Info about subscribing or unsubscribing from this list is at the bottom of this message. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://snipurl.com/fvwl One year after sovereignty restored, nation is in crisis By Patrick Quinn in Baghdad 25 June 2005 Car bombers have struck Iraq 479 times in the past year, and a third of the attacks followed the naming of a new Iraqi government two months ago, according to a count compiled by the Associated Press news agency and based on reports from police, military and hospital officials. The unrelenting attacks, using bombs that can cost as little $17 (£9.30) each to assemble, have become the most-favoured weapon of the government's most determined enemies, Islamic extremists. The toll has been tremendous: From 28 April through 23 June, there were at least 160 vehicle bombings that killed at least 580 people and wounded at least 1,734. For the year from the handover of sovereignty on 28 June 2204, until 23 June, 2005, there were at least 479 car bombs, killing 2,174 people and wounding 5,520. Altogether, insurgents have killed at least 1,245 people since the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari took over on 28 April. There were 77 car bombs in May, killing 317 people and wounding 896. Last month was the most violent for Iraqi civilians since the US-led invasion to remove Saddam Hussein from power in March 2003. So far, counterinsurgency sweeps by US and Iraqi forces, in Baghdad and in turbulent Anbar province to the west, have not been able to slow the attackers' pace appreciably. But officials say they have recently gained valuable intelligence about how the car bombers operate. As Iraqi and U.S. military officials went over plans for a recent sweep in Baghdad, they made a startling discovery: Rather than assembling car bombs outside the capital, insurgents were fitting the cars with explosives at workshops inside the city itself. That discovery, from tips by residents, forced officials to scrap the idea of surrounding Baghdad with troops to control all 23 entrances to the city. Instead, al-Jaafari said, the planners of Operation Lighting, launched 29 May, switched to setting up checkpoints in the city and making street-by-street sweeps. The tips also led to the discovery of large car bomb factories. Iraq is flush with the materials for devices. Leftover stockpiles from what was once the world's fourth-largest army supply the artillery shells and explosives. Getting a car is even easier, because no one asks for registration, a driver's license or paperwork of any kind; only a couple thousand dollars in cash is required to buy one. Hundreds of thousands of cheap, secondhand cars from Europe, the Persian Gulf and Asia flooded into Iraq after the occupation. Many are shipped to the Jordanian port of Aqaba and are then driven overland into Iraq on Jordanian artics. And last weekend, US and Iraqi forces launched two massive campaigns in Anbar to target foreign fighters coming into Iraq from Syria. They found foreign passports and one round-trip air ticket from Tripoli, Libya, to Damascus, Syria. They included two passports from Sudan, two from Saudi Arabia, two from Libya, two from Algeria and one from Tunisia. Iraq in numbers * 479 car bombs in Iraq since the handover of sovereignty, killing 2,174 and wounding 5,520 * 1,731 US soldiers, 88 British soldiers and 93 from other nations killed since March 2003 * Up to 4,895 Iraqi soldiers and 22,507 civilians killed since the invasion * 92 per cent of Baghdad households have an unstable electricity supply * 39 per cent have no safe drinking water * 25 per cent of children under the age of five suffer from malnutrition ------------- http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0605/062405lb.htm Rumsfeld Sued Over Torture By Daniel Pulliam [EMAIL PROTECTED] A lawsuit alleging that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is responsible for the prison torture scandal in Afghanistan and Iraq moved to federal court Wednesday against the wishes of government lawyers representing the Pentagon chief. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First on behalf of eight Afghani and Iraqi men who say they were tortured while held in U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. A panel of seven judges -- the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation -- moved the lawsuit to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, consolidating pretrial proceedings of four lawsuits filed by the ACLU. The other lawsuits were filed against Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who commanded U.S. forces in Iraq when the alleged abuse occurred, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinsky, who commanded U.S. military police forces in Iraq at the time and Col. Thomas Pappas, who commanded U.S. military intelligence and military police forces in Iraq at the time. According to the ACLU, lawyers representing the military commanders wanted the case tried in the Eastern District of Virginia, rather than elevating the case to the federal level. "This brings us one step closer to proving in court that the legal responsibility for the systemic abuse and torture of detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan lies at the top of the chain of command and not at the bottom," said a statement from Lucas Guttentag, the lawsuit's lead counsel and director of the ACLU's Immigrant's Rights Project. Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan will hear the case. "We welcome this decision and hope that we are closer to having a federal court reverse policy decisions that have led to torture and abuse," said Michael Posner, executive director of Human Rights First in the statement. Calls to the Justice Department for comment were not returned in time for publication. _____________________________ Note: This message comes from the peace-justice-news e-mail mailing list of articles and commentaries about peace and social justice issues, activism, etc. If you do not regularly receive mailings from this list or have received this message as a forward from someone else and would like to be added to the list, send a blank e-mail with the subject "subscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or you can visit: http://lists.enabled.com/mailman/listinfo/peace-justice-news Go to that same web address to view the list's archives or to unsubscribe. E-mail accounts that become full, inactive or out of order for more than a few days will be deleted from this list. FAIR USE NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the information in this e-mail is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. I am making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for in the US Copyright Law.
