IRAQ: AP Counts 3,200 Civilian Deaths; Blix Says Pentagon Smeared Him UN WIRE http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/util/display_stories.asp?objid=34206 An independent investigation by the Associated Press has revealed that at least 3,240 civilians died in the recent U.S.-led war in Iraq, 1,900 of them in Baghdad.
The results of the investigation, based on records from 60 out of Iraq's 124 hospitals and spanning the period from March 20, when the war started, to April 20, when fighting had died down, were published today. The news agency reports that the count is "still fragmentary" and that a final tally, if ever computed, would likely be "significantly higher" (Niko Price, AP/Yahoo! News, June 11). Of the civilian deaths recorded, 1,896 were in Baghdad, 293 were in Najaf, 200 were in Karbala and 145 were in Nasiriya. The tally does not include figures for Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, where hospitals signed 413 death certificates but did not track whether the casualties were civilian or military (AP/Yahoo! News, June 10). Neither the U.S. Department of Defense nor the British Defense Ministry conducted a civilian death count. The civilian death toll in the 1991 Gulf War was 2,278, according to Iraqi government figures. The Pentagon did not tally civilian casualties in that war, either (Price, AP/Yahoo! News). Rumsfeld Warns Security Will "Take Time"; 30th Soldier Post-War Killed The 30th soldier to die since U.S. President George W. Bush declared the war in Iraq over on May 1 was killed yesterday when unknown assailants fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a weapons collection point in Baghdad, Agence France-Presse reports. Another was injured in the attack. Both were U.S. soldiers. Speaking in Lisbon at the start of a four-day European tour, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said "remnants of the Iraqi regime -- the Fedayeen Saddam and Baathists and very likely the special Republican Guard" are "the ones that are periodically attacking coalition forces, sometimes successfully." Rumsfeld said such attacks would probably not diminish "in the next month or two or three." "It will take time to root out the remnants of the [former Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein regime, and we intend to do it," he said (AFP/Yahoo! News, June 11). A military effort, dubbed Operation Peninsula Strike, to end attacks by Hussein loyalists began Monday and continued yesterday as U.S. troops and Iraqi police scoured the Tigris River north of Baghdad in search of paramilitaries blamed for the deaths of 11 U.S. soldiers in the last two weeks. The effort, with tanks, artillery and aircraft, is reportedly the largest military undertaking since the war ended. Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, said Hussein has been seen north of Baghdad and is paying rewards for every U.S. soldier killed. U.S. Defense Department officials said they had no corroborating evidence for Chalabi's claim (Chicago Tribune, June 11). U.N. Chief Inspector Says Pentagon Undermined Him U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspections Commission Executive Chairman Hans Blix told the London Guardian yesterday that "some elements" of the U.S. Defense Department led a smear campaign against him. "I have my detractors in Washington," Blix said. "There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much," he added. "It was like a mosquito bite in the evening that is there in the morning, an irritant." According to the Guardian, Pentagon officials criticized Blix as a bad choice to lead the inspections in Iraq when they were relaunched in November. Part of the campaign against him, Blix said, was a rumor that he was a homosexual. Blix said overall his relationship with Washington was "good," but added that "towards the end the (Bush) administration leaned on" the inspectors to use more damning language in their reports, especially regarding the discovery of cluster bombs and drones in March. Blix said Washington viewed the United Nations as an "alien power" and that it was his impression that "there are people in this [the Bush] administration who say they don't care if the U.N. sinks under the East River, and other crude things." Blix, 74, will retire in three weeks and return to life in Stockholm with his wife, Eva (Helena Smith, London Guardian, June 11). Interim UNMOVIC Chief Named U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has appointed UNMOVIC Deputy Executive Chairman Demetrius Perricos to take over as acting head of the commission July 1, when Blix retires. Perricos was the commission's director of planning and operations for three years prior to his appointment in January to the body's number two post. The Greek native joined the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1972 as a safeguards inspector and led the team that certified the dissolution of South Africa's nuclear weapons program. He also worked in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War (U.N. release, June 10). IRAQ: $100 Million Reconstruction Fund Unveiled; Exiled Royal Returns http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/util/display_stories.asp?objid=34208 The U.S. civil administration in Iraq yesterday announced plans for a $100 million investment fund geared to create jobs and jump-start reconstruction projects throughout the country. Chief U.S. administrator Paul Bremer said Iraqi leaders with whom he met Friday night estimated that unemployment prior to the war exceeded 50 percent and has since worsened due to the demise of many state-run businesses. "We're facing an unemployment problem that is certainly without precedent in my life," Bremer said, adding that it creates "a real hardship" for Iraqi citizens. The plan will create jobs around construction projects. Using Iraqi funds, it will devote $20 million to rebuilding government structures and give $15 million to each region in the country for reconstruction projects of the communities' choosing (CNN.com, June 10). Pentagon Official Says Reconstruction "More Complex" Than Foreseen Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Stability Operations Joseph Collins told reporters yesterday that establishing stability in Iraq was a "tougher and more complex" job than the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush had anticipated. Collins blamed Baath party loyalists, terrorists, common criminals and foreign fighters who joined the Iraqi army during the war and have remained in the country as "guest worker jihadists" for much of the violence that has kept Iraq in a vulnerable state. He said the looting and continued hostilities were "to some extent unexpected" and that much of it appeared to be professionally organized (Robert Burns, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, June 10). Royal Family Member Returns To Baghdad Sharif Ali bin Hussein, a 45-year-old Iraqi royal whose parents spirited him out of Baghdad as an infant after a 1958 coup killed his cousin, King Faisal II, returned from London and yesterday promised to help create an Iraq built on "dignity, freedom and democracy." Sharif Ali told reporters he was "not thinking in terms of power but in terms of the empowerment of the Iraqi people," but aides said he wants a referendum allowing Iraqis to decide whether they want him to lead a constitutional monarchy. He did not mention such an arrangement yesterday as he spoke to a crowd of 1,500 gathered before his family's mausoleum. Sharif Ali, an investment banker, is a member of the Hashemite royal family that rules Jordan and was installed in Iraq by the United Kingdom following World War I (Tim Sullivan, AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, June 11). U.S. Prints Currency With Hussein's Image The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is printing millions of 250 dinar notes, which bear the image of a young former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and sending them throughout Iraq by the truckload because a cash crisis is brewing. The only other currency in wide circulation is the 10,000 dinar bill, issued last year by Hussein's government and worth about $10. Rumors are flying that the easily counterfeited bill will soon be declared worthless. Accordingly, merchants -- if they accept the 10,000 dinar bills at all -- are redeeming them at 70 percent of their value. According to BBC, a restive crowd gathered outside the central bank in Baghdad earlier this week demanding a solution to the problem. "I came to change these notes because nobody will take them," said Zainab Mohammed as she held up 10,000 dinar notes. Coalition authorities have reportedly said it is better to lose face by printing 250 dinar notes that violates their own ban on Hussein's image than to risk a crisis. They say they will design new currency after an interim Iraqi government is in place (BBC Online, June 10). _______________________________________________________ John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED] "The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03 _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
