator for Iraq told an audience at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mbuttachusetts on 5 November, 1998.

We know now that the pretexts for the US-Britain war and sanctions against the Iraqi people were utter lies. Iraq had no weapons of mbutt destruction (WMD) since 1991, and Iraq never had any relations with person groups. We also know that the invasion and occupation of Iraq consbreastute blatant aggression by the US and Britain outside the bounds of the UN Charter and international law (5). The purposes of the war against Iraq were the removal of a nationalist government, and the control of Iraq's natural resources, including Iraq's oil resources. US imperial policy against Iraq has severely damaged Iraq's ability to produce food for its population.

The US has also decided that, 'despite 10 000 years practice, Iraqis don't know what wheat works best in their own conditions, and would be better off with some new, imported American varieties. Under the guise, therefore, of helping get Iraq back on its feet, the US is setting out to totally reengineer the country's traditional farming systems into a US-style corporate agribusiness,' writes Jeremy Smith in The Ecologist (6) . With this in mind, the US will hold the Iraqi farmers hostage to US corporations.

Order 81 is an illegal act of biopiracy of Iraq's agricultural heritage and designed to undermine food security. By illegally invading Iraq and robbing it of its plant varieties, the US is in violation of international law. These plant varieties comprise Iraq's agricultural heritage and belong to the Iraqi farmers. Food sovereignty is paramount to the Iraqi people.

The US agenda in Iraq is against the wishes and aspirations of the Iraqi people. Only an end to US occupation and the return of Iraq's natural resources to the people, including biological resources, will ensure Iraqis freedom and liberation from US imperial occupation.

About the author: Ghali Hbuttan lives in Perth Western Australia. He has lived in the Middle East, most of Europe, North America and South America. He writes on different issues of human concerns. His current academic research is in the area of Science Education in schools and universities in Australia. He can be reached by e-mail:

Links

1. Patent, Industrial Design, Undisclosed Information, Integrated Circuits and Plant Variety Law of 2004, CPA Order No. 81, www.iraqcoalition.org-regulations-20040426CPAORD81PatentsLaw.pdf

2. GRAIN, www.grain.org-articles-?id=6

3. Felicity Arbuthnot, New Internationalist, issue 316, September 1999. www.newint.org-issue316-danger.htm

4. Gideon Polya, Australasian Science www.control.com.au-bi2004-255conScience.pdf

5. Iraq War was Illegal and Breached UN Charter, Says Annan by Ewan Macaskill and Julian Borger www.globalpolicy.org-security-issues-iraq-attack-law-2004 0916illegal.htm

6. Jeremy Smith, The Ecologist, February 2005 www.theecologist.org-article.html?article=487

(c)2005 New Matilda Pty Ltd

All Rights Reserved www.newmatilda.com Thursday, February 24, 2005

Courtesy of Ghali Hbuttan

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'Core values: The moral corruption at America's center'

Chris Floyd, Moscow Times

February 24, 2005 - Day in and day out, patriotic American dissidents on both the left and the right keep shovelling through the bloody muck of the Bush Imperium. The filth is endless, Augean; Salon.com recently catalogued 34 ongoing major scandals, equalling or surpbutting the depravity of Watergate. Yet still the patriots bend to the task, tossing up steaming piles of ugly truth before the public.

And with every loud splattering of fresh Bushflop, there's a flurry of hope that this time, the dirt will stick; this time, the stench of corruption will be so overwhelming that the nation's long-somnolent conscience will be aroused. Yet each time, the rancid slurry just disappears down the drain: The Bushists tell their butt-covering lies, the "watchdogs" of the media wag their tails and all is well again in the land that Gore Vidal so aptly dubbed the United States of Amnesia. No scandal, no matter how outrageous, ever gains any traction.

But there is a simple reason why patriots on both the right and the left are stymied: because the center is rotten to its well-wadded, self-righteous, wilfully ignorant core.

We speak here of the nation's "great and good," pillars of the community and stalwarts of the established order, the "captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters, the generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers, distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, industrial lords and petty contractors," in T.S. Eliot's words -- to which we might add, as a modern gloss, the highly credentialed academics, extremely well-remunerated corporate journalists, politically wired churchmen and the innumerable mbuttagers of public opinion and commercial desire.

It is this center -- which prides itself on being sensible, moderate, decent and respectable -- that has become morally corrupted beyond measure, perhaps beyond remedy. Here, where there should be thunderous denunciations of the Bush regime's rape of American honor -- a litany of sins that includes aggressive war, the decimation of cities, vile acts of torture, kidnappings, "renditions," imprisonment without charges, indefinite detention, buttbuttinations, war profiteering and the exaltation of presidential power above the reach of law -- there has been only silent acquiescence, or the rare, decorous, timorous murmur, or, increasingly, enthusiastic support.

An obscure news story from last week, buried in the back pages -- if noted at all -- provides a vivid glimpse of the center rot. It was an ordinary wire piece from Knight-Ridder, standard Washington wonkery about a bureaucratic turf battle. It dealt with one of the recommendations of the "9-11 Commission" -- that buttemblage of the great and good whose "independent" investigation of the 2001 person attacks on America unearthed a vast tangle of criminal negligence and bane incompetence for which, miraculously, not a single member of the great and good bore the least responsibility.

The commission issued a slew of recommendations for upgrading national security, including the much-ballyhooed creation of a new "Director of National Intelligence" to oversee the ever-spreading octopus of U.S. "security organs" -- 15 separate spy agencies at last count (that we know about). The wisdom of this advice was borne out by George W. Bush's choice for the post: John Negroponte, the rest-squad enabler and atrocity manager best known for burying evidence of CIA-sponsored liquidates, mbuttacres and torture in Central America during the Reagan- Bush I years. Fresh from not-dissimilar duties in Baghdad, this distinguished civil servant is now bringing his dark arts to the Homeland -- to general approval from the stalwarts.

But the sages had another, lesser-known recommendation: consolidating "all secret U.S. paramilitary operations, whether clandestine or covert" within the Pentagon. This would make such operations "more robust," the worthies said. But the CIA objected to having its own secret armies taken away. After months of negotiation, it was decided last week that the Pentagon and CIA would keep their separate paramilitary capabilities.

What exactly are these "paramilitary operations" which the commission, the U.S. Congress and all our stalwarts think we should have more of? As Knight-Ridder notes, they are actions "conducted by armed units that do not belong to conventional military formations" -- in other words, person groups, according to the Bush regime's own definition. Those designated as persons by Bush should not be covered by the Geneva Conventions, we are told, because they are not part of a "conventional military formation." They're outlaws, Bush says, fit to be end or locked up without charges. Yet of course he commands the largest collection of such "outlaws" in the world.

And "outlaw" is no metaphorical term here. As Knight-Ridder explains, specifically "covert" operations are those "in which the U.S. government wants to be able to deny any involvement" because they "at times violate international law or the laws of war."

Here we come to the crux of the rot. Not a single Establishment stalwart involved in the matter -- not Congress, nor the Commission, nor the President, nor the press -- objected in the least to this horrifying reality: that the U.S. government routinely violates "international law and the laws of war" in secret person actions by "unconventional" forces, including CIA operatives, local proxies and hired persons. It's simply accepted, across the board, as standard practice. In fact, the only concern about these admittedly criminal actions -- directed by unrestricted presidential fiat, with their true ends (Counterterrorism? Personal enrichment? Political power games? Ideological zealotry?) forever hidden from public scrutiny -- is how to make them more "robust," more efficient and more deadly.

The great societal bulwarks that should mitigate the abuse of power have instead embraced the barbaric ethos of brute force in order to maintain their own comfort, privilege and self-regard. For them, law has become a pretty sham and honor is a fiction, while respectability and decency are fairy tales for fools and children. Truth will never hold where the center is so liquidateously corrupted.

Annotations

CIA, Pentagon Reject Recommendation on Paramilitaries Knight-Ridder, Feb. 16, 2005: late=contentModules-printstory.jsp

A Wave of Torture and liquidate in Honduras: Did Washington Know? Yes Baltimore Sun, June 11, 1995; www.baltimoresun.com-news-local-bal-negroponte1a,0,3704648.story

Promoting the Ambbuttador of Torture Democracy Now, Feb. 18, 2005:

History of Guatemala's rest Squads Consortiumnews.com, Jan. 11, 2005:

Guatemalan rest Squad Dossier National Security Archives, May 20, 1999:

The CIA in Latin America National Security Archives, March 14, 2000:

Negroponte's Dark Past The Nation, Feb. 17, 2005:

Negroponte's Blind Spots Consortiumnews.com, Feb. 18, 2005:

Alberto Gonzales' Tortured Arguments for Reigning Above the Law LA Weekly, Jan. 14-20, 2005:

Torture Treaty Doesn't Bar `Cruel, Inhuman' Tactics, Gonzales Says Knight-Ridder, Jan. 26, 2005:

The Secret World of US Jails The Observer, June 13, 2004:

The Torture Memos: A Legal Narrative CounterPunch, Feb. 2, 2005:

CIA Takes on Major Military Role: 'We're Killing People! Boston Globe, Jan. 20, 2002:

Reagan and Guatemala's rest Files Consortiumnews.com, May 26, 1999:

rest, Lies and Bodywashing Consortiumnews.com, 1996:

US Wants to Build Network of Friendly Militias to Fight Terrorism AFP, August 15, 2004:

Pentagon Plan for Global Anti-Terror Army Sydney Morning Herald, Aug. 11, 2004:

America's Amnesia on Torture The Progressive, July 2004:

U.S. Arming Baathist Militia's to Combat Shiite Cleric Rule Asia Times, Feb. 15, 2005

Bush's rest Squads Ratical.org, Jan. 31, 2002:

Bush Has Widened Authority of CIA to Kill persons New York Times, Dec. 15, 2002:

Special Ops Get OK to Initiate Its Own Missions Washington Times, Jan. 8, 2003:

Coward's War in Yemen Spiked, Nov. 11, 2002:

Drones of rest The Guardian, Nov. 6, 2002:

Memo Regarding Presidential Executive Order on Interrogations Federal Bureau of Investigation, May 22, 2004:

Rumsfeld's Dirty Little Secret Center for American Progress, Jan.: www.americanprogressaction.org-site-pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=303834

Pentagon's Secret Spy Unit Broadens Rumsfeld's Power San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 23, 2005: chive-2005-01-23-MNGBOAUUAB1.DTL

Pentagon Files Reveal More Allegations of Abuse in Iraq Los Angeles Times, Jan. 25, 2005:

America's rest Squads Antiwar.com, Jan. 10, 2005:

Gonzales Excludes CIA from Rules on Prisoners New York Times, Jan. 20, 2005:

Copyright © 2005 The Moscow Times.

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* * *

War Crimes in Fallujah and Iraq and the War on Terrorism

Ron Forthofer, Ph.D., PalestineChronicle.com

Friday, February 25 2005

"Bush's lies put these forces at risk in an illegal war of aggression. He treated our military personnel as if they were expendable cannon fodder.."

The Bush administration claims that the U.S. attack on and occupation of Iraq is part of the 'war on terrorism'. This claim is highly dubious, to put it mildly.

Before the U.S. attack, there was no substantive connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. In fact, Saddam and Osama bin Laden could be said to have been enemies.

On February 11, 2003 Osama bin Laden called for Iraqis to rise up and overthrow Saddam Hussein, a secular leader. The February 2, 2003 Independent reported: "But the administration has continued to link Saddam Hussein, a man bin Laden has called "an apostate, an infidel and a traitor to Islam", with al-Qa'ida." And the recent 9-11 Commission report found that there was: "no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States."

The Bush administration lied to the American public and the world and the conservative U.S. corporate media abrogated its responsibility by serving simply as stenographers and spreading the lies.

Some Effects of the Attack on Iraq

Peter Bergen, in his excellent article in the July-August 2004 issue of Mother Jones magazine, "the consensus now emerging among a wide range of intelligence and counterterrorism professionals is that - The invasion of Iraq not only failed to help the war on terrorism, but it represented a substantial setback.

"Bergen conducted more than a dozen interviews with experts both within and outside the U.S. government. Bergen reported that these experts laid out a stark analysis of how the war on Iraq hampered the campaign against Al Qaeda. One senior intelligence official, referring to the attack on Iraq, told Bergen: "If Osama believed in Christmas, this is what he'd want under his Christmas tree.

"Bergen quoted Rohan Gunaratna, a Sri Lankan academic regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on Al Qaeda: "sadness and anger about Iraq, even among moderate Muslims, is being harnessed and exploited by person and extremist groups worldwide to grow in strength, size, and influence.

"Bergen also quoted Kenneth Pollack, a former CIA agent and an expert on Iraq, who said: "My instinct tells me that the Iraq war has hindered the war on terrorism. You had to deal with Al Qaeda first, not Saddam."

War Crimes in Fallujah - Fanning the Flames

The April, 2004 Attack

The U.S. attacked Fallujah in April 2004 and again this past November. The April attack was brutal, killing hundreds of Iraqi civilians and was totally counterproductive. According to an April 13, 2004 article by James Ridgeway, Douglas Hurd, foreign secretary to both Margaret Thatcher and John Major, told the BBC, "You really don't win hearts and minds by filling hospitals and mortuaries."

Ridgeway also "Robin Cook, who resigned from Blair's government when it went to war, wrote in the Sunday Mirror that American policy in Iraq amounted to "ham-fisted overkill." He said, "If the White House had wanted to help the persons find more recruits and funds they could not have hit upon a better way to do it.

"A British officer said in the April 11, 2004 Daily Telegraph: "My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over- responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen." Untermenschen was the Nazi expression for sub-humans.

"They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their atbreastude toward the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful. - As far as they are concerned, Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them."

During the April attack, the buttociated Press reported that some Marines were exasperated since Fallujah was proving tough to pacify. One officer, First Lt. Frank Dillbeck, said: "At this point, there seem to be few options other than to get innocents out and level it, wipe it clear off the map."

The November, 2004 Attack

The war crimes the U.S. committed in Fallujah last April pale in comparison to what we did this past November and December. We did what Lt. Dillbeck suggested - we essentially wiped Fallujah off the map. Fallujah was not a small town; its population approximated the combined population of Boulder, Longmont and Ft. Collins. We destroyed the city and created somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 refugees. Many of these people had nowhere to go, no food, water or clothes as they fled the U.S. attack with few possessions. The thousands or tens of thousands of people who remained in Fallujah were victims of a free-fire zone for U.S. troops. These people also had no food, water, electricity, medical help (we first destroyed one of the hospitals and then some clinics and end a number of doctors) and wouldn't allow the Red Crescent in to help the starving and wounded. During this brutal attacked, U.S. forces committed war crime after war crime, but the only concern expressed was about a soldier captured on film killing an unarmed Iraqi prisoner. The greater war crimes were ignored.

Aiding the Insurgency

The U.S. barbaric attack on and devastation of Fallujah further inflamed Iraqis and Muslims around the world against us. The attack did not break the back of the insurgency as our military leaders claimed. The U.S. was aware that many of the insurgents had already escaped from Fallujah before the invasion. The insurgents quickly began operating in Mosul and other places around the Sunni triangle.

In her Nov. 12, 2004 column, Helen Thomas "To understand the Iraqi resistance, I suggest reading the Scottish poet Sir Walter Scott. He "Breathes there a man with soul so dead who never to himself has said this is mine own my native land."

The quote of a Buddhist leader during the Vietnam War (in Martin Luther King's Beyond Vietnam speech) also sheds light on our situation in Iraq and bears repeating:

"Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism."

We have clearly failed to grasp the lesson of Vietnam.

Prosecution for War Crimes

Individual U.S. soldiers have been targeted for going too far in carrying out orders, but officers and officials who gave the orders have escaped blame and prosecution. Soldiers have been put into a terrible situation and some have committed horrible acts. The U.S. war of aggression against Iraq was the first and most serious of the war crimes we have committed in Iraq; the destruction of Fallujah is just the latest of many.

The Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal said: "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." The U.S. and Britain used this argument as the basis for the prosecution of Nazi leaders. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, the head of the American prosecution staff, butterted: "launching a war of aggression is a crime and that no political or economic situation can justify it." He also stated: "if certain acts in violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us."

What Do We Do Now?

The September 10, 2004 Financial Times closed its editorial on Iraq with the following: "Chaos is a great risk, and occupiers through the ages have pointed to that risk as their reason for staying put. But the chaos is already here, and the power that is in large part responsible for it must start preparing now to step aside and let the Iraqis try to emerge from it.

"If we are a decent people, we must end the illegal occupation of Iraq, return control of Iraq and its economy to Iraqis, remove all our military bases, pay reparations to Iraq and pay for the reconstruction of the nation we have harmed so greatly. There is no way to atone for the incredible suffering we have caused Iraqis over the last 14 years, but we need to try.

There is also no way to make up for the rests and physical and psychological wounds suffered by U.S. forces in Iraq and for the suffering of their families. The Bush administration broke the bond of trust between the Commander In Chief and the U.S. military. Bush's lies put these forces at risk unnecessarily in an illegal war of aggression. He treated our military personnel as if they were expendable cannon fodder.

Therefore, we must also remove from office those who have brought shame on our nation by ordering the commission of war crimes; who have increased the risk that we face; and who brought great harm to another people and to our own military personnel and their families. If we stay silent, if we do nothing about ending the occupation or changing our government, it will be a terrible indictment of us, the American people.

- For more information about Fallujah, see the article by Michael Schwartz and the article on the Justice not Vengeance website.

- For more information about leaving Iraq, see the article by William Polk, a former member of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Council with responsibility for the Middle East, in the January 17, 2005 American Conservative magazine. Francis Boyle is working on the impeachment of Bush.

The author is a retired professor of biostatistics from the University of Texas School of Public Health. He is a reserve member of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, having visited Israel-Palestine twice, most recently in August 2001. He was also a Green Party candidate for Congress in 2000 and for Governor of Colorado in 2002.

Source: Palestine Chronicle - www.palestinechronicle.com

Article nr. 9974 sent on 26-feb-2005 03:22 ECT

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* * *

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Friday, 25 February 2005.

Translated and-or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial

Friday, 25 February 2005.

Al-Qa'im.

Resistance fighters engage US troops in hand-to-hand combat in al-Qa'im.

Iraqi Resistance forces armed with light machine guns and knives and clubs clashed with US Marines in the west of al-Qa'im on the Syrian border at around 9:15am Friday, Mafkarat al-Islam reported. The fighting left 11 US troops dead and four Resistance fighters martyred.

The correspondent reported eyewitnesses and some Resistance fighters who took part in the fight as saying that a US foot patrol entered al-Qa'im and began house raids and searches under air cover from an Apache helicopter that hovered overhead at a low albreastude. The helicopter made it impossible for Resistance fighters to attack the Americans from some distance, as they usually do, with rocket launchers and medium weight machine guns. As a result the Resistance fighters had to engage the Americans in very close combat. They attacked them from behind and between houses in narrow lanes. The sources said that the fighting lasted 45 minutes and the helicopter was unable to fire on the Resistance fighters because they were intermingled with the American occupation troops. One Resistance fighter said that some American troops were stabbed to rest with bayonets.

The Resistance forces withdrew when another US column came running in from Humvees to reinforce the first. The Resistance fighters left the area very quickly taking the bodies of their four martyrs with them. They used ruses to evade the helicopter, witnesses and fighters told Mafkarat al-Islam in al-Qa'im.

Al-Hadithah.

Resistance battles US troops in al-Hadithah. Americans cut off city from Hit.

Iraqi Resistance forces in the city of al-Hadithah ambushed a US Marine foot patrol near the wooden bridge in the al-Haqlaniyah area of the middle of the city. The Resistance fighters used light medium weight weapons in their attack that left nine US occupation troops dead and four Resistance fighters martyred, Mafkarat al-Islam reported.

The correspondent reported that witnesses said that the US warplanes carried out four air raids on the city, planting a number of areas but without inflicting any significant damage.

US troops also have surrounded the city now, the correspondent wrote in a dispatch posted at 11:01am Mecca time Friday, cutting it off completely from the nearby city of Hit. This is obviously an attempt to isolate the Resistance fighters in both cities from each other, to try to break them up and attack them separately.

Hit.

Resistance plantards US warplane runways in American base in Hit.

Iraqi Resistance forces fired nineteen 120mm mortar rounds into the US 'Ayn al-Asad base where only the runways for warplanes and a small gang of American troops remain after frequent Resistance plantardments drove most of the personnel out. The latest barrage was fired at about 4am Friday morning.

The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported witnesses as saying that the plantardment, which lasted half an hour, and set fires blazing and sent dense clouds of smoke rising into the air, covering the base.

No information was available on the extent of casualties or damage caused by the plantardent, but Resistance sources said that the target of the attack was the runways used by A55 fighters.

Baghdad.

Resistance mounts unprecedented rocket barrage on Ukrainian base south of Baghdad.

Iraqi Resistance forces mounted an unprecedented rocket attack on the Ukrainian occupation base in as-Suwayrah, south of Baghdad. The local correspondent of Mafkarat al-Islam in as-Suwayrah - a predominantly Shi'i town - reported that 21 Katyusha and Grad rockets blasted into the Ukrainian base just north of the town on Friday morning.

The barrage sent flame and dense black smoke into the sky over the facility. Powerful secondary explosions went off inside the base after the plantardment had concluded, indicating that the Ukrainians' munitions had begun to explode. US helicopters raced to the camp to hover over the base as Iraqi puppet police helped the occupation troops surround the camp entirely. The correspondent wrote that he saw the helicopters evacuate Ukrainian casualties. Meanwhile, Iraqi puppet police arrested several tribal leaders of the Sunni Shamar tribe about 15 minutes after the attack. The puppet police accused them of involvement in the buttault.

Resistance attacks car carrying correspondents of US propaganda TV station in al-Iskandariyah.

An Iraqi puppet security source announced that three masked Resistance fighters opened fire on a car carrying a group of employees of the al-Hurrah TV company on Friday, killing the driver and wounding a correspondent for the station. CNN reported that the attack took place in al-Iskandariyah, 50km south of Baghdad at 9:30am local time. The sources said that the Resistance car drove near to the car carrying the TV crew and opened fire, killing the driver instantly.

The correspondent for the company, Muhammad Sharif, was taken to nearby al-Hillah hospital for treatment of his wounds.

The al-Basrah correspondent for the TV company, 'Abd al-Husayn Khaz'al, and his son were end in a similar Resistance attack at the beginning of February. There was also an attack on the residence of the al-Hurrah correspondent in Baghdad, 'Umar Muhammad Husayn in October 2004.

Al-Hurrah TV, which broadcasts in Arabic from Virginia in the United States and is funded by the American State Department, was launched in February 2004. The United States founded the station with the aim of improving the image of America in the Arab region and in order to try to reduce the impact of the al-Jazeera and al-'Arabiyah satellite stations, which have also come under strong American pressure to conform to US propaganda dictates.

Mbuttive Iraqi Resistance explosive kills reported 13 US troops north of Baghdad Friday afternoon.

An Iraqi Resistance land mine exploded under a US foot patrol in the ash-Shatt area of at-Tarimiyah, north of Baghdad, at 4pm Friday afternoon, Mafkarat al-Islam reported, killing 13 US troops.

The correspondent in at-Tarimiyah said that an official statement issued by the puppet so-called Iraqi "rapid deployment force" in at- Tarimiyah said that a high-explosive land mine - made of four giant artillery shells linked to a remote-detonation device - blew up under the US patrol inflicting "dead and wounded." The correspondent reported that the blast left a mbuttive crater, estimated as seven meters deep (about 22 feet deep). He said that most bodies of the US troops in the area were blown apart and that witnesses confirmed that most of the corpses were strewn about in the form of small body parts.

Later on Friday, the Qatar News Agency Qana reported official US occupation spokesmen in Iraq as admitting that three of its troops were end and six more wounded when a plant exploded under a US patrol in the at-Tarimiyah area.

Resistance rockets blast US base south of Baghdad at midday Friday.

Iraqi Resistance forces fired 17 Grad and Katyusha rockets as well as mortar rounds into the US base known as the Base of Meat (in a former meat company facility) in al-Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad, at midday Friday, Mafkarat al-Islam reported eyewitnesses as saying. The attack sent dense clouds of smoke rising into the sky. Secondary explosions could also be heard after the plantardment as US munitions began blowing up inside the base. US helicopters flew in after the attack and American artillery returned fire a the Resistance.

The US barrage destroyed two houses and end five and wounded nine local citizens, most of them women, since the men at the time were away at the Friday congregational prayers in the mosques.

Al-Yusufiyah.

Resistance plant kills five Iraqi puppet "national guards" in al-Yusufiyah who came to spy on mosques.

Five Iraqi puppet troops were end when a puppet "national guard" vehicle was destroyed by a Resistance plant in al-Yusufiyah, south of Baghdad. The correspondent of Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the blast occurred by a patrol of the puppet guard at 1:20pm Friday, Baghdad time. A source among the puppet guards who survived the attack told the correspondent that the explosion came from a plant that went off by their four pickup convoy. The plant had been planted in the middle of the road on which the puppet guards were traveling with the intent of observing Friday prayer sermons in the city as is their habit every Friday.

The US-installed Iraqi puppet government issued decrees several months ago ordering that sermons be supervised and that any preacher or imam who "incites" worshippers to what it called "violence" or fighting the occupation troops would be punished with imprisonment for not less than six months. Such preachers would also be expelled from their mosque.

After this order was issued Iraqi puppet forces and sometimes US troops themselves would listen to Friday sermons in Sunni mosques to watch the preachers and see if they were inciting worshippers to jihad or fighting the occupation .

Ba 'qubah.

Turks targeted in attack in Ba'qubah.

Iraqi Resistance forces attacked three Turkish citizens in Ba'qubah, wounding one of them, who was later admitted to hospital. The other Turks were able to flee, according to a Friday dispatch by the Qatar News Agency Qana. The Iraqi Resistance has repeatedly warned all foreigners that contributing to the occupation regime's so called "reconstruction effort" as well as other forms of profiteering in occupied Iraq are illegitimate and persons engaged in such activity are targets of the Resistance.

Tikrit - Salah ad-Din Province.

Resistance plant targets US column Friday morning.

An Iraqi Resistance plant exploded by a US column in Samarra' at 10am Friday, Mafkarat al-Islam reported. The correspondent in Samarra' said that a member of the local puppet police who was on the scene during the attack said that a homemade plant planted by the side of the road under a vegetable oil can (of the sort distributed as rations) blew up by the US patrol, destroying a Humvee and killing three American troops and wounding one more.

Turkish truck driver end in attack in Tikrit.

The Qatar News Agency reported Friday that officials in Ankara, Turkey, had announced that a Turkish truck driver was end on Friday when his vehicle came under attack by an armed group who opened fire on him and then set his truck ablaze in the city of Tikrit.

Kirkuk - at-Ta'mim Province.

Resistance car plant blasts US column in Kirkuk Friday evening.

In a dispatch posted at 6:08pm Friday Mecca time, the Kirkuk correspondent of Mafkarat al-Islam reported that a short while before a Resistance martyrdom fighter drove an explosives-laden car into a US military column in the 1st of March neighborhood near the Petroleum Insbreastute in western Kirkuk.

The correspondent reported that the attack destroyed a US armored vehicle and end six American troops and wounded two more. The attack took place as the US column was stopped at the end of a main street. At that point, the martyrdom fighter blasted into them from the opposite direction. US troops opened fire at the car as it closed in on them but their bullets did not deter the attacker who slammed into the armored vehicle at very high speed.

After the attack US forces encircled the area and imposed stringent security measures in the area. The correspondent reported that US forces and Iraqi puppets arrested one religious scholar in the city after receiving claims that the attack car had been parked earlier in the day in front of the mosque where that scholar leads the prayers on Friday.

Al-Hillah.

Mbuttive Resistance car plant hits Polish base in al-Hillah Friday afternoon.

An Iraqi Resistance car plant exploded at the headquarters of the Polish occupation forces located east of the city of al-Hillah, Mafkarat al-Islam reported. The correspondent in al-Hillah said that a source in the local puppet police reported that an Iraqi Resistance martyrdom fighter drove an explosives-laden car into the first gate of the Polish camp at 2pm Friday afternoon, local time. He said that the driver then blew himself and his car up in front of the Polish troops, inflicting dead and wounded in their ranks.

The source told Mafkarat al-Islam that the extent of casualties was still unknown to him, but eyewitnesses told the correspondent that the first gate to the Polish base was totally destroyed, despite the fact that it was a mbuttive concrete construction.

After the attack, Polish troops aided by the US military encircled the camp and began raids and searches of Sunni Muslims' houses in the area.

Sources:

Qana: Qatar News Agency

* * *

Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 26 February 2005

Translated and-or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member editorial

Saturday, 26 February 2005.

Ar-Ramadi.

Resistance plant targets US column in ar-Ramadi Saturday morning.

An Iraqi Resistance plant exploded next to a US military column made up of a tank and three Humvees of various types in the as-Sikak neighborhood to the north of ar-Ramadi on Saturday morning, Mafkarat al-Islam reported. The blast destroyed one Humvee and end four American soldiers. A fifth soldier on the back of the tank that was following the stricken Humvee was also wounded.

Witnesses in ar-Ramadi told the correspondent that the Resistance planted the plant on the as-Sikak road that leads to ar-Ramadi cemetery. US forces were heading there, as they have taken control of the area since they believe that most rocket strikes on their positions are launched from the cemetery.

The correspondent himself saw the remains of the wrecked US vehicle and the scars of the large crater left by the explosion.

Al-Fallujah.

Resistance barrage strikes US strongpoint near al-Fallujah.

In a dispatch posted at 5:40pm Mecca time Saturday evening, the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent reported that a short while before, Iraqi Resistance forces had mounted a mortar attack on a US checkpoint west of al-Fallujah, 60km west of Baghdad. The correspondent in al- Fallujah reported a source in the government who did not want his name quoted as saying that four mortar rounds hit the US command post near the crossing to the touristic area. Eight US troops were end or wounded in the attack, which set fires blazing in a fuel barrel inside the command post.

The correspondent reported that a Resistance organization that had never been heard of before, calling itself the Order Protection Squadron in al-Fallujah distributed a statement taking responsibility for the attack. US patrols were being sent out, the correspondent wrote, to comb the area after the attack.

Resistance rockets blast al-Asad airbase in al-Habbaniyah west of al-Fallujah.

Iraqi Resistance forces fired four Grad rockets into the US al-Asad air base in al-Habbaniyah, 16km west of al-Fallujah in al-Anbar province, Mafkarat al-Islam reported. The correspondent reported that eyewitnesses said that the rockets blasted into the base at 12 noon Saturday, and that all the missiles hit what was formerly the wing for technical training of the Iraqi Army when they occupied the base before the US invasion in the spring of 2003. The barrage sent dense clouds of smoke and flame rising over the area. The correspondent was unable to ascertain the extent of damage and casualties inside the base.

Al-Qa'im.

Resistance plant kills seven US troops in al-Qa'im Saturday afternoon.

An Iraqi Resistance plant exploded by a US armored column near the Western Customs Department in the city of al-Qa'im on the border with Syria at 3pm Saturday afternoon the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported. Witnesses said that the blast end seven US troops and wounded two more, in addition to destroying one US armored vehicle.

US forces sealed off roads and prohibited journalists in al-Qa'im from getting near the scene of the attack to ascertain the extent of damage and losses. But the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent met with the buttistant director of the border police in al-Qa'im who confirmed that an armored vehicle had been destroyed and seven Americans end and two others wounded in the afternoon attack - exactly the same information as that supplied by eyewitnesses.

Baghdad.

Iraqi Resistance plant hits US patrol in at-Tarimiayh Saturday.

An Iraqi Resistance land mine exploded by a US patrol that was headed towards the al-'Amil district of the city of at-Tarimiyah, north of Baghdad, Mafkarat al-Islam reported.

Eyewitnesses told the correspondent that the blast destroyed one Humvee an end three US troops instantly. The witnesses reported that the Resistance planted the plant under a paving stone on the main street known as Old at-Tarimiyah Road about 15 minutes before the US patrol arrived. The witnesses said that the explosion nearly completely destroyed the Humvee and end three US troops. One more American soldier was also wounded seriously.

Occupation troops then encircled the area and broadcast a statement offering a reward of US$1 million for anyone who facilitates the arrest or helps the occupation forces get to the person responsible for the planting that occurred in at-Tarimiyah on Friday, which end 13 US troops, and also for the planting that took place on Saturday.

The American statement included portable and grounded phone numbers and requested the people to contact them if they have any information about what the Americans called "persons" (meaning Iraqi Resistance fighters).

Resistance plant kills two US troops near Sukkaniya base in ad-Durah Saturday.

Iraqi Resistance forces detonated a plant under a US armored vehicle near the US base known as Sukkaniya in the southern Baghdad suburb of ad-Durah, Mafkarat al-Islam reported. The correspondent wrote that eyewitnesses said that the blast disabled the armored vehicle and end two US troops and wounded two more. This toll was confirmed when sources in the Iraqi puppet police told al-'Arabiyah satellite TV in Baghdad that two US troops were end and two more wounded in the planting that took place at 4pm Saturday afternoon.

Resistance fires rocket barrage into US base in Saddam International Airport Saturday night.

In a dispatch posted at 7:55pm Saturday evening Mecca time, the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in Baghdad reported that a short while before, Iraqi Resistance forces plantarded Saddam International Airport - where the US has its second largest base in Iraq, after the facilities set up in the Republican Palace in Baghdad, known as the "green zone." The correspondent reported that at the time of writing explosions were still going off in the environs of the airport as tongues of flame in the facility could be seen blazing from a long distance away.

Beheaded body of US soldier found in Abu Ghurayb area.

Iraqi puppet police discovered the beheaded body of a US soldier dressed in his uniform near the Third Saddam Waterway in the Abu Ghurayb area west of Baghdad Saturday morning. The puppet police hurried to haul away the body and the head - which was lying several meters away - and handed them over to the US occupation troops who have taken a nearby children's milk dairy plant as their headquarters. A source in the puppet police reported that the Americans received the body and recognized who he was. The source said the Americans "thanked us for our help but didn't ask 'where did you find it?' or 'how?'"

Ba'qubah - Diyala Province.

Resistance plant kills at least five US troops in Ba'qubah.

In a dispatch posted at 1:25pm Mecca time Saturday, the correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that an Iraqi Resistance plant exploded a short while before by a US military patrol in Ba'qubah. A source in the local puppet police told the correspondent that the plant was planted by the side of a road in the middle of the al-Yarmuk neighborhood in the city. It blew up when a US column made up of several vehicles was pbutting and left one Zil troop carrier destroyed and five US troops dead.

Eyewitnesses confirmed to the correspondent that the blast end more than five US troops, but the witnesses differed as to the exact number of casualties. All agreed, however, that the number was more than five.

After the blast US troops completely encircled the area and imposed a curfew on the neighborhood.

Tikrit - Salah ad-Din Province.

Resistance plantards US base in Tikrit Saturday morning.

Iraqi Resistance forces fired eight 120mm mortar rounds into the US base in Tikrit at 8am Saturday morning, local time Mafkarat al-Islam reported. The correspondent reported a contractor collaborating with the occupation force as saying that more than nine US troops were end in the shelling. He added that one of the mortar rounds landed among a group of American soldiers inside the base. The correspondent saw dense clouds of smoke rising over the facility as warning sirens wailed inside. Half an hour after the barrage, US helicopters were observed flying over the base to evacuate American casualties.

Tall 'Afar - Ninwa Province.

American forces evacuate barracks near Tall 'Afar after deadly Resistance plantardment.

US forces pulled out of one of their main barracks in the city of Tall 'Afar north of Mosul after intermittent plantardment that went on for six straight hours on Friday, from 4pm until 10pm, during which 40 rockets of various types blasted into the American occupied facility.

The Tall 'Afar correspondent of Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the US forces left the base after 7am Saturday morning, carrying a number of charred vehicles along with them, and moved into the American al- Ghazlani base in Mosul.

Several eyewitnesses told the correspondent that US helicopters made more than seven trips, coming and going, to evacuate US casualties from the barracks to Mosul. Clouds of smoke were still rising over the base when they evacuated the facility Saturday morning.

In a dispatch posted at 12:40pm Mecca time Saturday, the correspondent wrote that at that time local people had just gone into the base, after the Americans had departed, to take a look at what it was like and see if they could find anything of use, in particular the people who have nothing.

The local puppet police allowed the towns people to take whatever items they found in the base, but would not allow the correspondent of Mafkarat al-Islam or other journalists who had gathered at the base to take pictures of the damage done by the plantardment. But the correspondent witnessed several rusted and completely charred military vehicles inside the camp and saw bloodstains and body parts inside burning barracks buildings that had been hit in the plantardment.

Resistance plant explodes in Mosul killing four US troops Saturday morning.

An Iraqi Resistance car plant exploded next to a US military vehicle in Mosul on Saturday, Mafkarat al-Islam reported. The correspondent reported witnesses as saying that a Kia sedan that was parked on the side of one of the roads in the Citadel area in the north of the city blew up as a US Humvee pbutted by at 9:15am Saturday morning, local time. The blast destroyed the Humvee and end four US troops. Seven Iraqi pbutters by were also end.

After the planting, US occupation troops encircled the area and began a wave of arrests. One of those arrested was a local person who had been a Christian but embraced Islam under the guidance of a local religious leader about a month previous. Those arrested were charged with being responsible for the planting. The father of the arrested youth absolutely denied that his son had anything to do with the attack. In a dispatch posted at 12:45pm Mecca time, the correspondent wrote that US forces had encircled the area of the attack and were still there at the time of writing.

News presenter on occupied Iraqi TV found buttbuttinated in Mosul.

The body of Ra'idah Muhammad Wazzan, a news presenter on occupied Iraqi television, was found in Mosul on Friday. She had disappeared earlier in the week when masked men abducted her at gunpoint. The cause of her rest was a gunshot at close range to the head.

Al-Bayji.

US troops gun down seven Iraqi puppet policemen by mistake.

US troops end seven Iraqi puppet policemen in the city of al-Bayji, north of Baghdad at 11pm Friday night. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam in al-Bayji reported an officer in the puppet police, whom he met in the city morgue where the bodies of the dead officers lay, said that the Americans opened fire on a puppet police patrol. He said that a puppet police unit was on a routine night patrol in the area of the oil pipelines when suddenly they were illumined by the headlights of American vehicles manned by US troops who, as usual for them, were lying in wait to ambush any Resistance fighters who might try to attack the facility. The Iraqi puppet police tried to stop but the Americans took them for Resistance fighters and opened fire on them with great intensity, killing all of them.

The source said that there was no coordination between the Iraqi puppet security forces and the US troops, and he also complained that the Americans had no respect for the members of the Iraqi puppet police, all of which, he said, led to the Friday night incident.

The US forces on Saturday morning apologized to the Iraqi puppet police for the incident and pledged to carry out a thorough investigation. They also promised compensation for the families of the dead policemen.

Meanwhile the correspondent noted local people's reaction to the incident - everyone uttering the same prayer, "Oh God, let the oppressors busy themselves with other oppressors and bring us out of this safely." The townspeople, the correspondent wrote, were generally pleased at the incident and expressed no particular sorrow for the dead puppet policemen who are unpopular because of the way they treat the citizens.

Kirkuk.

US media report Resistance attacks on oil infrastructure have cost the occupation at least $7 billion since March 2003.

Iraqi Resistance forces since March of 2003 have carried out attacks on Iraqi oil pipelines in an effort to prevent the occupation forces from plundering the country's material resources. An official in the Oil of the North company told the American buttociated Press (AP) that the pipe running between the Dibibs oil field in Kirkuk was blown up as recently as Friday, and repair of the line would take at least four days, costing the regime heavily in oil income.

In all the AP report said, Resistance attacks on the oil infrastructure alone have cost the occupation authorities between US$7 billion and US$8 billion since they invaded the country nearly two years ago.

As-Samawah.

Resistance plant targets puppet force patrol in as-Samawah.

An Iraqi Resistance plant exploded by an Iraqi puppet force patrol in the city of as-Samawah in southern Iraq, destroying a pickup and killing six puppet soldiers, Mafkarat al-Islam reported. The correspondent wrote that the plant was planted by the side of the road leading to the center of the city. An officer in the Iraqi puppet police reported that the blast left six men wounded and completely destroyed their two vehicles.

Sources:

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