L'Irak - Partie I - Guerre prévue, les victimes, le pétrole, Basra

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L'Irak - Partie I - Guerre prévue, les victimes, le pétrole, Basra

Voici une panoplie d'articles à propos de la situation en Irak. Ceci est une banque de données précieuse pour ceux qui veulent mieux comprendre ce qui s'y passe sans s'y perdre. Mais ça se résume quand même assez bien par: guerre d'agression, crimes de guerre et contre l'humanité, destruction totale du pays et décimation de la population (1.2 millions de morts), génocide. Allez, bon appétit....

-LNI

Guerre prévue

Pouvons-nous enfin nommer cela un génocide ?

True US Bush Iraq-Afghan Wars Deaths At 21,000

"In the last four years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the unreported death toll of American military personnel is in excess of 20,000 (20, 871) and the wounded who had to be evacuated from the combat areas for out-of-theater hospitals are in excess of 56,000. This is from a highly classified report sent by the Pentagon to the White House and is of a severely restricted circulation."

Treasury Secretary O'Neal says Iraq WAR was being planned 8 months BEFORE Sept. 11, 2001.

Buried 60 minutes interview

This is a great video that everyone needs to watch that shows the Bush regimes main goal from day 1 in office.

Cheney video causing uproar

Comments made back in 1994 by the then US Secretary of Defence Dick Cheney about Iraq are causing an uproar in America. In a videotaped interview, the current Vice-President explains why he thinks an invasion would be a bad idea. The video has come to light on the same day US troops in Iraq launched a new offensive - Operation Phantom Strike.

Killing Without Conscience : Iraq - The Hidden War

05/29/06 - Run Time 49 Minutes

Iraq: The Hidden War

Iraq: The Hidden Story shows the footage used by TV news broadcasts, and compares it with the devastatingly powerful uncensored footage of the aftermath of the carnage that is becoming a part of the fabric of life in Iraq.

Prod/ Dir: Christian Trumble; Exec Prod: Stephen Phelps; Prod Co: Zenith Entertainment Ltd - 2006

Images of Iraq dominate our TV news bulletins every night but in this film, Channel 4 news presenter Jon Snow, questions whether these reports are sugar-coating the bloody reality of war under the US-led occupation

- Warning -

This video contains images that should only be viewed by a mature audience

Whose mass graves are these?

"The current mass graves we are talking about are not those of Saddam Hussein," said Ubaidi.

They are, he added, a feature of the U.S.-dominated, post-Saddam era.

No one says the U.S. itself dug mass graves in Iraq. U.S. occupation troops are notorious for their being trigger-happy bands and the worst jailors the world has ever known. There is enough evidence of this in Iraq.

But many Iraqis today have none to blame for the atrocities unfolding in their country but the United States and specifically its current President.

Flashback- Bush: God told me to invade Iraq

Bush's Global 'Dirty War'

George W. Bush has transformed elite units of the U.S. military – including Special Forces and highly trained sniper teams – into "death squads" with a license to kill unarmed targets on the suspicion that they are a threat to American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to evidence from recent court cases.

Though this reality has been the subject of whispers within the U.S. intelligence community for several years, it has now emerged into public view with two attempted prosecutions of American soldiers whose defense attorneys cited "rules of engagement" that permit the killing of suspected insurgents.

In Bush's world, giving people a license to kill with extreme prejudice always trumps diplomacy every time.

US Tank crushes Iraqi civilian's car

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT1I95dqrAY

Mossad in Iraq - Google Video

Bush’s hand in the Terror War

Seen through a Syrian lens, “Unknown Americans’ are provoking civil war” Robert Fisk, UK Independent

“The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” William Butler Yeats; “The Second Coming”

Book says CIA tried to provoke Saddam to war

PRESIDENT SIGNS DOCUMENT EFFECTIVELY MAKING IRAQ A COLONY OF THE U.S.

Bush Blames Al Qaeda for Rising Iraq Violence

Bush calls for Saddam execution

US President George W Bush has said that the captured former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein should pay the "ultimate penalty" for his crimes.

What crimes? There were no WMDs, Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11, did not aid Al Qaeda, was not in defiance of the UN. Iran gassed the Kurds as an act of war.

So what did Saddam do? Lie his people into a war? Yeah, I agree that deserves the death penalty. Spy on his own people? Yeah, if he did that, that deserves the death penalty. Murder his own people without due process? Ever hear of a place called Waco?

U.S. invasion was "idiot decision"-Iraq vice president

The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was an "idiot decision" and Iraqi troops now need to secure Baghdad to ensure the country's future, Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Thursday.

Well, there you have it - From the American-supported Vice President of Iraq.

If this guy is making this comment at Davos, you have to imagine what ordinary Iraqis think about it, looking at the total carnage their country has endured.

Looting By Another Name

The Corporate Takeover of Iraq's Economy

IMF in Iraq: The Second Invasion

Bush - ‘Expect 50 Years of War in Iraq’

Durbin kept silent on prewar knowledger

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee.

"The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002.

"I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress."

Well, there you have it from the horse's mouth.

But Durbin, and every other intelligence committee member had a higher oath than the one swearing them to secrecy as part of his intelligence committee: it has to do with the oath they take when they become a member of the US legislative branch of government.

Ex-CIA analyst: Forged 'yellowcake' memo 'leads right back to' Cheney

Why Cheney Lost It When Joe Wilson Spoke Out

60 Minutes: CIA Official Reveals Bush, Cheney, Rice Were Personally Told Iraq Had No WMD in Fall 2002

One Third of the “Coalition of the Willing” are Mercenaries

Johann Hari">Iraq's mercenaries - with a licence to kill

Blackwater

On March 31, 2004 the world was shocked as they witnessed images of four burned bodies hanging from a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq. We were told that these men were American contractors hired to secure food deliveries. The interesting thing was that the families of these men were actually told a different story. They were told that they were hired as a special military detailed to protect Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Somebody wasn’t getting the story straight.

Blackwater, Inc. And The Privatization Of The Bush War Machine

Making a Killing: America's Private Army and the Business of War

These private companies are part of a huge surge in the outsourcing of war, which is extremely evident in Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti, and numerous other countries. Private contractors are the second-largest con- tingent of the "Coalition of the Willing" with a ratio of about one armed con- tractor for every two American soldiers. This is up from a ratio of one to sixty during the first Gulf War. The Pentagon estimates the number of contractors at around 100,000—but this is only an estimate because after four years in Iraq the military is only now beginning a survey to find the size of its contractor force.

Evil Is as Evil Does

According to a BBC news report (Oct. 30), British private security firm personnel – mercenaries to some – outnumber British soldiers in Iraq six to one. A British charity group accuses PM Tony Blair of "allowing mercenary armies to operate completely outside the law." In Britain, it is no longer permissible to hunt foxes, because it is "cruel and inhumane," but it is perfectly all right for private mercenaries and British soldiers to murder Iraqi and Afghan men, women, and children for the sake of Anglo-American-Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.

Democrats Won't Stop Bush's Mercenary Armies in Iraq

Democrats Back Down On Iraq Timetable

President Bush and congressional leaders began negotiating a second war funding bill yesterday, with Democrats offering the first major concession: an agreement to drop their demand for a timeline to bring troops home from Iraq.

And I told you that this was EXACTLY what was going to happen. The Democrats would make a big noise about withdrawel, Bush would veto, and the Democrats would cave so that Bush has his endless war and the Democrats are able to go into the 2008 elections saying, "Well, we tried to stop the war."

Well, trying is not good enough. We The People worked hard to put the Democrats into Congress in 2006 and the Democrats have officially blown their chance. They do not get another one as far as I am concerned.

I don;t care what Congress wants to do or tries to do, only what they actually do matters and in terms of the mandate they were sent to power with in 2006, they have failed utterly and completely. They will not stop the war. They have ignored Kucinich's bill of impeachment against Dick Cheney.

Anyone have a good blueprint for a decent guillotine?

Only One In Ten US Dead In Iraq Are Reported

BAGHDAD -- "Six days ago, I was in an armed convoy driving through the McCain-safe streets of Baghdad when a non-existent rocket, made right here and not in Tehran, blasted into a truck carrying fifteen GIs. We had to stop, could not turn around because there were vehicles behind us, frantically trying to flee in all directions, and so I saw what were the shredded remains of all fifteen soldiers littering the street and smoldering. Not the sort of thing to look at, or smell, after breakfast or before lunch.

Troops argue Iraq is 'unwinnable'

A belief that Iraq is unwinnable, fears that Afghanistan could go the same way and an overwhelming feeling that the government has not looked after the Armed Forces properly in return for the sacrifices they make.

The war in Iraq was never winnable because none of the publicly stated reasons for starting the war can be accomplished. We cannot destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction because they didn't have any. We cannot punish Saddam for 9-11 because he didn't have anything to do with it. We cannot stop Iraq from supporting Al Qaeda because Iraq was never supporting Al Qaeda to start with.

Therefore nothing can be accomplished in Iraq that will be perceived as a win.

US soldiers shy from battle in Iraq

Iraq war veterans now stationed at a base here in upstate New York say that morale among US soldiers in the country is so poor, many are simply parking their Humvees and pretending to be on patrol, a practice dubbed "search and avoid" missions.

The US has lost the initiative, which means they have lost the war.

Blair announces Iraq troop pullout : Tony Blair, the British prime minister, has said that Britain will reduce the number of its troops in Iraq by 1,600 within the coming months, but UK forces will maintain a presence into 2008.

From his office in clouded cuckoo land: Cheney says: UK Troop Withdrawal 'Sign Of Success' In Iraq: Cheney said Pelosi and other Democrats were pushing a policy in Iraq that would "validate the al Qaeda strategy."

Reid: The British Acknowledge a Reality Bush Refuses to Accept : - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid today released the following statement on news that the British government will begin to redeploy its troops from Iraq.

Denmark to withdraw its Iraq troop contingent by August: Denmark’s prime minister said Wednesday that his country will withdraw its 460-member contingent from southern Iraq by August and transfer security responsibilities to Iraqi forces.

Iraqis welcome British and Danish pullout: Sami al-Askari, a Shiite lawmaker and political adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said: "The withdrawal is the wish of the Iraqi government and all the political powers in the country."

Lithuania mulling Iraq troop withdrawal: Defense Ministry spokeswoman Ruta Apeitkyte told The Associated Press that the Baltic country was considering not replacing the contingent when its mission ends in August.

CRS: Bush Administration Has Intensified False Reporting On Al Qaeda Since ‘Surge’ Began

In a new report, the Congressional Research Service notes that attacks from al Qaeda are only a small percentage of the violence in Iraq, criticizing the Bush administration’s statistics and noting that this false reporting on AQI has increased since Bush’s "surge" began:

"Increasingly in 2007, U.S. commanders have seemed to equate AQ-I with the insurgency, even though most of the daily attacks are carried out by Iraqi Sunni insurgents."

Similarly, ret. Gen. James Jones, author of a major report on Iraqi security forces, acknowledged to Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) this week that 98 percent of violence in Iraq is "Iraqis fighting amongst Iraqis".

Cheney says critics of new US Iraq plan play into hands of Bin Laden - Yahoo! News

Cheney says critics of new US Iraq plan play into hands of Bin Laden

US Vice-President Dick Cheney accused critics of the administration's new strategy inIraq of playing into the hands of Osama bin Laden and global terrorism.

Memo to Vice-President Cheney: Bin Laden has been dead for years, Dick.

Or didn't you get the news, holed up there in your bunker as you craft World War III?

U.N. closes down Iraq weapons monitors

And, surprise, surprise, no 'nookular' bombs were ever found.

See The Lie Of The Century

A War Conspiracy Documented
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17144.htm

By John Prados

02/21/07 "TomPaine" -- - The now-infamous Downing Street documents showed how President George Bush managed his move to war by fitting intelligence to his policy, and by refusing to accept the reports of United Nations inspectors who could find no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Now there is a new hot document that confirms that Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair intended to sucker Saddam into war. It demonstrates that this aim was present long before the Bush-Blair talks, and indeed that provocation formed an integral feature of the U.S. war plan.

A January 31, 2003 meeting between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair clearly shows the two leaders discussing ways to provoke Saddam Hussein so as to justify war, indicating premeditation. Last week the National Security Archive in Washington posted the U. S. war plan—the set of briefing slides used by Central Command (CENTCOM) chief General Tommy Franks to brief President Bush on “Polo Step,” CENTCOM’s Iraq invasion scheme. The PowerPoint slides were prepared for a series of presidential meetings held from December 2001 to August 2002. The slides summarized CENTCOM’s buildup and maneuver concepts for Bush’s deliberations. Bush backed Franks’ concept of “adjusting” Iraqi defenses by executing what amounted to a covert offensive air campaign. They would use forces already in the Persian Gulf region for the ostensible purpose of enforcing no-fly zones created after the first Gulf War. TomPaine.com has previously covered this operation (“The War Before the War ,” June 24, 2005), but the new evidence establishes an explicit link between the aerial offensive and the Iraq war plans.

Les victimes

Goldsmith 'told Army to ignore Rights Act' in Iraq

U.K.'s Top Lawyer Accused of Telling Brit Commanders Not to Protect Iraqis' Human Rights

Who’s Counting the Dead?

McClatchy Newspapers reported on 26/4/2007 that the United States Government is discounting the use of car bombs as being one of “the main killers of Iraqi civilians”.

The President explained his motives on Tuesday, that “If the standard of success is no car bombings or suicide bombings, we have just handed those who commit suicide bombings a huge victory”.

In response to the US President, James Denselow, an Iraq specialist at the London-based Chatham House, claimed that “Since the administration keeps saying that failure is not an option, they are redefining success in a way that suits them.”

"Victory in Iraq is whatever we say it is at any given moment in time: live with it!" - Official white horse souse.

In Iraq, Anyone Can Make a Bomb

Civilian death toll in Iraq may top 1 million

According to the ORB poll, a survey of 1,461 adults suggested that the total number slain during more than four years of war was more than 1.2 million.

Getting into "Nazi-sized" numbers, now!

Number of Iraqi displaced tops 4.2 million; shanty towns mushroom

he situation in Iraq continues to worsen, with more than 2 million Iraqis now believed to be displaced inside the country and another 2.2 million sheltering in neighbouring states. Calls for increased international support for governments in the region have so far brought few results, and access to social services for Iraqis remains limited. Most of the burden is being carried by Jordan and Syria.

Bush likes big numbers: he must be thrilled as heck with this one!

No Refuge Within or Outside the Country

US occupation authorities and successive US-backed Iraqi governments have done little to stem the flow of Iraqis fleeing their war-torn country since the beginning of the occupation.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are at least 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, but many experts believe the number is now closer to two million. The number streaming across Iraq's border is now as high as 50,000 every month.

If you want a real picture of what's happening in Iraq, the person you should speak with is an expatriate Iraqi who has had to flee their country just to survive.

More Iraqis flee as figure tops four million

More than four million Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence, the largest population movement in the Middle East since Palestinians left the new state of Israel, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.

Bush loves large numbers: he's got to be prouder than heck of this one!

Iraqi Returnees: Surge success, failure, problem?

The 2.5 million plus folks who have fled - many to Syria and Jordan are being forced back to Iraq. This is being facilitated by the Iraqi government. The spin is that they are returning home because the violence has dropped. Forget the fact that their removal was a key.

But not so fast. We must cover our bases after all. Where exactly are these refugees going to go? Do you think that their former homes are just sitting there waiting for them? I doubt it. So, they start returning "home." Someone must of realized that this might "reverse the progress." Or maybe the U.S. military and the Iraqi government are at cross purposes. Or maybe, the U.S. is creating a scapegoat of the Iraqi government.component of that drop in violence. So the word is that their return is yet another sign of "success."

Iraq: It's worse than you think

Now that all is going so well in Iraq, and the flower strewing appears imminent, the New York Times has discovered what might just be a small problem:

As Iraqi refugees begin to stream back to Baghdad, American military officials say the Iraqi government has yet to develop a plan to absorb the influx and prevent it from setting off a new round of sectarian violence.

Oops.

Senate to vote on Iraq division plan

The US Senate is expected to vote as early as Tuesday on a Bosnia-style plan to subdivide Iraq on ethnic lines, touted by backers as the sole hope of forging a federal state out of sectarian strife.

The American army has imprisoned about 750 Iraqi childrent

Military officials said that the American occupation army arrested 750 children, aged between 11 to 17 years in its prisons in Iraq.

Imprisoning children: how Israeli of us!

43% of Iraqis live in absolute poverty – government report

The survey by the Central Statistical Bureau says that 43 percent of Iraqis suffer from 'absolute poverty’ and another 11 percent of them live in 'abject poverty’.

You've got to love what "American-style liberation" has meant for at least 54% of the Iraqi people!

Iraq water plant treatment causes cholera

Just another wonderful way in which the surge is working!

North Iraq faces cholera outbreak

Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease that is spread by drinking contaminated water. Severe cases can cause fatal dehydration.

Shellfire and Damnation: The Never-Ending Shock and Awe Barrage of Baghdad

The U.S. military in Iraq launched an artillery barrage in southern Baghdad on Sunday against suspected insurgent targets, with two dozen loud explosions shaking the southern outskirts of the capital….The Iraqi police said the artillery was being fired from the U.S. Forward Operating Base Falcon in southern Baghdad into the al-Buaitha neighbourhood of Dora, a volatile district that is a Sunni insurgent stronghold.

Think of it: launching artillery shells into residential areas of a city that you supposedly conquered – sorry, "liberated" – four years ago.

Kind of reminds one of the observation made by an Army Colonel at the time of the capture and subsequent destruction of the Vietnamese village Ben Tre during the war in Viet Nam: "We had to destroy the city in order to save it".

Sunni insurgents form alliance against US

Six Iraqi insurgent groups took a step towards unifying the factions fighting the US yesterday by announcing the creation of a political umbrella organisation.

The surge must go on, Petraeus to tell Congress

The appearance of Gen Petraeus has drawn comparisons with General William Westmoreland's bullish assessment in 1967 of progress in the Vietnam war, a note underlined by Democratic senators yesterday who said they doubted that the general's testimony would be free of influence from the Bush administration.

Petraeus will simply be reading a script "ghost-written" by the pentagon and the white house.

Under siege: what the surge really means in Baghdadh

For many Iraqis, the Americans have turned their land into a prison. The barriers, which have turned Baghdad into a series of ghettos, are meant to keep the bombers out, but they also keep residents penned in. People may feel safer inside their neighbourhoods, but are more wary of venturing outside them. A short journey across the city can take hours with roads blocked off and numerous checkpoints, discouraging people from visiting relations and friends and reinforcing the sense of isolation.

The walls, being put up by American contractors at a record speed, are formalising the break up of Baghdad. The city where Sunni, Shia and Christians once lived in comparative social amity – although not the same access to political power – is now so divided along sectarian lines that it may be impossible ever to reunify it.

Reporting From Baghdad

Nearly 4 1/2 years after President Bush’s ill-fated (and illegal) decision to invade and occupy Iraq, few people in a position to influence policy formulation and implementation in America have actually grasped the horrible truth about what has transpired, and what is transpiring, in Mesopotamia today. As the United States places the finishing touches on Fortress America, the new half-billion-dollar Embassy complex in the heart of the Green Zone in downtown Baghdad, and more troops pour into mega-bases throughout Iraq, the reality (and futility) of permanent occupation has yet to sink in. What could be going through the minds of those members of Congress who keep signing blank checks for the president? Is there no oversight of how and why this money is spent? How can someone fund permanent infrastructure one day, then speak of the need to get out of Iraq the next?

JOIN IRAQ VETS IN THE HISTORIC MARCH AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR ON SEPTEMBER 15th

The People vs. the Establishment: Peace March on September 15th Scares the Powers that Be Because the People Have The Power to End the War

Iraq: not just a war but a looming global disaster

Ghetto Blaster: Bush Accelerates Concrete Cage Plan for Baghdad

So this is the "freedom" Baghdad residents are about to get, courtesy of Bush & Company: walled-off cities.

24 die in Iraq peace meeting blast

A suicide bombing in Iraq's volatile Diyala province ripped through a "reconciliation meeting" on Monday night attended by Sunni and Shiite militia leaders -- a brazen attack that killed and wounded dozens and fractured an effort to foster amity between the rival sects.

Okay,. who WANTS the civil war to continue? Who WANTS Iraq to be split up into smaller nations?

Robert Fisk">It is the death of history

2,000-year-old Sumerian cities torn apart and plundered by robbers. The very walls of the mighty Ur of the Chaldees cracking under the strain of massive troop movements, the privatisation of looting as landlords buy up the remaining sites of ancient Mesopotamia to strip them of their artefacts and wealth. The near total destruction of Iraq's historic past – the very cradle of human civilisation – has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation.

There is one very obvious reason for the destruction of the Iraqi cultural heritage. Israel has long been "inconvenienced" by the fact that there is little archaeological evidence to support their version of the history of the region. There is no evidence that the Temple of Soloman actually existed (the only two known purported artifacts having both been exposed as frauds). There is growing evidence that the walls surrounding the Temple Mount, including the wailing wall, are the remains of a temple built to the Roman gods after Judea was conquered, a temple that was "repurposed" by Herod the Great rather than actually built by him.

In contrast, other nations of the Middle East have no end of archaeological sites on which their history rests. Egypt has the Pyramids, tombs, and temples, as one example, and in Iraq, there were the remains of the great cities of Sumeria. All of these surviving archaeological treasures pose a problem for Israel, which cannot explain why virtually no trace remains of the history they claim to have taken place at the same time Egypt flourished. Certainly Israel would feel far more comfortable if, unable to locate the ruins of the palaces and temples mentioned in their religious myths, the artifacts of other nations' ancient past were to be scattered to the winds.

U.S. occupation creates humanitarian disaster in Iraq

A huge number of reports that are largely ignored or given only passing mention in the corporate media confirm an unprecedented level of destruction of essential infrastructure, loss of life and massive displacement of people.

There are more than 4 million Iraqi refugees and more than 1 million dead. Seventy percent of Iraqi children are not in school. Yet these reports and statistics do not begin to tell the story of destruction and violence caused by the U.S. occupation.

This will be Bush's true legacy in Iraq: destruction, death, and desolation.

But hey, after the oil law gets signed by the Iraqi parliament this year, that makes it all "worth it", doesn't it?!?

Baghdad blasts: At least 150 dead in another day of bloody U.S. occupation: : A series of car bombs have killed at least 133 people in the predominantly Shia neighbourhood of Sadr City in Baghdad. About 30 masked and heavily-armed men also attacked the health ministry in central Baghdad and engaged security guards in a fierce gun battle, trapping 2,000 employees inside the building on Thursday.

52 bodies found in occupied Baghdad : The grim discovery came as the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq said 7,054 Iraqi civilians met violent deaths in September and October -- with nearly 5,000 of the slayings occurring in Baghdad.

3 U.S. Occupation Force Soldier Among 7 Killed In Iraq: Three U.S. marines died on Wednesday from wounds sustained due to enemy action while operating in Al Anbar Province, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

Four Iraqi civilians killed by US occupation forces: U.S. troops opened fire on a minibus, killing four passengers, during a raid on a Shi'ite militia stronghold in Baghdad on Thursday, police and residents said.

Baghdad Airport shut at end of bloody day in Iraq : At the end of a day in which attacks killed at least 160 Iraqis and wounded more than 250, comes word that Baghdad's airport is shut.

Iraq oil profits reportedly used to back militants: The Iraqi oil ministry has uncovered illegal operations whereby oil products were sold and profits were pooled into financing local militancy, Al Sabah newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Baghdad calls insurgents for peace talks: THE Prime Minister of Iraq will sit down for the first time next week with representatives of insurgent groups in his most concerted effort yet to quell the country's sectarian war.

Civil war could ripple outward: Whether the U.S. military departs Iraq sooner or later, the United States will be hard-pressed to leave behind a country that does not threaten U.S. interests and regional peace, according to American and Arab analysts and political observers.

Iraq war was good for Israel: Olmert : The Iraq war was a boon for Israel's security, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Wednesday, voicing fresh endorsement for a Bush administration sapped by the unpopularity at home of its Middle East policies.

Killing Without Conscience : Iraq - The Hidden War

Bombings Kill at Least 171 Iraqis in Baghdad - New York Times

Bombs over Baghdad: The Pentagon's Secret Air War in Iraq

There are indications that the U.S. air war has taken an especially grievous toll on Iraqi children. According to statistics provided to Tomdispatch by The Lancet study's authors, 50% of all violent deaths of Iraqi children under 15 years of age, between March 2003 and June 2006, were due to coalition air strikes.

We are not "liberators" of anything else except the oil in Iraq.

Pétrole

Bush: US Must Stay in Middle East to Keep Oil Available

Iraqi oil minister vows tenders this year even if new law isn't ready

In Kurdistan, Hunt Oil Co. of the Kurdistan region will begin geological survey and seismic work by the end of 2007 and hopes to drill an exploration well in 2008, Hunt Oil and the Kurdistan Regional Government said in a news release Saturday.

Hunt is a privately held, independent oil company based in Dallas, Texas. A third partner, Impulse Energy Corp., also has a stake in the project.

When the Kurdish self-governing region in northern Iraq enacted its own law governing foreign oil investments, in August, the move angered the central government in Baghdad, but the Kurds are determined to push ahead with oil exploration.

It appears that Hunt and other oil companies are betting that Iraq will partition, rather than stay as one unified country: his successful negotiations with the Kurdistani officials prove that.

Neocon Sandwich: U.S. Building Military Base Directly Atop Iraqi Oil Platform

The U.S. Navy is building a military installation atop this petroleum-export platform as the U.S. establishes a more lasting military mission in the oil-rich north Persian Gulf.

While presidential candidates debate whether to start bringing ground troops home from Iraq, the new construction suggests that one footprint of U.S. military power in Iraq isn't shrinking anytime soon: American officials are girding for an open-ended commitment to protect the country's oil industry.

Iraqis will never accept this sellout to the oil corporations

This law has been discussed behind closed doors for much of the past year. Secret drafts have been viewed and commented on by the US government, but have not been released to the Iraqi public - and not even to all members of parliament. If the law is pushed through in these circumstances, the political process will be further discredited even further. Talk of a moderate cross-sectarian front appears designed to ease the passage of the law and the sellout to oil corporations.

This has been nothing less than a rape of a country for its resouces, and will go down in history as one of America's darkest deeds.

Future of Iraq: The spoils of war

he US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972.

The huge potential prizes for Western firms will give ammunition to critics who say the Iraq war was fought for oil. They point to statements such as one from Vice-President Dick Cheney, who said in 1999, while he was still chief executive of the oil services company Halliburton, that the world would need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day by 2010. "So where is the oil going to come from?... The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies," he said.

So the American troops who are fighting and dying in Iraq are not fighting and dying because Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or because Saddam Hussein was in any way a threat to the US: they are dying for oil.

Kurds declare "oil independence"

Iraqi Kurds fed up with the bickering in Baghdad and the failure of the central government to pass a comprehensive hydrocarbons law have virtually declared their independence signing new oil contracts with western companies and legislating their own oil law in August in the Kurdistan Regional Parliament.

Iraqi Oil Minister Minister Hussain al-Shahristani, has declared the contracts that the Kurds signed null and void while the Kurds have called for his resignation…

Please note that the production-sharing contract is with Hunt Oil Company of Texas.

In other words, this company is betting that Iraq will shatter and partition, and that their deal will be sound.

They are betting against everything Washington has told us about the future of "progress" in a unified Iraq.

A TIMELINE OF OIL AND VIOLENCE - II
- IRAQ -

- Last updated: June 19, 2006 -
http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/Timeline-Iraq_040903c.htm

Iraqis resist U.S. pressure to enact oil law

The Iraqis want to keep their oil and they want the US out of their country. What will Bush do now, re-invade?

The Iraqis’ Failure to Pass the U.S.-Authored Oil Law

But something happened — something the arrogant, sneaky, bullying, greedy proponents of the law in this country somehow didn’t anticipate. Civil society rebelled against the Hydrocarbon Act. The Sunni bloc in parliament rejected the law. So did the Shiite followers of Muqtada al-Sadr who denounce the act as an attack on Iraqi sovereignty. Oil field workers have staged protests and vowed “mutiny” if the law is passed. “This law cancels the great achievements of the Iraq people,” Subhi al-Badri, who heads the Iraqi Federation of Union Councils, said in a televised interview last week. “If the Iraqi Parliament approves this law, we will resort to mutiny. This law is a bomb that may kill everyone. Iraqi oil. … belongs to all future generations.” Even the Iraqi minister of planning and development, Ali Baban, has vowed to “resign one hour after [the] passing [of the] oil and gas draft law.”

Official Calls Kurd Oil Deal at Odds With Baghdad

Hunt Oil, a closely held company, signed a production-sharing agreement with the Kurdistan Regional Government this month. The company’s chief executive and president, Ray L. Hunt, is a close political ally of President Bush and serves on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Translation: Ray Hunt and HUNT OIL are betting on Iraq balkanizing, and that there will be independent Kurdistan, no matter what Bush and the white house speak about "Iraqi national unity".

Basra

Serving British soldier exposes horror of war in 'crazy' Basra

"Basra is lost, they are in control now. It's a full-scale riot and the Government are just trying to save face," said Private Paul Barton.

.... along with Bush and Blair.

I want to plant an idea with all of you right now. It is clear that the war is lost and we are headed for that Saigon moment. It may be that the reason the Democrats are not working to stop the war is that they are HOPING it will turn into a disaster they can blame on the GOP for the benefit of future elections. Well, the war will be lost, and the GOP stands guilty of at least allowing President Bush and the Neocons to lie us into it, but never forget that the Democrats are playing politics with the lives of our kids in uniform. Never forget that BOTH parties allowed the war to go on, each for their own reasons.

Iraqis say Basra quieter after British troop pullout

Oooooh, so you mean that when the invading army leaves, things quiet down? Who would have thought it so?!?!?!?!?!?!?

British move out of Basra police center, Mahdi army moves in

British forces useless in Basra, say officials

Military commanders tell Brown to withdraw from Iraq without delay

Two generals told The Independent on Sunday last week that the military advice given to the Prime Minister was, "We've done what we can in the south [of Iraq]". Commanders want to hand over Basra Palace – where 500 British troops are subjected to up to 60 rocket and mortar strikes a day, and resupply convoys have been described as "nightly suicide missions" – by the end of August. The withdrawal of 500 soldiers has already been announced by the Government. The Army is drawing up plans to "reposture" the 5,000 that will be left at Basra airport, and aims to bring the bulk of them home in the next few months.

Middle East">Muqtada al-Sadr: The British are retreating from Basra

The British Army has been defeated in Iraq and left with no option but to retreat from the country, claims radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Violent resistance and a rising death toll among UK troops has forced a withdrawal, he said in an interview with The Independent.

Middle East">British leave last remaining Basra base: What was achieved?

The British departure from their last remaining base inside the walls of Basra City, signalled their disengagement from the conflict and has highlighted a growing and public discord between Washington and London over Iraq, with the Americans claiming the move will severely undermine security.

Bush furious over British pull out from Basra

Bush administration officials were reportedly furious that the operation was launched at a time when the president is begging for more time for his "surge" strategy to turn the tide of the war - though no official comment has yet been made.

Britain pulls out of downtown Basra base

At al-Asad Air Base west of Baghdad, meanwhile, President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq, hoping to bolster his case that the buildup of U.S. troops is helping stabilizing the country.

"You know, like how them there Nazis stabilized France!" -- Official White Horse Souse

Soldier says he randomly shot at Iraqis

The Army is investigating possible war crimes after a Fort Carson soldier facing first-degree murder charges in the slayings of two Iraq war veterans told investigators he and another soldier randomly fired at Iraqi civilians.

Winning their hearts and minds.

Return to Fallujah

Three years after the devastating US assault, our correspondent enters besieged Iraqi city left without clean water, electricity and medicine

Your tax dollars at work, folks - while homeless war vets sleep in our streets.

U.S. Is Paying Off Iraq's Worst War Criminals in Attempt to Ward Off Attacks

Rick Rowley, a journalist and independent filmmaker of Big Noise Films, was one of the last people to videotape and interview the Sunni sheikh, and his video report Uncovering the Truth Behind the Anbar Success Story, presents a very different picture of the Anbar Awakening.

Embedded with the U.S. Army and Iraqi militias, Rowley shows us that the Sunni "freedom fighters" with whom the United States is now allied are not just insurgents who had been killing Americans but war criminals responsible for sectarian cleansing.

"Hey, they're thugs, and they've killed other Iraqis and our troops, but they're OUR thugs now, for the right price!" - official white horse souse.