| |
|
Casualties in Iraq
Iraq
Body Count
---------------------- |
| The invasion of Irak ( 19 April 2003) |
24 June 2005
Iraq, what price "victory"?
"Stay the course,"
said the Pied Piper of Hamelin
by Justin Raimondo
The cry is going up to get us out of Iraq , and just as surely – and loudly –
the counter-cry is also rising: don't "cut and run!" The neoconservatives' big
guns are being wheeled out, with David Brooks and Max Boot – pontificating from the
pages of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, respectively – firing up a
bi-coastal barrage.
--------------------- |
Sara Flounders:
Bertrand Russell Tribunal: Bush Cabal Plotted War on Iraq Years
ago
----------------------- |
D. Barstow et al
(19 April 2004)
Security
Companies: Shadow Soldiers in Iraq
They have come from all corners of the world. Former
Navy Seal commandos from North Carolina. Gurkas from Nepal. Soldiers from South Africa's
old apartheid government. They have come by the thousands, drawn to the dozens of private
security companies that have set up shop in Baghdad. The most prized were plucked from the
world's elite special forces units. Others may have been recruited from the local SWAT
team.
----------------------- |
N. Ferguson (18
April 2004)
The Last Iraqi
Insurgency
From Ted Kennedy to the cover of Newsweek, we are
being warned that Iraq has turned into a quagmire, George W. Bush's Vietnam. Learning from
history is well and good, but such talk illustrates the dangers of learning from the wrong
history. To understand what is going on in Iraq today, Americans need to go back to 1920,
not 1970. And they need to get over the American inhibition about learning from
non-American history.
----------------------- |
P. Krugman (16
April 2004)
The Vietnam Analogy
Iraq isn't Vietnam. The most important difference is
the death toll, which is only a small fraction of the carnage in Indochina. But there are
also real parallels, and in some ways Iraq looks worse.
----------------------- |
M. Chossudovsky (16
April 2004)
Iraq and the "War on Terrorism"
While the Western media highlights the death and
"kidnapping" of paid mercenaries, on contract to Western security firms, there
is a deafening silence on the massacre of more than 700 civilians in Fallujah by coalition
forces.
----------------------- |
J. Pilger (15 April
2004)
Iraq is a war of national liberation
"Were I to undertake the same journey in Iraq
today, I might not return alive. Foreign terrorists have ensured that. With the most
lethal weapons that billions of dollars can buy, and the threats of their cowboy generals
and the panic-stricken brutality of their foot soldiers, more than 120,000 of these
invaders have ripped up the fabric of a nation that survived the years of Saddam Hussein,
just as they oversaw the destruction of its artefacts. They have brought to Iraq a daily,
murderous violence which surpasses that of a tyrant who never promised a fake
democracy".
----------------------- |
M. Dowd (8 April
2004)
The Iraqi
Inversion
Every single thing the administration calculated would
happen in Iraq has turned out the opposite. The W.M.D. that supposedly threatened us did
not exist. The dangerous dictator was deluded and writing romance novels. The terrorism
that would be thwarted has mushroomed in Iraq and is feeding Arab radicalism.
----------------------- |
J. Risen (8 April
2004)
Account of Broad
Shiite Revolt Contradicts White House Stand
United States forces are confronting a broad-based
Shiite uprising that goes well beyond supporters of one militant Islamic cleric who has
been the focus of American counterinsurgency efforts, United States intelligence officials
said Wednesday.
----------------------- |
N. Morris (Feb. 16,
2004)
Tutu tells Blair: apologise for 'inmoral' war
----------------------- |
D. Morris (
February 3, 2004 )
Faulty intelligence my eye
----------------------- |
Sen. E. M. Kennedy
(January 15, 2004):
Faith Broken, Truth Distorted
In its arrogant disrespect for the United Nations and
for other peoples in other lands, this Administration and this Congress have squandered
the immense goodwill that other nations extended to our country after the terrorist
attacks of September 11. And in the process, they made America a lesser and a less
respected land.
----------------------- |
N.Y.T. (04/01/04)
G.I. is wounded by mortar fire at Iraq base.
2 others wounded
----------------------- |
R. Scheer
(AlterNet)
( 11 November 2003 )
Scheer: Mr. President, you're no Moses
...It takes stunning arrogance for a president to
invade an oil-rich, politically strategic country on the basis of demonstrable lies, put
his favorite companies in control of its economic future, create a puppet regime to do his
bidding and then claim, as George Bush did last week in a speech, that this is all a bold
exercise in spreading democracy. ...
----------------------- |
J. Risen (The New
York Times)
( 6 November 2003 )
Iraq said to have tried to reach last-minute deal to avert
war
...As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in
March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a
secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal.
Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the
businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass
destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct a search...
----------------------- |
M. Chossudovsky (
28 October 2003 )
Who was behind the attack on the Red Cross in Baghdad?
----------------------- |
"All that is necessary for the forces of evil to prevail in the
world is for enough good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke (British eighteenth century statesman)
I. Ramonet (July, 2003)
Bush and his entourage have deceived Americans and world public opinion. As Professor Paul
Krugman says, their lies are "the worst scandal in American political history, worse
than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra"
State-sponsored lies
---
From The New York Times
P. Krugman (3 June, 2003)
Standard Operating Procedure
P. Krugman (15 July, 2003)
Patterns
of Corruption
P. Krugman (18 July, 2003)
Passing
it along
---
A. Roufberg (July, 2003)
Another theory: critique of a hyper-paranoid
Neo-Conspiracy theorist
----------------------- |
M. R. Gordon, 19
July 2003
The disclosure of the plan is part of an assessment prepared by General Moseley on the
lessons of the war with Iraq. General Moseley and a senior aide presented their
assessments at an internal briefing for American and allied military officers at Nellis
Air Force Base in Nevada on Thursday ...
U.S. Air Raids in '02 Prepared
for War in Iraq
By The New York Times
In Sketchy Data, White House Sought Clues to Gauge
Threat
----------------------- |
London, 18 July
2003
MPs have reacted with shock and disbelief at the discovery of a body in the search for
missing Iraq weapons expert Dr David Kelly. ...
WMD expert is found dead
MPs shocked by expert dissapearance
Tragedy prompt hard questions
MoD to hold inquiry into Kelly
death
Blair tries to switch Iraq agenda
US faces up to guerrilla war
"Time running out" to secure Iraq
----------------------- |
I. Williams, 16
July 2003
Now, the continuing embarrassment of the absence of any credible signs of missing weapons
or imaginary links with Al Qaeda is exacerbated by the question of who knew, and when,
that the documents about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger were fakes. The shame is going to
mount, ...
Real War - Virtual Weapons?
----------------------- |
D. Sanger, 14 July
2003
"A lot of bull," Mr. Fleischer said about that accusation today, with the candor
of a man about to go to the private sector. Inside the C.I.A. and the State Department,
though, many are still asking how a White House aware of the doubts could have shown such
caution in October, and thrown it to the winds in January. ...
A shifting spotlight on Uranium
sales
----------------------- |
BBC News, 13 July
2003
The former head of the UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix has told a British newspaper that
Tony Blair made a "fundamental mistake" in claiming that Saddam Hussein could
deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes. ...
Blair made WMD mistake says Blix
----------------------- |
The Observer, 13
July 2003
In a remarkable letter released last night, the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, reveals a
catalogue of disputes between the two countries, lending more ammunition to critics of the
war and exerting fresh pressure on the Prime Minister ...
Blair ignored CIA weapons
warning
----------------------- |
The Guardian, 12
July 2003
From the start, the invasion of Iraq was seen in the US as a marketing project. Selling
'Brand America' abroad was an abject failure; but at home, it worked. Manufacturers of
4x4s, oil prospectors, the nuclear power industry, politicians keen to roll back civil
liberties - all seized the moment to capitalise on the war. PR analysts Sheldon Rampton
and John Stauber explain how it worked. ...
Trading on Fear
----------------------- |
M. Fareel, 11 July
2003
Americans aren't the only ones dying for Bush's sins, of course. Thousands of Iraqis
perished in the war and others were blinded, maimed and orphaned. And though many
rightfully argue that Iraqis would continue to be tortured had Saddam stayed in power,
those who use Saddam's cruelty as justification for the lies that usurped our democracy
often sidestep crucial information ...
How the land of the free became a dinosaur in the tar
pit
----------------------- |
D. Corn, 9 July
2003
...developing weapons is not the same as possessing weapons. Bush and his advisers did not
argue that the United States was compelled to go to war – rather than support more
intrusive inspections – because Hussein had ongoing weapons programs; they claimed
the United States had to invade because it was imminently threatened by actual weapons
that were in Hussein's mitts (and that he could slip at any moment to his partners in al
Qaeda).
More evidence Bush misled nation
----------------------- |
Published on 7 July
2003
by the authority of the House of Commons
United Kingdom
House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committe
The Decision to go to War in
Iraq
----------------------- |
T. Hayden( July 07,
2003 )
Say It: this is a Quagmire
----------------------- |
The Observer ( July
06, 2003 )
Iraq: the human toll
----------------------- |
From ATTAC ( 28 May, 2003)
:
G-World Declaration
full text
----------------------- |
New York Times ( 26 May,
2003) :
Iraquis Frustrated by Shift Favouring U.S. - British Rule
full text
----------------------- |
P. Escobar:
The roving eye. Iraq showdown: winners and losers
...European diplomats in Geneva and Brussels are very much
aware of the triumph of the Rumsfeld doctrine over that of Secretary of State Colin
Powell. But they wonder whether the US can really be a winner in the new equation. ...
full text
----------------------- |
In
1991, A. G. Frank published a paper entitled "Third World War: a political economy
of the Gulf War and new world order". On June this year, 12 years and three
imperialist wars after, G. Thomas published an article on the subject which confirms
Andre's analysis. I post both pieces below. They contribute to make clear how menacing for
the survival of people's freedom the US imperialism is becoming.
(Róbinson Rojas, 21 July 2003)
G. Thomas, 29 June 2003
...Former CIA Director James Woolsey, in a recent speech in Los Angeles, said: “The
Iraq campaign is really just the start of the Third World War and one that may well last
for decades.” ...
Global War Looms?
A.G. Frank (1991):
"The Gulf War may be termed THIRD WORLD WAR in two senses
of this title: First, this war aligned the rich North, the rich oil emirates or kingdoms,
and some bribed regional oligarchies against a poor Third World country. In that sense,
the Gulf War was a THIRD WORLD WAR by the North against the South..."..."The
second sense of THIRD WORLD WAR is that the Gulf War may dangerously mark the brutal
beginning of a THIRD WORLD WAR, following upon the First and Second World Wars. Not only
was the tonnage of bombs dropped on Iraq of world war proportions. The Gulf War and the
New World Order it was meant to launch signify the renewed recourse by a world wide
"coalition of allies" to mass destruction of infrastructure and mass
annihilation of human beings"...
Third World War:
A political economy of the Gulf War and new world order
(with a 2003 EPILOGUE)
----------------------- |
BBC News (7
September 2003 )
Al-Qaeda denies Iraq attack
The organisation blamed the killing of Ayatollah Hakim on "the Americans and
Jews", who wanted to "get rid of him, for they knew about his loyalty to
Iran". ...
full text
----------------------- |
BBC News (7
September 2003 )
Hutton enquiry: key documents
Thousands of documents have been submitted to the Hutton inquiry into the death of
government weapons expert Dr David Kelly. ...
full text
----------------------- |
The New York Times
(24 August 2003)
...
Rumsfeld
Seeking to Bolster Force Without New G.I.'s
...
Senators
on Both Sides See Need for More Troops in Iraq
----------------------- |
A. Gunder Frank (
August , 2003 )
The meaning of violence to meaning
Saving Civilization, as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and
US President George Bush keep claiming to be doing, is an oxymoron. To begin with, what
they really mean is WESTERN civilization. Of that, Gandhi already said a half century ago,
that its mere existence would be a good idea. Only a few years before that, Hitler claimed
that his invasion of Russia was to save Western Civilization. That cost the Russians 40
million lives and the Jews 6 million. Today, as in Vietnam a generation ago, the
government of the United States and its allies' effort to ''save" civilization is
DESTROYING it, or at least its most precious legacy...
full text
----------------------- |
S. J. Kerr (6
August 2003)
...It truly is "déją vu all over again." Today, the US Army describes itself
in Iraq as "a magnet for terrorism," while it is becoming clear to many that
American policies are not making Americans safer, but rather endangering the entire planet
as America's increasing energy dependence to maintain its obscene consumption levels
demands the violent expropriation of the wealth of other societies; ultimately futile
investments in death.
The end?
----------------------- |
S. Gardner (6
August 2003)
...One unanticipated consequence of the Iraq conflict and the subsequent war of words is
that intelligence has been made to look stupid – or at least, it has been shown that
intelligence can be used in stupid ways. Another consequence, however, has gone largely
unremarked: The Iraq war has blown a big hole in the Bush administration's infamous and
poorly thought-out doctrine of pre-emption.
Goodby 'Hot Preemption'
----------------------- |
Associated Press (5
August 2003)
...
Report: Marines dropped devices
similar to Napalm on Iraqi troops
----------------------- |
G. Palast (1 August
2003)
...Well, well, well. President George was in one hell of bind this week when it turned
that that Saudi Arabia funded Al Qaeda, not Iraq. Realizing we'd invaded the wrong
country, Bush did the honorable thing: he's come out against gay marriages.
Bush and the Saudis Sittin' in a Tree . . . KAY EYE
ESS ESS EYE EN GEE
----------------------- |
R. McGovern (31
July 2003)
When Vice President Dick Cheney comes out of seclusion to brand critics
"irresponsible," you know the administration is running scared. ...
Cheney's 'irresponsible' speech
----------------------- |
S. Rampton/J.
Stauber (28 July 2003)
Editor's Note: This is an edited excerpt from the newly released book "Weapons of Mass Deception: the Uses of
Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq", by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber..
The fog of war talk
----------------------- |
S. Kretzmann and J.
Valette (24 July 2003)
During the initial assault on Baghdad, soldiers set up forward bases named Camp Shell and
Camp Exxon. Those soldiers knew the score, even if the Pentagon's talking points dismissed
any ties between Iraqi oil and their blood.
Operation Oily Immunity
----------------------- |
Michael Z (19 July
2003)
History forgave Churchill why
not Blair and Bush?
----------------------- |
J. Van Bergen/C. B.
Gittings (14 July 2003)
Bush war: military necessity or war crimes?
----------------------- |
I. Ramonet
Transition to an empire
When General Jay Garner landed in Iraq and arrived in bombed
and looted Baghdad he declared: "This is a great day." As if his presence
miraculously ended the thousand and one problems afflicting ancient Mesopotamia. What is
astonishing is not the obscenity of the statement but the resignation ... full text
----------------------- |
A. Lieven (2002):
The push for war
...The most surprising thing about the Bush Administration's
plan to invade Iraq is not that it is destructive of international order; or wicked, when
we consider the role the US (and Britain) have played, and continue to play, in the Middle
East; or opposed by the great majority of the international community; or seemingly
contrary to some of the basic needs of the war against terrorism .... full
text
----------------------- |
G. Olson ( 1 July,
2003 )
Iraq Eerily Starting to look a lot like Vietnam
...Given that the weapons of mass destruction rationale for
invading Iraq has been shown to be the biggest intelligence hoax in recent history, why
aren't Americans more outraged and holding the Bush administration accountable for its
pattern of lies, deception and deceit?
full text
----------------------- |
Col D. Smith (Ret.)
( 1 July, 2003 )
Iraq: descending into the quagmire
Between May 1, when President Bush declared that major combat
in Iraq was over, and June 26, 57 U.S. and eight UK military personnel have died in Iraq.
That is more than one death every day. To the U.S. and UK toll must be added the sometimes
tens or scores of Iraqis, both Saddamists--military, intelligence, fedayeen, non-Iraqi
volunteers--and innocent civilians. ...
full text
----------------------- |
J. Lobe ( June 12,
2003 )
Pentagon Moving Swiftly to Become "Globocop"
Much like its successful military campaign in Iraq, the
Pentagon is moving at breakneck speed to redeploy U.S. forces and equipment around the
world in ways that will permit Washington to play "Globocop," according to a
number of statements by top officials and defense planners. While preparing sharp
reductions in forces in Germany, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, ...
full text
----------------------- |
R. M. Bennett (
June 20, 2003 )
US wages war from within Iran
With commendable stupidity usually only reserved for the most
powerful and isolated from reality, President George W Bush has managed to go some way
towards repeating the catastrophic mistakes of Lyndon Johnson and ensnare the United
States in an increasingly unpopular and probably unwinnable foreign military involvement.
Just two months after the sudden collapse of organized Iraqi resistance to the US-led
invasion, US troops are back in a Vietnam-scenario with the ambushing of military convoys,
the regular use of grenades and rocket launchers against isolated American targets and
indeed suicide bombers ...
full text
----------------------- |
G. Friedman ( 18 June,
2003):
The United States is now clearly involved in a guerrilla war
in the Sunni regions of Iraq. As a result, U.S. forces are engaging in counterinsurgency
operations, which historically have proven most difficult and trying -- for both American
forces and American politics.
Guerrilla War in Iraq
...full text
----------------------- |
Col. D. Smith (Ret.) ( 17
June, 2003):
In fact, with each passing day, it is becoming more painfully
obvious that the main categorical accusations against the regime of Saddam Hussein used by
U.S. President George W. Bush and other senior administration officials to justify the war
on Iraq simply are unsupported by facts on the ground. And because the rhetoric in the
run-up to war appealed to the world to recognize the U.S. action within a religious-based
paradigm...
Iraq: integrity and ethics in formulating
and interpreting intelligence
...full text
----------------------- |
R. Rojas ( 13 June, 2003):
The evidence is overwhelming: Saddam Hussein's biological
weapons of mass destruction capability was possible because U.S. big corporations and
political leaders were doing business with the dictator.
U.S. corporations, Rumsfeld, Reagan, et al,
the criminals who supplied Saddam Hussein with biological warfare-related material
...full text
----------------------- |
Newsweek ( 9 June, 2003):
The message was plain: Saddam’s weapons of mass
destruction made war unavoidable. So where are they? Inside the administration’s
civil war over intel
Where are Iraq's WMDs?
...full text
----------------------- |
New York Times ( 13 June,
2003):
President Bush cannot be pleased to know that his State of the
Union address last January included an ominous report about Iraq that turns out to have
been based on forged documents. The incident is an embarrassment for Mr. Bush and for the
nation, ...
The Vanishing Uranium
...full text
----------------------- |
New York Times ( 8 June,
2003):
We are as pleased as anyone to see Saddam Hussein removed from
power, but the United States cannot now simply erase from the record the Bush
administration's dire warnings about the Iraqi weapons threat. The good word of the United
States is too central to America's leadership abroad — and to President Bush's
dubious doctrine of pre-emptive warfare — to be treated so cavalierly.
Was the intelligence cooked?
...full text
----------------------- |
G. Friedman ( 5 June,
2003):
..."Weapons of mass destruction" is promising to
live up to its name: The issue may well result in the mass destruction of senior British
and American officials who used concerns about WMD in Iraq as the primary, public
justification for going to war. The simple fact is that no one has found any weapons of
mass destruction in Iraq and ...
WMD
... full text
----------------------- |
G. Wright ( 4 June, 2003):
...Oil was the main reason for military action against Iraq, a
leading White House hawk has claimed, confirming the worst fears of those opposed to the
US-led war. The US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz - who has already undermined
Tony Blair's position over weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by describing ...
Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil
... full text
----------------------- |
W. D. Hartung
Bombing bring U.S. 'Executive
Mercenaries' into the light
(May 16, 2003) You had probably never heard of the Vinnell
Corp. before the brutal bombing that killed at least nine of its employees in Saudi Arabia
this week, but you should have ... full text
----------------------- |
R. Cornwell
Fallout of America's vain hunt for WMD
confined to embarrassment
"We came to bear country, we came loaded for bear and we
found out the bear wasn't here," said Colonel Richard McPhee, a member of Task Force
75, which went in with US troops to find and display the hidden WMD. Force 75 will be
pulled out of Iraq next month ... full
text
----------------------- |
Tariq Ali
Re-colonizing Iraq
The American expedition to Baghdad, and world-wide reactions
to the new imperium. From mass demonstrations against the war to the diplomatic
hypocrisies colluding with it. The UN as framework of blockade and intervention yesterday,
and mask of reconstruction tomorrow ...
----------------------- |
|