Iraq analysis

[Al-khiyal]

"Our convoys sent on Sunday and Monday have been prevented from entering the city by US troops and our information from inside is that families are without food, power and potable water, particularly because they cannot leave their homes."

Aid agencies unable to enter Samarra

[Al-khiyal]

An Army dog handler was sentenced Wednesday to six months behind bars for using his snarling canine to torment prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

The military jury handed down the sentence a day after convicting Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He could have gotten 8 1/2 years in prison.

Smith was sentenced on five charges, including maltreatment of prisoners, conspiring with another dog handler in a contest to try to frighten detainees at the Iraqi prison into soiling themselves, and directing his dog to lick peanut butter off other soldiers' bodies.

Smith was also demoted to private and will receive a bad-conduct discharge after getting out of prison. He will forfeit $2,250 in pay....

...Smith appeared unrepentant when he addressed the jury Tuesday, shortly after he was convicted. "Soldiers are not supposed to be soft and cuddly," he said....

U.S. army dog handler gets six months in prison

Another Abu Ghraib trial leaves top brass unscathed

[Edited by Al-khiyal on 24th March 2006 at 05:40]

[Al-khiyal]

An inquiry has found that an American public relations firm did not violate military policy by paying Iraqi news outlets to print positive articles, military officials said Tuesday. The finding leaves to the Defense Department the decision on whether new rules are needed to govern such activities.

The inquiry, which has not yet been made public, was ordered by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, after it was disclosed in November that the military had used the Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations company, to plant articles written by American troops in Iraqi newspapers while hiding the source of the articles.....

No breach seen in work in Iraq on propaganda

Which leads to another question: But is it right?

[Al-khiyal]

AMMAN (AFX) - Naji Sabri Hadithi, Iraq's foreign minister under Saddam Hussein, denied a report on US TV channel NBC that he provided the CIA with information about the deposed regime's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

'The information carried by the American channel NBC are lies, totally fabricated and unfounded,' Sabri Hadithi told Agence France-Presse in a telephone interview, in his first public remarks since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

'After the lies about the weapons of mass destruction which do not exist and the alleged links with Al-Qaeda, it seems that this new lie is aimed at giving a new fake pretext to justify the crime of the century: the invasion of Iraq.....'

Former Iraqi minister refutes NBC report he told CIA about WMD

[Al-khiyal]

An Iraqi cameraman working for CBS News when he was wounded and detained by the U.S. military will be tried next month, CBS officials said Wednesday.

Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein's trial was scheduled to begin Wednesday, but an Iraqi judge postponed the proceedings until April 5, said Larry Doyle, the CBS bureau chief in Baghdad.

Charges against Hussein have not been made public.

Hussein was taken into custody after being wounded by American forces as he videotaped clashes in Mosul in northern Iraq in April 2005. Doyle said he received an e-mail from the U.S. task force at Abu Ghraib saying Hussein "appeared to be instigating a crowd" in Mosul.

At the time of Hussein's arrest, CBS News reported that the U.S. military said the tape in the journalist's camera led them to suspect he had prior knowledge of attacks on American troops, Doyle said. But more details from the military have been hard to come by, the bureau chief said....

Iraqi cameraman for CBS faces trial

[Al-khiyal]

The US military is investigating two incidents in which American soldiers killed at least 26 Iraqi civilians and then claimed that they were either guerrillas or had died in cross fire.

The growing evidence of retaliatory killings of unarmed Iraqi families, often including children, by US soldiers seemingly bent on punishing Iraqis after an attack, will spark comparisons with the massacre of Vietnamese villagers at My Lai in 1968.

US troops have been notorious among Iraqis for their willingness to shoot any Iraqi they see in the aftermath of an insurgent attack. But it is only now that convincing and detailed information is becoming available about the killings....

US troops investigated over Iraqi massacres

[Al-khiyal]

More than 100 Palestinians fleeing violence in Baghdad and seeking refuge in Jordan have been denied entry by Jordanian border officials for not having proper entry permits, the spokesman for the Jordanian government said Monday.

The Palestinians have remained at the border in the hope of crossing, but the Jordanian government has closed it pending a resolution of the matter, the spokesman, Nasser Judeh, said in a telephone interview from the capital, Amman.

In recent weeks, as the country has experienced a surge in sectarian violence, Palestinians have been increasingly singled out by Shiite militias, because they were Sunni Arabs and because they had enjoyed certain privileges under Saddam Hussein. Many Palestinians were members of the Baath Party, and Mr. Hussein granted them free schooling and free housing, among other favors.

Residents of Baladiyat, a Baghdad neighborhood in which Palestinians are concentrated, say that in recent weeks, dozens of people have been kidnapped and many have turned up dead. The residents have accused Shiite militias in the killings....

Jordan blocks Palestinians fleeing violence in Iraq

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