The Iraq thread 4

[Akira 0]

60 Minutes story right now about the Najaf cemetary fight, with Marine interviews and still photos of a photographer that was there....very interesting...

[Balschoiw 0]

Anyone surprised ?

17,000 US soldiers not listed on Pentagon's casualty list

Quote[/b] ]WASHINGTON, Sept 19: Nearly 17,000 service members medically evacuated from Iraq and Afghanistan are absent from the Pentagon's public casualty reports sent to the media.

The Pentagon has reported 1,019 dead and 7,245 wounded from Iraq but statistics collected by an American news agency, UPI, shows that the real number of US service members affected by the war was higher.

The military has evacuated 16,765 individual service members from Iraq and Afghanistan for injuries and ailments not directly related to combat, according to the US Transportation Command, which is responsible for the medical evacuations. Most are from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Pentagon's public casualty reports, available at its website, list only service members who died or were wounded in action. The Pentagon describes a war casualty as, "any person who is lost to the organization by having been declared dead, duty status/ whereabouts unknown, missing, ill, or injured".

The casualty reports do list soldiers who died in non-combat-related incidents or died from illness. But service members injured or ailing from the same non-combat causes (the majority that appear to be 'lost to the organization') are not reflected in these reports.

In a recent statement, the Pentagon gave a different definition that included casualty descriptions by severity and type and said most medical evacuations did not count.

"The great majority of service members medically evacuated from Operation Iraqi Freedom are not casualties, by either the Department of Defence definitions or the common understanding of the average newspaper reader."

It cited such ailments as "muscle strain, back pain, kidney stones, diarrhoea and persistent fever" as non-casualty evacuations. "Casualty reports released to the public are generally confined to fatalities and those wounded in action," the statement said.

A veterans' advocate said the Pentagon should make a full reporting of the casualties, including non-combat ailments and injuries. "They are still casualties of war," said Mike Schlee, Director of the National Security and Foreign Relations Division at the American Legion. I think we have to have an honest disclosure of what the short- and long-term casualties of any conflict are."

A spokesman for the transportation command said that without orders from US Central Command, his unit would not separate the medical evacuation data to show how many came from Iraq and Afghanistan. "We stay in our lane," said Lt-Col Scott Ross. But most are clearly from Operation Iraqi Freedom where several times as many troops are deployed as in Afghanistan.

Among veterans from Iraq seeking help from the VA, 5,375 have been diagnosed with a mental problem, making it the third leading diagnosis after bone problems and digestive problems. Among the mental problems were 800 soldiers who became psychotic.

A military study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in July showed that 16 per cent of soldiers returning from Iraq might suffer major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder. Around 11 per cent of soldiers returning from Afghanistan may have the same problems, according to the study

How to lower the casualty numbers pentagon style ? Just change the definition  

Why are they acting so un-american ? Why do they hate america so much ?

[theavonlady 2]

Anyone surprised ?

No. As your own article states:

Quote[/b] ]It cited such ailments as "muscle strain, back pain, kidney stones, diarrhoea and persistent fever" as non-casualty evacuations. "Casualty reports released to the public are generally confined to fatalities and those wounded in action," the statement said.

While technically they all fall under the widest meaning of the word "casualty", I would think most people would not associate the term "war casulaties" with, for example, diarrhoetic soldiers.

[BoweryBaker 0]

I'll tell you guys one thing. If we corner Iran, they might haul off and knock us one. A really bad one. I don't think an army can conquer Iran fast enough to prevent them from sending off a nuke in retaliation. If NK knows we're coming you can bet your ass they'll nuke us. There is hope though. Let's just hope it arrives in time.

[Badgerboy 0]

I'll tell you guys one thing.  If we corner Iran, they might haul off and knock us one.  A really bad one.  I don't think an army can conquer Iran fast enough to prevent them from sending off a nuke in retaliation.  If NK knows we're coming you can bet your ass they'll nuke us.  There is hope though.  Let's just hope it arrives in time.

They would only fire a nuclear weapon at you as an absolute final resort. They could potentially destroy a handfull of cities at worst, whilst the US has the capability to destroy their entire country.

Question is would the Government be able to two trade a few million citizens to turn a country into a sheet of glass?

Once a country has a nuclear deterrent, it basically rules out invasion.

[EiZei 0]

Well, how would Iran nuke an american city? Its not like they could afford ICBMs, really really really expensive to make and maintain.

[Acecombat 0]

Well, how would Iran nuke an american city? Its not like they could afford ICBMs, really really really expensive to make and maintain.

Shut up you pathetic commie pinko european , you know nothing just ask BUSH he'll tell you how since its gonna be the same way Saddam was gonna attack america ....

[billybob2002 0]

A unnamed source on this forums directed me to something interesting....

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news....r19.xml

Quote[/b] ] Agent behind fake uranium documents worked for France

By Bruce Johnston in Rome

(Filed: 19/09/2004)

The Italian businessman at the centre of a furious row between France and Italy over whose intelligence service was to blame for bogus documents suggesting Saddam Hussein was seeking to buy material for nuclear bombs has admitted that he was in the pay of France.

Travel

The man, identified by an Italian news agency as Rocco Martino, was the subject of a Telegraph article earlier this month in which he was referred to by his intelligence codename, "Giacomo".

His admission to investigating magistrates in Rome on Friday apparently confirms suggestions that - by commissioning "Giacomo" to procure and circulate documents - France was responsible for some of the information later used by Britain and the United States to promote the case for war with Iraq.

Italian diplomats have claimed that, by disseminating bogus documents stating that Iraq was trying to buy low-grade "yellowcake" uranium from Niger, France was trying to "set up" Britain and America in the hope that when the mistake was revealed it would undermine the case for war, which it wanted to prevent.

Italian judicial officials confirmed yesterday that Mr Martino had previously been sought for questioning by Rome. Investigating magistrates in the city have opened an inquiry into claims he made previously in the international press that Italy's secret services had been behind the dissemination of false documents, to bolster the US case for war.

According to Ansa, the Italian news agency, which said privately that it had obtained its information from "judicial and other sources", Mr Martino was questioned by an investigating magistrate, Franco Ionta, for two hours. Ansa said Mr Martino told the magistrate that Italy's military intelligence, Sismi, had no role in the procuring or dissemination of the Niger documents.

He was also said to have claimed that he had obtained the documents from an employee at the Niger embassy in Rome, before passing these to French intelligence, on whose payroll he had been since at least 2000.

However, he reportedly also added that he had believed that the documents in question were genuine, and to have never suspected that they had been forged. "Martino has clarified his position and offered to deliver to the magistrates the documents which confirm his declarations," his lawyer, Giuseppe Placidi, told Ansa.

It was not possible to contact Mr Martino through his lawyer yesterday. Contacted by The Telegraph, Mr Ionta politely declined to comment, but did not deny that the questioning had taken place. The Interior Ministry in Rome, which had also expressed keen interest in the Telegraph article, refused to comment on the matter.

Mr Martino is said by diplomats to have come forward of his own accord and contacted authorities in the Italian capital following the earlier article in the Telegraph. They said he had written a letter of resignation to the French DGSE intelligence service last week.

According to an Italian newspaper report yesterday, members of the Digos, Italy's anti-terrorist police, removed documents from Mr Martino's home in a northern suburb of Rome on Friday afternoon.

"After being exposed in the international press, French intelligence can hardly be amused or happy with him," one western diplomat said. "Martino may have thought the safest thing was to hand himself over to the Italians." Investigators in Rome suspect that Mr Martino was first engaged by the French secret services five years ago, when he was asked to investigate rumours of illicit trafficking in uranium from Niger. He is thought to have then been retained the following year to collect more information. It was then that he is suspected of having assembled a dossier containing both real and bogus documents from Niger, the latter apparently forged by a diplomat.

In September 2002 Tony Blair accused Saddam of seeking "significant quantities" of uranium from an undisclosed African country - in fact, Niger. US President George W Bush made a similar claim in his State of the Union address to Congress four months later, using information supplied by MI6.

The International Atomic Energy Agency expressed doubts over some of the documents' authenticity, however, and declared them false in March 2003.

In July, the White House withdrew the president's claim, admitting that it was based on inaccurate information. British officials still say that their intelligence about Iraqi uranium purchases was supported by a second, independent source.

[denoir 0]

So, he's a French agent because he said so? Now if you want us to believe that it is reasonable that France was setting the US up, would it not be reasonable to question if Italy isn't setting France up?

Anyway, the IAEA dismissed the Iraq-Niger uranium claims several months before the war. It was just blatantly ignored by the Bush administration and the US media. The documents were proven to be forgeries months before the actual invasion. And it was a great demonstration of how Bush chose to completely ignore the intelligence that was given to him.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Anyway, the IAEA dismissed the Iraq-Niger uranium claims several months before the war.

IAEA dismissed them right before the Iraqi war....

Source:

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/

Also from my post:

Quote[/b] ]The International Atomic Energy Agency expressed doubts over some of the documents' authenticity, however, and declared them false in March 2003.

[billybob2002 0]

My unnamed source has given me more links...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5458642

Quote[/b] ]Reports bolster Bush Iraq-uranium claim

British report says assertion was ‘well-founded’

The Associated Press

Updated: 3:47 p.m. ET July 18, 2004

WASHINGTON - It was one of the first signs that the intelligence used to go to war in Iraq was wrong: White House repudiation of 16 words in last year’s State of the Union speech that had suggested Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium in Africa.

advertisement

Click Here!

Yet even as two recent reports sharply criticized prewar intelligence, they also suggested President Bush’s claim may not have been totally off-base.

A British report has concluded that Bush’s statement and a similar one by Prime Minister Tony Blair were “well-founded.†In his speech, Bush had attributed the uranium claim to the British government.

A Senate Intelligence Committee report found inadequate evidence that deposed Iraqi President Saddam had been rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. It cited various reports, however, that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. Thus, although Bush cited only British evidence that was determined to have been inconclusive, other intelligence files clearly contained other inconclusive evidence of the truth of the claim.

The committee chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, said he believed last year that the White House was correct in repudiating the uranium claim. “Now I don’t know whether it’s accurate or not. That’s the whole question,†Roberts, R-Kan., said in an interview.

....

http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200407121105.asp

Quote[/b] ]

July 12, 2004, 11:05 a.m.

Our Man in Niger

Exposed and discredited, Joe Wilson might consider going back.

Joe Wilson's cover has been blown. For the past year, he has claimed to be a truth-teller, a whistleblower, the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy — and most of the media have lapped it up and cheered him on.

After a whirl of TV and radio appearances during which he received high-fives and hearty hugs from producers and hosts (I was in some green rooms with him so this is eyewitness reporting), and a wet-kiss profile in Vanity Fair, he gave birth to a quickie book sporting his dapper self on the cover, and verbosely entitled The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir.

The book jacket talks of his "fearless insight" (whatever that's supposed to mean) and "disarming candor" (which does not extend to telling readers for whom he has been working since retiring early from the Foreign Service).

The biographical blurb describes him as a "political centrist" who received a prize for "Truth-Telling," though a careful reader might notice that the award came in part from a group associated with The Nation magazine — which only Michael Moore would consider a centrist publication.

But now Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV — he of the Hermes ties and Jaguar convertibles — has been thoroughly discredited. Last week's bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report concluded that it is he who has been telling lies.

For starters, he has insisted that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, was not the one who came up with the brilliant idea that the agency send him to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had been attempting to acquire uranium. "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson says in his book. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip." In fact, the Senate panel found, she was the one who got him that assignment. The panel even found a memo by her. (She should have thought to use disappearing ink.)

Wilson spent a total of eight days in Niger "drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people," as he put it. On the basis of this "investigation" he confidently concluded that there was no way Saddam sought uranium from Africa. Oddly, Wilson didn't bother to write a report saying this. Instead he gave an oral briefing to a CIA official.

Oddly, too, as an investigator on assignment for the CIA he was not required to keep his mission and its conclusions confidential. And for the New York Times, he was happy to put pen to paper, to write an op-ed charging the Bush administration with "twisting," "manipulating" and "exaggerating" intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs "to justify an invasion."

In particular he said that President Bush was lying when, in his 2003 State of the Union address, he pronounced these words: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

We now know for certain that Wilson was wrong and that Bush's statement was entirely accurate.

The British have consistently stood by that conclusion. In September 2003, an independent British parliamentary committee looked into the matter and determined that the claim made by British intelligence was "reasonable" (the media forgot to cover that one too). Indeed, Britain's spies stand by their claim to this day. Interestingly, French intelligence also reported an Iraqi attempt to procure uranium from Niger.

Yes, there were fake documents relating to Niger-Iraq sales. But no, those forgeries were not the evidence that convinced British intelligence that Saddam may have been shopping for "yellowcake" uranium. On the contrary, according to some intelligence sources, the forgery was planted in order to be discovered — as a ruse to discredit the story of a Niger-Iraq link, to persuade people there were no grounds for the charge. If that was the plan, it worked like a charm.

But that's not all. The Butler report, yet another British government inquiry, also is expected to conclude this week that British intelligence was correct to say that Saddam sought uranium from Niger.

And in recent days, the Financial Times has reported that illicit sales of uranium from Niger were indeed being negotiated with Iraq, as well as with four other states.

According to the FT: "European intelligence officers have now revealed that three years before the fake documents became public, human and electronic intelligence sources from a number of countries picked up repeated discussion of an illicit trade in uranium from Niger. One of the customers discussed by the traders was Iraq."

There's still more: As Susan Schmidt reported — back on page A9 of Saturday's Washington Post: "Contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence."

The Senate report says fairly bluntly that Wilson lied to the media. Schmidt notes that the panel found that, "Wilson provided misleading information to the Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on a document that had clearly been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'"

The problem is Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel discovered. Schmidt notes: "The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger."

Ironically, Senate investigators found that at least some of what Wilson told his CIA briefer not only failed to persuade the agency that there was nothing to reports of Niger-Iraq link — his information actually created additional suspicion.

A former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, told Wilson that in June 1999, a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations." Mayaki, knowing how few commodities for export are produced by impoverished Niger, interpreted that to mean that Saddam was seeking uranium.

Another former government official told Wilson that Iran had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998. That's the same year that Saddam forced the weapons inspectors to leave Iraq. Could the former official have meant Iraq rather than Iran? If someone were to try to connect those dots, what picture might emerge?

Schmidt adds that the Senate panel was alarmed to find that the CIA never "fully investigated possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin."

I was the first to suggest, here on National Review Online a year ago ("Scandal!" and "No Yellowcake Walk"), that Wilson should not have been given this assignment, that he had no training or demonstrated competence as an investigator, that his inquiry had been obviously superficial and that, far from being a "centrist," he was a partisan with an ax to grind.

But my complaint was really less with Wilson than it was with the CIA for sending him, rather than an experienced spy or investigator, to check out such an important and sensitive matter as whether one of the world's most vicious killers had been trying to buy the stuff that nuclear weapons are made of.

For this, I received a couple of dishonorable mentions in Wilson's memoir. He has a chapter called "What I Didn't Find in Africa," which might be used as a case study for CIA trainees and others who need to understand the fundamental principle of logic that "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." In other words, Wilson fails to grasp that because he didn't find proof that Saddam was seeking African uranium does not mean that proof was not there to be found.

In reaction to his "fearless candor" and "disarming insight" about the "sixteen-word lie," Wilson writes that "right-wing hatchet men were being wheeled out to attack me. More ominously, plots were being hatched in the White House that would betray America's national security.

He writes: "Clifford May was first off the mark, spewing uninformed vitriol in a piece in National Review Online blindly operating on the principle that facts, those pesky facts, just do not matter."

Well, facts, those pesky facts do matter and a bipartisan Senate investigative committee has now established that Wilson has had very few in his possession. And, for the record, I was never advised anything about Wilson by anyone serving in the White House, the administration, or the Republican party. I never even had a discussion about him with such folks.

There is much more that could be said about the Wilson affair, and certainly many questions that ought to be both asked and answered. But in the interest of time and space, let me leave you with just one: Now that we know that Mrs. Wilson did recommend Mr. Wilson for the Niger assignment, can we not infer that she was working at CIA headquarters in Langley rather than as an undercover operative in some front business or organization somewhere?

As I suggested in another NRO piece (Spy Games), if that is the case — if she was not working undercover and if the CIA was not taking measures to protect her cover — no law was broken by columnist Bob Novak in naming her, or by whoever told Novak that she worked for the CIA.

It is against the law to knowingly name an undercover agent. It is not against the law to name a CIA employee who is not an undercover agent. For example, I know the identity of "Anonymous," the CIA employee who has now written a book trashing the Bush administration for its policies. But since he is not — to the best of my knowledge — a covert operative, I would be committing no crime were I to name him in this piece. Nor, I should add, did he attempt to hide his employment when we sat across a dinner table some months ago.

I don't think Joe Wilson is an evil man. I do think he is an angry partisan and an opportunist. According to my sources, during most of his diplomatic career he specialized in general services and administration, which means he was not the political or economic adviser to the ambassador, rather he was the guy who makes sure the embassy plumbing is working and that the commissary is stocked with Oreos and other products the ambassador prefers.

Just prior to the Gulf War, he did serve in Iraq, a hot spot to be sure, but that was under Ambassador April Glaspie, who failed to make it clear to Saddam that invading Kuwait would elicit a robust response from Washington. I doubt that Wilson advised her to do otherwise. I rather doubt she asked. As he says in his book, she was giving him an "on-the-spot education in Middle Eastern diplomacy. It was a part of the world in which I had no experience."

In 1991, Wilson's book jacket boasts, President George H.W. Bush praised Wilson as "a true American hero," and he was made an ambassador. But for some reason, he was assigned not to Cairo, Paris, or Moscow, places where you put the best and the brightest, nor was he sent to Bermuda or Luxembourg, places you send people you want to reward. Instead, he was sent to Gabon, a diplomatic backwater of the first rank.

After that, he says in his memoir, "I had risen about as high as I could in the Foreign Service and decided it was time to retire." Well, that's not exactly accurate either. He could have been given a more important posting, such as Kenya or South Africa, or he could have been promoted higher in the senior Foreign Service (he made only the first of four grades). Instead, he was evidently (according to my sources) forced into involuntary retirement at 48. (The minimum age for voluntary retirement in the Foreign Service is 50.) After that, he seems to have made quite a bit of money — doing what for whom is unclear and I wish the Senate committee had attempted to find out.

But based on one op-ed declaring 16 words spoken by the president a lie, he transformed himself into an instant celebrity and, for a while, it seemed, a contender for power within the chien-mange-le-chien world of foreign policy. That dream has now probably evaporated. It is hard to see how a President John Kerry would now want Wilson in his inner circle. But if he desired to return to Gabon or Niger I, for one, would not be among those opposing him.

[Balschoiw 0]

So let me guess, Brits, Italy , US....does that ring a bell ?

It´s funny that you don´t mention that some of the documents were signed by the former Nigeria president who had left office 8 or more years before....

Really hard to find out...with all that elite agencies the Brits, and the US have

Oh and by the way, do you know who owns the italian news agency you´re quoting ?

[Balschoiw 0]

American hostage killed in Iraq

Quote[/b] ]BAGHDAD: Militants posted a grisly video footage of the execution of US hostage Eugene "Jack" Armstrong on a website on Monday in the latest killing in Iraq’s five-month-old foreign hostage crisis.

Armstrong had been abducted from his smart Baghdad home on Thursday along with Briton Kenneth Bigley and fellow American Jack Hensley. The website message, signed by Abu Maysarah al-Iraqi, a pseudonym for a contributor who has in the past posted messages on the Internet for the Tawhid and Jihad group, said that the American was killed by the militant group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The report could not be immediately verified.

Tawhid and Jihad, in a video posted on the Internet on Saturday, said it would slit the throats of the three Westerners, Americans Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley and Briton Kenneth Bigley, unless Iraqi women were freed from the Abu Ghraib and Umm Qasr prisons by Monday.

Meanwhile, the British government and the brother of a British hostage in Iraq have appealed for his release, with a Foreign Office spokesman speaking in Arabic on pan-Arab satellite television.

On Al-Arabiya channel, Foreign Office spokesman Dean McLoughlin said in Arabic: "We strongly appeal for any information that could help us in releasing Kenneth Bigley. We promise complete confidentiality and not to make public the identity of whoever provides such information." The translation was provided by the Foreign Office.

Bigley’s younger brother, Philip, also appeared on Al-Arabiya. Philip Bigley said his brother loved the Arab world and had worked in Qatar, Oman, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. "At the end of the day, we just want him home safe and well, especially for my mum, Lil," he added.

A Turkish company confirmed that 10 of its employees in Iraq had been taken hostage, but declined to say whether it would pull out from the war-torn country to save their lives. "They are all employees of our company. They are all Turks," Nalan Bayrak, a spokeswoman for the Ankara-based Vinsan construction firm, told AFP. Bayrak said Vinsan had no US partner and was about to start building a 161-million-dollar highway near Baghdad. She declined to say whether the company would pull out of Iraq.

...

Senior Sunni clerics assassinated in Iraq

Quote[/b] ]BAGHDAD (Aljazeera) -- Two senior members of an influential Islamic authority in Iraq, the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), have been assassinated.

In the first incident, the body of Shaikh Hazim al-Zaidi was found in front of al-Sajjad mosque in Sadr City, a mainly Shia area in eastern Baghdad on Monday, an AMS spokesman told Aljazeera.

There are reports he was abducted late on Sunday along with two others outside the mosque. Other reports indicate that he was killed after leaving the mosque.

The shaikh was in charge of coordination among Muslim clerics within the AMS and other religious movements in Iraq.

In the second incident, later on Monday, Shaikh Muhammad Jadwa was killed by armed men when he left al-Kauthar mosque in the Baya area, west of Baghdad.

The attack occurred just after noon prayers. The attackers fled, Aljazeera has learnt.

"We hope it is not an organized campaign to assassinate the Association's clerics," a source in the group said.

Some Sunni and Shia groups have said they fear their members are being targeted by assassins, perhaps in an attempt to spark sectarian conflict in Iraq.

The AMS is a conservative group that has worked for the release of foreign hostages. It strongly opposes the US presence in Iraq - a position that has made it possible to act as an intermediary in hostage negotiations. Arrest

The deaths follow the arrest of Shaikh Hazim al-Araji, a senior aide to Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr in the early hours of Sunday.

He was detained by U.S. forces and the Iraqi National Guard during a raid on his home.

A few hours after the arrest, a previously unknown group threatened to kill 18 captured Iraqi soldiers if the authorities did not release al-Araji within 48 hours.

On Sunday Aljazeera aired a video of masked gunmen standing near a group of uniformed men it said were members of Iraq's National Guard. The tape also showed what appeared to be their military identification papers. The group called itself Muhammad bin Abd Allah Brigades and was demanding the release of the Shia cleric, who heads al-Sadr's office in the al-Kadhimiya district of the Iraqi capital.

Meanwhile, U.S. forces have arrested Colonel Saad Abd al-Suhail, leader of the Iraqi National Guards in the Hwaija area south of Kirkuk city, sources have told Aljazeera.

Al-Suhail is suspected of collaborating with the Iraqi resistance, the sources added

Bulgaria rejects Polish proposal to relocate troops in Iraq to more dangerous zone

Quote[/b] ]SOFIA, Bulgaria - Bulgaria's defense minister on Monday angrily rejected a Polish military official's suggestion that Bulgarian troops in Iraq should be moved to a more dangerous province.

Defense Minister Nikolai Svinarov said he had been surprised when Gen. Andrzej Ekiert, commander of the Polish-led multinational division in Iraq, said Poland was preparing to take over control of Qadisiyah province and Bulgarian troops in Karbala would have to move as well.

``The relocation of the Bulgarian unit from Karbala to the Qadisiyah province is not acceptable for the Bulgarian authorities,'' Svinarov told reporters.

Poland commands some 6,000 international troops in south-central Iraq, where they have faced far more violence than expected, with two Shiite uprisings since April. The fighting forced the Poles to hand over security duties in Najaf and Qadisiyah province to the U.S. military.

Ekiert said last week that Poland will resume command in Qadisiyah around Dec. 10.

Most of the nations under Poland's command sent troops presuming that south-central Iraq would be relatively quiet, since its population is mainly Shiites, who have largely avoided violence until the recent uprisings.

Svinarov said no one has officially asked Bulgaria's 480-member infantry battalion to leave its current base in the city of Karbala.

``We do not agree to be just informed about decisions that are taken without our participation, especially on such important issues as relocation of our contingent in Iraq,'' he said.

Svinarov said he had expressed his surprise in a letter to his Polish counterpart, Jerzy Szmajdzinski. ``Bulgaria alone will decide whether to relocate its troops in Iraq,'' Svinarov said, adding that parliament would have to approve any relocation.

In December, five Bulgarian soldiers were killed in a suicide attack on their base in Karbala, and in April a sixth soldier was killed in a skirmish with insurgents.

The government has said it will end its mission only after the international coalition has achieved its goal of stabilizing Iraq.

Nearly two in three respondents to a recent poll by the Institute for Marketing and Social Surveys said they don't support the country's military involvement in Iraq. Only one in four respondents said they approved of Bulgaria's participation.

No margin of error was given for the survey of 1,019 Bulgarians, carried out Sept. 10-17. But such polls usually have a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Teamwork in Iraq: "You go there, it´s a nice place. No we won´t. We already told the media you will. So ? Uhm, well if we told them you have to. Hm, but we won´t. Why do you hate Iraq so much ?"

[theavonlady 2]

Quote[/b] ]Group's Spiritual Leader Killed in Iraq

12 minutes ago

By JAMAL HALABY, Associated Press Writer

AMMAN, Jordan - The spiritual leader of a militant group that claimed to have beheaded two American hostages in Iraq has been killed in a U.S. airstrike, and his Jordanian family is preparing a wake, a newspaper and Islamic clerics said Wednesday.

Sheik Abu Anas al-Shami, 35, was killed when a missile hit the car he was traveling in on Friday in the west Baghdad suburb of Abu-Ghraib, said the clerics, who have close ties to the family. They spoke on condition of anonymity.

Al-Shami was a close aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the militant group Tawhid and Jihad. The al-Qaida-linked group is blamed for some of the biggest attacks in Iraq, including the bombing of the U.N. headquarters last year, and the beheadings of foreign hostages — including two Americans this week.

Al-Zarqawi is believed to have personally decapitated the American hostage Eugene Armstrong on Monday.

Al-Shami, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent who was also known as Omar Yousef Jumah, was believed to be the voice on several audio tapes that Tawhid and Jihad released via the Internet. In one such tape in August, a speaker identified as al-Shami said the militants planned to kill Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, soldiers and police officers.

"We will not allow you to destroy our hopes in this blessed holy war, and we will not let you steal our bright tomorrow, which is now appearing on the horizon," the speaker said on the tape.

The independent Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad quoted al-Shami's family on Wednesday as confirming the death. It said the family was preparing a wake in the east Amman suburb where al-Shami lived before he went to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion last year.

The pan-Arab satellite television Al-Jazeera reported al-Shami's death earlier in the week, quoting unidentified relatives. A Jordanian security official said he could not confirm the death.

The clerics close to the family recalled al-Shami as a calm, flexible person of moderate ideology. They were surprised to hear he had joined Tawhid and Jihad. When he left Jordan last year, he told friends he was going to Saudi Arabia.

They said al-Shami was a leading member of a small Salafiyah movement in Jordan. The movement advocates the peaceful introduction of strict Islamic law, such as veils for women and gender segregation.

Al-Shami studied Islamic theology in Saudi Arabia and lived in Kuwait until the Iraqi invasion of 1990, the clerics said. After further Islamic studies in Medina, Saudi Arabia, al-Shami returned to Jordan and preached Salafiyah theology at an Amman mosque.

In the late 1990s, the government closed down an Islamic center that al-Shami had established in Amman on grounds that it was propagating a fanatical interpretation of Islam, according to the clerics and Al-Ghad newspaper.

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]AMMAN, Jordan - The spiritual leader of a militant group that claimed to have beheaded two American hostages in Iraq has been killed in a U.S. airstrike, and his Jordanian family is preparing a wake, a newspaper and Islamic clerics said Wednesday.

I feel so sad.

Quote[/b] ]The clerics close to the family recalled al-Shami as a calm, flexible person of moderate ideology. They were surprised to hear he had joined Tawhid and Jihad. When he left Jordan last year, he told friends he was going to Saudi Arabia.

I wonder what happened...

Anyway,

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....ea_iraq

Quote[/b] ]

South Korea Troops Deployed to Iraq

Wed Sep 22, 5:25 AM ET  

SEOUL, South Korea - About 2,800 South Korean troops have completed deployment to northern Iraq (news - web sites) to become the third largest coalition partner after the United States and Britain, officials said Wednesday.

South Korea (news - web sites) began the dispatch on Aug. 3, shipping troops first to Kuwait, where they trained for operations. On Sept. 3, the troops began traveling to the Kurdish town of Irbil by land and air.

Maj. Gen. Song Ki-seok, a top operations officer at Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the deployment had been completed on Wednesday without incident.

The South Korean convoys found and removed two crudely made explosives planted on their route, but could not determine whether the devices were targeted at their troops, Song said during a news conference.

South Korea has imposed a news blackout on the troop movements for security reasons. Fears of terrorist attacks on its troop dispatch increased after a South Korean was beheaded by militants in Iraq in June.

Most of the troops are engineers and medics who will build and repair roads and offer free medical services.

South Korean troops have set up guard posts, wire-entanglements, and protective concrete walls around their posts to guard against attacks from insurgents, said Song.

The South Korean military had first deployed about 600 engineers and medics in southern Iraq last year. Those soldiers were incorporated into the dispatch to Irbil.

An additional 800 troops will leave South Korea for Irbil in November, Defense Ministry officials said.

[denoir 0]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5458642

http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200407121105.asp

Make up your mind, was it an Evil French Conspiracyâ„¢ or was it true? You can't have it both ways.

[SpongeBob 0]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5458642

http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200407121105.asp

Make up your mind, was it an Evil French Conspiracyâ„¢ or was it true? You can't have it both ways.

Maybe it was...

[billybob2002 0]

Quote[/b] ]Make up your mind, was it an Evil French Conspiracyâ„¢ or was it true? You can't have it both ways.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5458642

Quote[/b] ]Additional intel suggests Iraq-uranium link

But the Senate committee disclosed other intelligence suggesting that Iraq was pursuing uranium.

The committee cited separate reports received from foreign intelligence services on Oct. 15, 2001, and Feb. 5, 2002, and March 25, 2002. The State Department doubted the accuracy of the reports, but the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency had more confidence in them.

Though Wilson reported to U.S. officials there was “nothing to the story†that Niger sold uranium to Iraq, the CIA and DIA were intrigued by one element of his trip. Wilson had said a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Mayaki, mentioned a visit from an Iraqi delegation in 1999 that expressed interest in expanding commercial ties with Niger, the world’s third largest producer of mined uranium. Mayaki believed this meant they were interested in buying uranium.

‘Intelligence was credible’

The British inquiry said it was generally accepted that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999, and there was intelligence from several sources that the visit was to acquire uranium. “Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible,†the report said.

http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200407121105.asp

Quote[/b] ]Indeed, Britain's spies stand by their claim to this day. Interestingly, French intelligence also reported an Iraqi attempt to procure uranium from Niger.

Yes, there were fake documents relating to Niger-Iraq sales. But no, those forgeries were not the evidence that convinced British intelligence that Saddam may have been shopping for "yellowcake" uranium. On the contrary, according to some intelligence sources, the forgery was planted in order to be discovered — as a ruse to discredit the story of a Niger-Iraq link, to persuade people there were no grounds for the charge. If that was the plan, it worked like a charm.

 

[m21man 0]

Quote[/b] ]Evil French Conspiracyâ„¢

A counterpart to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Inc.

[walker 0]

Quote[/b] ]Evil French Conspiracyâ„¢

A counterpart to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy Inc.  

Hi M21man

There is no Rightwing conspiracy.

Most of the NeoConMen who took over the US republican party are like Dodgy Dick Cheney or George Bush Junior no good at business so like Halliburton they suck off the government teat after they go bust, as haliburton did under Cheney. And George Bush Junior famously used government tax aid to rescue one of his failed companies, when he was not taking cash from his friends the Bin Laden's or getting donations from the Likes of Enron

It is the NeoConMan Bolshevicks and the Comunist tendancy of the republican party. The sooner the Republicans get rid of those commies the better it will be.

The plane fact is that it was NeoConMen and their Office of Special Plans that dragged America into this stupid war; killing and maiming thousands of US soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

It is obvious that the real reason for the war was to steal Iraqi Oil 18 billion of which has disapeared into the coffers of the companies that the NeoConMen set up to gouge the Iraqis. The Iraqis have not seen a penny of it.  

As to the the money that was suposed to be spent on rebuilding Iraq it sits in the accounts of the likes of Halliburton the Iraqui people have not seen that either. No wonder so many Iraqis hate us in the coalition.

Con Men are after all universaly hated for their gouges.

Regards Walker

[m21man 0]

Quote[/b] ]Hi M21man

There is no Rightwing conspiracy.

Tell that to Hillary Clinton . After all, she was the one to coin the phrase "There is a vast Right Wing Conspiracy..."

Quote[/b] ]The plane fact is that it was NeoConMen and their Office of Special Plans

But the VRWC has far more. For starters, we have a near endless supply of grim-faced white guys in suits (Sometimes called "Agents"). Second, the OSP is not the "Office of Special Plans". It is the "Office Of Sordid Plans", which works to pin sex scandals on Democrats.

[bn880 5]

There is no Rightwing conspiracy.

You mean making everyone work for their friendly businesses (ie Carlyle) who in trun help re-elect them is not a conspiracy?

Quote[/b] ]It is the NeoConMan Bolshevicks and the Comunist tendancy of the republican party. The sooner the Republicans get rid of those commies the better it will be.

What in the name of Bush are you talking about? Commies, commies are so far appart from neocons it's not funny!

Quote[/b] ]It is obvious that the real reason for the war was to steal Iraqi Oil 18 billion of which has disapeared into the coffers of the companies that the NeoConMen set up to gouge the Iraqis. The Iraqis have not seen a penny of it.

Aye, don't forget the business war generates for military contractors. American people work for it all, and the profits are being transferred into the pockets of moronic and super greedy neocons or their close friends.

Quote[/b] ]

As to the the money that was suposed to be spent on rebuilding Iraq sits in the accounts of the likes of Halliburton the Iraqui people have not seen that either. No wonder so many Iraqis hate us in the coalition.

Yeah... I agree with your general statement.

[Acecombat 0]

Quote[/b] ]"We will not allow you to destroy our hopes in this blessed holy war, and we will not let you steal our bright tomorrow, which is now appearing on the horizon," the speaker said on the tape.

OMG you stupid people you've ruined it now. He was about to win the blessed war singlehandedly with his beard and AK ...

His future was also so bright it didnt needed more brightning by a missile explosion

[walker 0]

Hi Bn880

The NeoConMen are against freedom being anti liberal is being anti freedom. Hence the anti freedom measures that George Bush has enacted.

The NeoConMen work in the same way that bosheviks did during the Russian anti monarchist revolution they are an entirest group who take over power from within they then use party aparetchnicks to provide the clowns out front who repeat the slogans just the same as communist party members did in Russia.

That is how Stalin and Hitler gained power that is how all entriest groups work. Then once they gain power they arrange for an external threat and accuse any who are against them of being part of that external threat. They then curtailed freedoms under the guise of protecting people from the external threat. When they wanted to distract people they started needles wars. Hello everybody does this ring any recent bells? Is this not the Iraq War thread? Is the Iraq war not a needless war that achieves nothing?

The falicy of one dimesional politics

The problem many people have with politics is that they see politics as one dimensional a line from left to right when in fact it is multi dimensional. When you say.

Quote[/b] ]What in the name of Bush are you talking about?  Commies, commies are so far appart from neocons it's not funny!

That is you falling for the falicy of one dimesional politics.

When judging political position consider actions not words

As we all know all politicians promise all kinds of things but few deliver what they promissed and most deliver exactly the oposite.

It is worth noting that the Facists of the German Nazi party were National Socialists, a form of communist, yet many are fooled into thinking they are poles apart by a suposed differance in phlosophy. Yet look at their actions they are identical. Hitler had his concentration camps Stalin his gulags. Both require blind obedience from their party members. Both require require the state to be placed above all. Both hate freedom of thought or expression. I invite you all to consider the actions of both you will find few if any differences in actions.

Now consider TBA.

Like Stalin and Hitler they have enacted prison without trial and legalised torture.

Like Stalin and Hitler they demand blind obediance from their aparetchnicks.

Like Stalin and Hitler they have invaded countries that were no threat to them and engaged in empire building.

Like Stalin and Hitler they cloth them selves in false nationalism, hiding behind the flag and saying any that question them are attacking the nation.

Like Stalin and Hitler they are erroding freedom.

It is all a matter of perspective shift. The US Republicans need to start seeing the NeoConMen for What they are; the very Communists they fear and loath. Then they will vote against them and bring America back from the brink.

Kind Regards Walker

[bn880 5]

bah, have it your way.