Iraq analysis

[Al-khiyal]

Iraqi authorities investigate claims police-run `death squads' targeting Sunni Arabs


And lest we forget, from 2005:

The U.S. political establishment keeps reaching new levels of hypocrisy, deception (including self-deception), and open immorality as the empire expands in the pursuit of "freedom," militarism and war become more institutionalized, and rightwing political power is consolidated...

The normalization of torture, death squads and contempt for the rule of law

The Newsweek story that the Pentagon is considering the "Salvador option" for Iraq has gotten much play in progressive circles, but it left two unanswered questions: First, how credible was the story given that it was based on anonymous sources and denied by the Secretary of Defense? And second, what does it mean to say that a policy is being considered? Is it likely to be put into place or was it simply the wild idea of some subordinate, that will never actually become policy? There is in fact, however, sufficient evidence to answer both of these questions.

On January 8, Newsweek's Michael Hirsh and John Barry reported that Defense Department planners were discussing the adoption of the "Salvador option." In the early 1980s, wrote Hirsh and Barry,

"...faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported 'nationalist' forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success --despite the deaths of innocent civilians..."

There was, of course, nothing "so-called" about the death squads. And the counter-posing of "rebel leaders and sympathizers" and "innocent civilians" conveys the impression that a civilian was innocent only if he or she did not sympathize with the rebels. Be that as it may, Hirsh and Barry reported that now the Pentagon is debating whether to pursue a similar strategy in Iraq....

Phoenix Rising in Iraq?


There is nothing 'maverick' about the death squads assassinating Sunni intellectuals and community leaders in Iraq. They are operating throughout the country and clearly have some form of organizing intelligence. In Baghdad alone an average of 7-10 bodies of people assassinated by death squads are turning up each day.

[Al-khiyal]

"I'm like any other Iraqi nowadays, feeling that I am vulnerable and can die at any moment."


Random violence shadows Baghdad residents

[Al-khiyal]

On the increasing divisions between communities in Iraq:


Iraq power shift widens a gulf between sects


ID mediajunkie16 password mediajunkie to access article.

[Al-khiyal]

Rice admits 'mistakes' in Iraq

Iraq: Outrage spreads over new images

[Al-khiyal]

The New York Review of Books, March 9th 2006 issue:


My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope
by L. Paul Bremer III with Malcolm McConnell
Simon and Schuster, 417 pp., $27.00

The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq
by George Packer
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 467 pp., $26.00



The Mess

[Al-khiyal]

BAGHDAD, Feb 18 (KUNA) -- Iraq has lost over USD 6 billion throughout 2005 due to sabotage operations against its oil sector facilities, a senior official told KUNA on Saturday.

Issam Jihad, Spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry said the ministry experts have estimated the loss at USD 6.25 billion, while 138 security and technical personnel lost their lives in a series of 186 sabotage operations carried [out] in 2005....

Iraq oil sector lost over US$6 billion in 2005 - official

[Al-khiyal]

'U.S. using the same repressive tactics in Iraq as Hussein' - Bin Laden

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[Edited by Al-khiyal on 20th February 2006 at 11:48]