Bin Laden dead ........ Again

A Pakistani newspaper claims the founder of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, died in June in a village near the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south of Afghanistan. The Awsaf newspaper, based in the city of Multan, reports that the Saudi terror leader fell ill in Bamiyan, the region to the west of the capital Kabul where the Taliban blew up two huge 1,500-year-old Buddha statues in 2001. His protectors then took him back to the Kandahar region, where he died and was buried in a graveyard in the shadow of a mountain, the newspaper says.

Awsaf says the news of bin Laden's death is supported by the fact that it is a year since the last video of the al-Qaeda leader was released. The last audio message attributed to him was issued in December last year, after the attack on the US consulate in the Saudi city of Jeddah, and nothing more has been heard from him for some time.

However, Egyptian lawyer Muntasar al-Zaiyat, who is well-known for his integralist Islamic views, does not believe that bin Laden really is dead. Interviewed by the Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Zaiyat claims that bin Laden is still alive, but, for security reasons, he prefers not to appear on video so as not to risk being found, leaving this task to his deputy, Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has issued several video messages in the last few months, commenting on the London bombings in July and, more recently, calling on Muslims to help the victims of the 8 October earthquake which devastated Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

It is not the first time there has been speculation that bin Laden may be dead. Last week an Indian newspaper claimed that the terror leader was among the victims of the earthquake.

The US has offered a 25 million dollar reward for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden, who suffers from kidney disease, which means he must received dialysis treatment several times a week. If not, he would die in within a few days.

Well the death of Bin laden must come as quite a shock to those who went to his Funeral in december 2001 . Still just like the movies i am sure he will make a few more comebacks yet.

Todays last throws in Iraq : November 10th

Nov 10 (Reuters) - Following are security incidents reported in Iraq on Thursday, Nov. 10, as of 1500 GMT.







KUT - Iraqi troops found 27 bodies near Jassan, a town between Kut and the Iranian border in southern Iraq. The victims, blindfolded and with their hands bound, had been shot, army sources and a Reuters photographer who saw the bodies said.

BASRA - The Iraqi Islamic Party, one of the main Sunni political parties, said one of its officials and his bodyguard were wounded by a roadside bomb in Basra, in southern Iraq.

MOSUL - Two police officers were killed by gunmen in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

TIKRIT - Ten people were killed and 20 wounded when a car bomb exploded outside a recruiting centre in Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, hospital sources and police said.
BAGHDAD - Two Iraqi policemen were wounded when a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol in eastern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Three civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in eastern Baghdad, police said. The target of the bomb was not clear.

BAGHDAD - A suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest blew himself up in a crowded Baghdad restaurant frequented by the security forces during breakfast, killing 35 people and wounding 25 more, police said. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed the attack.

KIRKUK - Police said the brother of parliamentary speaker Hajem al-Hassani was abducted on Tuesday in the northern city of Kirkuk.

BAGHDAD - A man and a women working for the city council were killed by gunmen in the western Ghazaliya district of the capital, police said. The married couple were on their way to work when they were attacked.

BAGHDAD - Four policemen were injured when they were attacked by gunmen in southern Baghdad, police said.

BASRA - An intelligence officer was killed by gunmen in the southern city of Basra, intelligence officials said.

Falluja : A name that lives in infamy

One year ago this week, US-led occupying forces launched a devastating assault on the Iraqi city of Falluja. The mood was set by Lt Col Gary Brandl: "The enemy has got a face. He's called Satan. He's in Falluja. And we're going to destroy him."



The assault was preceded by eight weeks of aerial bombardment. US troops cut off the city's water, power and food supplies, condemned as a violation of the Geneva convention by a UN special rapporteur, who accused occupying forces of "using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population". Two-thirds of the city's 300,000 residents fled, many to squatters' camps without basic facilities.

As the siege tightened, the Red Cross, Red Crescent and the media were kept out, while males between the ages of 15 and 55 were kept in. US sources claimed between 600 and 6,000 insurgents were holed up inside the city - which means that the vast majority of the remaining inhabitants were non-combatants.

On November 8, 10,000 US troops, supported by 2,000 Iraqi recruits, equipped with artillery and tanks, supported from the air by bombers and helicopter gunships, blasted their way into a city the size of Leicester. It took a week to establish control of the main roads; another two before victory was claimed.

The city's main hospital was selected as the first target, the New York Times reported, "because the US military believed it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties". An AP photographer described US helicopters killing a family of five trying to ford a river to safety. "There were American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone," said Burhan Fasa'am, a photographer with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. "With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street was a target for the Americans."

The US also deployed incendiary weapons, including white phosphorous. "Usually we keep the gloves on," Captain Erik Krivda said, but "for this operation, we took the gloves off". By the end of operations, the city lay in ruins. Falluja's compensation commissioner has reported that 36,000 of the city's 50,000 homes were destroyed, along with 60 schools and 65 mosques and shrines.

The US claims that 2,000 died, most of them fighters. Other sources disagree. When medical teams arrived in January they collected more than 700 bodies in only one third of the city. Iraqi NGOs and medical workers estimate between 4,000 and 6,000 dead, mostly civilians - a proportionately higher death rate than in Coventry and London during the blitz.

The collective punishment inflicted on Falluja - with logistical and political support from Britain - was largely masked by the US and British media, which relied on reporters embedded with US troops. The BBC, in particular, offered a sanitised version of the assault: civilian suffering was minimised and the ethics and strategic logic of the attack largely unscrutinised.

Falluja proved to be yet another of the war's phantom turning points. Violent resistance spread to other cities. In the last two months, Tal-Afar, Haditha, Husaybah - all alleged terrorist havens heavily populated by civilians - have come under the hammer. Falluja is still so heavily patrolled that visitors have described it as "a giant prison". Only a fraction of the promised reconstruction and compensation has materialised.

Like Jallianwallah Bagh, Guernica, My Lai, Halabja and Grozny, Falluja is a place name that has become a symbol of unconscionable brutality. As the war in Iraq claims more lives, we need to ensure that this atrocity - so recent, so easily erased from public memory - is recognised as an example of the barbarism of nations that call themselves civilised.

In a few years the atrocity commited in Falluja will rank along side the crimes of Saddam . Imagine if this was your City , your family , your children .

source : the Guardian

Iraq : Sadr emerging as key political player

11/09/05 "The Telegraph" -- -- Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers are blamed for the recent killings of British troops in Basra, has emerged as the political kingmaker expected to shape the country's government for the next four years after the election on Dec 15.


In recent days a procession of Iraq's most powerful political leaders has paid homage to the 31-year-old cleric.

A year ago the US military wanted him captured dead or alive after a series of uprisings in the south. Iraqis widely consider the present government, a coalition of religious Shia groups led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a failure because of its inability to improve the security situation or guarantee a steady supply of electricity or fresh water.

Sadr, who has more than three million supporters, is likely to hold the balance of power in the new parliament.

At the weekend Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is the dominant partner in the present government, visited Sadr's headquarters in Kufa to try to broker a deal. Even Sunni politicians have begun negotiations with him, based on their shared anti-Americanism and demand for the withdrawal of all coalition troops.

Hussan Bazzaz, of the Centre for Culture and Opinion, in Baghdad, said that by sending conflicting signals Sadr was managing to enter politics while maintaining the image of an outsider on which his popularity largely lies. "Moqtada is moving in a couple of different directions," he said.

"The last election only mattered for a couple of months. This time it determines power for four years. He is wise to become involved." It seems certain that, under whatever deal he cuts, a number of his followers will receive important cabinet posts.

The Americans are insisting that they will work with any legally elected leader in Iraq. But the question as to how Sadr, whose rhetoric is vehemently anti-Western and who saw hundreds of his supporters killed in last summer's gun battles, would manage to work with them remains uncertain.

Surely now people see what happens when you try to bring demcracy by force , you end up with something worse then you started with . If this turns out to be true i feel the US and UK will not have to wait long to get their troops home , Al-Sadr will no doubt tell them to get out of iraq as quick as possible and then invite his friends from Iran around to discuss politics

Is this what british an american troops have been dying for ?

To replace a secular dictatorship with a religous fanatic is better is it ?

Todays last throws in Iraq : November 9th

Nov 9 (Reuters) - Following are security incidents reported in Iraq on Wednesday, Nov. 9, as of 1830 GMT.

QUSAYBA - Five civilians were killed in a U.S. air strike on a house being used by insurgents on Nov. 7, the military said. The insurgents had killed two occupants when they forced their way into the house to use it to attack U.S. and Iraqi forces, who did not know hostages were being held, the military said.

BAIJI - Local police said they found the body of Imad Awadhallah, a local photographer with Egyptian nationality, who was shot dead in the town of Baiji, north of Baghdad.

BALAD - Two civilians were killed and another wounded when gunmen attacked their car on a road near Balad, north of Baghdad, police major Ali Hussein said.

RAMADI - A member of the Iraqi Islamic Party was found shot dead in the city of Ramadi, 110 km (68 miles) west of Baghdad, doctor Hamdi al-Rawi said. He was abducted on Tuesday by gunmen.

BAGHDAD - One civilian was killed and another wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near a highway in the southern Dora district of the capital, police said.

BAGHDAD - The driver of a senior official in the education ministry was killed by gunmen in the impoverished Shula district of the capital, police said.

BAGHDAD - Gunmen shot dead a Sudanese driver at the country's embassy in Baghdad, two days after a Sudanese diplomat was slightly injured after being shot at in the Iraqi capital, a Sudanese official said.

RUTBA - A U.S. Marine died on Tuesday after his vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb the previous day near Rutba, 370 km (230 miles) west of Baghdad, the military said.

MOSUL - U.S. forces said they had killed one suspected insurgent and detained two more in a raid on an Ansar al Sunna safe house in a village near Mosul, in northern Iraq.

BAQUBA - Seven Iraqi policemen were killed and nine wounded, three of them civilians, when a car driven by a suicide attacker exploded in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, targeting an Iraqi police patrol, medical and army sources said.

UN : Record vote against US Cuba embargo

Nearly every country in the world joined on Tuesday to urge the United States to lift its four-decades old economic embargo against Cuba in a record UN General Assembly vote.





The vote, held for the 14th consecutive year, was 182 to four with one abstention on a resolution calling for Washington to lift the US trade, financial and travel embargo, particularly its provisions penalising foreign firms.

The four voting no were the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands. Micronesia abstained and El Salvador, Iraq, Nicaragua and Morocco did not vote. Last year the vote was 179 to five, with more countries refusing to vote.

Cuba has been under a US embargo since President Fidel Castro defeated a CIA-backed assault at the Bay of Pigs in 1961.

Friends of the United States, including Canada, Japan, Australia and the United Kingdom voted yes, although the European Union strongly criticised Cuba's human rights record.

The measure is non-binding and has had no impact on the United States, with the Bush administration having tightened restrictions against Cuba.

But the resolution has given Cuba a morale boost each year, especially from nearly all South American and Caribbean nations, particularly Mexico.

Critics of the embargo say it has failed to bring change to Cuba and allows Castro to blame the nation's economic woes on the United States.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said "In terms of insanity, this draconian prohibition should go into the annals of the Guinness Book of Records," he said.

Jordan hotel blasts : At least 57 dead

At least 57 people have been killed and about 300 injured in explosions at hotels in the Jordanian capital, Amman. The Grand Hyatt, Radisson and Days Inn hotels were hit in near-simultaneous blasts. Police suspect suicide bombers.



The hotels are popular with foreigners but most of the victims were Jordanian, many of them celebrating a wedding.

Jordan, a key US ally in the Middle East, has long been regarded as a prime target for attacks by radical Islamic militants, correspondents say.

What with Jordan's close relationship with the U.S. and it's support for the U.S. actions in Iraq this attack obviously has Al-Qaeda as its number one suspect .

My thoughts go out to the people of Jordan

Saddam lawyers call hearing 'illegitimate' and will now boycott trial

The chief lawyer for Saddam Hussein has said the former Iraqi leader's defence team will cease dealings with the court trying him for crimes against humanity. Khalil al-Dulaimi told Reuters that they considered the court illegitimate.



The announcement came after the killing of a second member of the defence team acting for Saddam Hussein and his seven co-defendants. Mr Dulaimi said the defence lawyers were unable to contact witnesses or work when their safety was threatened. "The defence committee has decided to consider the 28 November date [for the next hearing] cancelled and illegitimate," Mr Dulaimi told Reuters.

He also told reporters that he blamed US-led forces in Iraq for the killings.

"The occupation forces are responsible for this criminal incident, and they bear the responsibility of preserving the lives of the people regardless of their identity."

Source BBC

Blair defeated in 'Police state' vote

Prime Minister Tony Blair has lost the key House of Commons vote on plans to allow police to hold terror suspects without charge for up to 90 days. MPs rejected the proposals by 322 votes to 291.






The defeat came despite Mr Blair saying MPs had a "duty" to give police the powers they needed to tackle terrorism. The vote - the government's first Commons defeat - will be seen as a blow to the prime minister's authority.

The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and some Labour backbenchers said the 90-day plans went too far. Civil liberties groups compared the proposal to internment - a charge rejected by ministers.

In his final plea for MPs to back the plans, Mr Blair urged MPs to take the advice of the police who had foiled two terrorist plots since the 7 July attacks in London. In heated exchanges at prime minister's questions, Mr Blair said: "We are not living in a police state but we are living in a country that faces a real and serious threat of terrorism." in response to Conservative MPs shouting "police state" during Prime ministers questions

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said the measure would almost certainly be defeated in the House of Lords, where two ex-law lords had called it "intolerable".

In a sign of the importance given to the vote, Chancellor Gordon Brown was called back within minutes of arriving in Israel for a high profile visit. And Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also flew back early from EU-Russia talks in Moscow.

I find myself yet again on the side of the British Conservatives (i will see a doctor i promise) in thinking this was a step to far and dangerous step towards a police state . I commend the elected Members of parliament for stopping the government from going too far .

The MPs have now voted to instead increase the Police powers to enable them to hold a suspect for 28 days (double the exisiting law) which seems far more sensible . Mr Orwell can sleep peacefully in his grave tonight

This is the first time Mr Blair has been defeated in any vote since 1997 .

Another Saddam trial lawyer is shot dead

A lawyer for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants has been shot dead in the Iraqi capital Baghdad while another has been injured. Gunmen are said to have opened fire on a car carrying both men, killing Adel al-Zubeidi and wounding Thamer Hamoud al-Khuzaie.

The attack follows the killing of another defence lawyer last month.

The two lawyers shot on Tuesday were defending Saddam Hussein's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, members of the defence team said.

They were caught in an ambush in the Adil neighbourhood, said fellow lawyer Khamis al-Obeidi.

On 20 October, the day after the start of the high-profile trial in Baghdad, Sadoun Nasouaf al-Janabi was kidnapped by gunmen from his office in Baghdad and later found dead.

The defence team has called for the trial to be moved abroad because of the dangers to those involved .

Other quotes from the Defence team include

"The government bears the responsibility because it is supposed to protect the citizens. "

"If there were a serious investigation into the previous murder of Janabi and the perpetrators had been arrested, we would not see today's crime. "

"We demand a thorough investigation and severe punishment for the criminals behind today's terrorist crime against lawyers who were only doing their job."

The defence team had already threatened not to turn up for the next stage of the trial on 28 November, unless they are given much greater security.

so at this rate the defence team will be down to nothing before saddam next appears in court , but of course , surely having two members of the defence murdered in this way shows clearly that Iraq is not yet capable of holding such a trial and should agree to relocate to the Hague

US 'used chemical weapons' claim is gaining ground

I reported Here yesterday Highlighting the' claim' that the US used chemical weapons in the Battle for Fallujah and that this would be shown on Italian Television . The Italian broadcast has now been noticed by the BBC Here

I have watched the full program and there is certainly plenty of Evidence to be examined but i decided not to put the link to the whole program on this site due to the sickening images it contained.

However one very small part of that evidence is an interview with Jeff Englehart (described as a former US soldier who served in Falluja) and the BBC are showing part of this interview on their web site .

You can watch the clip direct from the BBC Here

This is a shocking (and much repeated) claim of the ulitmate hypocricy . I hope that is not true but i am starting to feel that it may well be accurate . I feel the the truth will come to light with how Mr Englehart is treated when (or if) this story is picked up in the US press

CIA prison claims 'to be probed' by the CIA

The US Central Intelligence Agency has taken the first step toward a criminal investigation into claims that it runs secret jails abroad, reports suggest. The inquiry focuses on possible leaks of classified information, anonymous officials are quoted as saying.



Last week the Washington Post newspaper alleged that the CIA was running detention centres for terror suspects in unnamed Eastern European countries.

The Bush administration has so far refused to comment on the allegations.

On Tuesday Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice averted questions on the issue, saying only that the US was in a "different kind of war" and had an obligation to defend itself.

The BBC's Fergal Parkinson in Washington says the repeated refusal by the administration to confirm or deny the reports have fuelled speculation that the secret prisons do exist.

Officials quoted by the Associated Press and Reuters news agencies on condition of anonymity said the CIA had asked the justice department to look into a possible leak.

The department will decide whether to initiate criminal proceedings.

Source : BBC

I got a funny feeling that the after a full investigation the CIA will claim that the CIA did nothing wrong ! Probably around the same time that President Bush ends his inquiry into his conduct during Katrina and finds himself and his friends not guilty .

If you find yourself arrested in the US why not try doing the same , insist that you will investigate yourself and let them know if your guilty or not

Al-Qaeda to launch new 'offensive' in Iraq

DUBAI (AFX) - Al-Qaeda's Iraq operation said it was launching an offensive in the west of Iraq in response to a major US and Iraqi military operation on the Syrian border.






"Your brothers in the military branch of Al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers are launching today 'The Conquest of Vengeance' on behalf of the Sunni community in Al-Qaim," the group said in an online statement which could not be independently verified.

It stressed the group's "right to defend the (Islamic) nation and avenge the honour and blood" of Iraqis.

The offensive came "after the crusaders and the apostate government have not ceased their operations", referring to a warning it issued yesterday for US and Iraqi forces to halt their sweep against insurgents within 24 hours.

"After that they will only see from us the worst and something that's going to make the earth tremble under their feet," the earlier statement said.

Operation Steel Curtain began Saturday and was designed to "restore Iraqi sovereign control along the Iraqi-Syrian border and destroy the Al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorists operating throughout Al-Qaim region," the US military said.

Around 1,000 Iraqi soldiers and a force of 2,500 US troops were engaged in the sweep, which the US military said has resulted in the deaths of at least one US marine, an Iraqi soldier and 36 "suspected rebel

Todays last throws in Iraq : November 8th

Nov 8 (Reuters) - Following are security incidents reported in Iraq on Tuesday, Nov. 8, as of 1535 GMT.







BAGHDAD - Gunmen opened fire on a car carrying two lawyers for Saddam Hussein's co-defendants, killing one and wounding the other. Adil al-Zubeidi was the second defence lawyer to be assassinated since the trial opened on Oct. 19.

DALI ABBAS - Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and a fifth critically wounded when a bomb blew up near their patrol car in the small town of Dali Abbas, northeast of Baghdad, police said.

RUSTUMIYA - Iraqi police found five decomposed bodies in the Rustumiya area just south of the Iraqi capital, police said. The identity of the victims was not immediately known.

KIRKUK - A roadside bomb blew up next to a police patrol, killing two policemen and wounding three others near the town of Daquq, 40 km (25 miles) south of Kirkuk, Lieutenant-Colonel Ali al-Sheikh said.

BASRA - An Iraqi security force colonel and his brother were killed by a roadside bomb as they drove through southern Basra, 550 km (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad, police and witnesses said.

BAGHDAD - The death toll from a suicide car bombing at a checkpoint south of Baghdad on Monday rose to five, with an interpreter also killed along with four U.S. soldiers, the military said.

BAQUBA - Insurgents killed one policeman and injured five when they attacked a patrol car in Baquba, north of Baghdad, police said. There was no immediate information on insurgent casualties.

RAMADI - U.S forces killed two militants and arrested six others as they raided an al Qaeda safe house near the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, a U.S military statement said.

BAGHDAD - A car bomb exploded near Mustansiriyah University in eastern Baghdad wounding two bystanders, police said.

U.S. ' Used Chemical Weapons In Iraq '

ROME. In soldier slang they call it Willy Pete. The technical name is white phosphorus. In theory its purpose is to illumine enemy positions in the dark. In practice, it was used as a chemical weapon in the rebel stronghold of Fallujah. And it was used not only against enemy combatants and guerrillas, but again innocent civilians.



The Americans are responsible for a massacre using unconventional weapons, the identical charge for which Saddam Hussein stands accused. An investigation by RAI News 24, the all-news Italian satellite television channel, has pulled the veil from one of the most carefully concealed mysteries from the front in the entire US military campaign in Iraq.

A US veteran of the Iraq war told RAI New correspondent Sigfrido Ranucci this: I received the order use caution because we had used white phosphorus on Fallujah. In military slag it is called 'Willy Pete'. Phosphorus burns the human body on contact--it even melts it right down to the bone.

RAI News 24's investigative story, Fallujah, The Concealed Massacre, will be broadcast tomorrow on RAI-3 and will contain not only eye-witness accounts by US military personnel but those from Fallujah residents. A rain of fire descended on the city. People who were exposed to those multicolored substance began to burn. We found people with bizarre wounds-their bodies burned but their clothes intact, relates Mohamad Tareq al-Deraji, a biologist and Fallujah resident.

I gathered accounts of the use of phosphorus and napalm from a few Fallujah refugees whom I met before being kidnapped, says Manifesto reporter Giuliana Sgrena, who was kidnapped in Fallujah last February, in a recorded interview. I wanted to get the story out, but my kidnappers would not permit it.

RAI News 24 will broadcast video and photographs taken in the Iraqi city during and after the November 2004 bombardment which prove that the US military, contrary to statements in a December 9 communiqué from the US Department of State, did not use phosphorus to illuminate enemy positions (which would have been legitimate) but instend dropped white phosphorus indiscriminately and in massive quantities on the city's neighborhoods.

In the investigative story, produced by Maurizio Torrealta, dramatic footage is shown revealing the effects of the bombardment on civilians, women and children, some of whom were surprised in their sleep.

The investigation will also broadcast documentary proof of the use in Iraq of a new napalm formula called MK77. The use of the incendiary substance on civilians is forbidden by a 1980 UN treaty. The use of chemical weapons is forbidden by a treaty which the US signed in 1997

Notes

(1) This claim of the use of MK77 in Fallujah is not being made by myself , it is however being made by RAI News 24 and they are providing evidence

(2) There is video evidence of what seems like genuine cases of the use of MK77 on civilians in Fallujah but (a) i have decided not to show the video as the images are quite sickening and (b) i am not any kind of expert on MK77 and so have decided to leave my judgement on the claim until after the evidence is presented (on Italian TV) and the US government has given some kind of response to the claim.

(3) The claim that MK77 was used against civilians in Fallujah is not new , many news agencies have made the claim before , but i think RAI News are the first to supply any kind of evidence of such a crime

IF this claim by the Italian news company turns out to be genuine then this is beyond sickness
The use of chemical weapons in Iraq which is the claimed reason for being there . So the actual use of such weapons by the US in Iraq would be the ultimate hypocracy and i doubt this information could be withheld from the wider world for very long.

Todays last throws in Iraq : November 7th

Nov 7 (Reuters) - Following are security incidents reported in Iraq on Monday, Nov. 7, as of 1515 GMT.

TIKRIT - A U.S. soldier was killed and two more troops and an Iraqi translator were wounded by a makeshift bomb while on patrol near Dawr on Sunday, the military said on Monday.

MOSUL - A suicide car bomber attacked a U.S. patrol in Mosul on Monday, police and witnesses said. There were no details on casualties.

BAGHDAD - A suicide car bomber killed nine people, including six Iraqi policemen, in the southern Dora district of Baghdad, police said.

MOSUL - An Iraqi journalist was shot dead by gunmen in the flashpoint city of Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad. Police said that Ahmed Hussein Al-Maliki, who worked as an editor for Tal Afar Today newspaper, was killed while he was inside an internet cafe.

BAGHDAD - Four people were killed and six wounded by mortars in eastern Baghdad, police said.

QUSAYBA - U.S. and Iraqi forces killed 17 insurgents in the town of Qusayba near the Syrian border during their Operation Steel Curtain offensive against insurgents and foreign fighters in western Iraq, a U.S. military statement said. A U.S. Marine was killed by small arms fire on Sunday, the first American to die since the operation began on Saturday, the statement said.

THIBBAN - At least two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 13 injured when a suicide car bomber targeted a group of Iraqi soldiers guarding oil pipelines in the town of Thibban north of Baghdad, hospital doctor Ibrahim al-Ubaidi said.

US intel on Iraq-Qaeda ties 'intentionally misleading'

WASHINGTON, (AFP) - US military intelligence warned the Bush administration as early as February 2002 that its key source on Al-Qaeda's relationship with Iraq had provided "intentionally misleading" data, according to a declassified report.



Nevertheless, eight months later, President George W. Bush went public with charges that the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein had trained members of Osama bin Laden's terror network in manufacturing deadly poisons and gases.

These same accusations had found their way into then-secretary of state Colin Powell's February 2003 speech before the UN Security Council, in which he outlined the US rationale for military action against Iraq.

"This newly declassified information provides additional, dramatic evidence that the administrations pre-war statements were deceptive," said Democrat Carl Levin, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who pushed for partial declassification of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document.

The report provides a critical analysis of information provided by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an Islamic radical and bin Laden associate, who served as senior military trainer at a key Al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan before it was destroyed by US forces in late 2001.

In captivity, al-Libi initially told his DIA debriefers that Al-Qaeda operatives had received training from Iraq in manufacturing poisons and deadly chemical agents.

But the DIA, according to its assessment, did not find the information credible.

US military intelligence officers concluded that al-Libi lacked "specific details on the Iraqis involved, the... materials associated with the assistance and the location where training occurred," the report said.

"It is possible," the document went on to say, "he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers."

The DIA suggested al-Libi, who had been under interrogation for several weeks, "may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest."

Just the same, president Bush insisted during an October 2002 trip to Cincinnati, Ohio, that his administration had learned that "Iraq has trained Al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases."

He repeated the same charge in February 2003.

The administration's drumbeat over alleged Iraq-Qaeda ties reached a crescendo that same month when Powell went before the United Nations to accuse Iraq of hiding tons of chemical and biological weapons and nurturing nuclear ambitions.

His speech, according to congressional officials, even contained a direct reference to al-Libi's testimony, albeit not his name.

"I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al-Qaeda," insisted the secretary of state, who now says he regrets voicing many of the charges contained in that speech.

Well i know that some people will never accept that they were taken to war on a pack of lies so i doubt this report will convince anyone else .Those who have the facts are already convinced amd those that have the rhetoric never will be .
But still the question should be asked , If the Bush administration was being told in February 2002 that the info they had was intentionally misleading and they ignored that advice (from their own military) , who is out that that still thinks this war was about a genuine failure of intelligence and not just a pure and simple lie ?

Memoirs shine new light on war

Tony Blair has faced any number of claims about what he did and did not do when he and President Bush were preparing to go to war on Iraq. The difference with Sir Christopher Meyer's recollections is that he was actually there most of the time.


The former UK ambassador to the US witnessed much of the talk first hand and was in a position to see the relationship between the two men develop, and even help it along where necessary.

And it does not make happy reading for the prime minister who has already faced claims he failed to exert any real influence over the president and was all too easily swept up in the rush to war.

The prime minister, it is claimed, was so "seduced" by US power that he failed to exert the leverage that was available to him with a president desperate to win allies.

Indeed, the accounts suggest that the prime minister offered such unconditional support to the president, that he effectively negated the influence he may have been able to exert, particularly for the post-war Iraq.

Bush's poodle

"We may have been the junior partner in the enterprise but the ace up our sleeve was that America did not want to go it alone. Had Britain so insisted, Iraq after Saddam might have avoided the violence that may yet prove fatal to the entire enterprise."

That will serve to reinforce those critics of the prime minister who saw his role as the president's poodle and who, while denying it at home, was reassuring the US that he was in favour of regime change - something else Sir Christopher confirms.


But he goes on to say: "But the high moral ground, and the pure white flame of unconditional support to an ally in service of an idea, have their disadvantages.

"They place your destiny in the hands of the ally. They fly above the tangled history of Sunni, Shia and Kurd. They discourage descent into the dull detail of tough and necessary bargaining; meat and drink to Margaret Thatcher, but, so it seemed, uncongenial to Tony Blair."

The former ambassador says he discovered very early that, as had been the case with Margaret Thatcher, relations with the US would be controlled by Downing Street with the Foreign Office relegated to second fiddle.

"The Foreign Office never stood a chance. America belonged to Downing Street."
Sir Christopher's memoirs are also littered with anecdotes that throw some light into the smaller corners of the prime minister's lifestyle.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/4413706.stm

Sharon Says No to Negotiations with Syria

It seems the good will of the last story didnt last long

IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel has “no intention” of holding negotiations with Syria.Sharon said it would be a “severe mistake” for Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights, an area in northern Israel liberated from Syria during the 1967 Six Day War.“Despite the fact that Syria is interested,” the prime minister said,

“Israel has no intention of conducting any peace negotiations.”

Now there is a suprise , we got it , we are keeping it , even if it means that more people on both sides will die .

Whats the problem with talking Mr Sharon ? , they are willing to talk to you and that is no small thing . You dont even have to agree to anything , but by refusing to even talk you look like the one who is preventing peace not them

Palestinians donate son's kidney for Israeli boy

The family of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who was killed by Israeli soldiers have donated one of his kidneys to an Israeli boy. "It doesn't matter whether the recipient was a Jew or an Arab," they said.



Ahmed Khatib was shot on Thursday in the West Bank city of Jenin. He was rushed to the emergency room at Rambam hospital in Haifa, but died without recovering consciousness. The army said he had a toy gun, which soldiers mistook for a rifle. The family said he was with a group of boys waving toy guns to celebrate a festival.
Jamil Khatib, his uncle, said the boy's father, Ismail, agreed to the donation after he saw the young Israeli kidney patient. "He had a brother, Shawkat, who died several years ago from kidney failure. He understood what it was like. Shawkat needed a kidney, but he never got one."

If only we could have more stories like that . the hatred both sides have for each other could never survive , oh well , back to reality

Iran seeks to renew nuclear talks

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator has written to the UK, France and Germany to call for the resumption of stalled talks over its atomic programme.
The three European powers have led talks with Tehran on behalf of the EU.




Negotiations broke down in August when Iran resumed uranium conversion activities in defiance of international calls to maintain a suspension.

The US accuses Iran of using its nuclear power programme to develop nuclear weapons - a charge it denies.

The letter from Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, was handed to the ambassadors of the UK, France and Germany.

According to Iranian news agencies, Mr Larijani said in the letter that Iran would "welcome negotiations that are constructive and based on logic".

It is the first approach that Mr Larijani has made to the EU powers - known as EU3 - since taking over the nuclear portfolio after hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad became president in June.

The three EU nations have yet to comment.

Bush profited from 'oil for food' claim

Last week, the Independent Committee investigating the Oil-for-Food program (OFF) released its final report detailing how Saddam Hussein's regime skimmed just under two percent from the otherwise successful relief effort by charging kickbacks and "inland transportation" fees to companies doing business with Iraq.




The small group of conservative writers who I've dubbed the "Scandal Pimps" have been less enthusiastic about the release of this report than they've been about those that preceded it. The day after the release, the Wall Street Journal editorialized that the report didn't really add anything new, it just filled in some details.

What they characterized as "details" were actually the names of over 2,000 companies that paid bribes to the Hussein regime for a shot at buying Iraq's oil, selling spare parts for its oil infrastructure or providing humanitarian goods for a population starving under the U.S./ U.K.-led sanctions regime.

The Scandal Pimps have been low-key because the final report of the Committee -- known as the Volcker Committee for its chair, former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker -- offers further evidence that what they've worked so hard -- and so successfully -- to portray as a massive UN scandal has always been a relatively modest corporate scandal, interesting more for the players involved than because of its scale.

The details the Journal editors referred to include the process by which Saddam and his cronies squeezed what were effectively bribes out of multinational corporations, great and small. Contracts were submitted to the United Nations where they were reviewed by the Security Council states (the U.S. and Britain were the only ones that reviewed every contract). Revenues from approved sales were deposited into UN-administered trusts from which goods could be purchased. But before companies could "lift," or load, oil, they had to come up with some cash for the Iraqi government. Those fees and surcharges were paid directly by the companies either into Iraqi-controlled accounts (mostly in Jordan) or as bags full of cash dropped off at Iraqi embassies around the world. The illicit funds -- widely reported by the media at the time -- never touched UN hands.

More to the point, the Scandal Pimps are unlikely to delve too deeply into the final report because it reveals that some of our leading corporations, and the vaunted "entrepenuers" that outlets like the Washington Times always crow about, weren't in the least bit reticent to pay off a brutal dictator accused of mass murder in order to pump up their bottom lines.

Even more damning to the conservative worldview is that the United States' "strategic class" was deeply involved. In fact, profits from sales under OFF program that were lubricated with illicit payments to Saddam Hussein found their way into both the Bush and Kerry presidential campaigns of 2004.

Read the rest Here

So it seems President Bush himself may have been guilty of profiting from oil for food

Is this another story that will be forgotten when anyone next talks about the UN and George Galloway

Insurgent base undiminished

What's new: The United States claims that thousands of insurgents have been killed or captured in Iraq this year, but has it made a difference?

U.S. and Iraqi forces have killed more than 1,300 insurgents in Iraq and detained 9,000 suspected fighters since last January's election for an interim government, but the estimated size of the insurgency remains the same, according to American military officials.

The U.S. military releases only occasional tallies of enemy deaths and has a policy of not releasing a total. Even so, the available numbers, compiled from news releases since January, and the official estimate of overall insurgent numbers suggest that the forces fighting American soldiers in Iraq have been able to find enough recruits to replace those who've been killed or detained.

Gen. John Abizaid, the chief of U.S. Central Command, who once estimated insurgent strength at 5,000, put the number at 20,000 in early October, about the same as it was a year ago. Insurgents' ranks are being replenished as quickly as they are depleted, said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a research center in Washington, and the co-author of its Iraq Index, which tracks statistics in key areas such as security and economics.

"(It's) closer to stalemate militarily than anything else, as best I can tell," he said.

U.S. military officials in Baghdad said 376 foreign fighters had been captured and about 400 had been killed since the January election. More than 100 of those were "known leaders" of the group al Qaida in Iraq, and six were "trusted agents" of its leader, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a coalition spokesman, said last month.

Sixty percent of the foreign fighters captured were from Egypt, Syria, Sudan and Saudi Arabia, said Brig. Gen. Donald Alston, a military spokesman in Baghdad.

Most of the suicide bombers who've attacked in Iraq in recent months are thought to have been foreigners, and since last spring U.S. and Iraqi counterinsurgency efforts increasingly have targeted villages and towns that are thought to be their havens in the Euphrates River valley and along the Syrian border.

US told to repay Iraq for 'shoddy' work

The United States has reportedly been told it should pay Iraq as much as $280 million for overbilling or shoddy work by a subsidiary of the American oil firm Halliburton.



The New York Times reports that a United Nations auditing board has said work carried out by Kellogg, Brown and Root and paid for with Iraqi oil revenues was delivered at inflated prices or done poorly.

But the paper says it is too early to say how much of the funds should be paid back.

It says analysis of financial statements and documents are still under way.

Halliburton was once managed by the US Vice President, Dick Cheney.

- AFP