Iraq analysis

[Al-khiyal]

Senior Shiite politicians said today that the American ambassador has told Shiite officials to inform the Iraqi prime minister that President Bush does not want him to remain the country's leader in the next government.....

Shi'ites say U.S. is pressuring Iraqi leader to step aside

[Al-khiyal]

Sectarian violence has displaced more than 25,000 Iraqis since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine, a U.N.-affiliated agency said Tuesday, and shelters and tent cities are springing up across central and southern Iraq to house homeless Sunni and Shiite families.

The flight is continuing, according to the International Organization for Migration, which works closely with the United Nations and other groups. The result has been a population exchange as Sunni and Shiite families flee mixed communities for the safety of areas where their own sects predominate.

"I definitely wouldn't say the displacement has peaked," said Dana Graber, an official of the migration agency in Amman, Jordan. "It's continuous...."

Thousands of Iraqis flee to avoid spread Of violence

[Al-khiyal]

Americans' call for removal of Iraqi PM threatens rift with Shias

[Al-khiyal]

No one knows how many civilians have died violently in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. The most careful assessment, by the website Iraq Body Count, estimates at least 36,000. The true figure could be three times higher. The uncertainty is explained by General Tommy Franks' now-notorious remark, "We don't do body counts."

Three interesting facts nevertheless help shape a sense of the possibilities. One is that the US forces insist that they use precision techniques to minimise "collateral damage". The second is that the coalition recently and controversially admitted using phosphorus weapons in its attack on Falluja. The third is that one of the US marine air wings operating in Iraq announced in a press release in November 2005 that since the invasion began it had dropped more than half a million tons of explosives on Iraq......

Bombing civilians is not only immoral, it's ineffective

[Al-khiyal]

The causes underlying any civil war are always complex, confused, even contradictory -- as one would expect in an outbreak of madness. But those seeking to discover some of the key precipitating factors behind Iraq's furious plunge into chaos and disintegration might find one of them in the records of an obscure Congressional committee meeting on August 10, 2004.

At that meeting, then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, General Peter Pace (now head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and General Bryan Brown, head of Special Operations Command, appeared before the House Armed Services Committee. In a long session larded with the usual rhetorical posturing, mutual backscratching with the committee's rubberstamp Republican majority - and a couple of polite queries from the timid Democratic minority - Wolfowitz announced the Pentagon's plan to give money, arms and training to a network of local militias in trouble spots around the world. These irregular forces - "not just armies," Wolfowitz emphasized - would be used to "counter terrorism and insurgencies," provide greater internal security" in regions of American interest and "deny sanctuary" to America's designated enemies, according to Pentagon transcripts of the testimony.

General Brown said the use of militas was part of the "unconventional warfare" being waged by the Bush Administration across the globe, "whereby special forces accomplishes our national objectives through, by and with surrogate forces." General Pace gave the legislators a view of the scope of such operations, mentioning "Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Georgia, Paraguay, Colombia, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, North Korea, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Iran" and of course Iraq, which he mentioned twice. Wolfowitz told the Congressman that Bush wanted $500 million to set up this network - his own personal Janjaweed.....

Fear up harsh: The Iraqi Civil War in context

[Al-khiyal]

Halliburton Co., the world's second largest oil services company, repeatedly overcharged taxpayers and provided substandard cost reports under a $1.2 billion contract to restore Iraq's southern oil fields, according to a new report by U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman.....

Halliburton overcharged for Iraq oil work: report

[Al-khiyal]

Facing growing pressure from the Bush administration for him to step down, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Iraq vigorously asserted his right to stay in office today and warned the Americans against undue interference in Iraq's political process......

Al-Jaafari asserts his right to stay in office