The Iraq thread 3

[denoir 0]

It does not mean they are right, right (estimate)? You put tens which is highly unlikely.

Not at all. There were two major organized projects for finding that data. One was by associated press (AP) which looked through records of half of Iraq's hospitals. They counted about 4,000 people. These were however only people that had actually died in the hospitals i.e it was a count of the mortally wounded and that only in half of the hospitals. They did not look at morgue records or similar.

The second organized attempt is the Iraqi body count project that base their results only on things reported in the media. They report around 10,000 dead.

Both the AP and IBC numbers are very incomplete. The AP numbers only include those that actually died inside half of Iraq's hospitals and the IBC numbers only include the deaths specifically reported in the media.

Both projects also only cover civilian deaths. At least 2-3 armored divisions were wiped out and equally many infantry divisions. And that's tens of thousands of men, right there.

One more organization has documented civilian deaths from March through July 2003.

The Iraq Survey reports 2081 civilian deaths.

True, they use a very different methodology: door-to-door knocking and asking people who they knew that died. Furthermore it was done in a geographically limited area.

So while their work can be appreciated from a narrative point of view- they have individual interviews etc and as putting faces on lists with names, from a statistical point of view they can be more or less dismissed. Simply put they collected a very limited amount of data and the data was of questionable quality. ("Have you seen anybody killed? -Um, uhh..sure why not..I've..umm..hehe..eh seen an orphanage being attacked by ehh..uhhm.. 25 cruise missiles")

[SpongeBob 0]

I noticed this while reading the list:

Quote[/b] ]omar hekmaat nafea          32         M      merchant 90000 (6)

                          American solders      al mahmodeaa               3/23/2003

For the whole list, only that one list "American solders" as the cause of death.

[Veovis 0]

Quote[/b] ]The sad fact is that the USA are just plain and simple the new Rome!! No respect for life other than their own.

It is my opinion that the sad fact is that you don't know the difference between opinions and facts.

[theavonlady 2]

I guess it were some of those vessels:

They are used for training purposes atm.

Is this the same boat?

British rigid raiders (military fast craft) are shown during a

major military training exercise involving 15 nations at the

Royal Navy's Faslane Base in Scotland, Monday June 21,

2004. The exercise on the west coast of Scotland is designed

to prepare for the type of attack which claimed the lives of

17 US sailors aboard the USS Cole in

2000. (AP Photo Andrew Milligan/Pool)

[Veovis 0]

Worst, boat, ever.  

[Edit] I am talking about the boat, and not the flag/soldiers in it. Just making sure in case somebody thinks I have something against the British. It's just that the Simpson's comic book guy jumped in my head and it needed saying

[theavonlady 2]

Worst, boat, ever.  

The more things change...................

[ran 0]

http://wwwi.reuters.com/images/2004-06-21T124203Z_01_GRI144888_RTRUKOP_2_PICTURE0.jpg

Worst, boat, ever.

The more things change...................

http://www.greaterthings.com/images/People/washington_delaware.jpg

Le radeau de la méduse by Géricault.

perfect metaphor of the actual situation in Iraq ;)

[m21man 0]

Quote[/b] ]9/11 panel: New evidence on Iraq-Al-Qaida

By Shaun Waterman

UPI Homeland and National Security Editor

Published 6/20/2004 5:27 PM

WASHINGTON, June 20 (UPI) -- The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks has received new information indicating that a senior officer in an elite unit of the security services of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein may have been a member of al-Qaida involved in the planning of the suicide hijackings, panel members said Sunday.

John F. Lehman, a Reagan-era GOP defense official told NBC's "Meet the Press" that documents captured in Iraq "indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaida."

Full Article

[theavonlady 2]

What are only women and children innocents now?

Ask CNN.

CNN did not say anything about how many civilians were killed. They did not even say how many women and children were killed. All they said was that the Iraqi doctors in Fallujah claimed that they saw corpses of two children and one woman.

The so called 'secondary explosions' are also very much disputed. The witnesses claim that two missiles were fired. One that partially collapsed two buildings and the other one minutes later when people were dragging injured from the rubbles.

One newspaper's report of the Fallujah attack that didn't make it here is the NY Times, as reported by their own correspondent in Fallujah:

Quote[/b] ]Iraqi Official Says Most Killed in Airstrike Were Foreign Terrorists

By FOOAD AL SHEIKHLY and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: June 20, 2004

FALLUJA, Iraq, June 20 — A day after an American airstrike destroyed six homes in this flashpoint city, a senior Iraqi official said today that 23 of 26 people killed in the attack were foreign terrorists, including men from Algeria, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

American officials had justified the strike on Saturday, the first major military action in Falluja since United States forces pulled out of the city in early May, by saying that the homes that were targeted were being used by agents of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the most wanted terrorists in Iraq and the suspected mastermind of dozens of suicide attacks.

On Saturday, people pulling bodies out of the debris had said women and children were among the victims. The Iraqi official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that three Iraqis were among those killed and that two Iraqis were injured, but did not provide further details.

He said it was not clear if Mr. Zarqawi himself was inside the small concrete-block homes when they were smashed to rubble by three 500-pound bombs dropped from an American warplane. But he said that American intelligence was accurate and the homes did not house civilians but terrorists.

"The Americans had very good information," the official said. "It was like trying to catch a sparrow. They had a small moment to catch the fighters in those houses and they did."

The official said one reason why Falluja was relatively calm today, despite the potential for revenge killings or other strife, was because the city's residents had little love for the foreign terrorists.

Several residents agreed today. Their actions, or inactions, spoke even louder.

There were no serious mortar attacks against American forces today, no fiery sermons at the mosques, no marches in the street. Instead, Falluja, a battered city that just weeks ago was the scene of some of the most intense urban combat in Iraq since the occupation began, was functioning normally, with police manning checkpoints, traffic flowing smoothly and boys selling roasted cashews on the sidewalk.

"Fallujans are in no mood to fight," said Mahmood Shaker al-Falahee, a retired government official. "We know people come from the outside to try to raise a conflict between us and the Americans. They come here because our borders are so open."

As for the bomb strike, Mr. Falahee was almost dismissive.

"Something like this," he said, "will be passed and soon forgotten."

To be sure, Falluja remains a volatile spot, the single city in occupied Iraq that is essentially unoccupied, thanks to a truce last month when Marine forces withdrew from the city and transferred authority to an all-Iraqi force called the Falluja Brigade. The brigade was hastily formed by former members of Saddam Hussein's army and Republican Guard and even included insurgents the marines had just been battling.

Under the agreement, the Falluja Brigade promised to establish security within the city, which lies 35 miles west of Baghdad, and the marines promised to stay out.

Some Falluja residents said today that the American air strike had broken the truce.

"They gave us their word and they violated it," said Qasim Mohammed Abdul Satar, who sits on Falluja's shura council, a body of town elders. "In spite of this, the people of Falluja won't breach the truce. But more trouble may come to the surface. We'll see."

Falluja has been rife with mixed signals the past several weeks. Masked insurgents continue to operate openly in some quarters of town, even dispensing their own brand of Islamic justice, including an episode last month when four whiskey sellers were lashed with whips and paraded through the streets.

At the same time, marine commanders say there have been fewer attacks around the area and that a semblance of security is returning. Marine officers point to a successful, three-hour meeting they held in the center of town last week with Falluja's leaders, including some imams who had previously shunned them.

"I'm not sure what's going to happen in Falluja, or for that matter, the rest of Iraq," Col. Larry Brown said in a recent interview. "With the range of options being Jeffersonian democracy on one end and civil war on the other, we're probably going to end up somewhere in the middle."

A roadside bomb killed two Iraqi soldiers today and wounded eight near the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, American military officials said.

In central Baghdad, a mortar attack injured six Iraqi police officers. And in western Iraq, a United States marine was killed on Saturday, the military announced today.

Fooad al Sheikhly reported from Falluja and Jeffrey Gettleman from Baghdad. Somini Sengupta also contributed to this article from Baghdad.

[theavonlady 2]

The official said one reason why Falluja was relatively calm today, despite the potential for revenge killings or other strife, was because the city's residents had little love for the foreign terrorists.

Several residents agreed today. Their actions, or inactions, spoke even louder.

Iraqis demonstrate in Fallujah, Iraq (news - web sites),

Monday June 21, 2004, against the recent airstrikes by U.S.

forces targeting a Jordanian-born militant suspected of

masterminding car bomb attacks throughout Iraq. Chanting

anti-U.S. slogans, hundreds accused the Americans of falsely

claiming that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had sought refuge here in

order to create an excuse to attack the city. (AP

Photo/Abdul-Kadr Saadi)

[Balschoiw 0]

Powell gave U.N. 'ambiguous' data on Iraqi weapons, NSA chief says

Quote[/b] ]WASHINGTON - The director of the National Security Agency acknowledges in a new book that audiotapes that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell aired before the United Nations last year to justify the need to confront Iraq offered "ambiguous" evidence that Baghdad was hiding banned weapons.

The comments by Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, who was interviewed by writer James Bamford, spotlight doubts among high-level intelligence officials about evidence the Bush administration used to explain why U.N. weapons inspections should cease and the United States should go to war.

 At the time, Powell described the three tapes, which he played on Feb. 5, 2003, for the United Nations and international news media, as proof that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction from inspectors. The tapes contained bits of conversations, intercepted by the NSA, among people Powell described as officers of Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard.

On the tapes, one of the men talks of a "modified vehicle" from the al Kindi Co., which Powell said was known to be involved in banned weapons activity. Another relays an order to "clean out all the areas" and to "destroy the message." A third tells an officer to delete the phrase "nerve agents" if it comes up in wireless instructions.

Powell said last month that the United States, which has occupied Iraq for more than a year, has been unable to locate or identify the men whose voices are on the tapes.

"Powell was comfortable that what he put forward on Feb. 5 was solid information, based on our best assessment of what Iraq's WMD programs consisted of," a Powell aide said yesterday, on condition of anonymity.

Hayden told Bamford that while the tapes raised strong suspicions about Iraq, they were inconclusive. "If you take a textual analysis of that, they are ambiguous," Hayden said, as quoted in Bamford's book A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies.

"That said, you don't have to be a dishonest or intellectually handicapped person to be very suspicious about when the guy's saying remove all references to this from your code books or the other guy saying, 'I've got modified vehicles here.'"

Hayden said the agency didn't know how the vehicles were modified: "That's the ambiguity." But he defended the NSA's decision to provide such evidence to Powell for his presentation. "In my heart, each one of them individually could be explained away as this, that or the other. Collectively, they made a reasonably good package."

Bamford recounts that Hayden was surprised that Iraq did not make a more substantive effort to discredit Powell's evidence, but rather resorted mainly to vague charges that it was made up of forgeries and fabrications. Iraq's response "lessened the sense of ambiguity," Hayden said.

The tapes provided a dramatic addition to Powell's presentation, in part because the NSA, the super-secret spy agency based at Fort Meade that monitors communications worldwide, rarely makes public any such raw intelligence.

In his presentation, Powell offered no hint of questions or ambiguities surrounding the tapes. Indeed, he argued that the evidence he was unveiling was part of an array of damaging intelligence compiled against Iraq.

"I cannot share with you everything that we know, but what I can share with you, when combined with what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling," Powell told the U.N. Security Council.

He argued that the tapes show the Iraqis to be "worried" about what the inspectors might find and reveal "part of a system of hiding things and moving things out of the way and making sure they have nothing left behind." The Iraqis' reference to "nerve agents," meant, Powell said, "'Don't give any evidence that we have these horrible agents.' But we know that they do, and this kind of conversation confirms it."

But David Kay, who led the search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction after major combat was declared over in May 2003, said yesterday in an e-mail that he still does not understand what the tapes meant.

"I wish I knew!" Kay wrote. "I have read the transcript of that intercept many times, and still am uncertain what it really was about."

Powell has commented only briefly about the tapes in the 16 months since he addressed the Security Council. In an interview with reporters last month, he said: "We can't find those guys. I don't know who those guys were. ... I don't know that we ever knew their names."

Kay confirmed that his investigators tried to locate the officers but had few clues and were hampered by conditions in Iraq.

Powell has voiced regret that another section of the speech - contending that Iraq had mobile biological weapons - came from an intelligence source who may have deliberately misled the United States. He acknowledged that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction has hurt American credibility.

[theavonlady 2]

A site of general interest:

Quote[/b] ]From Baghdad to New York

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

Abraham Lincoln

Welcome to FromBaghdadToNewYork.com. Our goal is to provide the world with facts about Iraq and Iraqi people. We want to show the world the truth about how Iraqi people really feel.

The site has a link to this interesting BBC article:

Quote[/b] ]Talk radio comes to Baghdad

Radio Dijla began two months ago

Iraq's first independent talk radio station has begun transmissions in Baghdad, bringing Iraqis a lively mix of music and the uncensored opinions of ordinary people.

Radio Dijla, or Radio Tigris, was founded by Dr Ahmad Al-Rikabi, a former London bureau chief of the US-funded Radio Free Iraq.

In 2003, Dr Rikabi helped to set up coalition-run radio and TV stations in his role as head of the Iraqi Media Network.

A recent test transmission included Arab and Iraqi pop songs and entertainment programmes, an interview with an Iraqi singer and a live phone-in programme during which callers were invited to express their opinions on issues of concern.

According to the London newspaper The Guardian, the station operates from "a modest family house somewhere in a western Baghdad suburb".

New concept

"Radio Dijla has also become required listening for the country's new authorities," the paper said.

Our opinion does not count, but what always counts is your opinion

Radio Dijla

The station reportedly receives up to 18,000 calls a day, although it can only answer a fraction of that number.

"This is a new concept for Iraq, and the Arab world, and fills a yawning gap... We've quickly become a part of people's lives," Dr Rikabi told The Guardian.

"It shows the desperate need of ordinary Iraqis to share and communicate their pains and joys. I thought I had a good idea, but I never expected this amount of interest so soon. We are already number one in Baghdad," he said.

Callers to the programme, entitled "A Poll", are allowed to express their opinions freely without further comment by the presenter.

"Our opinion does not count, but what always counts is your opinion," the radio tells listeners repeatedly.

Pipeline attacks

In one phone-in, listeners were invited to comment on the recent spate of attacks on Iraqi oil pipelines.

It is better to force the Americans to leave Iraq instead of sabotaging the oil pipelines

Female caller

"What is your opinion on the issue of targeting the oil pipelines, which led to the full suspension of Iraqi oil exports from the northern and southern fields?" presenter Majid Salim asked.

"Are they patriotic acts that serve Iraq and the Iraqi people or are they acts of resistance or terrorism?"

Callers appeared unanimous in their condemnation of the violence.

"This is not an act of resistance or terrorism. It is a systematic subversive act aiming at harming Iraq," one woman said.

"The perpetrators of such acts are selfish and grudge-bearing people who do not want to see their country develop or become a civilised country."

"Those who target the power grids or the oil pipelines call themselves mujahidin. They are actually saboteurs who only harm great Iraq and the Iraqi people," another said. "If they really consider themselves mujahidin, they should resist the Americans."

One woman caller told the radio that "this phenomenon is not acceptable. It is better to force the Americans to leave Iraq instead of sabotaging the oil pipelines."

'Foreign hands'

Several callers agreed that the attacks on the pipelines were not being carried out by Iraqis.

Male caller

"It is unlikely that an Iraqi citizen would carry out such operations," one said.

"Whoever targets the oil pipeline does not belong to the homeland, the honourable resistance, or the honourable Iraqis because the honourable Iraqi does not harm his country. The saboteurs came from outside Iraq to destroy Iraq," said another.

Other live phone-ins broadcast on the radio have discussed family problems or such issues as the right age for young people to get married.

Radio Dijla joins a number of other FM stations sponsored by international bodies, political figures or parties that are currently broadcasting in Iraq.

But it is not the country's first talk radio station: before the war, Uday Hussein, Saddam's son, ran Al-Shabab Radio, which allowed callers to talk about love and poetry. However, anti-government talk was forbidden.

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.

Can anyone get their number? Maybe some of us could call up and say hello!

[theavonlady 2]

Powell gave U.N. 'ambiguous' data on Iraqi weapons, NSA chief says

Once upon a time, the headlines used to read something like:

U.N. gave Powell 'ambiguous' data on Iraqi weapons

[Balschoiw 0]

You hardly had a chance to get through as they only have 2 telephone lines and 18.000 calls a day  

The majority of callers protest against the lack of electricity in Iraq, that´s why the boss of the station already thought of renaming the station to Radio Electricity  

Anyway, is that story so important for this thread ?

Edit:

Quote[/b] ]U.N. gave Powell 'ambiguous' data on Iraqi weapons

Huh ?

Oh well Avon but the UN didn´t start a war on those, did they ?

[theavonlady 2]

Anyway, is that story so important for this thread ?

This thread is about Iraq.

I find it interesting. You don't. OK.

Quote[/b] ]

Edit:

Quote[/b] ]U.N. gave Powell 'ambiguous' data on Iraqi weapons

Huh ?

Oh well Avon but the UN didn´t start a war on those, did they ?

No. The UN was passive.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ]No. The UN was passive.

Proof ?

Anyway...the British soldiers captured by Iran will be prosecuted in Iran.

Iran to Prosecute British Navy Sailors

Quote[/b] ]TEHRAN, Iran - Eight British Navy sailors serving in Iraq will be prosecuted on charges of entering Iran's territorial waters, Iran's state-run television said Tuesday.

The eight were detained in the Shatt-al-Arab waterway on Monday as they were delivering a patrol boat for the new Iraqi Riverine Patrol Service. The waterway runs along the border between Iran and Iraq.

"They will be prosecuted for illegally entering Iranian territorial waters," the Arabic language Al-Alam television said Tuesday.

"The vessels were 1,000 meters inside Iranian territorial waters. The crew have also confessed to having entered Iranian waters," the broadcast said.

The British Foreign Office said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has spoken to Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazzi about the incident.

[theavonlady 2]

The majority of callers protest against the lack of electricity in Iraq

I wonder why they didn't talk about that on Iraq's previous call in show?

Quote[/b] ]But it is not the country's first talk radio station: before the war, Uday Hussein, Saddam's son, ran Al-Shabab Radio, which allowed callers to talk about love and poetry.

I can just imagine what would have happened:

"Hello. My name is Yusuf. I'm calling in to compalin about why we have one hour of electricity a day, when our Baathist party hack neighbor has 3 phase to run his central air conditioning system"

"Thanks for dropping in Yusuf. Don't worry. Someone will be over soon to fix you - it."

[theavonlady 2]

Quote[/b] ]No. The UN was passive.

Proof ?

I'm enjoying being 'ambiguous'.

[theavonlady 2]

Anyway...the British soldiers captured by Iran will be prosecuted in Iran.

Hopefully, this will be a show trial.

[quicksand 0]

We`ve all heared about the massive censorship in Iraq before the invasion,the media blackout,they were only allowed to read the government propaganda,right?

Well...

BBC Q&A

Quote[/b] ]QUESTION

Morgan K, UK

Do Iraqis have access to internet cafés and can they see BOTH sides of the story if they would like to do this? Would you as a person living there say they are (involuntarily) isolated from any information originating outside Iraq? Or do they choose not to access it because of mistrust?

ANSWER

From Rageh Omaar, BBC correspondent in Baghdad

Iraqis do have access to internet cafes. That's one of the surprising developments in Baghdad over the last year.

 

Due to sanctions, communications of all sorts have been very bad until now. But in the last year internet cafés have begun to spring up in hotels and downtown areas. You can log on to most sites. For example you can log on the official 10 Downing Street site and the CIA State Department site. They're not barred. Of course sites with any pornographic content are blocked.

You can go to the internet cafés and see a lot of people mainly between the ages of 20 and 30 surfing all kinds of websites, looking at life in other Arab countries. But the majority don't look at political sites, amazingly.

They look at news sites like the BBC Arabic Service and other international sites. But a great deal of Iraqis are interested in 'lifestyle' content - music, movie stars - the run-of -the-mill websites that people log on to all around the world.

Most Iraqis know what the news is, what the reality of the situation is and their conclusion is that whatever is said or written by any news organisation, war is certain

 

Iraqis can see "both sides of the story" as you put it. They can read what the BBC is reporting. You can read what the Iraqi foreign ministry is saying. You can read what the White House is publishing and you can visit the official UN Inspections website.

Access to the internet isn't a mass thing. There aren't hundreds of these cafés - just 26 of them in Baghdad. Pricewise, it isn't cheap for Iraqis. It costs the equivalent of a dollar for two hours' use. For journalists and the Iraqi elite, it is nothing. But it's quite a lot for most ordinary people. It's not within the reach of a vast majority of people.

But a lot of people can afford it. But I don't think you can get an internet connection to your home. The telecommunications system in Iraq couldn't support it.

E-mail is a bit more difficult. You have to have some sort of local server account plugged into the local Iraqi system.

And if you have a short wave radio there is an audience for international radio outlets. The audience for BBC World Service and the Arabic Service and Voice of America is huge. A lot of people tune in. Television is a very different matter. People don't have access to international satellite channels like BBC World or CNN. This is very limited.

There is only one newspaper that reports what international news agencies say. It's a newspaper called Babil, which is owned by the elder son of the Iraqi president. To a certain extent it uses verbatim reports from BBC, Reuters, Arabic newspapers and sticks them straight in, without any changes.

It is a different case with the official state newspapers. They give the view of the government and wouldn't carry full, unedited international reports. But Babil does. So Iraqis are able to read this actually and that explains why it's proven to be such a massive hit in Iraq.

It's hard to say if there's any mistrust of international reports. It's not the kind of things Iraqis will comment on openly to a foreigner.

But most Iraqis know what the news is, what the reality of the situation is and their conclusion is that whatever is said or written by any news organisation, war is certain. Nothing will change their minds, whoever says it from whatever quarter.

[denoir 0]

Quote[/b] ]Of course sites with any pornographic content are blocked

Human rights violation!

[billybob2002 0]

Bals,

I love that comic comparing TBA to the nazis or they are exactly the same....

[Longinius 1]

Question: When it comes to a nations territorial waters, do that nation have the right to detain foreign soldiers and ships that enter unannounced / unwanted? If so, what grants them this right (Treates, decrees etc)?

[bn880 5]

The majority of callers protest against the lack of electricity in Iraq

I wonder why they didn't talk about that on Iraq's previous call in show?

Quote[/b] ]But it is not the country's first talk radio station: before the war, Uday Hussein, Saddam's son, ran Al-Shabab Radio, which allowed callers to talk about love and poetry.

I can just imagine what would have happened:

"Hello. My name is Yusuf. I'm calling in to compalin about why we have one hour of electricity a day, when our Baathist party hack neighbor has 3 phase to run his central air conditioning system"

"Thanks for dropping in Yusuf. Don't worry. Someone will be over soon to fix you - it."

That is not how it was, do you have any proof for this Hollywood production and of the electricity blackout rates during the Hussein Regime and now?

[bn880 5]

The official said one reason why Falluja was relatively calm today, despite the potential for revenge killings or other strife, was because the city's residents had little love for the foreign terrorists.

Several residents agreed today. Their actions, or inactions, spoke even louder.

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg....125.jpg

Iraqis demonstrate in Fallujah, Iraq (news - web sites),

Monday June 21, 2004, against the recent airstrikes by U.S.

forces targeting a Jordanian-born militant suspected of

masterminding car bomb attacks throughout Iraq. Chanting

anti-U.S. slogans, hundreds accused the Americans of falsely

claiming that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had sought refuge here in

order to create an excuse to attack the city. (AP

Photo/Abdul-Kadr Saadi)

They were referring to Americans were they not?