Posts Tagged ‘Iraq’

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Iraq reconstruction ‘has failed’

December 14, 2008
Al Jazeera, Dec 14, 2008

The report quotes Powell as alleging that Iraqi troop numbers were inflated by defence officials [AFP]

The US-led force’s $100bn effort to rebuild Iraq has failed amid bureaucratic quarrels, ignorance of Iraqi society and violence in the country, the New York Times says, quoting a US federal report.

The newspaper said on its website on Saturday that it had obtained a draft copy of Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience, which is circulating among senior officials.

The report was compiled by the Office of the Special Inspector-General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is led by Stuart Bowen Jr, a Republican lawyer.

In the report, Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, alleges that after the 2003 invasion the US defence department kept inflating figures on the number of Iraqi security forces on the ground.

The defence department “kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces – the number would jump 20,000 a week! We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000”, he is quoted as saying in the draft report.

The report says that Powell’s view was supported by Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, the most senior ground troops officer in Iraq, and Paul Bremer, who was the civilian administrator before the Iraqi government takeover in June 2004.

It concludes that the US government does not have the policies or the organisational structure required to put the largest reconstruction programme since the Marshall Plan into place, the newspaper reported.

Cronyism alleged

The rebuilding effort did not go beyond restoring what was destroyed during the invasion and its immediate aftermath, the newspaper cited the draft report as saying.

By mid-2008, the report says, $117bn had been spent on the reconstruction of Iraq, including about $50bn in US taxpayer money.

In one example, an official at the US Agency for International Development (USAID)was given four hours to work out how many miles of Iraqi roads needed to be repaired, the Times said.

The official’s estimate came from documents in USAID’s library and was then submitted into a master plan.

Furthermore, funding for a large amount of Iraqi reconstruction projects was divided up among local politicians and tribal leaders, according to the New York Times.

“Our district council chairman has become the Tony Soprano of Rasheed, in terms of controlling resources,” it quotes one US embassy official in Baghdad as saying.

“You will use my contractor or the work will not get done.'”

Political lobbying

The report also pointed to political manoeuvring in the US, highlighting an example where a Republican lobbyist working for the US occupation authority called on the Office of Management and Budget to fund $20bn in new reconstruction money in August 2003.

“To delay getting our funds would be a political disaster for the president [George Bush],” Tom Korologos, the lobbyist, said, according the report.

“[Bush’s] election will hang for a large part on show of progress in Iraq and without the funding this year, progress will grind to a halt,” the draft quoted Korologos as saying.

The Bush administration supported Korologos’ request and the US congress allocated the money later that year.

The draft report is based on about 500 interviews and more than 600 audits, inspections and investigations undertaken in Iraq over several years.

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Senators accuse Rumsfeld over abuse of detainees

December 12, 2008

A US Senate committee has accused the former defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, of being directly responsible for the abusive interrogations of detainees at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

After an 18-month investigation, the Senate’s armed services committee concluded that Rumsfeld’s approval of aggressive interrogation methods in December 2002 was a direct cause of abuses that began in Guantánamo and spread to Afghanistan and Iraq. They culminated in the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2003, where Iraqi detainees were found to have been forced into naked pyramids, sexually humiliated and threatened by dogs.

The Bush administration insisted the abuses had been the result of a few “bad apples” and that those responsible would be held accountable. The committee found neither those statements to be true.

“The abuses at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo [Guantánamo] and elsewhere cannot be chalked up to the actions of a few bad apples,” said the Democratic chair of the committee, Carl Levin. “Attempts by senior officials to portray that to be the case while shrugging off any responsibility are both unconscionable and false.”

No other congressional report has pointed the finger of blame so squarely at Bush and his senior advisers.

In hearings in June and September, the committee heard testimony that allowed it to piece together the chronology of events leading up to the Abu Ghraib abuses. It focused its attentions on Sere, a training system used to prepare US soldiers for aggressive interrogations so that they might endure if captured overseas.

The techniques were never intended to be used by US interrogators against their detainees. But in February 2002, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Bush determined that the Geneva Conventions should not apply to terror suspects.

Following that ruling, techniques used in Sere training were applied against US detainees, and Rumsfeld gave his approval that December.

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Babylon’s History Swept Away in US Army Sandbags

December 11, 2008


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The US invasion of Iraq caused irreparable damage to historic sites in Babylon. (Photo: British Museum)

By: Agence France-Presse, December 10, 2008


Babylon, Iraq – Fragments of bricks, engraved with cuneiform characters thousands of years old, lie mixed with the rubble and sandbags left by the US military on the ancient site of Babylon in Iraq.

In this place, one of the cradles of civilisation, US troops in 2003-2004 built embankments, dug ditches and spread gravel to hold the fuel reservoirs needed to supply the heliport of Camp Alpha.

Today, archaeologists say a year of terracing work and 18 months of military presence, with tanks and helicopters, have caused irreparable damage. The Americans remained five months in Babylon and then handed over to the Poles who pulled out 16 months later.

Hands on hips, and wearing a seemingly permanent air of dismay, Maithem Hamza, director of the – totally empty – museum on the site, points to the soil: “Look at this land, it is packed with remnants. They filled their bags with them.”

He pushes with his foot a fragment of raw brick, with cuneiform inscriptions plainly visible. To one side of it, on soil filthy with fuel oil, lies the broken door of a Hummer, the US army’s light vehicle.

Undoubtedly the palace built on the site and on an artificial hill in 1993 by then-president Saddam Hussein drew the US military to Babylon during its invasion in March 2003.

The palace, like elsewhere in Iraq, was requisitioned as a military headquarters.

On one wall, near the door of the monumental entrance, a black stencil proclaims: “Building No.1”. Further on, adorning a warehouse wall, graffiti reads: “Miss you, Smoothy!.”

From April 2003 to June 2004, huge gravelled avenues were gouged out around the ruins of the palaces of Nebuchadnezzer in order to set up prefabricated buildings which became home to up to 2,000 troops.

The heliport is only some 300 metres (yards) from the remains of the north palace, and according to Maithem Hamza, vibration from the aircraft caused the base of the temple of Ninmah – rebuilt by Saddam in the 1980s – to collapse.

In a report published in 2005, experts from the British Museum confirmed that damage visible on nine of the dragon casts on the temple’s Door of Ishtar, and those on the cobbles of the processional way, were due to vibration caused by the passage of heavy machinery.

“That which is broken is broken… We will try to repair what we can,” said Maryam Omran Mussa, director of the site, speaking in her office near the entrance to the site which has been closed to the public since 2003.

“Many of the relics were buried near the surface. Vibration from tanks and lorries caused irreversible damage, that’s for real… From the start, we told the Americans (their actions) were a mistake. I wrote letters…

“They finally understood, and left, but it took time.”

British Museum curator John Curtis was one of the first to sound the alarm over the ancient site.

“They understood when photographs started to be published on the World Wide Web, particularly aerial photographs showing the extent of the military camp there,” he said.

“It’s only because of that that the military authorities of the coalition started to be very nervous and decided that they had to leave.”

In the face of the protests, terracing and building work was interrupted in June 2004, six months before the troops left.

In its defence, the US military argued that if its presence there certainly had caused damage, it had also protected the site from looters who were running riot during the first weeks of the occupation.

Questioned in 2006 in a programme on the BBC, Marine Colonel John Coleman accepted the principle of an apology to the director of the Iraqi antiquities department.

“If it makes him feel good, I can certainly give him one,” he said.

But he added: “Is there a price for the presence? Sure. I’ll just say that the price had the presence not been there would have been far greater.”

For Curtis, however, the price of the military presence was extremely high.

“A lot of the damage done is permanent. For example digging these long trenches: 170 metres long and more than two metres deep, this is not reversible, this is permanent damage that will last forever.”

Another problem arrived in the earth brought from outside the site to fill sandbags. “It contaminates the record of Babylon for the next generations of archeologists,” said Curtis.

“Moving the gravel can be done, but it’s a very long and very expensive job. And in the process, more damage would be done.”

Despite the damage to such an historic site, Curtis accepted that the US military believed that “building a base there wouldn’t actually cause any damage.”

He commented: “I don’t think it’s malicious: it comes from ignorance and stupidity, definitely.”

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Crimes against Humanity: Iraqi academics assassinated during the US-led occupation

November 29, 2008

Global Research, November 27, 2008

Pakistan Daily – 2008-11-26

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Editor’s note

Pakistan Daily has published the list of Iraqi academics assassinated by US and allied occupation forces. The objective of these targeted assassinations is to “kill a nation”, the destroy Iraq’s ability to educate its people, to undermine its research and scientific capabilities in literally all fields of endeavor, to transform a nation into a territory, and ultimately to destroy civilization.

Of particular significance is the assassination of prominent scientists and physicians, professors of medicine in the country’s leading academic institutions, its social scientists and historians, its physical scientists, its biologists, its engineers.

We are dealing with a carefully devised covert operation. The plan to kill the nation’s scientists and intellectuals emanates from US intelligence and the military. It is a deliberate process.

Is the new Obama administration going to turn a blind eye to this diabolical and criminal agenda?

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 27 November 2008


The following relation has being created against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq with the information provided by direct Iraqi university sources and international and Arab media. It only includes names and data referred to university academics assassinated during the Occupation period.

BAGHDAD, Baghdad University

Abbas Al-Attar: PhD in humanities, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Humanities.

Abdel Hussein Jabuk: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Abdel Salam Saba: PhD in sociology, lecturer at Baghdad University.

Abdel Razak Al-Naas: Lecturer in information and international mass media at Baghdad University’s College of Information Sciences. He was a regular analyst for Arabic satellite TV channels. He was killed in his car at Baghdad University on 28 January 2005. His assassination led to confrontations between students and police, and journalists went on strike.

Ahmed Nassir Al-Nassiri: PhD in education sciences, Baghdad University, assassinated February 2005.

Ali Abdul-Hussein Kamil: PhD in physical sciences, lecturer in the Department of Physics, Baghdad University.

Amir Al-Jazragi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Medicine, and consultant at the Iraqi Ministry of Health, assassinated 17 November 2005.

Basil Al-Karji: PhD in chemistry, lecturer at Baghdad University.

Essam Sharif Mohammed: PhD in history, professor in Department of History and head of the College of Humanities, Baghdad University.

Faidhi Al-Faidhi: PhD in education sciences, lecturer at Baghdad University and Al-Munstansiriya University. He was also member of the Muslim Scientists Committee. Assassinated in 2005.

Fuad Abrahim Mohammed Al-Bayaty: PhD in german philology, professor and head of College of Philology, Baghdad University.

Haifa Alwan Al-Hil: PhD in physics, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Science for Women.

Heikel Mohammed Al-Musawi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at Al-Kindi College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Assassinated 17 November 2005.

Hassan Abd Ali Dawood Al-Rubai: PhD in stomatology, dean of the College of Stomatology, Baghdad University. Assassinated 20 December 2005.

Hazim Abdul Hadi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University.

Khalel Ismail Abd Al-Dahri: PhD in physical education, lecturer at the College of Physical Education, Baghdad University.

Kilan Mahmoud Ramez: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Maha Abdel Kadira: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Humanities.

Majed Nasser Hussein Al-Maamoori: Professor of veterinary medicine at Baghdad University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Assassinated 17 February 2007.

Marwan Al-Raawi: PhD in engineering and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Marwan Galeb Mudhir Al-Heti: PhD in chemical engineering and lecturer at the School of Engineering, Baghdad University.

Majed Hussein Ali: PhD in physical sciences and lecturer at the College of Sciences, Baghdad University.

Mehned Al-Dulaimi: PhD in mechanical engineering, lecturer at Baghdad University.

Mohammed Falah Al-Dulaimi: PhD in physical sciences, lecturer at Baghdad University.

Mohammed Tuki Hussein Al-Talakani: PhD in physical sciences, nuclear scientist since 1984, and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Mohammed Al-Kissi: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Mohammed Abd Allah Al-Raawi: PhD in surgery, former president of Baghdad University, member of the Arab Council of Medicine and of the Iraqi Council of Medicine, president of the Iraqi Union of Doctors.

Mohammed Al-Jazairi: PhD in medicine and plastic surgeon, College of Medicine, Baghdad Univeristy. Assassinated 15 November 2005.

Mustafa Al-Hity: PhD in medicine, paediatrician, College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Assassinated 14 November 2005.

Mustafa Al-Mashadani: PhD in religious studies, lecturer in Baghdad University’s College of Humanities.

Nafea Ahmmoud Jalaf: PhD in Arabic language, professor in Baghdad University’s College of Humanities.

Nawfal Ahmad: PhD, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Fine Arts. She was assassinated at the front door of her house on 25 December 2005.

Nazar Abdul Amir Al-Ubaidy: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Raad Shlash: PhD in biological sciences, head of Department of Biology at Baghdad University’s College of Sciences. He was killed at the front door of his house on 17 November 2005.

Rafi Sarcisan Vancan: Bachelor of English language, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Women’s Studies.

Saadi Daguer Morab: PhD in fine arts, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Fine Arts.

Sabri Mustafa Al-Bayaty: PhD in geography, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Humanities.

Saad Yassin Al-Ansari: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. He was killed in Al-Saydiya neighborhood, Baghdad, 17 November 2005.

Wannas Abdulah Al-Naddawi: PhD in education sciences, Baghdad University. Assassinated 18 February 2005.

Yassim Al-Isawi: PhD in religious studies, Baghdad University’s College of Arts. Assassinated 21 June 2005.

Zaki Jabar Laftah Al-Saedi: Bachelor of veterinary medicine, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

Basem Al-Modarres: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Philosophy. [Source: Al-Hayat, 28 February 2006.]

Jasim Mohammed Achamri: Dean of College of Philosophy, Baghdad University. [Source: Al-Hayat, 28 February 2006.]

Hisham Charif: Head of Department of History and lecturer at Baghdad University. [Source: Al-Hayat, 28 February 2006.]

Qais Hussam Al-Den Jumaa: Professor and Dean of College of Agriculture, Baghdad University. Killed 27 March 2006 by US soldiers in downtown Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source.]

Mohammed Yaakoub Al-Abidi: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Abdelatif Attai: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Ali Al-Maliki: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Nafia Aboud: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Abbas Kadem Alhachimi: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Mouloud Hasan Albardar Aturki: Lecturer in Hanafi Teology at Al-Imam Al-Aadam College of Teology, Baghdad University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Riadh Abbas Saleh: Lecturer at Baghdad University’s Centre for International Studies. Killed 11 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 17 May 2006.]

Abbas Al-Amery: Professor and head of Department of Administration and Business, College of Administration and Economy, Baghdad University. Killed together with his son and one of his relatives at the main entrance to the College 16 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 17 May 2006.]

Muthana Harith Jasim: Lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Engineering. Killed near his home in Al-Mansur, 13 June 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 13 June 2006.]

Hani Aref Al-Dulaimy: Lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering, Baghdad University’s College of Engineering. He was killed, together with three of his students, 13 June 2006 on campus. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 13 June 2006.]

Hussain Al-Sharifi: Professor of urinary surgery at Baghdad University’s College of Medicine. Killed in May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 12 June 2006.]

Hadi Muhammad Abub Al-Obaidi: Lecturer in the Department of Surgery, Baghdad University’s College of Medicine. Killed 19 June 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 20 June 2006.]

Hamza Shenian: Professor of veterinary surgery at Baghdad University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Killed by armed men in his garden in a Baghdad neighborhood 21 June 2006. This was the first known case of a professor executed in the victim’s home. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 21 June 2006.]

Jassim Mohama Al-Eesaui: Professor at College of Political Sciences, Baghdad University, and editor of Al-Syada newspaper. He was 61 years old when killed in Al-Shuala, 22 June 2006. [Source: UNAMI report 1 May-30 June 2006.]

Shukir Mahmoud As-Salam: Lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Medicine and dental surgeon at Al-Yamuk Hospital, Baghdad. Killed near his home by armed men 6 September 2006. [Source: TV news, As-Sharquia channel, 7 September 2006, and CEOSI Iraqi sources.]

Mahdi Nuseif Jasim: Professor in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Baghdad University. Killed 13 September 2006 near the university. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source.]

Adil Al-Mansuri: Maxillofacial surgeon and professor at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Kidnapped by uniformed men near Iban Al-Nafis Hospital in Baghdad. He was found dead with torture signs and mutilation in Sadr City. He was killed during a wave of assassinations in which seven medical specialists were assassinated. Date unknown: July or August 2006 [Source: Iraqi health service sources, 24 September 2006.]

Shukur Arsalan: Maxillofacial surgeon and professor at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Killed by armed men when leaving his clinic in Harziya neighbourhood. He was killed during a wave of assassinations in which seven specialists were assassinated. Date unknown: July or August 2006. [Source: Iraqi Health System sources, 24 September 2006.]

Issam Al-Rawi: Professor of geology at Baghdad University, president of the Association of University Professors of Iraq. Killed 30 October 2006 during an attack carried out by a group of armed men in which two more professors were seriously injured. [Sources: CEOSI sources and Associated Press.]

Yaqdan Sadun Al-Dhalmi: Professor and lecturer in the College of Education, Baghdad University. Killed 16 October 2006. [Source: CEOSI sources.]

Jlid Ibrahim Mousa: Professor and lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Medicine. Killed by a group of armed men in September 2006. During August and September 2006, six professors of medicine were assassinated in Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources.]

Mohammed Jassim Al-Thahbi and wife: Professor and dean of the College of Administration and Economy, Baghdad University. Killed 2 November 2006 by a group of armed men when he was driving to university. His wife, a lecturer at the same university (name and academic position unknown) and son were also killed in the attack. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources and Tme Magazine, 2 October 2006.]

Mohammed Mehdi Saleh: Lecturer at Baghdad University (unknown position) and member of the Association of Muslim Scholars. Imam of Ahl Al-Sufa Mosque in Al-Shurta Al-Jamisa neighbourhood. Killed 14 November 2006 while driving in the neighbourhood of Al-Amal in central Baghdad. [Source: UMA, 14 November 2006.]

Hedaib Majhol: Lecturer at College of Physical Education, Baghdad University, president of the Football University Club and member of the Iraqi Football Asociation. Kidnapped in Baghdad. His body was found three later in Baghdad morgue 3 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 2 December 2006.]

Al-Hareth Abdul Hamid: Professor of psychiatric medicine and head of the Department of Psychology at Baghdad University. Former president of the Society of Parapsychological Investigations of Iraq. A renowned scientist, Abdul Hamid was shot dead in the neighbourhood of Al-Mansur, Baghdad, 6 December 2006 by unknown men. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi sources, 6 December 2006, and Reuters, 30 January 2007.]

Anwar Abdul Hussain: Lecturer at the College of Odontology, Baghdad University. Killed in Haifa Street in Baghdad in the third week of January 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007.]

Majed Nasser Hussain: PhD and lecturer at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Baghdad University. He was killed in front of his wife and daughter while leaving home in the third week of January 2007. Nasser Hussain had been kidnapped two years before and freed after paying a ransom. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007.]

Khaled Al-Hassan: Professor and deputy dean of the College of Political Sciences, Baghdad University. Killed in March 2007. [Source: Association of University Lecturers of Iraq, 7 April 2007.]

Ali Mohammed Hamza: Professor of Islamic Studies at Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. Killed 17 April 2007. [Sources: TV channels As-Sharquia and Al-Jazeera.]

Abdulwahab Majed: Lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Education. Department and college unknown. Killed 2 May 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 May 2007.]

Sabah Al-Taei: Deputy dean of the College of Education, Baghdad University. Killed 7 May 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources. 8 May 2007.]

Nihad Mohammed Al-Rawi: Professor of Civil Engineering and deputy president of Baghdad University. Shot dead 26 June 2007 in Al-Jadria Bridge, a few meters away from the university campus, when exiting with his daughter Rana, whom he protected from the shots with his body. [Sources: BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 26-27 June 2007, www.wmin.ac.uk]

Muhammad Kasem Al-Jebouri: Lecturer at the College of Agriculture, Baghdad University. Killed, together with his son and his brother-in-law, by paramilitary forces 22 June 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 27 June 2007.]

Samir (surname unknown): Lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Administration and Economy. His body was found shot one day after being kidnapped in Kut where he was visiting family. Professor Samir lived in the Baghdad district of Al-Sidiya. [Source: Voices of Iraq, www.iraqslogger.com, 29 June 2007.]

Amin Abdul Aziz Sarhan: Lecturer at Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. He was kidnapped from his home in Basra by unidentified armed men 13 October 2007 and found dead on the morning of 15 October. [Source: Voices of Iraq, 15 October 2007.]

Mohammed Kadhem Al-Atabi: Head of Baghdad University’s Department of Planning and Evaluation. He was kidnapped 18 October 2007 from his home in Baghdad by a group of armed men and found dead a few hours later in the area of Ur, near to Sadr City, which is under the control of Moqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 26 October 2007.]

Munther Murhej Radhi: Dean of the College of Odontology, Baghdad University. He was found dead in his car 23 January 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 January 2008.]

Mundir Marhach: Dean of Faculty of Stomatology, Baghdad University. He was killed in March (exact day unknown), according to information provided by the Centre for Human Rights of Baghdad. [Source: Al-Basrah reported 12 March 2008.]

Al-Mamoon Faculty (private college, Baghdad)

Mohammed Al-Miyahi: Dean of Al-Maamoun Faculty in Baghdad. He was shot with a silencer-equipped gun in front of his house in Al-Qadisiah district, southern Baghdad, as he stepped out of his car 14 December 2007. [Source CEOSI Iraqi source and Kuwait News Agency, reported 19 December 2007, IPS reported 19 December 2007, and Al-Basrah, reported 12 March 2008.]

Al-Mustansiriya University (Baghdad)

Aalim Abdul Hameed: PhD in preventive medicine, specialist in depleted uranium effects in Basra, dean of the College of Medicine, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Abdul Latif Al-Mayah: PhD in economics, lecturer and head of Department of Research, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Aki Thakir Alaany: PhD and lecturer at the College of Literature, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Falah Al-Dulaimi: PhD, professor and deputy dean of Al-Mustansiriya University’s College of Sciences.

Falah Ali Hussein: PhD in physics, lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Sciences, Al-Mustansiriya University, killed May 2005.

Musa Saloum Addas: PhD, lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Educational Sciences, Al-Mustansiriya University, killed 27 May 2005.

Husam Al-Ddin Ahmad Mahmmoud: PhD in education sciences, lecturer and dean at College of Education Sciences, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Jasim Abdul Kareem: PhD and lecturer at the College of the Education, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Abdul As Satar Sabar Al Khazraji: PhD in history, Al Munstansiriya University, killed 19 June 2005. [A same name and surname lecturer in Engineering at the College of Computer Science Technology, Al-Nahrein University was assessinated in March 2006.]

Samir Yield Gerges: PhD and lecturer at the College of Administration and Economy at Al-Mustansiriya University, killed 28 August 2005.

Jasim Al-Fahaidawi: PhD and lecturer in Arabic literature at the College of Humanities, Al-Mustansiriya University. Assassinated at the university entrance. [Source: BBC News, 15 November 2005.]

Kadim Talal Hussein: Deputy dean of the College of Education, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Mohammed Nayeb Al-Qissi: PhD in geography, lecturer at Department of Research, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Sabah Mahmoud Al-Rubaie: PhD in geography, lecturer and dean at College of Educational Sciences, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Ali Hasan Muhawish: Dean and lecturer at the College of Engineering, Al-Mustansiriya University. Killed 12 March 2006. [Source: Middle East Online, 13 March 2006.]

Imad Naser Alfuadi: Lecturer at the College of Political Sciences, Al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Mohammed Ali Jawad Achami: President of the College of Law, Al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Husam Karyakus Tomas: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, Al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Basem Habib Salman: Lecturer at the College of Medicine at Al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Mohammed Abdul Rahman Al-Ani: PhD in engineering, lecturer at the College of Law, Al-Mustansiriya University. Kidnapped, together with his friend Akrem Mehdi, 26 April 2006, at his home in Palestine Street, Baghdad. Their bodys were found two days later. (CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 May 2006.]

Jasim Fiadh Al-Shammari: Lecturer in psychology at the College of Arts, Al-Mustansiriya Baghdad University. Killed near campus 23 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 30 May 2006.]

Saad Mehdi Shalash: PhD in history and lecturer in history at the College of Arts, Al-Mustansiriya University, and editor of the newspaper Raya Al-Arab. Shot dead at his home with his wife 26 October 2006. [Source: Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 27 October 2006.]

Kemal Nassir: Professor of history and lecturer at Al-Mustansiriya and Bufa universities. Killed at his home in Baghdad in October 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 2 November 2006.]

Hasseb Aref Al-Obaidi: Professor in the College of Political Sciences at Al-Mustansiriya University. Since he was kidnapped 22 October 2006 his whereabouts is unknown. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources.]

Najeb Al-Salihi: Lecturer in the College of Psychology at Al-Mustansiriya University and head of the Scientific Commitee of the Ministry of Higher Education of Iraq. Al-Salihi, 39 years old, was kidnapped close to campus and his body, shot dead, was found 20 days after his disappearance in Baghdad morgue. His family was able recover his body only after paying a significant amount of money. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources.]

Dhia Al-Deen Mahdi Hussein: Professor of international criminal law at the College of Law, Al-Mustansiriya University. Missing since kidnapped from his home in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dhia in 4 November 2006 by a group of armed men driving police cars. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 November 2006.]

Muntather Al-Hamdani: Deputy dean of the College of Law, Al-Mustansiriya University. He was assassinated, together with Ali Hassam, lecturer at the same college, 20 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006. The Iraqi police identified Ali Arnoosi as the deputy dean assassinated 21 December, and Mohammed Hamdani as another victim. It is unknown whether [Muntanther Al-Hamdani and Mohammed Hamdani] both are the same case or not.]

Ali Hassam: Lecturer at the College of Law at Al-Mustansiriya University. He was killed together with Muntather Al-Hamdani, deputy dean of the college, 20 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006. The Iraqi police identified Ali Arnoosi as the deputy dean assassinated 21 December, and Mohammed Al-Hamdani as another victim. It is unknown whether both [Muntanther Al-Hamdani and Mohammed Hamdani] are the same case or not.]

Dhia Al-Mguter: Professor of economy at the College of Administration and Economy of Al-Mustansiriya University. He was killed 23 January 2007 in Baghdad while driving. He was a prominent economist and president of the Consumer’s Defense Association and the Iraqi Association of Economists. A commentator at for As-Sharquia television, he participated in the Maram Committee, being responsible for investigating irregularities occuring during the elections held in January 2006. Al-Mguter was part of a family with a long anti-colonialist tradition since the British occupation. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and Az-Zaman newspaper, 24 January 2007.]

Ridha Abdul Hussein Al-Kuraishi: Deputy Dean of the University of Al-Mustansiriya’s College of Administration and Economy. He was kidnapped 28 March 2007 and found dead the next day. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, 7 April 2007. See the Arabic letter sent to CEOSI.].


Continued >>

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Bush’s Follies Will Destroy Obama If He Lets Them

November 28, 2008
Truthdig, Nov 25, 2008
USAF / Staff Sgt. Samuel Rogers

By William Pfaff

One might think that if Barack Obama believes he can make a success of his new administration by largely reconstituting the Clinton administration, Hillary Clinton included, he should know better than to take on the reckless ambitions and commitments of the George W. Bush administration as well: the government that gave America the Mideast and Asian crises, blunders and humiliations of the past 6 1/2 years.

The world has witnessed a futile, destructive and illegal American invasion of Iraq, a war conducted on false pretenses, supposedly against terrorists, accompanied by worldwide actions that have made American policy in Bush’s “global war on terror” seem to many Muslims an attack on Islamic society itself.

Obama is now taking on the quasi-impossible tasks of bringing to a successful and responsible conclusion the Bush government’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as what shows signs of becoming another military intervention of grave and unforeseeable consequences in Pakistan. He is doing so without challenging the assumptions and goals of Bush administration policy.

It has been the mindset of the Bush administration—and, unfortunately, of much of the neoconservative-influenced foreign policy establishment in Washington—that international society’s problems are reducible to wars that American armies will win. They are wrong on both counts. But some still argue that this is the way to a better and more democratic world.

Obama has no choice but to accept responsibility for these American crises. But why should he accept them on the distorted and even hysterical terms by which the Bush administration has defined world affairs since 2001?

Iraq has been a victim of the United States. Washington had no legal or moral justification for invading the country and destroying its infrastructure, killing an uncounted number of Iraqis and displacing half a million or more to ruined lives while setting off the sectarian conflicts that have wracked the country since 2003.

There is a heavy American responsibility to do no more harm, however well-intentioned. The present volatile situation in the country is for the moment a largely political shoving match between the divided and possibly ephemeral Shiite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his rivals, who include the Shiite radicals of Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Sunni, and largely ex-Baathist, Awakening Movement, sponsored by the U.S. Army to defend Sunni tribal regions against the foreigners of the fundamentalist al-Qaida. In addition, are the two Kurdish movements that together control, and plan to make independent and permanent, a Kurdistan nation incorporating—if they have their way—the oil-rich Kirkuk region.

One can make the political—and moral—argument that as the American invasion is responsible for the Iraqi upheaval, Washington should somehow settle it. The answer is that it’s impossible for Americans to do so. The U.S. cannot do it by continued military occupation and intervention in the country’s affairs.

Only the Iraqis themselves can settle this, and doing so may entail even more religious and ethnic struggle. The neighboring Shiite great power, Iran, will play its cards in the country. The Saudis will play theirs. Israel will do everything in its power to prevent an American withdrawal. All of this will probably add still more tragedies to those of the last six years, but at least the U.S. responsibility will have become only indirect, which is bad enough.

Barack Obama started off his presidential campaign by saying that he would get American troops out of Iraq by mid-2010. That was a strong, simple position that, if resolutely carried out, would make it clear to the Iraqis what they have to do to save themselves, and how long they have in which to do it.

Since the early campaign, the president-elect has been forced to qualify his position, weaken it, blur it, say that actually many U.S. troops probably will stay on, the dates may change, American involvement will continue, and so on. He has been forced back toward the Washington consensus opinion, the centrist and “responsible” position, close to the Bush opinion.

Nearly everyone is against his sticking to his original policy: The Iraq factions all plan to exploit American ambiguities to strengthen their own positions and maneuver the American command to favor them. The Kurds want time to make their proto-Kurdistan even more impregnable (while encouraging their reluctance to deal with Turkish and Iranian hostility to a sovereign Kurdistan, as well as deal realistically with their fellow Iraqis).

In Washington, the Pentagon is against withdrawal on Obama’s terms. It still wants permanent bases in Iraq. It claims Obama’s timetable is logistically impossible. The Republicans will shout “treason” and “betrayal.” American oil companies and the corporations that are already part of the occupation, as well as those that have big ambitions for moving into an American-secured Iraq, will demand that the U.S. stay.

All this must be resisted if Obama is to be his own man. He has to rid himself of George Bush’s folly. He must make Iraq truly independent. If he doesn’t, it could destroy his administration.

Visit William Pfaff’s Web site at www.williampfaff.com.

© 2008 Tribune Media Services Inc.

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Will The US Government Accept Responsibility For The Slaughter Of Over 1,000,000 Iraqis.

November 20, 2008


By Michael Schwartz | Huffington Post, Nov 18, 2008

Will The US Government And Media Finally Report The Slaughter Of Iraqis By The US Military?

I recently received a set of questions from Le Monde Diplomatique reporter Kim Bredesen about the 2007 Project Censored story about 1,000,000 Iraqi deaths due to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The questions and answers are, I think, useful in framing both the untold story of the slaughter in Iraq and the failure of the U.S. media to report on its extent or on U.S. culpability for the deaths of 4% of the Iraqi population.

Bredeson : I observed recently that your story on Iraqi deaths caused by US occupation became story no. 1 in this year’s listing by Project Censored. I wondered if I could ask you a few questions on e-mail regarding this issue?

Regards,
Kim Bredesen, Le Monde diplomatiqe (Norway)

These are my questions.

1.Do you expect that the new administration under Barrack Obama will acknowledge the validity of the statistics concerning Iraqi deaths caused by the US occupation force?

It is always difficult to predict the political future, but even if the Obama administration pursues a very different policy in Iraq and the Middle East, I doubt it will acknowledge the amount of violence caused by the war during its first six years. Historically, the U.S. government has a poor record of acknowledging its responsibility for death and/or destruction of other peoples, beginning with the genocide against Native Americans (never officially acknowledged), continuing through two hundred years of the slave trade and slavery (there has actually been a limp official apology), and culminating in the ongoing refusal to acknowledge one to three million deaths in Vietnam caused by the U.S. attempt to conquer that country.

2.You mention in your update to Censored 2009 that there is a media blackout about the dramatic statistics in US mass media. Do you think this will change?

I think that the U.S. mainstream media has a poor record of acknowledging the many instances in which it has (collectively) failed to  maintain its constitutionally mandated independence from government policy, and instead has ignored or written false reports supporting government malfeasance and tyranny. It was refreshing that the New York Times and Washington Post acknowledged their failure to report the contrary evidence to the US government claims about WMDs in Iraq, but this is a rare moment that has not led to more independent reporting on other U.S. government action in the Middle East.

I think that we can expect the U.S. mainstream media to continue to compromise its journalistic integrity in reporting on Iraq, and this will mean failing to report its own suppression of the Lancet studies and continuing to misreport the U.S. role in the Iraq war. This expectation is, of course, speculation, but the best evidence for this speculation is the fact that the major media have been withdrawing their personnel from Iraq, instead of taking advantage of more favorable security conditions to send reporters to locations that were previously inaccessible and therefore more thoroughly report the impact of the war on Iraqi life.

3.How have you experienced the coverage about the issue in other Western or international media, have they taken the situation in Iraq more seriously?

I find the reporting in Al Jazeera, the British national press, other international media, and independent U.S. media far more comprehensive in their coverage of the Iraq war. I would not say that they take the situation more “seriously,” – there has never been a problem with the U.S. media taking the war seriously. The differences are in very specific parts of the coverage: reporting on U.S. involvement in deaths and destruction, reporting on Iraqi resistance to the U.S. presence; reporting on the economic and social chaos caused by U.S. military, political, and economic policies in Iraq; reporting on who is fighting against the U.S.; reporting on the actual reality of life under U.S. occupation; and reporting on the day-to-day antagonism of Iraqis to the U.S. presence.

I should add, however, that these failures are not so much failures of U.S. mainstream reporters, but of the editors and publishers who assign reporters to particular stories and not to others. There are many reporters who fit information about all these issues into assignments that are aimed at other subjects. One small example will illustrate what I mean. In reporting about the U.S. offensive in Haifa Street in January 2007, mainstream reporters (for McClatchy and the Washington Post, if memory serves me) whose assignment was to report on the successful capture by U.S. troops of an insurgent stronghold also described the destructiveness of the U.S. attack and mentioned that U.S. soldiers stood idly by while Shia death squads cleansed the neighborhood of Sunnis. This information appeared toward the end of published reports, but it was published nevertheless. In contrast, a CBS report on the overarching destructiveness of the offensive and of the anger of residents at U.S. military actions was not broadcast and was only made public because of the protests of the censored reporter.

4.The journalist Joshua Holland compare the mass killings in Iraq with Pol Pot’s genocide in Cambodia. Is this an accurate comparison in your opinion?

Holland’s purpose in this comparison is the same as my purpose in comparing the deaths in Iraq to those in Darfur: we are trying to give people a sense of the scale of the violence wrought in Iraq by the U.S. military. The mass murders in Cambodia under Pol Pot and the displacements and genocide in Darfur–as well as so many other recent and more distant instances of such violence–all have different sources, intentions, and outcomes from the Iraq violence and from each other. The point of making these comparisons is to point out the magnitude of the slaughter in Iraq, not to make analytic comments about the dynamics of the war.

5. Do you believe it is appropriate that the Bush-administration should face trial for their actions?

In “The Fog of War,” former U.S. Secretary of Defense McNamara said to the camera that if the U.S. had lost World War II, then he and other American leaders would have stood trial as war criminals for the terrorist fire bombings of Japanese and German cities by the U.S. air force. Certainly the actions of U.S. political leaders and military commanders in ordering their troops to attack civilian targets in Iraq (for example the destruction of the city of Falluja—well publicized everywhere in the world except in the United States) fall under the same definition of war crimes that McNamara was considering in making this statement, and so it would be perfectly appropriate for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and the various commanding generals to stand trial for these actions.

But take note that McNamara said that trials would have taken place if the U.S. had “lost.” This statement has actually turned out to be a kind of half truth. In World War II, the Japanese and Germans certainly lost, but only a relative handful of those responsible for their war crimes stood trial (the Japanese Emperor, for example, was actually restored to his throne). In the Vietnam War, most observers say that the U.S. “lost” the war, but no U.S. leaders stood trial for the many war crimes they committed during that long conflict. There is no predicting the future, but I expect that, no matter how the Iraq war ends–with either McCain’s “victory” or with the “defeat” that President Bush has repeatedly warned the U.S. citizens about—there will be no war crimes trials of U.S. political and military leadership.

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2011 US Iraq withdrawal depends on conditions on the ground, says Admiral Mullen

November 20, 2008

US military leaders are comfortable with a 2011 deadline for the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq but it should depend on conditions on the ground, the US military chief has said

Telegraph.co.uk
Last Updated: 2:20PM GMT 18 Nov 2008

“I do think it is important that this be conditions-based,” Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

A US-Iraqi agreement approved over the weekend by the Iraqi cabinet calls for all 150,000 US troops to be out of the country by the end of 2001 regardless of the conditions on the ground.

President-Elect Barack Obama set an even tighter deadline of 16 months during the campaign.

In a television interview on Sunday, Mr Obama said he would call in the Joint Chiefs after his inauguration and “start executing a plan that draws down our troops”.

Adml Mullen said he would offer his advice to the new president, who takes office on January 20, and then follow his orders.

“Should president-elect Obama give me direction, I would carry that out. I mean, that’s what I do as a senior member of the military.”

Referring to the 2011 deadline contained in the so-called Status of Forces Agreement reached with Baghdad, Mullen said, “I certainly understand the boundaries.”

But he suggested the deal might be revisited at some point between now and then.

“And so three years is a long time. Conditions could change in that period of time,” said Adml Mullen, adding the United States will continue to talk with Baghdad “as conditions continue to evolve.”

Asked if the agreement could be changed, he said “that’s theoretically possible”.

Adml Mullen said he had discussed the agreement with General David Petraeus, the commander of US forces in Middle East and southwest Asia, and General Raymond Odierno, the US commander in Iraq.

“We’re all very comfortable that we have what we need. Conditions continue to improve,” he said.

“Clearly, moving forward in a measured way, tied to conditions as they continue to evolve over time is important,” he added.

Adml Mullen said it would take two to three years to safely withdraw all US forces from Iraq.

“It is very doable, but it’s not the kind of thing that we could do overnight,” he said.

“To remove the entire force would be, you know, two to three years, as opposed to something we could do in a very short period of time, as we’ve looked at it thus far.

“Clearly, we’d want to be able to do it safely. So when I talk about that kind of range of time, it really is conditioned by what’s going on,” he said.

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U.S. Task Force Found Few Iranian Arms in Iraq

November 17, 2008

By Gareth Porter | Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, Nov 15 (IPS) – Last April, top George W. Bush administration officials, desperate to exploit any possible crack in the close relationship between the Nouri al-Maliki government and Iran, launched a new round of charges that Iran had stepped up covert arms assistance to Shi’a militias.

Secretary of Defence Robert M. Gates suggested that there was “some sense of an increased level of [Iranian] supply of weapons and support to these groups.” And Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung was told by military officials that the “plentiful, high quality weaponry” the militia was then using in Basra was “recently manufactured in Iran”.

But a U.S. military task force had been passing on data to the Multi-National Force Iraq (MNFI) command that told a very different story. The data collected by the task force in the previous six weeks showed that relatively few of the weapons found in Shi’a militia caches were manufactured in Iran.

According to the data compiled by the task force, and made available to an academic research project last July, only 70 weapons believed to have been manufactured in Iran had been found in post-invasion weapons caches between mid-February and the second week in April. And those weapons represented only 17 percent of the weapons found in caches that had any Iranian weapons in them during that period.

The actual proportion of Iranian-made weapons to total weapons found, however, was significantly lower than that, because the task force was finding many more weapons caches in Shi’a areas that did not have any Iranian weapons in them.

The task force database identified 98 caches over the five-month period with at least one Iranian weapon, excluding caches believed to have been hidden prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion.

But according to an e-mail from the MNFI press desk this week, the task force found and analysed a total of roughly 4,600 weapons caches during that same period.

The caches that included Iranian weapons thus represented just 2 percent of all caches found. That means Iranian-made weapons were a fraction of one percent of the total weapons found in Shi’a militia caches during that period.

The extremely small proportion of Iranian arms in Shi’a militia weapons caches further suggests that Shi’a militia fighters in Iraq had been getting weapons from local and international arms markets rather than from an official Iranian-sponsored smuggling network.

The database was compiled by MNFI’s Task Force Troy, which was directed to examine all weapons caches found in Iraq beginning in early January 2008 to identify Iranian-made weapons. The database was released by MNFI last July to the Empirical Studies of Conflict project, co-sponsored by the U.S. Military Academy and Princeton University, and was published for the first time by West Point’s Counter-Terrorism Centre last month as an appendix to a paper on Iranian strategy in Iraq by Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman.

In late April, the U.S. presented the Maliki government with a document that apparently listed various Iranian arms found in Iraq and highlighted alleged Iranian arms found in Basra. But the U.S. campaign to convince Iraqi officials collapsed when Task Force Troy analysed a series of large weapons caches uncovered in Basra and Karbala in April and May.

Caches of arms found in Karbala late last April and May totaled more than 2,500 weapons, and caches in Basra included at least 3,700 weapons, according to official MNFI statements. That brought the total number of weapons found in those former Mahdi Army strongholds to more than 6,200 weapons.

But the task force found that none of those weapons were Iranian-made. The database lists three caches found Apr. 19, but provides no data on any of them. It lists no other caches for the region coinciding with that period, confirming that no weapons had been found to be of Iranian origin.

In announcing the weapons totals discovered in Basra to reporters on May 7, Maj. Gen. Kevin Bergner said nothing about the provenance of the weapons, implicitly admitting that they were not Iranian-made.

Only two months before the new high-level propaganda push on alleged Iranian weapons supply to Shi’a militias, the U.S. command had put out a story suggesting that large numbers of Iranian-supplied arms had been buried all over the country. On Feb. 17, 2008, U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Gregory Smith told reporters that Iraqi and coalition forces had captured 212 weapons caches across Iraq over the previous week “with growing links to the Iranian-backed special groups”.

The Task Force Troy data for the week of Feb. 9-16 show, however, that the U.S. command had information on Iranian arms contradicting that propaganda line. According to the task force database, only five of those 212 caches contained any Iranian weapons that analysts believed might have been buried after the U.S. invasion. And the total number of confirmed Iranian-made weapons found in those five caches, according to the data, was eight, not including four Iranian-made hand grenades.

The task force database includes 350 armour-piercing explosively formed penetrators (EFPs) found in Iraqi weapons caches. However, the database does not identify any of the EFPs as Iranian weapons.

That treatment of EFPs in the caches appears to contradict claims by U.S. officials throughout 2007 and much of 2008 that EFPs were being smuggled into Iraq by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The allegedly Iranian-manufactured EFPs had been the centrepiece of the U.S. military’s February 2007 briefing charging Iran with arming Shi’a militiamen in Iraq.

Press reports of a series of discoveries of shops for manufacturing EFPs in Iraq in 2007 forced the U.S. command to admit that the capacity to manufacture EFPs was not limited to Iran. By the second half of 2008, U.S. officials had stopped referring to Iranian supply of EFPs altogether.

Felter and Fishman do not analyse the task force data in their paper, but they criticise official U.S. statements on Iranian weapons in Iraq. “Some reports erroneously attribute munitions similar to those produced in Iran as Iranian,” they write, “while other Iranian munitions found in Iraq were likely purchased on the open market.”

The co-authors note that Iranian arms can be purchased directly from the website of the Defence Industries of Iran with a credit card.

*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam”, was published in 2006.

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Robert Fisk: Obama has to pay for eight years of Bush’s delusions

November 15, 2008

He will have to get out of Iraq, and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths

The Independent, Saturday, 8 November 2008

Barack Obama

REUTERS

How is Barack Obama going to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has perpetrated around the globe and within the US itself?

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American lawyers defending six Algerians before a habeas corpus hearing in Washington this week learned some very odd things about US intelligence after 9/11. From among the millions of “raw” reports from American spies and their “assets” around the world came a CIA Middle East warning about a possible kamikaze-style air attack on a US navy base at a south Pacific island location. The only problem was that no such navy base existed on the island and no US Seventh Fleet warship had ever been there. In all seriousness, a US military investigation earlier reported that Osama bin Laden had been spotted shopping at a post office on a US military base in east Asia.

That this nonsense was disseminated around the world by those tasked to defend the United States in the “war on terror” shows the fantasy environment in which the Bush regime has existed these past eight years. If you can believe that bin Laden drops by a shopping mall on an American military base, then you can believe that everyone you arrest is a “terrorist”, that Arabs are “terrorists”, that they can be executed, that living “terrorists” must be tortured, that everything a tortured man says can be believed, that it is legitimate to invade sovereign states, to grab the telephone records of everyone in America. As Bob Herbert put it in The New York Times a couple of years ago, the Bush administration wanted these records “which contain crucial documentation of calls for a Chinese takeout in Terre Haute, Indiana, and birthday greetings to Grandma in Talladega, Alabama, to help in the search for Osama bin Laden”. There was no stopping Bush when it came to trampling on the US Constitution. All that was new was that he was now applying the same disrespect for liberty in America that he had shown in the rest of the world.

But how is Barack Obama going to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has perpetrated around the globe and within the US itself? John F Kennedy once said that “the United States, as the world knows, will never start a war”. After Bush’s fear-mongering and Rumsfeld’s “shock and awe” and Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo and secret renditions, how does Obama pedal his country all the way back to Camelot? Our own dear Gordon Brown’s enthusiasm to Hoover up the emails of the British people is another example of how Lord Blair’s sick relationship with Bush still infects our own body politic. Only days before the wretched president finally departs from us, new US legislation will ensure that citizens of his lickspittle British ally will no longer be able to visit America without special security clearance. Does Bush have any more surprises for us before 20 January? Indeed, could anything surprise us any more?

Obama has got to close Guantanamo. He’s got to find a way of apologising to the world for the crimes of his predecessor, not an easy task for a man who must show pride in his country; but saying sorry is what – internationally – he will have to do if the “change” he has been promoting at home is to have any meaning outside America’s borders. He will have to re-think – and deconstruct – the whole “war on terror”. He will have to get out of Iraq. He will have to call a halt to America’s massive airbases in Iraq, its $600m embassy. He will have to end the blood-caked air strikes we are perpetrating in southern Afghanistan – why, oh, why do we keep slaughtering wedding parties? – and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths: that America can no longer remain uncritical in the face of Israeli army brutality and the colonisation for Jews and Jews only on Arab land. Obama will have to stand up at last to the Israeli lobby (it is, in fact, an Israeli Likud party lobby) and withdraw Bush’s 2004 acceptance of Israel’s claim to a significant portion of the West Bank. US officials will have to talk to Iranian officials – and Hamas officials, for that matter. Obama will have to end US strikes into Pakistan – and Syria.

Indeed, there’s a growing concern among America’s allies in the Middle East that the US military has to be brought back under control – indeed, that the real reason for General David Petraeus’ original appointment in Iraq was less to organise the “surge” than it was to bring discipline back to the 150,000 soldiers and marines whose mission – and morals – had become so warped by Bush’s policies. There is some evidence, for example, that the four-helicopter strike into Syria last month, which killed eight people, was – if not a rogue operation – certainly not sanctioned byWashington or indeed by US commanders in Baghdad.

But Obama’s not going to be able to make the break. He wants to draw down in Iraq in order to concentrate more firepower in Afghanistan. He’s not going to take on the lobby in Washington and he’s not going to stop further Jewish colonisation of the occupied territories or talk to Israel’s enemies. With AIPAC supporter Rahm Emanuel as his new chief of staff – “our man in the White House”, as the Israeli daily Maariv called him this week – Obama will toe the line. And of course, there’s the terrible thought that bin Laden – when he’s not shopping at US military post offices – may be planning another atrocity to welcome the Obama presidency.

There is just one little problem, though, and that’s the “missing” prisoners. Not the victimswho have been (still are being?) tortured in Guantanamo, but the thousands who have simply disappeared into US custody abroad or – with American help – into the prisons of US allies. Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, most of them Arabs, all of them Muslims. Where are they? Can they be freed now? Or are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from George W Bush, there will be a lot of apologising to do.

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Obama’s Victory – Fear and Hope

November 15, 2008

Immanuel Wallesrstein, Commentary No. 245, Nov. 15, 2008


The whole of the United States and indeed the whole world was watching, and almost all of it was cheering, the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. Although, during the electoral campaign, everyone tried to play down the centrality of the racial issue, on Nov. 4 it seemed that no one could talk of anything else. There are three central questions about what most commentators are calling this “historic event”: How important is it? What explains the victory? What is likely to happen now?

On the evening of November 4, an immense crowd assembled in Grant Park, Chicago, to hear Obama’s acceptance speech. All those who were watching U.S. television saw the camera zoom in on Jesse Jackson, who was in tears. Those tears reflect the virtually unanimous view of all African-Americans, who regard Obama’s election as the moment of their definitive integration into the U.S. electoral process. They do not believe that racism has disappeared. But a symbolic barrier has been crossed, first of all for them, and then for all the rest of us.

Their sentiment is quite parallel to the feelings of Africans in South Africa on April 27, 1994 when they voted to elect Nelson Mandela president of their country. It has not mattered that Mandela, as president, did not fulfill the whole promise of his party. It will not matter if Obama does not fulfill the whole promise of his campaign. In the United States, as in South Africa, a new day has dawned. Even if it is an imperfect day, it is a better day than before. The African-Americans, but also the Hispanics and the young people in general, voted for Obama out of hope – a diffuse hope, but a real one.

How did Obama win? He won the way anyone wins in a large, complex political situation. He put together a large coalition of many different political forces. In this case, the gamut ran from fairly far left to right of center. He would not have won without that enormous range of support. And, of course, now that he has won, all the different groups want him to govern as each prefers, which is of course not possible.

Who are these different elements, and why did they support him? On the left, even the far left, they voted for Obama because of deep anger about the damage the Bush regime inflicted on the United States and the world, and the genuine fear that McCain would have been no better, perhaps worse. On the center-right, independents and many Republicans voted for him most of all because they had become aghast at the ever-increasing dominance of the Christian right in Republican party politics, a sentiment that was underlined by the choice of Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential candidate. These people voted for Obama because they were afraid of McCain/Palin and because Obama convinced them that he was a solid and sensible pragmatist.

And in-between these two groups were the so-called Reagan Democrats, largely industrial workers, often Catholics, often racist, who had tended to desert their Democratic party roots in recent elections because they viewed the party as having moved too far left and disapproved of its positions on social questions. These voters moved back to the Democratic party not because their outlook had changed, but because of fear. They were deeply afraid of the economic depression into which the United States has moved, and thought that their only hope was in a new New Deal. They voted for the Democrats despite the fact that Obama was an African-American. Fear conquered racism.

And what will Obama do now? What can Obama do now? It is still too early to be sure. It seems clear that he will move quickly to take advantage of a crisis situation, as his new Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, put it. I suspect we shall see a dramatic set of initiatives in the traditional first 100 days. And some of what Obama does may be surprising.

Still, there are two situations, the two biggest, that are largely beyond his control – the transformed geopolitics of the world-system, and the catastrophic world economic situation. Yes, the world received Obama’s victory with joy, but also with prudence. It is notable that two major centers of power issued statements on the geopolitical scene that were quite forthright. Both the European Union in a unanimous statement and President Lula of Brazil said they looked forward to renewing collaboration with the United States, but this time as equals, not as junior partners.

Obama will pull out of Iraq more or less as promised, if for no other reason than the fact that the Iraqi government will insist upon it. He will try to find a graceful exit from Afghanistan, which will not be too easy. But whether he will do something significant in relation to the Israel/Palestine deadlock and whether he can look forward to a more stable Pakistan is very unsure. And he will have less to say about it than he may think. Can Obama accept the fact that the United States is no longer the world’s leader, merely a partner with other power centers? And, even if he can, can he somehow get the American people to accept this new reality?

As for the depression, it will no doubt have to play out its course. Obama, like all the other major leaders in the world, is a captain on a very stormy sea, and can do relatively little more than try to keep his ship from sinking altogether.

Where Obama has some leeway is in the internal U.S. situation. There are three things where he is expected to act and can act, if he is ready to be bold. One is job creation. This can only be done effectively in the short run through government action. And it would be best done by investing in reconstructing the degraded infrastructure of the United States, and in measures to reverse environmental decline.

The second is the establishment, at last, of a decent health care structure in the United States, in which everyone, without exception, will be covered, and in which there will be considerable emphasis on preventive medicine.

And the third area is in undoing all the damage that has been done to basic civil liberties in the United States by the Bush administration, but also by prior administrations. This requires an overhauling both of the Department of Justice and the legal and paralegal apparatus that has been constructed in the last eight, but also the last thirty, years.

If Obama acts decisively in these three arenas, then we might say that this was a truly historic election, one in which the change that occurred was more than symbolic. But if he fails here, the letdown will be momentous.

Many are trying to divert his attention into the arenas in which he cannot do much, and in which his best position would be that of a lower profile, the acceptance of new world reality. There is much about Obama’s future actions to fear, and much that offers hope.

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