Visit Image Gallery

NATIONAL GRASSROOTS PEACE NETWORK

Map of Network Members

Home |  Archive Index  |  2004  | 2003  | The Invasion | Early 2003 | 2002 Archive | 2001 Archive

NEWS ARCHIVE: 

 

Day-by-day stories about the Occupation (April to June)

  

 

2004:   January  February  March  April  May

 

2003:   May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December

 

MAY 2004

 

Day 392: May 26, 2004

 

Speculation rife over government of Iraq
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/75BAB30D-2A9D-4546-A799-921F3C4DE7D4.htm 

Adnan Pachachi tipped to be US choice for president

A senior US official in Baghdad's occupation authority has denied speculation that Husain Shahristani was going to be Iraq's next prime minister. Despite claiming on Wednesday that there had been no final decision as to who Washington was going to appoint, the former nuclear scientist was ruled out. "Anybody suggesting that Shahristani is the prime minister is wrong," the unnamed official told Reuters. A Shia Muslim who spent time in Abu Ghraib prison before exile, Shahristani said he did not want the PM job but was ready to shoulder the responsibility of steering Iraq to elections.  read more

 

Terrible tally: 800 U.S. deaths in Iraq war
Keneth R. Bazinet, New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/197068p-170232c.html 

WASHINGTON - America is about to pass - or may already have passed - another sad milestone in Iraq: 800 dead soldiers.  The Pentagon's official death toll, usually a few days behind the actual number, stood at 797 yesterday. But a reliable count maintained at the lunaville.org Web site, which monitors news reports and compares them with the Pentagon's running tally, put the real number at 803.  Showing just how disproportionate the U.S. sacrifice is in Iraq, the total number of deaths for the other countries in the Iraq coalition is 110.  read more
 

Day 391: May 25, 2004

 

A Call to Conscience
The Diplomat who quit over Nixon's Invasion of Cambodia asks Americans on the front lines of Foreign Service to resign from the "Worst Regime by far in the History of the Republic."
by Roger Morris, published on CommonDreams.org

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0525-14.htm

Dear Trustees:  I am respectfully addressing you by your proper if little-used title. The women and men of our diplomatic corps and intelligence community are genuine trustees. With intellect and sensibility, character and courage, you represent America to the world. Equally important, you show the world to America. You hold in trust our role and reputation among nations, and ultimately our fate. Yours is the gravest, noblest responsibility. Never has the conscience you personify been more important.  A friend asked Secretary of State Dean Acheson how he felt when as a young official in the Treasury Department in the 1930s, he resigned rather than continue to work for a controversial fiscal policy he thought disastrous -- an act that seemed at the time to end the public service he cherished. "Oh, I had no choice," he answered. "It was a matter of national interest as well as personal honor. I might have gotten away with shirking one, but never both." As the tragedy of American foreign policy unfolded so graphically over the past months, I thought often of Acheson's words and of your challenge as public servants. read more
 

Bush's Desperate Gambit: Lofty Words, Continuing War and Occupation
Mark Solomon, Portside.org

http://www.portside.org/showpost.php?postid=186 
Plummeting polls reveal that nearly two-thirds of the public now believe that the US is in an Iraq quagmire. Bush's job rating has dropped to new lows; a tenacious Iraqi resistance is growing; the Abu Ghraib prison scandal has obliterated Bush's last ditch rationale (bringing human rights to Iraq) for going to war; a movement to bring regime change at home in November is gaining momentum.  In the face of all that, Bush and his advisors have "rediscovered" the UN and have launched a public relations campaign to stem the rapidly growing public disquiet over an increasingly bloody and expensive war.  read more
 

Day 390: May 24, 2004

 

Text of U.N. draft resolution on Iraq
Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=UN%20Iraq%20Text
The United States and Britain circulated the following draft U.N. resolution on Iraq to Security Council members Monday. The date in section 5(a)(i) is incomplete, as in the distributed text.
The Security Council,
Recalling its previous relevant resolutions on Iraq, in particular resolutions 1483 (2003) and 1511 (2003),
Reaffirming the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq,
Recognizing the importance of international support, particularly that of countries in the region, Iraq's neighbors and regional organizations, for the people of Iraq in their efforts to achieve security and prosperity.  read more
 

Day 389: May 23, 2004

 

Marines in Iraq in danger even during lull
Katarina Kratovac, Associated Press  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Life%20and%20Death 
radio: a Marine combat engineer had been defusing a bomb, planted under a bridge, when the undertow in the murky Euphrates snatched him and swept him away. "One of ours," sighed Cpl. Joseph Willis, the Humvee's driver. The engineer's buddies were not able to save him. Marines recovered the body hours later. That night, silence settled over Camp Mercury, a remote base that is home to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, outside the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad.  read more

 

Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up'

Steve Croft, 60 Minutes / CBS News

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml

Retired General Anthony Zinni is one of the most respected and outspoken military leaders of the past two decades. Hebroke ranks with the administration over the war in Iraq, and now, in his harshest criticism yet, he says senior officials at the Pentagon are guilty of dereliction of duty -- and that the time has come for heads to roll.  'There has been poor strategic thinking in this,' says Zinni. 'There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to ‘stay the course,' the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure.' Zinni spent more than 40 years serving his country as a warrior and diplomat, rising from a young lieutenant in Vietnam to four-star general with a reputation for candor. read more

 

Day 388: May 22, 2004

 

Killing of reporter in Karbala raises 2004 journalist death toll to 15
Pranjal Tiwari, The New Standard
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=391 
During fighting in Karbala on Friday, Ajazeera assistant cameraman Rashid Hamid Wali became the fifteenth journalist to be killed in Iraq in 2004. A statement from Aljazeera said that 44-year old Wali had been shot in the head during a battle between US occupation forces and Iraqi fighters. "We could not confirm the source of the fire," said Aljazeera journalist Abd al-Adhim Muhammed, "but it was directly pointed at us." Nine Iraqis were also reportedly killed during the firefight. US-occupied Iraq was named the "world’s worst place to be a journalist" by the Committee to Protect Journalists on May 3. read more

Report: U.S. skipped autopsies in Iraq prison deaths
Chris Shumway, The New Standard
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=392

The US military failed to perform autopsies on at least five Iraqi prisoners who died at Abu Ghraib prison and another detention facility in Iraq, according to Pentagon records uncovered by the Denver Post. The lack of proper forensic investigations appears to violate United Nations and Geneva Convention standards for handling war-detainee deaths. Pentagon records indicate that military officials in Iraq simply attributed all five deaths to "undetermined" causes, without calling for thorough autopsies. The deaths are among at least 27 under review by the Pentagon.  read more

 

Day 387: May 21, 2004

 

Spain pulls out last Iraq troops
CNN

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/21/iraq.spain/ 

Soldiers hold Spanish flag after returning from Iraq last month.

The Spanish Defense Ministry says it has completed its troop withdrawal from Iraq, fulfilling a campaign pledge made by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez.  At the time of the initial withdrawal announcement, there were 1,430 Spanish troops in Iraq, but nearly half of them had already left by Friday.  The pullout came the day after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi vowed to keep his country's troops in Iraq until democracy has taken hold, and denounced opposition calls for an immediate withdrawal.  read more
 

Day 386: May 20, 2004

 

Telltale Signs of Torture Lead Family to Demand Answers
Wife, Daughters Tell of Iraqi Man Discharged from U.S. Custody in Coma
Dahr Jamail and Brian Dominick, the New Standard, May 20, 2004

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=275 

Sadiq Zoman returned from detention at a US prison in a comatose

Not all evidence of military personnel mistreating Iraqis held in US custody come from leaks within the American- and British-run detention facilities. In many cases, such as that of Sadiq Zoman, 57, who last year entered US custody healthy but left in a vegetative state, the story originates with family members desperate to share their loved one’s story with anyone willing to listen. American soldiers detained Zoman at his residence in Kirkuk on July 21, 2003 when they raided the Zoman family home in search of weapons and, apparently, to arrest Zoman himself More than a month later, on August 23, US soldiers dropped Zoman off, already comatose, at a hospital in Tikrit. Although he was unable to recount his story, his body bore telltale signs of torture: what appear to be point burns on his skin, bludgeon marks on the back of his head, a badly broken thumb, electrical burns on the soles of his feet. Additionally, family members say they found whip marks across his back and more electrical burns on his genitalia.  read more

 

40 Iraqis killed as 'US bombs wedding'
The US has denied any knowledge of the attack

Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/703336CC-8570-4740-8A08-560339A14320.htm

US occupation forces have reportedly killed at least 40 Iraqi civilians in an air raid that targeted the village of Makr al-Dib on the Syrian border. Witnesses said warplanes had blasted dozens of people who were celebrating a wedding on Wednesday. Dozens of shrouded bodies were seen lined up on a dirt road.  But US occupation forces denied they had hit civilians. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the US military in Iraq, told Reuters the attack early on Wednesday targeted "a suspected foreign fighter safe house", 25km (16 miles) east of the Syrian border.  "US planes dropped more than 100 bombs on us," said an unidentified man claiming to be from the village.  "They hit two homes where the wedding was being held and then they levelled the whole village. No bullets were fired by us, nothing was happening," he added.  read more
 

Day 385: May 19, 2004

Fresh fighting in Karbala, more casualties
Fighting is still intense in Karbala and nearby cities
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/29EE2D53-5E2C-4911-8780-8D2204F4035A.htm 

Fighting is still intense in Karbala and nearby cities

US occupation troops and followers of Iraqi Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr have continued fighting in Karbala, raising the toll to six. Two civilians were killed on Wednesday afternoon in Karbala, reported Aljazeera's correspondent. US helicopters were seen circling Karbala. Earlier, the two sides clashed near one of Shia Muslims' holiest sites, leaving four Iraqis dead and nine wounded according to hospital sources. It was unclear whether those killed were civilians or fighters. The fighting came as US tanks advanced near the shrine of al-Husayn, where occupation troops are facing fierce battles with al-Sadr's al-Mahdi army.  Witnesses said US planes launched air strikes at the fringes of the city as tanks drew within 50 metres of the shrine. read more

Sivits sentenced for role in Iraq abuse
Anthony Deutsch, Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Prison%20Abuse 

Sivits pleaded guilty Wednesday to three counts of abuse --U.S. Military court artist

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Spc. Jeremy C. Sivits received the maxium penalty Wednesday - one year in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge - in the first court-martial stemming from mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison. Sivits, who pleaded guilty to four abuse charges, broke down in tears as he apologized for taking pictures of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated. "I'd like to apologize to the Iraqi people and those detainees," he said in his statement. "I should have protected those detainees, not taken the photos." During the hearing, Sivits, 24, told the court he saw one U.S. soldier punch one Iraqi in the head and other guards stomp on the hands and feet of detainees. He also recounted that prisoners were stripped and forced to form a human pyramid. read more

 

Day 384: May 18, 2004

 

US forces close in on Najaf centre
US forces on verge of crossing 'red line' around Shia holy cities
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/814433AA-52D7-49FD-85BD-20BB07CBA354.htm 

Loud explosions followed by gunfire continue to shake the Iraqi city of Najaf, hours after a US military spokesman confirmed the deaths of at least 50 Shia militiamen.  Fighting in the holy city was concentrated around the 1920 Revolution Square in the early hours of Tuesday, less than two kilometres from the town centre. Occupation forces continue to engage Mahdi Army militiamen loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr who vehemently rejects US authority. Both sides denied responsibility for raking Ayat Allah Ali al-Sistani's residence with bullets.  The golden dome of Imam Ali's mosque, the most revered and historic Shia sanctuary, has also had four holes blown through it. read more

 

Day 383: May 17, 2004

 

Iraqi Governing Council President Killed in Attack
At Least 7 Iraqis Killed, 5 Wounded in Suicide Bomb Attack
Scott Wilson and Sewell Chan, Washington Post Foreign Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32354-2004May17.html 

Site where a car bomb exploded on Monday killing Izzedine Salim, the head of the Iraqi Governing Council. - AP Photo

The president of the Iraqi Governing Council was killed early Monday in a huge explosion set off by a suicide bomber outside the headquarters of the U.S.-led occupation authority here. At least seven Iraqis were killed and five were wounded, and two U.S. soldiers were slightly injured, in a devastating attack on Iraq's political leadership six weeks before the scheduled handover of limited political power to a new Iraqi government.  The explosion killed Izzedine Salim, who had held the rotating presidency of the Governing Council since May 1 and was a leader of the Islamic Dawa Party, one of the most influential Shiite Muslim political factions in Iraq.  Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said the blast occurred at 9:55 a.m. near a U.S. checkpoint when a vehicle packed with explosives drove alongside Salim's convoy. He said there were no other members of the Iraqi Governing Council in the convoy.  read more

 

The Endgame For Tony Blair?

Business Week Online

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=66&ncid=1295&e=2&u=/bw/20040517/bs_bw/b3884099mz015 
Former Labour Party boss Neil Kinnock and Former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer Denis Healey recently suggested that beleaguered British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) consider stepping aside. Their comments were seen as a sign of a possible deal clearing the way for the current Chancellor Gordon Brown to succeed Blair as Labour's leader. Meanwhile, a group of Labour backbenchers -- who voted earlier this year against government plans to increase university fees -- are calling their once-popular leader an electoral liability. Some even want Brown, not Blair, to lead them into the next general election. Is the endgame approaching for Blair? It's too early to say. But the Prime Minister, who backed President George W. Bush (news - web sites) fully on the Iraq (news - web sites) war, is feeling incessant heat over his decision -- and watching his position slide in the polls. A May 11 survey by London research consultancy Populus Ltd. for The Times of London showed support for Labour trailing the Conservatives by four percentage points, a 17-year low. Labour is bracing itself for a thrashing in local and European Parliament elections set for June 10. That vote is seen as a dry run for the next general election, expected next spring. "Blair is in a lot of trouble," says Wyn Grant, politics professor at the University of Warwick. Indeed, he adds, Labour's campaign for the June vote, in which 6,000 local and 78 European parliamentary seats are up for grabs, shows the party "is running scared."   read more

 

Day 382: May 16, 2004

 

Coalition evacuates HQ in Nasiriyah

Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Italians 

Armed militiamen patrol the center of the holy city of Najaf, Iraq, Saturday

Most of the civilian staff of the U.S.-led coalition was evacuated from their headquarters in the southern city of Nasiriyah because of growing threats from Muqtada al-Sadr's militiamen, a coalition official said Sunday  The official, Andrea Angeli, said only two civilians remain in the coalition headquarters, which was attacked Friday by al-Sadr militiamen. Coalition forces regained control of the building before dawn Saturday.  The rest of the 10-member staff was evacuated Saturday afternoon to the coalition military base six miles out of town, Angeli said.  He said there was more gunfire near the building Sunday and that mortars and rocket-propelled grenades were fired by militiamen in the area the night before.  read more

 

'Rumsfeld Approved Operation That Led to Iraqi Prisoner Abuse'
Scotsman.com

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2932745 

According to veteran journalist Hersch, Rumsfeld approved the torture

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorised the expansion of a secret programme that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq, a US magazine claims.  The Pentagon strongly denied the claims in the New Yorker magazine, which cited unnamed current and former intelligence officials.  Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita issued a statement calling the claims “outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture”.  The story, by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, said Mr Rumsfeld decided to expand the programme last year, broadening a Pentagon operation from the hunt for al Qaida in Afghanistan to interrogation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.  Seven soldiers are facing military charges related to the abuse and humiliation of prisoners captured by the now-infamous photographs at the prison. Some of the soldiers and their lawyers have said military intelligence officials told military police assigned as guards to abuse the prisoners to make interrogations easier.  read more

 

US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp
Senator urges action as Briton reveals Guantanamo abuse
David Rose and Gaby Hinsliff, The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1217973,00.html 

Guantanamo: Is torture routinely used here as well?

Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.  The disclosures, made in an interview with Tarek Dergoul, the fifth British prisoner freed last March, who has been too traumatised to speak until now, prompted demands last night by senior politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to make the videos available immediately.  They say that if the contents are as shocking as Dergoul claims, they will provide final proof that brutality against detainees has become an institutionalised feature of America's war on terror.  In the wake of the furore over the abuses photographed at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has continued to insist they were the work of a few rogue soldiers, and not a systemic problem.  read more
 

Day 381: May 15, 2004

 

Marines struggle for Fallujah foothold

Katarina Kratovac, Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Marines%20Fallujah 

A U.S. Army officer treats an injured Iraqi on the highway after a U.S Army tank hit their vehicle by accident. (AP Photo)

CAMP MERCURY, Iraq -- The gaunt, dark-haired young man showed up at the U.S. Marine base in the desert east of Fallujah this week. He handed over a worn piece of paper with an English inscription saying he might have valuable information.  After a glass of water, an interpreter was brought in. The youth said he knew "bad guys" and where "many weapons" were hidden.  His motivation? "I am tired of everything," he replied. Soon, it became apparent he hoped to be paid for his information, in dollars.  "Come, show us where these weapons are," said Maj. Larry Kaifesh, the civil affairs officer for the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment.  What followed was hours of driving across the desert east of Fallujah, a bastion of support for ousted leader Saddam Hussein and the scene of intense fighting recently between Marines and Iraqi insurgents. read more

 

Four Iraqis dead in Mosul mortar blast
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/08A8395A-51A7-4E35-958E-95DDF49E6065.htm 

Four Iraqis were killed and 17 others wounded in an attack on a recruiting centre for the new Iraqi army in the northern city of Mosul, police have said.  Men were queuing at the entrance to the base in an industrial area of eastern Mosul when a single mortar round landed among them at 0635 GMT.  Resistance fighters have frequently targeted Iraqis joining new, US-supervised security forces such as the police and the army. They accuse them of collaborating with occupation forces.  Saddam Hussein's 375,000-strong armed forces were disbanded after their defeat last year, but US commanders are overseeing recruitment to a new army. read more

 

Day 380: May 14, 2004

 

Developments in Iraq

Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Developments 

Shiite Mehdi Army militiamen show destroyed U.S. Army equipment in the holy city of Najaf, Iraq, Friday,  (AP Photo)

Major developments about Iraq on Friday:

- Nearly 300 Iraqi detainees were released from the Abu Ghraib prison, one day after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's surprise visit to investigate abuses there.

- American tanks and helicopters moved into the center of the holy city of Najaf and shelled positions held by fighters loyal to extremist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Residents in Karbala also reported that U.S. soldiers clashed with members of al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army.

- The golden dome of the sacred Shiite Shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf was apparently hit with machine-gun fire, which left four holes. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said U.S. forces did not attack the shrine. Arab television stations reported that an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani urged U.S. forces and al-Sadr fighters to leave Najaf.  read more

 

Deadline looms for new Iraqi government
Jim Krane, Associated Press
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Emerging%20Government 

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Just six weeks from the Bush administration's deadline to hand power to a nominally sovereign Iraqi government, the shape of that government is far from clear, with bitter infighting over its membership and powers. Members of the U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council are clamoring to stay in power after their mandate expires. Other leaders are calling for a functioning parliament. Some want to quash influence of former members of Saddam Hussein's regime. Still others are calling for open discussions in a nationwide congress. Problem is, there are just two weeks left to name a government and its leaders, said Younadem Kana, an Assyrian Christian member of the Governing Council member. "We have to be ready by June 1, so that on July 1 everybody can take his job," Kana said on Friday.  As a United Nations team readies for Monday's start of negotiations with Iraq's Governing Council, there appears to be agreement on little more than the structure of the government's executive branch: A prime minister will be the chief executive, assisted by a president and two vice presidents.  read more
 

Day 379: May 13, 2004

 

Beheading, abuse upset Marine ranks
Katarina Kratovac, Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Marines%20React

CAMP MERCURY, Iraq -- U.S. Marines who battled insurgents in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah last month say they are appalled by images of Iraqi prisoner abuse by U.S. soldiers, as well as the videotaped beheading of American captive Nicholas Berg. The troops sometimes chat at breakfast about the images capturing the brutality of Iraq's conflict, when the power is on and the staff sergeant in charge of the chow hall turns the television to the news, or when they return at night to base camp, gritty and dusty from daylong patrolling of the desert east of Fallujah. "Hey, you heard of that American whose head was cut off?" one Marine shouts to a buddy. "Man, those pictures, with the prisoners, that stinks," says another. Though far removed from the outcry over the pictures of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, many troops of the 1st Battalion 5th Marine Regiment feel the same revulsion that people in Baghdad and around the world have expressed. A month ago, these Marines were on the frontlines in the flashpoint Muslim Sunni stronghold, fighting insurgents in Fallujah's neighborhoods.  read more

 

Kucinich battles on
Jules Witcover, Baltimore Sun
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.witcover14may14,0,4488985.column?coll=bal-home-columnists 
WASHINGTON - Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts has the Democratic presidential nomination sewed up, but that isn't stopping Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio from making an all-out effort to win Tuesday's Oregon primary.  The obvious question: Why? "The decision on the nomination may be decided," the intense self-defined peace candidate says, "but the direction of the Democratic Party is not decided. It's absolutely critical that there be a debate going on inside the Democratic Party on who we are as a party," especially regarding the war in Iraq.  It's hard, though, to get a debate going when you only have about 35 convention delegates and the other candidate is already over the top. But Mr. Kucinich insists that the only way to defeat President Bush is to challenge him head-on and without qualification on the war, so he continues to make the argument with the bark off.  read more
 

Day 378: May 12, 2004

 

Video shows beheading of American hostage
CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/12/iraq.berg/index.html

Nicholas Berg sits in front of his masked captors in this image from the video. Moments later Berg is beheaded

An al Qaeda-linked Web site posted video Tuesday of an American man in Iraq speaking briefly before being beheaded by his masked captors.  His captors said the United States refused to exchange him for prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison. A senior U.S. official told CNN he does not believe that to be true.  The captors also issued a direct statement to President Bush: "The worst is coming and, God willing, the tough days are still to come. You and your soldiers will regret the day that you touched the ground of Iraq."  In the video, a man identifies himself as Nicholas Berg, 26, of Pennsylvania and is shown sitting in an orange jumpsuit in front of five armed, hooded men.  read more
 

 

Bush and Blair have lost last chance to save face

Bahrain Tribute

http://www.bahraintribune.com/ArticleDetail.asp?CategoryId=4&ArticleId=31419 

The brazenness with which George Bush has shown his unwavering support to his defence secretary has again shocked (not surprised) the world. People were expecting some heads would roll at the Pentagon and White House after the revelation of horrific torture in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. But to the utter chagrin of peace lovers, Bush stood like a rock behind the man who has fallen from (dis)grace.  Donald Rumsfeld’s failure to report to Bush the savage treatment meted out to Iraqi prisoners was not deemed an offence serious enough to fire him or at least reprimand him. After all, the victims were mere Iraqis – their blood or dignity are not worth an iota of respect. The Arab and Muslim world was again let down when Bush strongly endorsed his war manager and publicly praised him for “doing a superb job.”  Hapless Iraqis who have been continuously suffering after being “liberated” saw no change in the business in Abu Ghraib. Torture was routine during the Saddam rule. The Americans and British only did their bit and added vulgarity to it. The picture of a naked Iraqi man, his hands clasped behind his neck, crying in horror, surrounded by German shepherds and their handlers, sent shock waves around the world. According to BBC, other pictures show him with bloody wounds on both legs. Hitler must have turned in his grave when the two hunting dogs were let loose on the stripped, battered and defenceless prisoner. read more
 

 

The source of debauchery: Who ordered 'shock and awe'?

International Herald Tribune

http://www.iht.com/articles/519400.html 

To what extent have the policies of the Bush administration - and the values and attitudes that have characterized the conduct of the so-called war against terror - contributed to a state of mind and morale in the American military that opened the way to the torture, abuse and, in some cases, apparent murder of prisoners in Iraq?   Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration displayed hostility toward international law and treaty obligations that it considered as limits on U.S. national sovereignty or as obstacles to American national interest.  In the Afghanistan war it summarily shipped prisoners outside of the country, notably to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, without serious examination of their cases, and in disregard of Geneva norms concerning prisoners taken in war. U.S. Army regulations on dealing with prisoners of war were bypassed, since these people were by presidential definition "enemy combatants," not prisoners of war. Ordinary American norms of justice, requiring timely presentation of charges, legal representation and impartial adjudication, were ignored then and continue to be ignored. While the administration's disregard for international, military and constitutional law was widely acknowledged at the time, there was little protest in the American press, and no effective challenge from Democratic Party leaders. There is a bipartisan responsibility for what has happened.  read more

 

Day 377: May 11, 2004

 

U.S. soldiers fight cleric's militia
Qassid Jabar, Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Sadr 

Supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr chant in the streets of Najaf, Iraq during an anti-US Coalition demonstration

U.S. soldiers backed by tanks and helicopters battled fighters loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr near a mosque in the holy city of Karbala early Wednesday, hours after Iraqi leaders agreed on a proposal to end al-Sadr's violent standoff with the U.S.-led coalition. American troops and al-Sadr's followers also fought overnight on the outskirts of two other southern cities, Najaf and Kufa. Residents heard large explosions. One Iraqi was killed and nine others, most of them civilians, were injured, said an official at al-Furat hospital in Najaf. Much of the fighting in Karbala took place near the Mukhaiyam mosque, which has served as a base for al-Sadr's Al-Mahdi Army militia and is less than a mile from one of the holiest Shiite sites in the world, the Imam Hussein shrine.  read more

 

Mahdi Army seizes US weapons
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B5765C57-F571-4FFF-98CE-C4C5D35D39DC.htm 
Members of al-Sadr's Mahdi Army in Najaf say they have seized ammunition and weapons,  including a missile launcher and machineguns, belonging to the US army. In a videotape obtained by Aljazeera and aired on Monday, masked men showed the cache of weapons seized. It is unclear how many weapons were in their possession.  The masked armed men also confirmed they clashed with an occupation patrol at a bridge in Kufa on Tuesday, injuring a number of US soldiers and damaging three military vehicles.  Occupation troops killed 13 members of al-Sadr’s army in skirmishes near the city of Kufa overnight, a senior US military official said on Tuesday.  He said 14 fighters were captured in the town, which is next door to Najaf, where al-Sadr is holed up with thousands of fighters. read more
 

Day 376: May 10, 2004

 

Day 375: May 9, 2004

 

Day 374: May 8, 2004

 

Day 373: May 7, 2004

 

Bush says sorry as abuse scandal grows
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D66730D4-F0C0-4F86-9E3D-53ED7932309A.htm 

Did Bush really not know?

President George Bush has apologised publicly for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops as critics target his defence secretary amid more damning revelations.  After meeting Jordan's King Abd Allah in Washington on Thursday, Bush told journalists: "I told him I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families".   "I told him I was equally sorry that people that seen those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America. I assured him that Americans like me didn't appreciate what we saw."  Bush's remarks echoed apologies offered in recent days only by his top aides, including his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.  Many Arabs have expressed anger and disappointment that Bush did not apologise for the prisoner abuse scandal during his intewrview on two Arabic-language television channels on Wednesday. That anger was fuelled again on Thursday with the publication of more photos.  read more
 

The US has created a new gulag

Sidney Blumenthal, Dawn.com
http://www.dawn.com/2004/05/07/int11.htm 
WASHINGTON: It was "unacceptable" and "un-American", but was it torture? "My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture," said Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence on Tuesday. "I don't know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not going to address the torture word."  He confessed he had still not read the March 9 report by Major- General Antonio Taguba on "abuse" at the Abu Ghraib prison. Some highlights: "... pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape ... sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick..."  The same day that Mr Rumsfeld added his contribution to the history of Orwellian statements by high officials, the Senate armed services committee was briefed behind closed doors for the first time not only about Abu Ghraib, but about military and CIA prisons in Afghanistan.  read more
 

Day 372: May 6, 2004

 

Suicide bomb kills six at US base
Reuters

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/06/1083635263125.html 

A soldier walks past a burning car following the suicide bombing at the entrance of the Green zone.

A suicide car bomb exploded today at a checkpoint to the zone that houses US administrative offices in central Baghdad, killing six Iraqi civilians and one US soldier and injuring 25 people, the US military said. The injured included two US soldiers and three Iraqi policemen, the military said. The bomb, hidden inside an orange-and-white Baghdad taxi, exploded outside a metre-high concrete blast wall. The wall shields cars driving up to a checkpoint just before a bridge spanning the Tigris River that leads into the so-called Green Zone, a sprawling area that houses the US-led coalition and is walled off from the rest of Baghdad. "At 7:26am, what appeared to be a suicide bomber in a car pulled up to the checkpoint, and then three cars back from the checkpoint, detonated his bomb," said Colonel John Murray of the US Army's Texas-based 1st Cavalry Division. About 10 Iraqi cars were lined up inside the blast barriers when the car bomb exploded. The blast incinerated three cars, reducing them to hulks of twisted, charred metal. Another five cars were badly damaged, some turned on their side from the force of the blast.  read more

 

Day 371: May 5, 2004

 

Iraqi families take UK to court
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/260EB365-3911-4256-BA88-B4A8F4C86947.htm 

The UK's Daily Mirror stands firm by its story despite criticism

A dozen Iraqi families have launched a legal bid in London for an independent inquiry and compensation over the deaths of relatives killed by British soldiers in Iraq.  The legal battle, launched at the High Court in London, comes amid a separate political furore over photographs published in a tabloid newspaper which allegedly show an Iraqi prisoner being abused by British troops.  The Ministry of Defence (MOD) refuses to accept responsibility for the deaths, but the families' lawyers are demanding a judicial review to examine whether the killings were a violation of the victims' right to life under the European law.  "We do not accept liability for the deaths they have brought to our attention, and have written to them informing them of our reasons," an MOD spokesman said. Lawyers argue that because the Iraq war had officially ended when the victims died, and because Britain was an occupying power, the European Convention on Human Rights should apply. read more

 

U.S. probes Iraqi prisoner deaths
Swissinfo.org

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=4914537 

Most of the 25 prisoner deaths occurred in Iraq

Alan Elsner, Reuters - Two Iraqi prisoners were murdered by Americans and 23 other deaths are being investigated in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States has revealed as the Bush administration tries to contain growing outrage over the abuse of Iraqi detainees.  "The actions of the soldiers in those photographs are totally unacceptable and un-American," Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said of humiliating images in the media of Iraqi prisoners. "Any who engaged in such action let down their comrades who serve honourably each day and they let down their country."  Army officials said the military had investigated the deaths of 25 prisoners held by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and determined that an Army soldier and a CIA contractor murdered two prisoners. Most of the deaths occurred in Iraq. An Army official said a soldier was convicted in the U.S. military justice system of homicide for shooting a prisoner to death in September 2003 at a detention centre in Iraq.  read more

 

Court battle over Iraqi deaths
Regiment in the dock as families challenge MoD
Richard Norton-Taylor and Steven Morris, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1209704,00.html 
The controversy over the behaviour of British forces in Iraq switches to the high court today as lawyers acting for the families of 14 Iraqis challenge the refusal by the Ministry of Defence to consider any legal responsibility for their deaths. The cases include the death of Baha Mousa, a hotel receptionist allegedly killed in Basra last September by soldiers from the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, which is at the centre of the storm over photographs published in the Daily Mirror purporting to show an Iraqi prisoner being tortured. Yesterday Mirror journalists were interviewed by military police about the photographs and the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, said the troops faced "serious" punishment if the pictures proved to be genuine. So far no British soldier has been disciplined as a result of any of the incidents involving deaths or injuries to Iraqis though some occurred almost a year ago.  read more
 

Day 370: May 4, 2004

 

Former U.S. diplomats slam Mideast policy

Alan Elsner, Swissinfo

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=4911760

Bush's Middle East policy draws fire

More than 50 former U.S. diplomats say President George W. Bush's Middle East policy is costing the United States credibility, prestige and friends, in an open letter to be made public on Tuesday.  The letter, which was obtained by Reuters, expresses the signatories' support for 52 retired British diplomats who also sent  a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair last week.  "We former diplomats applaud our 52 British colleagues who recently sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair criticising his Middle East policy and calling on Britain to exert more influence over the United States," the U.S. letter begins.  Harshly criticising Bush for his support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the letter said: "Your unabashed support of Sharon's extra-judicial assassinations, Israel's Berlin-Wall-like barrier, its harsh military measures in occupied territories and now your endorsement of Sharon's unilateral plans are costing our country its credibility, prestige and friends." read more

 

Twelve die in fresh Iraq violence
Gulf Daily News
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=80751&Sn=WORL

Twelve people were killed yesterday in separate clashes in Iraq. Five Iraqis, including a father and his two sons, were killed and 20 people wounded yesterday during attacks on a checkpoint and a nearby US base on the edge of Najaf, 130km south of Baghdad.  A father and his two sons were killed in the blistering firefight which ensued.  One Iraqi policeman and a civilian were also killed in the fighting and 20 others were injured, two of them seriously, said Doctor Sabah Jader Hussein and medic Jassem Kazem from Najaf's Hakeem General Hospital. A US Marine was killed in an attack in the volatile western Iraqi province of Al Anbar yesterday, the Marines said. Two Iraqis were killed when they came under fire from US troops as they planted a roadside bomb in the northern city of Mosul, the US military said yesterday. US forces in Baghdad launched an artillery barrage across the west of the city yesterday that killed four suspected guerillas, a military spokeswoman said. Troops from the Army's 1st Cavalry Division called for artillery support during an operation and the division's gunners opened fire, launching a series of rounds from 155mm self-propelled Paladin artillery pieces, said Lt Col James Hutton. The series of eight or more heavy blasts caused by the shelling could be heard in central Baghdad last night. In Najaf, followers of militant Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr launched mortar rounds and traded fire with US soldiers at a base and checkpoint in the industrial zone on the perimeter of Najaf. read more
 

Day 369: May 3, 2004

 

Militiamen attack U.S. troops in Najaf
Denis D. Gray, Associated Press
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq 

Hundreds  of Iraqis demanded to see their relatives after the release of torture pictures  (AP Photo)

NAJAF, Iraq -- Militiamen pounded a U.S. base with mortars Monday in the most intense attacks yet on U.S. troops in Najaf, where the Americans have been holding back their full firepower to avoid enflaming the anger of Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority. Another American soldier was killed in Baghdad.  American troops returned fire, and their commander estimated that 20 Iraqi fighters were killed, based on bodies and "watching young men fall after being hit."  The fighting came as Thomas Hamill, a truck driver from Mississippi who escaped from his Iraqi kidnappers after three weeks in captivity, flew to Germany on Monday for a reunion with his wife.  read more
 

 

US officer says prison guards tried to cover up abuse of Iraqi prisoners
Julian Borger, The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1208295,00.html 

Detail of May 1 Daily Mirror Cover showing alleged torture of an Iraqi by British troops

US prison guards and interrogators attempted to cover up the systematic abuse of Iraqi inmates from the international Red Cross according to a US general dismissed after evidence surfaced of torture at a jail near Baghdad.  The claims add weight to a growing body of evidence that the reports of torture at Abu Ghraib prison reflect a pattern of abuse which goes far beyond the six guards now facing possible court martial.  The former head of US military prisons in Iraq, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who was relieved of her command earlier this year, yesterday alleged that military intelligence officers discouraged her from entering the cell block at Abu Ghraib where they interrogated prisoners. They also went "to great lengths to try to exclude" the International Red Cross from their prison wing.  A US military investigation, carried out by Major General Antonio Taguba, uncovered evidence of war crimes against the inmates, including: breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; sodomising a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.  read more
 

Kuwaiti casualties in Fallujah probed
Gulf News
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/Region2.asp?ArticleID=119936  
Kuwait City: Khalid Mohammed Al Ajmi from the Kuwaiti Navy was killed in Fallujah during the operations conducted by the US forces a few days ago, local English daily Arab Times reported, citing an Internet site.  Sources at the Internet portal Al Ansar said Khalid - who was also known as Abu Al Zubair - had joined the Iraqi resistance and fought against the US forces and Dutch forces in southern Baghdad. A "reliable source" said Khalid, a resident of Fahaheel, became deeply religious during the war to liberate Iraq. Later, he went to Afghanistan and then to Syria before infiltrating into Iraq to fight against the coalition forces.  read more
 

Day 368: May 2, 2004

US suffers multiple attacks in Iraq
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/711A14C4-07F6-4C60-80FC-79B1F06CCE24.htm 

Eleven members of US military have died in last 24 hours

A mortar attack has killed six US soldiers in western Iraq, with five more dying in other parts of the occupied country.  Marine Major TV Johnson told reporters on Sunday that the attack targeted a military base around 100km from Falluja, but would give no further details. Another US soldier was killed in a small scale attack on an occupation forces' military base near the northern city of Kirkuk.  "One US soldier was killed and 10 were wounded during an improvised explosive device and small-arms attack on a coalition base near Kirkuk around 09:00 (05:00 GMT) 2 May," the military said in a statement.  Another two American soldiers were killed in an attack in northwest Baghdad at 04:45, while a third and two members of the paramilitary Iraqi Civil Defence Corps were also wounded.  read more
 

U.S. military deaths in Iraq
Associated Press
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20US%20Deaths 

As of Friday, April 30, 732 U.S. service members have died since the beginning of military operations in Iraq last year, according to the Department of Defense. Of those, 530 died as a result of hostile action and 202 died of non-hostile causes. The military did not provide an update over the weekend.  The British military has reported 58 deaths; Italy, 17; Spain, eight; Bulgaria, six; Ukraine, four; Thailand, two; Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia and Poland have reported one each.  Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 594 U.S. soldiers have died - 421 as a result of hostile action and 173 of non-hostile causes, according to the military's numbers.  read more
 

Day 367: May 1, 2004

 

Outrage at US abuse of Iraqi prisoners
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/98692C2F-8950-4298-A2D0-354B11BBC470.htm 

The disturbing pictures were aired on the CBS network

Pictures showing abuse of Iraqi prisoners have led to shock and condemnation of the US. The office of Prime Minister Tony Blair, the US strongest ally in its war in Iraq, condemned the abuses. His comments on Friday came after an American television network broadcast images of Iraqis stripped naked, hooded and being tormented by their captors. One photograph showed Iraqi prisoners naked except for hoods covering their heads and stacked in a human pyramid.  The CBS network, which broadcast the pictures in the US on Wednesday, said they were taken at Abu Ghuraib prison near Baghdad late last year.  "The US army spokesman has said this morning that he is appalled, that those responsible have let their fellow soldiers down, and those are views that we would associate the UK government with," Blair's official spokesman said.  read more

 

Mutiny is the only way out of Iraq's inferno
The UN betrayed Iraq by becoming the political arm of US occupation. Now it must redeem itself
Naomi Klein, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1207462,00.html 
Can we please stop calling it a quagmire? The United States isn't mired in a bog in Iraq, or a marsh; it is free-falling off a cliff. The only question now is: who will follow the Bush clan off this precipice, and who will refuse to jump?  More and more are, thankfully, choosing the second option. The last month of US aggression in Iraq has inspired what can only be described as a mutiny: waves of soldiers, workers and politicians under the command of the US occupation authority suddenly refusing to follow orders and abandoning their posts. First Spain announced that it would withdraw its troops, then Honduras, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Kazakhstan. South Korean and Bulgarian troops were pulled back to their bases, while New Zealand is withdrawing its engineers. El Salvador, Norway, the Netherlands and Thailand will likely be next.  And then there's the US-controlled Iraqi army. Since the latest wave of fighting, its soldiers have been donating their weapons to resistance fighters in the south and refusing to fight in Falluja. By late April, Major General Martin Dempsey, commander of the 1st Armoured Division, was reporting that "about 40% walked off the job because of intimidation. And about 10% actually worked against us". read more
 

April 2004

 

Day 366: April 30, 2004

 

Poll: Iraqis out of patience
71% of Iraqis view US-led Coalition as "Occupiers" not "Liberators"

Cesar G. Soriano and Steven Komarow, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-04-28-poll-cover_x.htm 

U.S. soldiers man a checkpoint Wednesday in the center of Baghdad. By Khalid Mohammed, AP

Only a third of the Iraqi people now believe that the American-led occupation of their country is doing more good than harm, and a solid majority support an immediate military pullout even though they fear that could put them in greater danger, according to a new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.  The nationwide survey, the most comprehensive look at Iraqi attitudes toward the occupation, was conducted in late March and early April. It reached nearly 3,500 Iraqis of every religious and ethnic group. The poll shows that most continue to say the hardships suffered to depose Saddam Hussein were worth it. Half say they and their families are better off than they were under Saddam. And a strong majority say they are more free to worship and to speak. But while they acknowledge benefits from dumping Saddam a year ago, Iraqis no longer see the presence of the American-led military as a plus. Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as "liberators" or "occupiers," 71% of all respondents say "occupiers."  read more

 

US military in torture scandal
Use of private contractors in Iraqi jail interrogations highlighted by inquiry into abuse of prisoners
Julian Borger, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1206725,00.html 
Graphic photographs showing the torture and sexual abuse of Iraqi prisoners in a US-run prison outside Baghdad emerged yesterday from a military inquiry which has left six soldiers facing a possible court martial and a general under investigation. The scandal has also brought to light the growing and largely unregulated role of private contractors in the interrogation of detainees.  According to lawyers for some of the soldiers, they claimed to be acting in part under the instruction of mercenary interrogators hired by the Pentagon. US military investigators discovered the photographs, which include images of a hooded prisoner with wires fixed to his body, and nude inmates piled in a human pyramid.   The pictures, which were obtained by an American TV network, also show a dog attacking a prisoner and other inmates being forced to simulate sex with each other. It is thought the abuses took place in November and December last year. The pictures from Abu Ghraib prison have shocked the US army.  Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy director of operations for the US military in Iraq, expressed his embarrassment and regret for what had happened.  read more
 

Day 365: April 29, 2004

 

US forces to pull out of Falluja
George Wright and agencies, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1206015,00.html

US marines in Falluja prepare to pull out of the city. Photo: Ramzi Haidar/AFP/Getty Images

US forces today announced an end to their siege of Falluja, saying they will pull out immediately to allow a newly-created, Iraqi security force to secure the city.  The new force, known as the Falluja Protective Army, will consist of up to 1,100 Iraqi soldiers led by a former general from the military of Saddam Hussein and will begin moving into the city tomorrow. Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne said the agreement was reached late last night between US officials and Falluja police and civilian representatives. "The plan is that the whole of Falluja will be under the control of the FPA," Lt Col Byrne told the Associated Press. Under the new agreement, marines will pull back from their positions in and around Falluja, while the FPA forms a new cordon around it and then moves into the city. According to one report, marines in the city's southern industrial area have already begun packing up gear and loading heavy trucks today after receiving orders to withdraw. Lt Col Byrne identified the commander of the FPA as General Salah, a former division commander under Saddam. The force will be made up of former Iraqi soldiers and police and be subordinate to the marine 1st Expeditionary Force. read more

 

Fleeing Fallujans killed as crisis deepens
Fallujans burn new Iraqi flag and curse US occupation
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/23DD393A-BEDC-42F0-ACB5-345FF690E4D8.htm

Fallujans burn new Iraqi flag and curse US occupation

US soldiers have fired on a minibus full of civilians near a checkpoint on the outskirts of the besieged Iraqi town of Falluja.  Witnesses said a hail of bullets from occupation forces on Thursday turned the vehicle into a ball of fire. Iraqi policeman Fuad al-Hamdani said four civilians were killed in the unprovoked attack.  People have been leaving Falluja following major US airstrikes on the town, 50km west of Baghdad. No one was able to explain why soldiers fired at the vehicle and the US military said it had yet to receive information on any incident in the area. Aljazeera's correspondent in Falluja, Abd al-Adhim Muhammad, said 24 Iraqis were wounded during the US bombardment on Wednesday night. read more

 

Day 364: April 28, 2004

 

U.S. warplanes pound targets in Fallujah
More than 60 insurgents killed near Najaf

CNN.com

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/04/27/iraq.main/index.html 

Heavy fire from a U.S. aerial gunship lights up the sky Tuesdy night in Fallujah.

Intense fire from U.S. warplanes lit the sky Tuesday night in Fallujah, a hotbed of Sunni Muslim resistance where U.S. Marines have engaged in a two-week standoff with insurgents. Two AC-130 gunships began pounding two suspected insurgent positions shortly before 10:30 p.m. (2:30 p.m. ET), lighting the night sky after a day of relative calm there, U.S. Marines and Pentagon officials said. Columns of smoke rose from the area being bombarded, and the shelling appeared to have set off at least two large secondary explosions. Marines said the AC-130s, modified transport planes, fired 105 mm cannon at the insurgents while circling the area. The focus appears to be two insurgent positions near Marine outposts in the city. Several mosques broadcast verses from the Quran during and after the bombardment. read more
 

Huge US attack to crush Iraq rebels
Luke Harding, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1204966,00.html 
Najaf - It was easy to spot the site that bore the brunt of American firepower. The scattered bricks, the gaping hole in the wall, the observation tower perforated by bullets - fired by the American tank that rolled insouciantly down the avenue of date palms and eucalyptus trees. And the fighters sweeping up the debris, untroubled by their battle with the world's most powerful army, were even claiming victory despite heavy losses. This was the scene yesterday at the checkpoint leading into Kufa, the town next to the Shia holy city of Najaf, after an intense battle on Monday night that signalled renewed US resolve to take on its foes in Iraq. Last night it was the turn of Falluja, centre of Sunni resistance to the coalition, as US aircraft and artillery pounded targets in the heaviest assaults in the city since a fragile truce took hold. Explosions and showers of sparks lit up the sky as US firepower homed in on what the military said was a hard core of resistance in the city's Golan district. read more

 

Day 363: April 27, 2004

 

US kills tens of Iraqis on Najaf's doorstep
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B8CBE446-8F52-4423-8581-BB79A33EC53C.htm 

Uncertain toll: Many bodies have been driven away and buried

US occupation forces have killed tens of Iraqis in overnight clashes near the city of Najaf.  Backed up with helicopter gunships, a spokesman in Baghdad claimed occupation forces had killed 43 Shia militiamen by Tuesday morning.  But hospital sources said of the 28 people seriously wounded in the clashes, only six of them appeared to be militiamen. Residents said US war planes fired at a Mahdi Army militia post 10km northeast of Najaf, after fighting between occupation forces and militiamen broke out in the area. Aljazeera's correspondent in Najaf, Uday al-Katib said he heard loud explosions when US troops advanced near the Bu Hidrawi around the road to Kufa.  Reporting from al-Furat al-Awsat hospital, al-Katib added a few of the casualties could be treated due to a severe shortage of medical staff and supplies. read more

 

The Battle for Fallujah Intesifies; U.S. Poised to Attack Najaf
Democracy Now!
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/27/1434254 

The daily carnage in Iraq continued across Iraq yesterday. Eight Iraqis and one U.S. soldier were killed in clashes in Fallujah, two U.S. soldiers and one Iraqi were killed in Baghdad and 43 Iraqis were killed in Najaf. We go to Najaf to get a report from a peace activist acting as a human shield and we speak with author Rahul Mahajan about Fallujah. The daily carnage in Iraq continued yesterday with renewed fighting in cities and towns across the country. Eight Iraqis and one U.S. soldier were killed in clashes in Fallujah. The marines called in air strikes, destroying a minaret that Iraqi guerillas had reportedly been firing from. U.S. forces say they are going to begin patrolling the hostile town with Iraqi forces but have delayed doing so until Thursday. Renewed fighting also erupted around Najaf and Kufa, with the US determined to move into some new positions in Najaf. Militiamen loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr attacked U.S. forces who were replacing Spanish troops at a fort on the outskirts of town. U.S. gunships responded, killing 43 Iraqis. Chief US administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, has ordered Sadr to withdraw his militia and its weapons from mosques and schools in Najaf. Sadr has threatened to unleash suicide bombers against American forces if they enter the holy city. In an interview with the Italian paper "La Repubblica" Monday, Sadr predicted that if the US arrests or kills him, the Iraqi people will unleash on them the fires of hell. Meanwhile, two U.S. troops were killed and five wounded in Baghdad when a house blew up as they were trying to inspect it for chemical weapons. After the blast, Baghdad residents celebrated on top of burnt Humvees. read more
 

Day 362: April 26, 2004

 

FIERCE FIGHTING ERUPTS IN FALLUJAH

Hours of fierce fighting in restive town in Fallujah leave at least eight insurgents dead, four US marines wounded

Middle East Online

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/iraq/?id=9789 

Uneasy ceasefire has been in place for a week

BAGHDAD - Eight insurgents were killed and at least four US marines were wounded during fierce fighting in the fraught Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah Monday where an uneasy ceasefire had been in place for a week, the US-led coalition said. A "significant" number of insurgents attacked marines at 11:30 am (0730 GMT), prompting hours of fighting in the northern district of the city, which has been a hotspot of resistance to the US-led occupation of the country.  "Initial reports were eight enemy killed and four marines wounded," Colonel John Coleman, chief of staff for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, told reporters.  Marines were fired upon from a mosque which was then targetted by US forces and the minaret destroyed, an embedded pool reporter with the marines told CNN. He said another six marines were injured by shrapnel but the reports could not be immediately confirmed.  read more

 

Baghdad blast kills two US soldiers
Controversial new Iraqi flag unfurled

Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F46C4050-2A98-4B24-A2FA-34DD31383826.htm 

The blast followed a raid in the Iraqi capital

Two US soldiers have been killed and five others wounded following a powerful blast during a raid on facilities thought to be producing "chemical munitions".  Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, the US-led occupation's deputy director for operations, said on Monday troops searched the facilities in Baghdad after receiving information suggesting they were involved in the production of chemical munitions.  But earlier reports suggested as many as 12 marines may have died.  An Iraqi policeman, who refused to give his name, said he saw "three US soldiers wounded or killed in each vehicle". One witness, Imad Hashim, said the bomb went off "when they [US marines] tried to force their way in, there was a huge ball of fire and I was thrown to the ground".  Hashim said he was about 100 metres away from the blast.  Four Humvees were seen burning as US forces closed off the area, residents said they also saw rocket propelled grenades being fired into the Humvees as they passed by.  read more
 

Day 361: April 25, 2004

 

More than 40 killed in Iraq
Michael Battye, Reuters
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=498861&section=news 

A roadside bomb killed 14 Iraqis travelling by bus to Baghdad on Saturday and 12 others were wounded, a doctor at a nearby hospital said.

Five U.S. soldiers are among more than 40 people killed in a spate of attacks in Iraq, the latest violence in the bloodiest month for U.S.-led forces since they toppled Saddam Hussein. In one of the worst incidents of Saturday, at least 13 Iraqis were killed and 30 were wounded when rockets or mortar bombs struck a busy market in the Shi'ite Muslim area of Sadr City in Baghdad, witnesses and hospital sources said.  "There was blood and bodies everywhere," said Bassam Abdul Rahim.  Angry residents of Sadr City -- a powerbase of rebel Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr who U.S.-led forces have vowed to kill or capture -- held up bloodied human remains to television cameras and said U.S. helicopters had fired at the market.  They put a sign on a dead donkey saying: "This is Bush."  read more

 

Suicide bombers target vital oil link
Peter Martell, The Scotsman
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=465552004 
SUICIDE bombers last night used boats in a new bid to bring further chaos to the British-controlled south of Iraq. Three attempts were made to destroy tankers near Basra’s offshore oil terminal by exploding boats packed with explosives. The terminal was last night closed as police and troops investigated the attacks but early reports suggested there were no casualties and little serious damage. The technique will, however, cause widespread concern to British troops as it represents a disturbing new tactic and follows last week’s devastating suicide attacks in the city, which claimed 74 lives. British military spokesman Major Ian Clooey said one boat had been tied up alongside a ship at the terminal when it exploded. A second boat was intercepted by a US-led coalition warship as it approached an exclusion zone around the terminal. A team was sent to investigate but the boat exploded before it could be examined. The other boat was detonated alongside two oil tankers near the Abbott oil facility south of Iraq’s main port, Umm Qasr. read more
 

Day 360: April 24, 2004

 

COFFIN PHOTOS CREATE CONTROVERSY
Pictures of flag-draped coffins could kill Bush's re-election hopes
Mark Lawson, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1202246,00.html 

The Pentagon is angry that flag-draped coffins of servicemen and women have appeared on a Web site  (ABC News)

American elections are frequently a duel between two photographs. The candidate tries to find the right picture, the snap which encapsulates his campaign: the young Bill Clinton shaking hands with JFK, or Ronald Reagan with his hand on his heart in front of a flag. His opponent hopes for the emergence of the wrong picture, the snap they didn't want on the poster: Gary Hart with a floozy on a yacht; Michael Dukakis looking like an Action Man model in a tank. George Bush has so far struggled to locate his chosen photo: the turkey he was pictured serving in Iraq proved embarrassingly to be fake, the "Mission Accomplished" banner under which he parked his plane on an aircraft carrier now looks ludicrously premature. President Bush's handlers might have consoled themselves that there was at least no risk of a bimbo picture coming out but, this week, there was much worse. America started to see the photographs Bush was dedicated to suppressing.  read more
 

Fallujah Residents Report U.S. Forces Engaged in Collective Punishment
Dahr Jamail, The New Standard

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=198 
Baghdad , Apr 23 - Three families of refugees from the besieged city of Fallujah who are seeking refuge in the Al-Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad, described the conditions in the embattled city of Fallujah as "a horrible disaster." A man called Khaled Abu Mujahed, speaking from Fallujah on behalf of the Islamic Party, stated that while some relief supplies are getting inside the city, a great number of families remain trapped in their homes, and the stench of dead bodies has become overpowering.  Refugees streamed out of Fallujah when fighting began after United States Marines placed the city under siege, cut off power supplies and began an invasion of the city. Resistance forces referred to by locals as mujahideen fought back, killing scores of US troops. Americans killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians, plus an unknown number of Iraqi fighters. read more

 

Day 359: April 23, 2004

 

Basra arrest bolsters revenge theory
Evidence suggests homegrown terrorists - not al-Qaida - carried out bombings in response to attack on Falluja
Luke Harding in Baghdad and Mohammad Haider in Basra, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1201259,00.html

68 dead, including many children in Basra, Iraqis suspected

An Iraqi suspected of involvement in Wednesday's devastating bomb attacks in Basra came from the Sunni city of Falluja, Iraqi officials said yesterday, suggesting that the blasts may not have been the work of al-Qaida but an act of revenge for the US's brutal offensive in the city. According to British officials, Basra's governor, Wael Abdullatif, told colleagues on Wednesday night that an Iraqi caught running away from the scene of one of the explosions had travelled to southern Iraq from Falluja. He was detained outside the police academy in Zubayr, 15 miles south of Basra, which was the scene of two of Wednesday's car bomb attacks. As the death toll from the explosions rose to 74 yesterday, with 160 injured, Mr Abdullatif said the Iraqi authorities were pursuing several leads and expected to make more arrests shortly.  read more
 

Bush administration is running scared, electorally, in Iraq
Jonathan Steele, The Guardian
http://www.dawn.com/2004/04/23/int3.htm 
LONDON: Wednesday's carnage in Basra is another twist in the downward spiral of violence endangering Iraq. It puts security back at the top of the agenda in the run-up to the long-heralded transfer of sovereignty at the end of June. What use are the trappings of power if there is no guarantee of safety on the streets? The Basra car-bombings were well coordinated and perhaps foreign-inspired. First reports suggested they followed the pattern of Al Qaeda-style suicide attacks in other parts of the world.  They will be widely condemned in Iraq since far fewer Iraqis support attacks on their police than they do on occupation troops. But let us not forget the other source of insecurity in Iraq.  read more
 

Iraqis blame Britain for Basra tragedy
AFP
http://www.dawn.com/2004/04/23/int2.htm 

BASRA, April 22: Iraqis vented their rage on Thursday at British occupation forces they blame for suicide bombings in Basra that killed 68 people the previous day. As residents of the southern port city mourned their dead, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) pointed the finger of blame at the Al Qaeda network for Wednesday's coordinated attacks, which cost the lives of 20 schoolchildren. "It looks like Al Qaeda," said a senior official. "It's got all the hallmarks: it was suicidal, it was spectacular and it was symbolic." The British premier told reporters in London that those responsible for the attacks were "evil, barbaric people who should not have a stranglehold over the future of Iraq". But in Basra, hundreds of supporters of Shia leader Moqtada Sadr took to the streets to blame the attacks on the British troops, who control southern Iraq. A spokesman for Moqtada Sadr, wanted by the US forces, said he had evidence British troops were involved in the coordinated attacks on police installations in Basra and nearby Zubair. "The Iraqi people say that Al Qaeda is not involved in the attacks which must be blamed on the criminal Tony Blair," one banner claimed. British military spokesman Captain Hisham Hallawi told CNN it was "completely untrue" that British troops had instigated the massacre in the city. --end story--

 

Day 358: April 22, 2004

 

Carnage comes to the British zone
17 Iraqi children among victims of Basra attacks
Luke Harding in Baghdad and Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1200386,00.html 

Children are among the victims in Basra Blast

British military commanders were last night conducting an urgent investigation to find the perpetrators of a series of devastating suicide car bombs in the southern Iraqi city of Basra and the nearby town of Zubayr, and assess the implications for a region which up to now has been relatively peaceful. At least 68 people were killed, including 17 children on their way to school. Almost 240 people were injured, including five soldiers from the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Tony Blair last night insisted that he had no plans to send more troops to Iraq despite the worst day for British forces in Iraq since last year's invasion. He said British troops were coping "extremely well". But the sense that the country was descending into chaos and violence was hard to avoid yesterday after suicide bombers blew up four police stations in a series of coordinated blasts.  read more
 

Iraq war running over budget
The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9353706%255E1702,00.html

INCREASED violence in Iraq is pushing the cost of the war over budget, threatening a $US4 billion ($5.48 billion) shortfall by late summer, the top US military officer said today.  General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the recent decision to extend the stay of some 20,000 troops will cost roughly $US700 million ($958.64 million) more over three months.  The White House is keeping open the possibility it will seek additional funds before the end of this election year.  The war is costing about $US4.7 billion ($6.44 billion) a month, officials said.  On a day when nearly 70 people were killed by suicide bombers in Iraq's southern city of Basra, Myers and Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz testified for a second day before the House Armed Services Committee.  American troops this month have endured the worst casualties of the year-old campaign, with 100 killed. read more
 

Day 357: April 21, 2004

 

Major Bomb Attacks Across Iraq; Leaked CPA Memo Warns of Civil War
Democracy Now!

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/21/1538221 
Hours after three car bombs explode in Basra killing 68 people and wounding more than 230, an explosion rocks the Saudi capital of Riyadh. We hear from political science professor As'ad AbuKhalil on the increasing violence in the Middle East and we speak with independent reporter Jason Vest who obtained a Coalition Provision Authority memo that warns the U.S. occupation of Iraq will likely lead to civil war.  -- A major spate of bombings has rocked cities across Iraq today. The death tolls continue to rise.  In the southern city of Basra, three car bombs exploded in front of Iraqi police stations killing up to 68 people and wounding more than 230. The BBC is reporting that two school buses were hit in the blasts and many of the casualties are Iraqi schoolchildren. Meanwhile, there was a major mortar attack at the Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. There are reports that more 22 Iraqis were killed, while more than 90 others were wounded.   And just west of the Iraqi capital, the battle for Fallujah has escalated significantly over the past 24 hours. Dozens of Iraqi resistance fighters attacked US troops with guns and grenades mounting a massive barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. An unconfirmed report said six civilians were killed in the fighting.  read more
 

US destroying Falluja homes

Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CDB10E42-D220-496A-98DF-534791054190.htm 

A laser guided bomb aimed to destroy a Falluja mosque

Ferocious fighting in the Iraqi town of Falluja has grown so intense that US occupation forces have begun destroying buildings and homes.  Aljazeera's correspondent in Falluja, Abd Al-Adhim Muhammad, said exchange of fire in the Golan quarter grew so fierce that troops had to call in helicopter support on Wednesday.  Muhammad said he personally witnessed two US air gunships destroy four homes in al-Mutasim quarter, adding many resistance fighters were now taking cover in the ruined buildings.  Under siege by US marines for more than two weeks, and after 600 Iraqi civilian fatalities, one fighter told Aljazeera some tanks and armoured vehicles had been forced to leave the Golan quarter.  Scholars witness destruction: Sunni Muslim clerics who fled the bloody fighting in urged insurgents to hold on to their weapons and vowed revenge against the US at a gathering of dozens of people in Baghdad on Wednesday. read more
 

U.S. Has Detained 20,000 Iraqis
Aaron Glantz, Inter Press Service
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23409 
We have heard of the U.S. soldier captured by Iraqi fighters. Think of the 20,000 Iraqis being held by the coalition forces.  Private First Class Matt Maupin assigned to the U.S. Army Reserve's 724th Transportation Company based at Bartonville, Illinois, became the first prisoner taken by Iraqi insurgents since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The U.S. military is currently holding more than 20,000 Iraqis behind bars -- most of them taken during house to house searches by the U.S. military. Take the village of Abu Siffa, an hour's drive north of Baghdad. Cattle graze on the side of the road and date palms sway in the wind. The mighty Tigris flows nearby.  Rejan Mohammed Hassen stands in front of the rubble that was her house and recalls the night last summer when the U.S. Army took her sons and destroyed her house. ”Early in the morning they took us from the home and asked us to stand around,” she recalls. ”When we questioned them, the Americans started to beat the women. After that, two tanks came to our house and started to shoot using the machine-gun on top of the tank and then two missiles from the head of the tank.” By the time the U.S. Army left Abu Siffa an hour later, 73 men from the village had been rounded up, including all four of Rejan Mohammed Hassen's sons. Villagers say the U.S. troops did not find the arms caches they were looking for, but the soldiers did confiscate several trucks and large sums of cash. read more

 

Day 356: April 20, 2004

 

Fallujah Cannot Even Bury Its Dead
Aaron Glantz, Inter Press Service
http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23398 
The story of Yusuf Fakri Amash is the story of so much of Fallujah. The 11-year-old boy just managed to escape from the town with his family. But not before the U.S. military killed his best friend. "Ahmed was in my class," he says. "He was younger than me. He was standing next to the wall of the secondary school and was trying to cross the street. He was hit by a bullet. The American troops fired the bullet." So many Fallujahans have been killed by the U.S. marines that residents have had to dig mass graves. The city's football stadium now holds more than 200 bodies. "When you see a child five years old with no head, what can you say?" says a doctor in Fallujah whose name is being withheld for his safety. "When you see a child with no brain, just an open cavity, what can you say?" The doctor says many were buried in the football until it became full. "When you are burying you cannot stay long because they (the U.S. marines) will just shoot you," he says. "So we use the shovel. Just dig a big hole and put a whole family in the hole and leave as soon as possible so we are not shot."  read more

 

Al-Sadr: Leave the Spanish alone

Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E358B477-6F89-4B2D-93BA-C41BB00ACA5C.htm 

Occupation forces keen to avoid a confrontation with al-Sadr

Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr has urged his followers to stop attacking Spanish troops after Madrid announced their upcoming withdrawal from Iraq.  In the holy city of Najaf, Qais al-Khazali, a spokesman for al-Sadr, said on Monday: "We call [on al-Sadr's followers] to ensure the security of Spanish troops until their departure as long as these forces do not perpetrate aggressions against the Iraqi people. "Other countries which assign troops to the coalition in Iraq are urged to follow the example of Spain and to withdraw their forces to save the lives of their soldiers," he added.  A senior US-led occupation spokesman played down the impact of Spain's decision to pull its 1300 troops out of Iraq. read more

 

US seals deal to end Fallujah standoff

AFP

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/20/1082395821720.html 

The United States said it had made a deal to defuse a showdown with Iraqi fighters in the Sunni Muslim stronghold of Fallujah, as President George W Bush criticised Spain for withdrawing its troops from Iraq.  As the 1,432 Spanish troops started the pullout, Moqtada Sadr, the radical Shi'ite cleric leading an insurgency against occupation forces, ordered a halt to attacks on Spanish forces. After two weeks of fierce fighting around Fallujah, west of Baghdad, the US-led coalition said an agreement with local leaders allowed for joint patrols with Iraqi security forces, an amnesty for those who turned in heavy weapons and shorter curfew hours.  Coalition spokesman Dan Senor said both sides promised to take steps toward a "full and unbroken" ceasefire but added that, if it did not hold, "major hostilities" could resume at short notice. Several days of talks were held to end the worst violence of the occupation, which followed the brutal killing of four US contractors in Fallujah. More than 600 Iraqis and scores of US soldiers have been killed. The US Marines announced a draft plan for more than 77 million dollars in US aid for Fallujah once the fighting draws to an end. About $US500,000 ($A670,000) would be spent in the first 30 days after peace is restored, said Major Michael Clausen of the marine's civil affairs department. read more

 

Day 355: April 19, 2004

 

Spanish PM orders troops home from Iraq

Reuters

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/19/1082326114754.html 

A Spanish armored vehicle sits at a U.S. base outside Najaf on Friday (CNN Photo)

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said he had given orders for Spain's 1,400 troops in Iraq to come home as soon as possible. Zapatero made the surprise announcement in a televised statement a day after being sworn in as prime minister following his Socialist party's upset victory in a March 14 general election held in the shadow of the Madrid train bombings.  Zapatero had said previously he would pull out the troops if the United Nations did not take charge in Iraq by June 30. He said he was acting now because there was no prospect of a UN resolution being adopted that met Spain's conditions.  A government source said the withdrawal operation would take "at least a month and a half to two months" and declined to say when it would start.  The troops, now numbering 1,400, will be moved out to Kuwait by bus in a complex operation, the source said.  Zapatero's decision creates more problems for the United States whose forces are locked in the fiercest fighting in Iraq since last year's war toppled Saddam Hussein.  read more

Iraq able to lift oil production to 12 million bpd
People's Daily (Beijing)

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200404/19/eng20040419_140761.shtml 

Iraq has the capability to lift its oil production capacity to 12 million barrels per day (bpd) though heavy investment is needed to do so, an Abu dhabi website reported Sunday. The strife-torn Arab country and the world's second largest oil power after Saudi Arabia produced around 2.3 million bdp in March, of which nearly 1.9 million bpd were exported, Ali Hussein, an Iraqi senior adviser in the oil ministry, was quoted as saying.  read more

 

Day 354: April 18, 2004

 

More occupation troops killed in Iraq
Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/245CCB97-8740-427D-97B1-EFD32788ADEA.htm 

Three US soldiers were killed in an attack on their convoy

Four US soldiers have been killed in separate attacks in southern and western Iraq, the military said on Sunday. "Three soldiers traveling in a 1st Armored Division convoy were killed during a small arms ambush" near the southern town of Diwaniyah around 7:00 pm (1500 GMT), the military said in a statement. Clashes broke out after the convoy was attacked on Saturday night, in which witnesses said at least seven Iraqis were killed.  Another army statement said "a soldier assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force was killed yesterday as a result of enemy action in the al-Anbar Province," west of the Iraqi capital.  read more

 

11 U.S. Troops, Dozens of Iraqis Killed
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Najaf and Fadel Badran, Reuters
http://truthout.org/docs_04/041904B.shtml 

Five U.S. Marines were killed in a day-long battle and six U.S. soldiers were killed in other clashes during a weekend of bloodletting across Iraq, a U.S. newspaper and the military said. A reporter for the St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper wrote that dozens of Iraqis were killed along with the five Marines in 14 hours of fighting Saturday in western Iraq near the Syrian border. There was no official confirmation of the deaths. Marine intelligence told the reporter traveling with the Marines that nearly 300 Iraqi fighters launched an offensive, setting off a roadside bomb to lure Marines from their base and then firing 24 mortar rounds. "It doesn't feel real. It doesn't look real," Lance Corporal Dustin Myshrall told the newspaper. At least nine Marines were wounded and more than 20 Iraqi fighters were captured and taken to the main Marine base near the western town of al-Qaim. Since March 31, at least 99 U.S. soldiers have died in action in Iraq -- more than were killed during last year's three-week war that toppled Saddam Hussein -- amid battles against a Sunni insurgency and a new Shi'ite revolt. read more

 

Day 353: April 17, 2004

 

U.S. Deaths from Enemy Fire at Highest Level Since Vietnam
Drew Brown, Knight-Ritter

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0417-02.htm 
WASHINGTON - With fighting in Iraq now at its worst, the number of U.S. troops killed by enemy fire has reached the highest level since the Vietnam War. The first part of April has been the bloodiest period so far for U.S. troops in Iraq. There were 87 deaths by hostile fire in the first 15 days of this month, more than in the opening two weeks of the invasion, when 82 Americans were killed in action. "This has been some pretty intense fighting," said David Segal, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Research on Military Organization. "We're looking at what happened during the major battles of Vietnam."   The last time U.S. troops experienced a two-week loss such as this one in Iraq was October 1971, two years before U.S. ground involvement ended in Vietnam.  There are 135,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Nearly 700 American troops have died since the beginning of the war. As of Friday, 493 had been killed by hostile fire.  The Vietnam War started with a slower death rate. The United States had been involved in Vietnam for six years before total fatalities surpassed 500 in 1965, the year President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a massive buildup of forces. There were 20,000 troops in Vietnam by the end of 1964. There were more than 200,000 a year later.  By the end of 1966, U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam had reached 3,910. By 1968, the peak of U.S. involvement, there were more than 500,000 troops in the country. During the same two-week period of April that year, 752 U.S. soldiers died, according to a search of records kept by the National Archives.   U.S. officials say that comparisons with Vietnam are invalid and reject the idea that Iraq has become a quagmire.  read more

 

Day 352: April 16, 2004

 

Activists urge tax payers to withhold money to protest Iraq
AFP

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/us_iraq_tax_protest 

Tax resister Carol Moore protests in front of the IRS in Washington DC (AFP).

NEW YORK (AFP) - US pacifists took to the streets Thursday -- the deadline for filing federal income tax returns -- urging taxpayers to withhold their taxes, saying too much revenue was going toward military expenditure in Iraq.  In New York, a dozen militants were out distributing fliers in front of the main Internal Revenue Service (news - web sites) (IRS) office in Manhattan, asking passersby not to pay their taxes, regardless of how little they owed. Protesters wore signs that read, "Lost in Iraq: 4 billion dollars a month," "War - Who wins? Halliburton, Bechtel, Dyncorp. Who loses? soldiers, civilians, taxpayers".   Similar demonstrations were held in California, Portland, Oregon, New Orleans, Tucson, Arizona, Boulder, Colorado, Washington, DC, and 30 other cities. "I filled out my tax form, and I'll send a letter saying that's why I refuse to pay," said Ruth Benn, head of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC).  read more
 

Gunmen rule in a city gripped with fright
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1193111,00.html 
 

Will Najaf be the scene of the next Massacre?

Khalid Ali sat quietly looking towards the sun-baked golden dome rising from the shrine of the Imam Ali, almost refusing to notice the crowd of chanting gunmen who danced through the street before him.  They were a shambolic bunch of excitable young men, though all were heavily armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers, machine guns, and hand-grenades dangling from breast pockets. They swear allegiance to the Jaish al-Mahdi, the militia of Iraq's radical young Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose uprisings across southern Iraq last week shook the American authorities in Baghdad to the core. It is a force the American military has vowed to destroy. Now these gunmen talk of jihad and boast how they would delight in giving a lesson in the bloody art of guerrilla warfare to the troops of the US Army's 1st Armoured Division, currently massing unseen just a few miles away.  This was the scene yesterday in Najaf, the city at the centre of a stand-off that could define the future of Iraq. If US troops carry out their threat to launch an offensive against Mr Sadr's militia, the fight would be bloody and could unleash an unprecedented wave of violence and uprisings across the south that could imperil the American occupation.  Few reporters have entered the city in the last 10 days because of the crisis. Although the US military described the city as "stable" this week, it is gripped with fright and still largely in the control of Mr Sadr's militia. read more

 

Day 351: April 15, 2004

US Vets, Military Families March for End to War in Iraq
Associated Press

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0414-11.htm 

Mildred McHugh, who has a son stationed in Iraq, helps carry a sign showing some of the 600 plus soldiers who have died in Iraq. (AP Photo)

WASHINGTON - Holding American flags and pictures of fallen loved ones, military families and veterans urged President Bush on Wednesday to end the war in Iraq. "We don't belong there. We're never going to win this war," said Sue Niederer. Her 24-year-old son, Seth, was killed two months ago while defusing a bomb south of Baghdad.  "It's time for us to get out," she said.  After a news conference, the families and veterans joined about 40 supporters in a march to the White House a few blocks away where they laid pink, white and yellow carnations in memory of the more than 670 American troops killed since the war began last year.  They also placed rose petals for the thousands of Iraqis who have died.  The march was organized by the group, Military Families Speak Out, and United for Peace and Justice, an anti-war coalition.  Michael Hoffman, a Marine who spent two months in Iraq fighting a war he opposed, said the country has deteriorated into chaos. "We are not making a better world for the Iraqis," he said.  Anas Shallal, an Iraqi-American, rejected suggestions that Iraq would spiral into further violence if U.S troops withdrew. "It's really rather offensive to the Iraqi people to think they cannot govern themselves," said Shallal. "There's a lot of civil structures in Iraq right now, a lot of unions, a lot of organizations where people on the ground are taking leadership roles. I think we need to act as facilitators and take a back seat to this process so that the Iraqi people govern themselves."  --end story--

Italian hostage killed
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7ADCD736-4180-4DF3-9198-FE953342604A.htm 
 

A videotape showing the Italian hostages

A group calling itself the Green Brigade has killed one of the four Italians hostages it had abducted. The group said in a statement sent to Aljazeera along with a videotape on Wednesday that it had killed the hostage because the Italian president Silvio Berlusconi said pulling his troops out of Iraq was "not in question."  Responding to the news of the killing, the Italian president, however, insisted his resolve was firm and unchanged. "They have destroyed a life, they have not cracked our values and our efforts for peace," the Italian president said. Aljazeera earlier described the tape as "too bloody" and said it will not air it "in order not to upset viewers sensitivities". In a statement accompanying the tape, the abductors of the four Italians justified the killing.  read more

 

CNN to Al Jazeera: Why Report Civilian Deaths?
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0415-09.htm 

NEW YORK - April 15 - As the casualties mount in the besieged Iraqi city of Fallujah, Qatar-based Al Jazeera has been one of the only news networks broadcasting from the inside, relaying images of destruction and civilian victims-- including women and children. But when CNN anchor Daryn Kagan interviewed the network's editor-in-chief, Ahmed Al-Sheik, on Monday (4/12/04)-- a rare opportunity to get independent information about events in Fallujah-- she used the occasion to badger Al-Sheik about whether the civilian deaths were really "the story" in Fallujah.  Al Jazeera has recently come under sharp criticism from U.S. officials, who claim the Iraqi casualties are 95 percent "military-age males" (AP, 4/12/04). "We have reason to believe that several news organizations do not engage in truthful reporting," CPA spokesman Dan Senor said (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 4/14/04). "In fact it is no reporting." Senior military spokesman Mark Kimmitt had a suggestion for Iraqis who saw civilian deaths on Al Jazeera (New York Times, 4/12/04): "Change the channel to a legitimate, authoritative, honest news station. The stations that are showing Americans intentionally killing women and children are not legitimate news sources. That is propaganda, and that is lies."  read more

 

Day 350: April 14, 2004

 

Kill imam at your peril, Shiites warn US
Paul McGeough, Sydney Morning Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/13/1081838728525.html 

Moqtada Al-Sadr

As more foreigners become pawns in the hostage crisis, Iraq's tribal and religious leaders and the US are trying to defuse the next imminent threat: a backlash should the Americans press ahead with plans to "capture or kill" the radical Shiite imam Moqtada al-Sadr.  About 3000 US soldiers were massed outside the southern city of Najaf in an attempt to force Sadr's surrender. Their commander, General Ricardo Sanchez, talked tough on Tuesday, saying "our mission is to capture or kill". But while little is known about the secret negotiations between the Iraqis and the US, he did hint at a compromise, saying: "I think it will be a uniquely Iraqi solution." This seemed to be a reference to the new role in the south of the religious and tribal leaders as well as members of the Iraqi Governing Council - all of whom understand that killing Sadr could be a risky gamble for the US. If they allow the fundamentalist imam to remain at large, he has the potential to rally vocal or violent resistance to US plans at any time. But Shiite voices, from the grass roots to the most senior levels of their leadership, have warned of the direst consequences if Sadr were arrested or killed.  read more
 

President Bush on Iraq: hardening hearts and minds
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Iraq
http://electroniciraq.net/news/1453.shtml 
Bush sought to calm growing American anxiety and opposition to his war in Iraq, after two weeks in which more than 80 American military personnel and hundreds of Iraqis have died in widespread chaos and fighting. It remains to be seen whether Bush succeeded in that goal, but many of his assertions are just as likely to further antagonize opinion in the Arab world and perhaps in Iraq itself.  Bush's demeanor was arrogant and unrepentant. Asked on numerous occasions to name things he would have done differently or mistakes he felt he has made, he could not name one. Challenged with the fact that all of the premises for the Iraq invasion had fallen apart, particularly his administration's claim that Iraq not only possessed weapons of mass destruction, but that the US knew where they are, Bush asserted, that the weapons might still be found, or simply invented things. For example, Bush continued to claim that Iraq "had long-range missiles that were undeclared to the United Nations." In fact, Iraq had declared to UNMOVIC its Al-Sumoud 2 missiles, itself reported tests in which the missiles exceeded the allowed 150km range, and the missiles were in the process of being destroyed with full Iraqi cooperation when the US illegally invaded Iraq cutting short the inspections and disarmament process created by the UN Security Council.  read more

 

Day 349: April 13, 2004

 

UN requests safe passage for Iraq aid workers

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1086150.htm 

Is Anan responding to reports of US attacks on ambulances?

The United Nations is appealing to all sides involved in a surge in violence in Iraq to provide international aid workers with safe access to civilians in Fallujah and other cities hit by the bloodshed.  Ross Mountain, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan's special representative for Iraq, says international humanitarian law requires that all necessary measures be taken to protect civilians trapped by armed conflict. Mr Mountain also condemns the kidnapping of aid workers - part of a rash of seizures of foreigners in Iraq in recent days. He is calling for their immediate release.  "Humanitarian access to affected civilians, and access of those civilians in need to basic supplies and services, are of major concern," Mr Mountain said.  "Aid workers, nongovernmental organizations and other humanitarian organizations must be able to safely reach populations in distress including those who require urgent medical assistance."   He says the United Nations is working closely with the Iraqi authorities and aid groups, including the Iraqi Red Crescent Society and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to get urgently needed aid to the affected cities.  US forces have been struggling to crush a stubborn Sunni Muslim insurgency in central Iraq and a new revolt by Shiite Muslims, led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in much of the south. US Marines surrounded Fallujah last week to root out rebels after the murder and mutilation of four American private security guards ambushed in the town on March 31.   read more

 

Russians latest Iraq hostages
Reuters
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=492262&section=news

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Eleven Russian civilians are the latest foreigners reported to have been kidnapped in Iraq, but China's official Xinhua news agency has reported that seven Chinese have been freed.  The conflicting news on Tuesday on the fate of foreign hostages reflected the turmoil in Iraq, where U.S. forces have fought fierce battles with Sunni and Shi'ite guerrillas in the bloodiest violence since the fall of Saddam Hussein a year ago.  The kidnappings of the past week have added a new dimension to the fighting in Iraq, snaring civilians from at least a dozen countries -- some of which, like Russia and China, opposed the U.S.-led war that ousted Saddam.  Some guerrillas have sought international publicity for their hostage-taking to demand that their captives' governments withdraw troops from the U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq.  A group holding three Japanese said last week it would burn them alive unless Japan pulled out its troops, while another has threatened to kill American Thomas Hamill if U.S. forces do not stop fighting Sunni guerrillas in Falluja, west of Baghdad.  The U.S. military said a total of seven American civilian contractors, as well as two U.S. soldiers, were missing. The contractors worked for U.S. company Kellogg, Brown & Root and went missing after an attack on a U.S. fuel convoy on Friday.  Muslim clerics have been involved in negotiations to secure the release of hostages, but little or nothing has been heard of some of the foreigners since they went missing.  read more

Day 348: April 12, 2004

 

Fresh fighting erupts in Falluja, Iraqi Death Toll Exceeds 600
Fadel Badran, Reuters
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=492104&section=news 

A cyclist passes by a burning U.S. Abrams tank in Baghdad (Reuters)

FALLUJA, Iraq - Fighting has erupted in Falluja overnight in the first major breach of an informal truce in the town where more than 600 Iraqis were reported killed in a week of battles between U.S. Marines and Sunni Muslim rebels.  Residents heard blasts and gunfire from one area of Falluja for three hours before dawn as U.S. helicopters flew overhead. Iraqi fighters blamed the Americans for breaking the ceasefire. They said they remained ready to meet Iraqi mediators on Monday morning to try to shore up the truce, which gave the battered town some respite during the weekend. There was no immediate word on whether the ceasefire talks had resumed. The U.S. military has said it is prepared to "resume offensive operations" unless the discussions make progress.  read more

 

Seven Chinese Hostages Taken on Eve of Cheney Visit to Beijing
John Ruwitch, Reuters

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=492118&section=news 
Gunmen have kidnapped seven Chinese citizens in Iraq, the latest in a spate of hostage-taking, and Beijing has appealed to Baghdad to rescue them. Sunday's abductions threatened to overshadow a visit to China by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, a key force behind the American-led invasion of Iraq, which Beijing opposed. Cheney arrives in Beijing on Tuesday.  The seven Chinese men -- Xue Yougui, Lin Jinping, Li Guiwu, Li Guiping, Wei Weilong, Chen Xiaojin, and Lin Kongming -- entered Iraq from Jordan on Sunday morning and were abducted in Falluja, west of Baghdad, the official Xinhua news agency said.  It did not identify them further or say what they were doing in Iraq. Falluja lies on the main highway from Amman, the capital of Jordan, to Baghdad.  read more
 

Day 347: April 11, 2004

 
U.S. Calls for Cease-Fire in Fallujah
Iraqi Delegate Says Truce Is Secured; Insurgents Hold American Captive
Sewell Chan and Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post

A colleague of Ra'ad Fadhil, 33, weeps during his funeral procession in Baghdad. Fadhil, a security guard at the Kadhim Shrine, was shot dead Friday by patrolling U.S. troops. Fellow security guards say the men were sitting around talking and that Fadhil, who was armed, was shot when he rose to change seats. Photo: D. Smillie

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2308-2004Apr10.html 

BAGHDAD, April 11 -- U.S. commanders took the unusual step Saturday of publicly asking insurgents to honor an across-the-board cease-fire in the besieged city of Fallujah as guerrillas threatened to kill an American hostage unless U.S. forces withdrew from the city. After lengthy negotiations on Saturday, a group of Sunni Muslim officials from the Iraqi Governing Council believed it had secured a deal with local tribal and religious leaders in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad, as well as U.S. commanders for a cease-fire to begin at 10 a.m. local time Sunday. However, it was not clear that the local leaders would be able to get the insurgents to cease hostilities. "We are trying to get it to happen, to get them to stop firing at coalition forces," said Saif Rahman, an aide to Hachem Hassani, a member of the delegation and a top official of the Iraqi Islamic Party, Iraq's largest Sunni political party. "U.S. commanders had promised to stop firing at 10 a.m., provided they were not being shot at. We feel the people of influence of Fallujah should assume their role as leaders of the community. It's up to them."  Rahman added that if a cease-fire were to hold for 12 hours, then additional negotiations would be held for a permanent cessation of hostilities. read more

 

Street Fights in Baghdad
Naseer Al-Nahr, Arab News
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=42918&d=11&m=4&y=2004

BAGHDAD, 11 April 2004 — Baghdad saw street fighting yesterday as teenage gunmen shot at US troops from alleys in northwest Baghdad’s Sunni Muslim Adhimiya district. Reporters saw an Iraqi shot dead in his car as he tried to flee the area.  In Fallujah, the US-led coalition and fighters agreed to a 12-hour cease-fire starting today at 6 a.m. to pave the way for US Marines to leave the town.  Iraqi kidnappers said in a tape aired on Al-Jazeera they would kill and maime a US hostage they had seized unless American forces got out of Fallujah.  But three Japanese hostages who are among several foreigners kidnapped or killed in the last few days could be freed today.   read more
 

Day 346: April 10, 2004

 

US allies call for truce in Iraq
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3615189.stm 

Reports from Falluja say food and medical supplies are low

The US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council has called for an immediate ceasefire, as US forces battle Sunni militants for a sixth day in Falluja. The council said a political solution needed to be found to the crisis in the besieged city, west of Baghdad.  One member called the Falluja operation "genocide" after doctors there reported 450 deaths and 1,000 injured this week. A US general urged the militants to join in a bilateral ceasefire, after a attempted truce failed on Saturday.  "This is an aspiration," General Mark Kimmit told reporters in Baghdad.  He said he was "hoping to get this message to the enemy through this press conference".  read more

 

US forces continue to attack Falluja
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/75BC6041-3CD8-47B1-9CC9-72EE431F6F1C.htm 
Occupation forces continued to attack Falluja, with US warplanes striking twice early on Saturday, and also hours after a truce offer. In Baghdad an Iraqi was killed by tank fire and an Abrams tank and a trailer truck destroyed in separate incidents.  Aljazeera's correspondent said the planes struck at 12:50am (20:50 GMT) and 03:30am (23:30 GMT). Several bombs were dropped on different parts of the town. He said the Golan area came under fierce bombardment hours after US forces had offered a ceasefire. The western part of the town also came under fierce mortar attack. Witnesses told Aljazeera that four houses were targeted in the Golan area.   The number of casualties could not yet be confirmed as ambulances were still transporting victims to the hospital.  read more
 

Day 345: April 9, 2004

 

ANNIVERSARY OF SADDAM'S FALL MARKED BY VIOLENCE, KIDNAPPINGS
· Nine killed in attack on convoy
· Coalition 'ceasefire' in Falluja
· US 'controls Kut'; clashes with rebels in Baquba
AFP
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1188965,00.html 

Posters of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr attached to a green sculpture erected on the plinth where Saddam's statue once stood (Reuters)

Posters of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are attached to a green sculpture symbolising a new Iraq, erected on the plinth where Saddam's statue once stood in a Baghdad square. Photograph: Chris Helgren/Reuters  US forces today regained control of a southern city seized this week by a rebellious Shia militia, the military said.  But the first anniversary of the fall of Baghdad was marked by more violence. Insurgents attacked a US convoy carrying fuel west of Baghdad today, killing at least nine people, witnesses said. A Reuters photographer on the scene said he saw bodies burning inside the vehicles, which were still on fire near Abu Ghraib. He said the convoy included US military vehicles and fuel tankers.  read more

 

U.S. forces recapture southern city of Kut; brief halt in Marine assault on Fallujah breaks down
Associated Press
http://news.bostonherald.com/international/view.bg?articleid=1525

FALLUJAH, Iraq - U.S. forces on Friday regained control of a southern city seized this week by a rebellious Shiite militia, the military said, while a brief halt in the U.S. assault on Fallujah fell apart as the first anniversary of the fall of Baghdad was marked by more violence. U.S. troops fanned out across Kut, southeast of the capital, after meeting little resistance, witnesses said, in a major foray by the American military into the south, where U.S. allies have struggled to deal with the uprising by the al-Mahdi Army, led by a radical Shiite cleric. Meanwhile, militants were holding at least six foreign hostages in unknown locations in the country. Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowed not to withdraw 530 troops in the south after kidnappers threatened to burn three Japanese captives alive unless the troops leave the country.  In Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad and the scene of bloody fighting with Sunni insurgents this week - Marines called a halt to offensive operations at noon, while a delegation of city leaders met with Marine commanders, said Lt. Col. Brennan Byrne, commander of the 1st Battalion 5th Marine Regiment.  read more

Day 344: April 8, 2004

 

Battles rage from north to south
Jonathan Steele in Baghdad and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1188103,00.html 
· Dozens die in bomb and missile attack near mosque
· Militia leader warns: Iraq will be new Vietnam
· Blow to US as ayatollah fails to condemn uprising

Fighting is taking a toll on Coalition soldiers: over 30 dead in three days

The US-led coalition entered the most dangerous phase yet of its occupation of Iraq last night as the Sunni and Shia uprisings spread from Kirkuk in the north to Kut in the south.
With the worst fighting since George Bush formally declared the war over last May, the coalition lost control of several areas. The most humiliating reverse was at Kut, when Ukrainian troops were forced out by a Shia militia.  The US, which was careful during the war not to hit holy sites, fired a missile and dropped a 500lb bomb to breach a wall enclosing a mosque in Falluja, an attack that will further inflame the uprising. At least 25 and up to 40 Iraqis were reported killed.  The death toll in the past few days has risen to 33 American dead - the Pentagon confirmed that 12 marines had died in Ramadi on Tuesday, the US's worst day since the war - two other members of the coalition and more than 190 Iraqis. The US suffered a further five casualties during the six-hour assault on Falluja.   read more
 

Scores dead as Falluja resists US onslaught
Casualties are mounting in the besieged town
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A73529F1-1554-4C68-8774-BA478D565B02.htm 

Several children were among the casualties in Falluja

Fierce street battles continued to rage in Falluja with resistance fighters putting up stiff opposition to US occupation forces trying to gain control of the restive town.  Hospital sources said at least 45 Iraqis were killed and 90 injured in attacks on the besieged town on Wednesday.  Among the casualties were a family sitting in a car parked behind the Abd al-Aziz al-Samarai mosque when it was bombed by a US airplane.  Another 53 Iraqis died in attacks overnight on Tuesday in the town which was sealed off on Sunday by US forces. Twenty-five of those killed were from a single family.  "More than 200 Iraqis, including women and children, have been injured in the past 24 hours," said Aljazeera correspondent in Falluja, Ahmad Mansur.  read more
 

Day 343: April 7, 2004

 

40 dead as US bombs mosque
Paul McGeough, Chief Herald Correspondent in Baghdad and agencies
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/08/1081326808942.html

Breaking point . . . a marine pauses to wipe his eyes after learning that a soldier in his platoon had been seriously hurt in an ambush in Falluja. (Photo: AP/North County Times)

US marines bombed a mosque, killing up to 40 insurgents holed up inside, during an offensive in the volatile Iraqi town of Falluja yesterday, a marines officer said. The attack followed several hours of small arms and rocket-propelled grenades fire from the insurgents which injured three marines, said Lieutenant Colonel Brennan Byrne. He said there were as many as 40 rebels inside the mosque, adding: "We want to kill the people inside."  The attack on a mosque is certain to further inflame anti-US feeling across the country.  It came after a US general vowed to destroy the Shiite army behind the uprising that has seen American troops suffer their highest casualties since the toppling of Saddam Hussein.  Infuriated by the death of 12 marines in a surprise insurgency attack at Ramadi on Tuesday night, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt promised "deliberate and precise" attacks that would "destroy" the Medhi Army, led by Moqtada al-Sadr, who is wanted on murder charges.  read more

 

Soldier, two weeks away from coming home, killed in Iraq
Carolyn Thomspon, Associated Press
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--soldierkilled0407apr07,0,316418.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire 
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Sgt. David McKeever had just 15 days left in Iraq when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle and killed him, his brother said Wednesday. The 25-year-old had a new promotion, had just re-enlisted in the Army and, despite being on the front lines in a war zone, had been in high spirits as he neared a reunion with his wife and 1-year-old son in Nebraska and his parents and the rest of his family in Buffalo.  "He seemed like he was in high spirits and ready to come home," Thomas McKeever said. The family got the news Tuesday.
"The soldiers came to my mother's house and they said he was attacked in an ambush in Baghdad" on Monday, McKeever said. "His vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and he was alive when they went to the hospital, but he died when he got there." McKeever's wife, Nicki, was told her husband was one of eight people in the vehicle and the only one to die.  "It was crazy because every time I'd turn on the news and see that a U.S. soldier was killed in Iraq, when it first started happening, I would get nervous every time, waiting to hear a name, waiting to hear a name," McKeever, 24, said, "and I'd find out it wasn't my brother.  read more
 

Day 342: April 6, 2004

 

Bush committed to deadline as violence threatens handover of power to Iraq
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=404&id=389362004 
Gethin Chamberlain, the Scotsman
Key points
• Armed forces minister admits Iraqi power hand-over may be delayed
• US and Iraqi soldiers seal off Fallujah after uprising by Al-Sadr supporters
• US issues warrant for militant cleric Al-Sadr for murder in Najaf last year
• British soldiers kill one Iraqi in Basra during protest by Al-Sadr’s supporters
Key quote:

Armed supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr rally in Baghdad

"If the date has to shift, then the date has to shift because we have to get it right for the people of Iraq because that is what they want for their future" - Adam Ingram, Armed Forces Minister
Last night a senior US military officer admitted commanders were studying options that could mean more troops being deployed to Iraq if violence there widens. Facing an upsurge in violence even among the previously supportive Shiite population, Downing Street and the White House had both earlier tried to play down calls for the 30 June date of the handover to be put back. But Mr Ingram said that while he was confident the target could be achieved, it was not set in stone. "If the date has to shift, then the date has to shift because we have to get it right for the people of Iraq because that is what they want for their future," he said.  In a measure of the growing alarm in Washington, two members of the US Senate’s foreign relations committee said the Bush administration should consider extending the handover deadline or risk seeing Iraq fall into even deeper trouble.  "We’re going to end up with a civil war in Iraq if, in fact, we decide we can turn this over - including the bulk of the security - to the Iraqis," said Democrat Senator Joseph Biden.   read more

 

On the brink of anarchy
Julian Borger and Jonathan Steele, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1186709,00.html 
The Bush administration was last night facing a nightmare scenario in Iraq, fighting on two fronts against Sunni and Shia militants less than three months before it is due to hand over power to an Iraqi government. Facing a critical moment in the effort to pacify the country, President George Bush vowed he would not budge from his June 30 deadline for the transition to self-rule, while US forces in Iraq opted for a high-risk strategy of attempting to crush both insurgent groups simultaneously. American officials in Baghdad announced an arrest warrant for a radical Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, whose black-uniformed Mahdi militia revolted against coalition forces at the weekend, killing seven American soldiers in the Baghdad district known as Sadr City. Up to 30 Iraqis were also killed in the clashes, the worst the capital has seen since its fall to US troops a year ago.  read more
 

Day 341: April 5, 2004

 

SEVEN US Soldiers Killed AND TWO DOZEN WOUNDED IN CLASHES WITH SHIA
Al Jazeera

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EDCD4B5B-D929-4D54-B1A5-AFA4DACD4B5F.htm 

Seven US soldiers died in fighting in al-Sadr City of Baghdad

Seven US soldiers have died in fighting with Shia in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, hours after clashes between occupation troops and Iraqi protesters claimed 20 lives.  The US military late on Sunday said two dozen soldiers had also been wounded in the clashes with supporters of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.  The soldiers reportedly died in a battle for control of police and public buildings with the Mahdi Army, al-Sadr's militia, in the Shia suburb of al-Sadr City in Baghdad.  The fierce fighting served grim notice that Shias in Iraq might have finally turned their ire on US-led occupation soldiers.  read more

 

Twenty killed in gun battle between coalition troops and Iraqi protesters
Khalid Mohammed, the Scotsman

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=385032004 
DOZENS of people died in a spate of attacks across Iraq yesterday triggered by the arrest of an aide to a leading anti-coalition Shiite Muslim cleric. The worst violence was near the holy city of Najaf where supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr, a young, charismatic cleric and opponent of the United States-led occupation of Iraq, opened fire on the Spanish garrison, provoking a three-hour battle that left more than 20 people dead. More fighting broke out in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Sadr City as word spread of the arrest on Saturday of Mustafa al-Yacoubi, a senior aide to 30-year-old Mr Sadr, on charges of murder. Helicopter gunships flew overhead and witnesses said they saw two Humvees on fire, but the soldiers inside escaped. The US military had no immediate comment.

 

Spanish Forces Kill 3 Iraqi Protesters
Big News Network.com
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=601331ee7634afee 
Spanish soldiers killed three Iraqi protesters supporting a Shiite leader and injured several others Sunday in the Iraqi southern holy city of Najaf.  Eyewitnesses said the Spanish troops, part of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, opened fire with automatic weapons as protesters surrounded the Coalition Provisional Authority building.  The protesters, supporters of a Shiite leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, were demanding the freedom of al-Sadr's top aide, Sheikh Mustafa al-Yacoubi, believed to have been detained by the Spanish forces.  read more

 

Day 340: April 4, 2004

 

Marines release little on attacks in Iraq

Robert Burns, Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20US%20Military

WASHINGTON -- Citing a need to protect the troops, the Marine Corps operating in Fallujah and elsewhere in the volatile Sunni Triangle of central Iraq is restricting the information it releases about insurgent attacks that kill Marines.  On Friday, for example, a statement from the Marines' base camp outside Fallujah said a Marine had been killed the day before "as a result of enemy action" in Anbar province. In a break from the practice of other U.S. forces in Iraq, the Marines gave no details.  The Army and the Pentagon, in their news releases announcing service members' deaths in Iraq, typically offer a brief characterization of the hostile action, such as mortar fire, roadside bomb or other type of attack. They usually cite the town where it happened; the Marines do not.  read more

 

Car bomb in Kirkuk kills three civilians

Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Car%20Bomb 

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A car bomb exploded in Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk on Sunday, killing three civilians and wounding two others, police said.  Torhan Yousif, the city's chief of police, said officers were searching for those responsible for the blast, but gave no other details.  --end story--
 

Day 339: April 3, 2004

 

More civilians bearing brunt in Mosul
Mariam Fam, Associated Press
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Mosul 

Iraqi children watch U.S. Army soldiers patroling a street in Mosul  (AP Photo)

MOSUL, Iraq -- Fewer U.S. troops patrol the streets of Iraq's third-largest city, while more Iraqi security forces drive through busy markets or sprawl on median strips in firing positions.  Deadly attacks on local police, translators and government officials also have become more familiar in Mosul, once seen as a success story of the U.S.-led occupation.  U.S. military officials say insurgents have shifted from attacking American forces to targeting Iraqi security forces and most recently civilians, including foreigners helping with reconstruction and Iraqis perceived as cooperating with the Americans.  read more
 

Two U.S. Marines killed in Iraq
Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Iraq%20Americans%20Killed

Two U.S. Marines have been killed in Iraq's western Anbar province "as a result of enemy action," the military said in a statement Sunday.  One of the two died Saturday following an incident, while the other died Sunday after a separate incident also Saturday, the statement said. Both of the troops were assigned to the 1st Marine Division.  It gave no other details. The most populous city in Anbar province, which stretches from Baghdad to the Jordanian border is Fallujah, where four American civilians were killed and their bodies mutilated Wednesday. 

--end story--

 

Day 338: April 2, 2004

 

4th Iraq mutilation victim is identified
Janis L. Magin, Associated Press

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Civilian%20Deaths 

Jason Helvenston, the brother of Scott Helvenston, one of the four Blackwater Security Consulting workers killed In Iraq, Wednesday (AP Photo)

HONOLULU -- The last victim identified in the attack on four civilians in Iraq this week was a native of Hawaii who joined the military out of high school and returned to his home state several years ago after a career as an Army Ranger.  His family was informed late Thursday that Wesley J. Batalona was one of the four American contractors killed in Fallujah, Iraq, his older sister, Uilani Shibata, said Friday.  Batalona, 48; Jerko "Jerry" Zovko, 32; Michael Teague, 38, and Scott Helvenston, 38, were killed in an ambush on Wednesday, their charred bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets. The contractors were working for Blackwater Security Consulting when their vehicle was hit by rocket-propelled grenades.  Shibata said Batalona's wife, June, was told of her husband's death while she was at work late Thursday.

read more

 

Day 337:  April 1, 2004

 

Enraged Mob in Falluja Kills 4 American Contractors
John F. Burns and Jeffrey Gettleman, New York TImes

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/040104A.shtml

FALLUJA, Iraq, March 31 ? An enraged mob attacked four American contractors here today, shooting them to death, burning their vehicles, dragging their bodies through the downtown streets and then hanging the charred corpses from a bridge over the Euphrates River. A State Department spokesman, Lou Fintor, confirming the nationalities today, said neither the names of the victims nor the name of the company for which they worked would be immediately released.  Meanwhile, less than 15 miles away, in the same area of the increasingly violent Sunni Triangle, five marines were killed in one of the deadliest roadside bomb incidents for coalition troops in weeks. The marines were traveling through a dusty village along a supply route when the explosion ripped into their vehicles. The steadily deteriorating security situation in the Falluja area, west of Baghdad, has become so dangerous that no American soldiers or Iraqi security staff responded to the attack against the contractors.  There are a number of police stations in Falluja and a base of more than 4,000 marines nearby. But even while the two vehicles burned, sending plumes of inky smoke over the closed shops of the city, there were no ambulances, no fire engines and no security. read more

 

continue to January to March, 2004: Day-by-Day Stories from the Occupation