Killing of AP Cameraman Brings Media Death Toll to 16312 Dec 2006The International Federation of Journalists today condemned the brutal murder of Iraqi cameraman Aswan Ahmed Lutfallah, who was shot by insurgents who saw him filming their firefight with police. Lutfallah, 35, worked for the Associated Press. According to the news agency, earlier today, insurgents saw Lutfallah filming, approached him and shot and killed him. He is at least the 163rd media worker killed since start of the war in Iraq three years ago.
Thousands of Iraq’s young women not going to school12 Dec 2006Aid agencies estimate that thousands of Iraqi parents do not send their daughters to school for cultural reasons and because of the general insecurity in the country. As a result of two decades of war and economic hardship, Iraqi schools have fallen into disrepair, enrolment has dropped, and literacy levels have stagnated, agencies say. UNESCO estimates literacy rates to be less than 60 percent, or 6 million illiterate Iraqi adults. People in rural areas and women are worst off.
Appalling conditions of women prisoners disputed12 Dec 2006According to the Iraqi Minister of Women’s Affairs and local NGOs, female prisoners in Iraq are held in appalling conditions, often without charge, and are sometimes raped and tortured. Sarah Abdel Yassin, spokeswoman for the Baghdad-based Organisation for Women’s Freedom, said she agreed with the minister and had met many women who had been tortured in Iraqi jails. However, other government ministries either deny the existence of women in Iraq’s jails altogether or say that there are very few and that they are held in humane conditions in special prisons.
Abduction of Women on the Rise in Iraq12 Dec 2006Thousands of Iraqi women have been executed, assaulted, or kidnapped and released only after their families paid considerable ransom money. The Organisation for Women’s Freedom in Iraq has estimated from anecdotal evidence that over 2,000 Iraqi women have gone missing in the period from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 until spring 2006. According to a study published by the Washington-based Brookings Institute Dec. 4, between 30 to 40 Iraqis were being kidnapped every day as of March this year.
Where Next after the Iraqi Genocide?12 Dec 2006We have become anaesthetised to the pain of the conflict in Iraq. The sheer scale of bloodshed has numbed our comprehension of what the violence means in human terms. What would have been termed “spectaculars” in the bad old days of the IRA are just day to day events in Iraq. Our perspective is becoming distorted through a kaleidoscope of laser-guided bombs and razor-sharp satellite images. The cemeteries are filling up and human lives are becoming numbers, or less.To armchair warriors in Washington ignoring Iraqi casualties is perhaps an extension of the de-humanising concept of collateral damage. To the Arab and Muslim world glued to their satellite TVs, the little limp bodies being rushed to hospitals in the Mickey Mouse T-shirts could be their children.
Iraqi refugees: critical needs remain unmet10 Dec 2006“Over 1.8 million Iraqi refugees are currently spread throughout the Middle East, with the largest concentrations in Syria and Jordan and sizable populations in Lebanon and Egypt,” says a report by Refugees International. “The governments of these host nations are reluctant to publicly acknowledge a growing refugee crisis and therefore provide Iraqis with no official status and few social services. The international community is similarly in denial over the existence of an Iraqi refugee crisis, and has provided few resources to address the needs of this expanding population.”
Cornered Military Takes to Desperate Tactics10 Dec 2006“People living in areas where resistance to U.S.-led occupation is mounting are facing increased levels of collective punishment from the occupation forces,” write Jamail and Fadhily, who report here on U.S. siege tactics in places like the town of Siniyah, where, as one doctor told them, thirteen children died during a recent two-week siege “due to U.S. troops’ disallowance for doctors to open their private clinics as well as closure of the general medical centre there.”
Iraq as a Living Hell10 Dec 2006“The situation in Iraq has reached such a point of degradation and danger that I’ve been unable to return to report from the front lines of daily life,” writes Dahr Jamail, who reported from Iraq from 2003-2005. “I continue to receive emails from others in Iraq, civilian and soldier alike. What I know from these emails is that the articles you read in your local newspaper are providing you, at best, but a glimpse of what daily life there is now like. I thought I might just give you a taste of the sort of private communications I read every day.”
Public Found Likely to Support Baker Report10 Dec 2006“With the administration of President George W. Bush under mounting pressure to alter U.S. strategy in Iraq and the Middle East,” writes Jim Lobe, “a new public opinion survey quietly released last week found strong popular support for pursuing new diplomatic avenues as proposed by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. The same survey found nearly 58 percent support for a full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq within two years.”
Kurds Reject U.S. Study Group’s Report10 Dec 2006“In a strongly worded statement, the president of Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region rejected in its entirety the report by the Iraq Study Group, and threatened that Kurds would opt for secession from Iraq should Washington try to implement some of the key recommendations of the report regarding Kirkuk, federalism and the constitution.” Mohammed A. Salih reports from Arbil.
Sunni Militants Issue Religious Edicts in Mosul10 Dec 2006Iraqi journalist Yasmin Ahmed reports from Mosul: “Terrified residents are forced to comply with puritanical Islamic laws as insurgents tighten their grip on the city. Scattered stones are the only remnants of a famous statue that stood in a Mosul square, in the northeastern part of the city. The sculpture in the al-Zihour area used to show a group of women carrying jars on their shoulders, before insurgents reduced it to dust last month. The campaign against the public display of what they see as non-Islamic art is part of a wider operation by Sunni insurgents to try to establish an Islamic state in Iraq.
In Iraq, respect for human rights still a dream10 Dec 2006On the United Nations calendar, Sunday was Human Rights Day. Meanwhile, a report from the United Nations Based in Jordan for security reasons, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq, based in neighboring Jordan for security reasons, says it is “struggling to keep abreast of human rights violations,” which, of course, are legion.
Web Winners | Iraq study group9 Dec 2006To complement the landing of the much-anticipated report of the Iraq Study Group, urging quick changes and an end to the U.S. combat role by early 2008 to stop a “slide towards chaos,” we searched for sites likely to increase our understanding of the issues—or, failing that, to make us smile in the face of disaster. Electronic Iraq. An article here had already declared the study group report “the policy equivalent of a still birth.” The site’s eIraq Blog seems to be getting to the heart of matters with posts such as “Americans Blame Iraqis, Iraqis blame Americans.”
Why I welcome the Iraq Study Group report7 Dec 2006The ISG report, released yesterday, did not urge two of the key steps that I consider essential if the US is to be able to undertake a troop withdrawal from Iraq that is orderly, speedy, total, and generous. It did not urge that President Bush publicly specify a deadlin or timetable for the completion of the US withdrawal. And it did not urge giving the key role in sponsoring the diplomacy required to allow this withdrawl to the UN…However, what it did recommend was a quantum-leap improvement over the policies still being publicly stated by the President and over what many of the congressional democrats have been advocating.
Iraq Study Group report “offers only slight correction”7 Dec 2006As the Iraq Study Group issues its report, Democracy Now! speak with Anthony Arnove, author of “Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal.” He is also editor of “Iraq Under Siege” and co-editor, with Howard Zinn, of “Voices of a People’s History of the United States.”
Court says Spain can investigate Spanish cameraman’s death in Baghdad7 Dec 2006Spain’s supreme court yesterday ordered the reopening of the Spanish judicial investigation into the death of Spanish cameraman Jose Couso, who was killed when a US tank shelled the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on 8 April 2003. As a result of the ruling, Spain could now request the extradition of the three US soldiers responsible for firing at the hotel.
Iraqi fighters welcome report that advises withdrawal of US troops7 Dec 2006Insurgents and militias in Iraq on Thursday welcomed the recommendations made in a report by the Iraq Study Group that indicated that US policy in Iraq was not working and that its troops should be pulled out earlier than current projections suggest. “The withdrawal of US troops from Iraq has been one of our foremost demands since 2004. The presence of foreign troops in our country is the reason why we continue to fight, resulting in the killing of thousands of Iraqis,” said Abu Baker, a member of Sunni insurgent group Jeyshi Muhammad (Muhammad’s Army) who declined to give his full name.
Iraq Study Group Report Faces Uncertain Future7 Dec 2006One day after its official release, the package of 79 recommendations on U.S. Iraq and Middle East policy released Wednesday by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) faced a very uncertain future. Denounced by hawks and doves alike in both major parties, the ISG’s 142-page report, “The Way Forward”, received what at best could be called an ambiguous response at the White House and on Capitol Hill. The only person who appeared to give the report his nearly unqualified support was visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Baker Group Urges Major Policy Overhaul7 Dec 2006Calling the situation in Iraq “grave and deteriorating,” the bipartisan Iraq Study Group Wednesday urged a major overhaul of U.S. policies both in Iraq and the larger Middle East. As anticipated, the 10-member group, which was co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, called for a phase-out of the U.S. combat role in Iraq between now and the first quarter of 2008 and an intensification of efforts to train and deploy Iraqi forces.
The Myth of More: The Two Crucial Fallacies of Bush Administration Policy in Iraq6 Dec 2006“The midterm elections in the U.S. launched a new era in Iraq policy,” writes Michael Schwartz. “The news is filled with a sense of impending change. But beneath this ferment lies an unfortunate continuity with pre-election reality: the Myth of More. Almost without exception, whatever proposals are being raised about changing Iraq policy avoid mentioning, or explicitly reject, the idea that the United States should abandon its three-year old attempt to occupy Iraq and actually withdraw its troops. Instead, each new suggestion or set of recommendations calls for the United States to do not less, but a whole lot more of something that is already a part of existing policy.”
Iraq Study Group Report6 Dec 2006The Iraq Study Group handed its report on Iraq to the president on December 6, 2006. This is the executive summary of the report with a link to the a PDF file of the full report.
Widows Become the Silent Tragedy6 Dec 2006Hundreds of thousands of widows are becoming the silent tragedy of a country sliding deeper into chaos by the day. Widows are the flip side of violence that has meant more than a million men dead, detained or disabled, Iraqi NGOs estimate. These men’s wives or mothers now carry the burden of running the families.”The total figure of men who have been killed, disabled or detained for long periods of time adds up to more than one and a half million,” Khalid Hameed, chief of the Iraqi al-Raya human rights organisation told IPS. “The average number of Iraqi family members is seven, so about ten million Iraqis are facing the worst living circumstances.”
“I depend on the marshes to survive”5 Dec 2006Marsh Arabs who have returned to the largely destroyed marshlands struggle to make a living. When former president Saddam Hussein blocked the flow of the Tigris River in the south of Iraq in revenge for an uprising in 1991 by Iraq’s southern Shias, the marshlands, and the livelihood they provided to thousands of families, quickly dried up. “We urge the world to help revive these lands again, not only for their history but also because thousands of families like mine need to eat and drink from the income that these marshes bring to our homes,” said Farmer Haytham Hussein.
Electronic Iraq