Related Information to Post War Iraq

Post War Iraq - Page 74

Irritated Iraqis Wait for Change

Nearly six weeks after a landmark election, no new government has formed and people who risked their lives to vote wonder why they did.
Ref. https://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/latimes564.html

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Second Fort Carson Soldier Faces Court Martial In Iraqi Drowning Case

Two months after Staff Sgt. Tracy Perkins was convicted in the death of an Iraqi who allegedly drowned after soldiers forced him into the Tigris River, his co-defendant is hoping for a different result.
Ref. https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/4281605/detail.html

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Pain and anxiety grip wounded soldier

Terrell Dawes regrets that he ever followed his dream to go into the Army. When his fellow soldiers pulled him out of the wreckage, his upper body was badly burned, his skin beginning to peel. His femur had been shattered and he was missing toes on his left foot.
Ref. https://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/031...ded14dawes.html

Iraq War Post

https://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2005/03/good...aq-part-23.html
Good News from Iraq, Part 23

Perhaps nowhere has this phenomenon been more apparent in recent times as in Iraq, where as Stephens writes, "the media was so busy telling the story of everything that was going wrong in Iraq that it broadly missed what was going right" and thus failed to connect the proverbial dots.

The judgment on Iraq is still out, of course, as it rightly belongs to history and not the media. But just in case you, too, have a little inkling that the media has been missing some stories out of Iraq, and that these missed stories also matter, here's the last two weeks' worth of positive developments and good news from Iraq to balance your picture and perhaps even help you connect the dots yourself.

SOCIETY: The exact political and constitutional shape of the new Iraq will be decided over the next few months by the National Assembly and then by the people of Iraq in a referendum. In the meantime, robust and multi-faceted negotiations continue to form the government and shape the future of the political process. As Iraqi newspaper "Al Mendhar" summarizes it succintly: "Dialogues on All Levels among Winners, Losers and Boycotters". The National Assembly itself is set to open on March 16 for its first session and before that happens, the Kurds and the Shia have been doing a lot of talking to iron out a common vision for the future.

On the international front, Iraq's northern neighbor is now onboard: "Turkey has officially accepted the establishment of a federal structure in Iraq. Officials including Turkey's Special Envoy to Iraq, the General Staff, National Intelligence Branch and representatives Foreign Affairs Ministry have accepted the federalism article, the most important article in the Iraqi Temporary Administrative Law that until today had not officially been accepted. An official statement released today says: 'We respect the decisions of the Iraqis. We will not object if the majority of Iraqis demand federalism'."

You are really missing a great lot of news if you fail to read all of this installment.

Post War Iraq History & Civil Business Politics

Night Hawk and FarSeer I saw a documentary earlier this year which visited hospitals around Baghdad and other parts of Iraq. Doctors at these hospitals all said the cancer rates post Iraq War had soared, in some cases to levels as high as ten-fold. DU has affected many US and British troops as well who have served in both Gulf wars. I will find you the name of this documentary when I have more time, two renowned German Scientists have been studying the effect of DU for many years and also add strength to these claims. John Pilger's recent film on Iraq also documents the effect of DU in that country. I'm sure if you searched for Depleted Uranium on the web you might find something.

You should be able to find statistics on nations wealth, literacy etc by visiting the UN website. I thought it was a quite well-known fact that Iraq was affluent before Gulf War I.

Nighthawk provide me the evidence that the UN was witholding information frmo the US? the UN is actually based in New York and I have heard countless reports of UN requests from Iraq delayed or denied from HQ in New York. Furthermore if the US didn't support the Oli for Fodd program why did Madeline Albreight say it was working when she was told it was killing hundreds of thousands? Yes they were Democrats, why would I care if they were socialist or not, it's still inhumane.

You were right about Saddam using chemical weapons on the Kurds. But it is huighly hypocritical to condone the use of chemical weapons then and criticise it now. The US continued to remain Saddam's ally when they had full knowledge of these crimes against humanity.

John Pilger, a journalist who has actually ventured outside of his Baghdad hotel, has written a couple of reports on the Iraqi uprising. Robert Fisk has also mentioned it before. There have been other reports I have read, but yet again I will need to time to re-trace them.

At no point did Saddam ever want a war. He never invited or provoked the US led coalition into his country. There is absolutely no basis for international law to make this act legal, therefore it is an illegal invasion.

The Guardian is NOT a sociallist/communist paper. Just because a paper isn't PATRIOTIC and provides more than one point-of-view doesn't make it socialist. The US media made very little attempt to challenge what they were fed by the US Administration. They really acted as a mouthpiece to Bush propaganda and in doing so have blood on their hands. Real journalists don't just sit in on Hollywood coregraphed military press conferences, embed themselves with good guys and then tell everyone how wonderful everything is going. How many deaths of innocent Iraqis did you see in your sanitised coverage?

I think you are right in saying you need to balancde the good with the bad, but in truth the Iraq story for the past 15 years has very, very little good to tell. It's great that he has gone, but I just wait and see whether that country can now pick up the pieces and become what it once was. I really hope it does end well and in a couple of years I can tell you that the US invasion was the best thing for Iraq.

Page 74 Iraq War Post

I'm sorry, but we will have to agree to disagree on almost all items here. The only evidence you have for your assertions has been a single documentary. While that is fine as far as it goes, it doesn't really go very far. I agree that there are some serious concerns about depleted uranium. I share those concerns. But in war, there are lots and LOTS of dangers. I think that the jury is still out, way out, on DU.

Once again, if you are a journalist, and aren't aware of the vast coverup within the UN about the abuses of the Oil for Food program, then I have to question how much you are following current events. Earlier in this thread, I provided links to many of the questions you raise.

Was Iraq affluent before 1991? Possibly. But they were severely oppressed as well. I was never comfortable with the Oil for Food program. Saddam Hussein could have had the restrictions lifted at any time. Now we learn that one of his chief lieutenants tried to bribe Hans Blix and the other UN inspectors to give Iraq a clean bill, because Hussein was unwilling to allow them full access. If he was innocent as you seem to imply, why didn't he allow full inspection?

Let's not get into what is hyporcritcal and what isn't. The US, Britain, and Australia were allied with Iraq, to some extent at various times. Yes, the US administration knew of the horrors of Hussein, but at the time there were realpolitik reasons to support him. I don't like it, but it happened. That doesn't mean that the US, Britain, and Australia were complicit in his use of WMDs against his own people or against his neighbors.

This is entirely fiction. The term, "international law" is a fiction. There is no such thing as international law. It is a spaghetti pot of entertwining treaties, national interests, and perceptions. As far as justification, the UN passed 17 resolutions calling for increasingly harsh penalties against Iraq, unless Iraq allowed full disclosure of its weapons programs. The US finally enforced those resolutions, since the UN proved to the world that it is a helpless, useless pile of ... stone. You want to talk about Internation Law? Figure out how International Law allows some of the worst despots in the world to be the arbiters of Human Rights and Justice. (Sudan and Syria have both held high posts in the UN dealing with these subjects.)

So, if the US invasion was "illegal", what constitutes a "legal" invasion?

Thanks for the laugh. Pravda is less socialist and less anti-American than the Guardian (in England). (Is there a paper called the Guardian in Australia?)

As far as balancing the good with the bad. Since you, along with the US media, the Guardian, and the BBC are so intent on exploiting all the bad, I will continue my meager efforts to show the good that is happening in that part of the world.

Iraq War Post

AWOL in America

Why Over 5,500 U.S. Soldiers Discharged Themselves: The Pentagon has estimated that since the start of the current conflict in Iraq, more than 5,500 U.S. military personnel have deserted, and yet we know the stories of only a unique handful, all whom have publicly stated their opposition to the war in Iraq, and some of whom have fled to Canada.
Ref. https://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/15/1453256

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Pentagon Sees $108 Million in Overcharges by Halliburton

In one case, according to the auditing report, the company claimed that it had paid more than $27 million to transport liquified petroleum gas it had purchased in Kuwait for just $82,000, a charge the auditors dismissed as "illogical."
Ref. https://tinyurl.com/6u9om

Post War Iraq

Night Hawk, I really don't know where you are getting your information from but I fear it is terribly inaccurate. You might want to try some alternative sources apart from the US State Department or your mainstream media, that routinely promotes US government propaganda on issues relating to Iraq.

I have studied the Iraqi conflict in great depth for over ten years and know people, citizens and journalists, who are actually based there.

Let's begin with the oil for food. You clam that it was UN mis-management and deals with Saddam that prevented the Iraqi population from receiving vital medicines etc. That is incorrect and you are still to provide me with any evidence of this. While UN bureaucracy certainly slowed down the process, as bureaucracy in any multi-national organisation does, the root of the problem came from above. The economic embargo was imposed by the UN security council in 1990 and upgraded the year after.

It was the United Nations Sanctions committee, based in New York and dominated by the British and US, that vetoed or delayed vital medical equipment, chemotherapy drugs and even simple pain killers. It was not Saddam or administrators of the Oil for Food programme as you suggest.

Professor Karol Sikora, who was then chief of the World Health Organisation cancer programme wrote in the British Medical Journal in Jan 16 1999 that, "Requested radiotherapy equipment, chemotheray drugs and analgesics are consistently blocked by the US and British advisors of the Sanctions Committee." He also described their notion that such agents could be turned into weapons as ludicrous.

Denis Halliday, then Assistant Secretary-General of the UN and the co-ordinator of IRaq's humanitarium relief resigned in protest over the embargo and the adverse effect it had on the Iraqi population. He particularly criticsed Messrs Blair and Clinton for their government's role in blocking vital supplies. He never said anything about Saddam. Hans Von Sponeck, who took over from Halliday also resigned for similar reasons. Iraq was only allowed to sell off a fraction of its oil and all funds went into an account controlled by the UN security council. Over a third of this money paid UN expenses, repatriations for Kuwait (one of the worlds wealthiest nations at the time, and also repatriations to multi-national oil companies. So basically over a third of Iraq's slush fund during this hideous embargo was to pay back for Saddam's failed invasion despite millions of civilians suffering.

Security council resolution 687 stated that if Iraq renounced WMDs, ballistic missiles with a range of over 150kms and agreed to UN monitoring by UNSCOM the embargo would be lifted. In 1998 UNSCOM reported that despite some obstruction the disarmament phase of chemical weapons and missiles was near an end. On December 15 that year the IAEA also reported it had eliminated Iraq's nuclear weapons programme.

Despite this the embargo continued and the Sanctions Committee frequently vetoed or delayed requests for baby food, agricultural equipment, heart and cancer drugs, oxygen tents, X-Ray machines etc. (Agency Presse France, Nov 3 1999)

As of October 2001, 1,010 contracts for humanitarium supplies worth $3.85 billion were 'on hold' by the Sanctions Commmittee. (UN Office for Iraq Programme weekly update for October 16, 2001)

Most members of the Security Council wanted the sanctions eased or lifted. There are many speeches on this on the UN webstie. France labelled them cruel, ineffective and dangerous, however US dominance of the council meant US and British representatives alone vetoed and delayed contracts.

You spoke of the UN being helpless. The reason why it is often paralysed is because countries like the US, Russia and other security council members have far too much power. Nothing is ever passed in the UN Security Council unless it has US and other permanent member blessing which certainly isn't the sort of democracy your country preaches. Look at the number of vetoes any Security Council resolution against Israel has encountered because of Big Brother Sam. It holds the record for the most number of vetoes, not the French, as the Bush Administration complained about when trying to pass the recent Iraq resolutions.

Saddam Hussein could never have had the restrictions lifted because quite simply the US and Britain didn't want him to. They were happy to paralyse him and his country regardless of what weapons he possessed. In fact Colin Powell and Condi Rice both said on US television in as late as 2001 that Saddam was harmless and possessed no threat to any of his neighbours. Of course this all changed with September 11 when the Neo Cons saw the "perfect opportunity to go after Iraq" as Don Rumsfeld famously said.

Iraq was contained, this has been admitted time and time again by both the Clinton and Bush Administrations. It was never in breach of any Security Council because the UN Weapons inspectors, while at times obstructed, never determined Saddam to be hiding any WMDs. We now know the Bush Administration lied through its teeth with many ludicrous pieces of bogus intelligence to try and fool the world into this war. We all know the real reason Bush and his oil sipping administration went to war, let's not kid ourselves here. Of course the world didn't buy it, thats why you enjoyed very minimal support and widespread condemnation for attacking a sovereign nation.

I don't know why you keep aligning Australia with everything the US does. The only reason why our government even supported you in the Iraq War was to help secure a free-trade agreement, which we have.

I have seen at least 5 separate documentaries on DU, a number of written reports and have spoken to journalists in person who have visited Iraqi hospitals since the Gulf War. There is no doubt DU contamination it is increasing cancer rates among Iraqi citizens and also the US and British military. I don't think this really is a wait and see issue because if what I'm told is actually true then it is paramount a thorough independent investigation be taken out on this matter.

Thanks for the discussion, it's good to hear from a different viewpoint and I also must applaud you for trying to raise positive light on the Iraq situation. I really hope that country does well out of this, the people desperately deserve it. As I said to you before, please don't think my argument is targeted towards US people because I think you guys are great, I just have problems with what the US Administration is doing.

Post War Iraq - Page 74

"To those who have called me a coward I say that they are wrong, and that without knowing it, they are also right. They are wrong when they think that I left the war for fear of being killed. I admit that fear was there, but there was also the fear of killing innocent people, the fear of putting myself in a position where to survive means to kill, there was the fear of losing my soul in the process of saving my body, the fear of losing myself to my daughter, to the people who love me, to the man I used to be, the man I wanted to be. I was afraid of waking up one morning to realize my humanity had abandoned me."
-- Sgt. Camilo Mejia, who served one year in prison for refusing to return to fight in Iraq. He was released from prison Feb. 15, 2005.
Ref. https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

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WHISTLE-BLOWER: 'GAPING HOLES' IN OIL-FOR-FOOD

A former United Nations monitor of the organization's oil-for-food program in
Iraq told a congressional committee Thursday that the program had "gaping
holes" and that large amounts of aid never reached the Iraqi people.
Ref. https://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/17/...food/index.html

Post War Iraq Politics Business Civil & History - Page 74

I know, I know, all the hype that the Iraqi people are, in general, pleased with the way things are going, is just that - hype. But then again....

https://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/...p16_dom.art.htm
[b]Most Iraqis say future looks brighter[b]
62% highest mark since war began