APRIL 2007
17th April:
Sadr ministers walk out of Iraq government in protest at US
By Patrick Cockburn The Independent
Published: 17 April 2007
The nationalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his ministers to leave the Iraqi government because of its refusal to set a timetable for US troop withdrawal from Iraq.
A violent confrontation between America and the Sadrist movement, popular among the Shia majority, would mark a new stage in the four-year war in which the US has hitherto been fighting the minority Sunni community.
The departure of the six ministers will weaken the Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who relied on the support of their movement for a majority in parliament. The Sadrists accused Mr Maliki of "ignoring the will of the people" over the issue of a timed American withdrawal.
Muqtada al-Sadr has been hiding for two months but in recent weeks has demanded an end to the occupation. He has organised peaceful rallies attended by tens of thousands of demonstrators in Najaf at which Sadr supporters waved Iraqi flags and chanted their opposition to the continuing US presence.
Menacingly for the US, Mr Sadr called on Iraqi police and soldiers, many of them his supporters, to oppose the occupation. His new anti-American campaign is in keeping with Iraqi opinion going by a recent poll by ABC, the BBC, ARD and USA Today. It showed that 78 per cent of Iraqis oppose the presence of US forces in Iraq. More than 7 out of 10 Shia - and almost all Sunni - say the US military presence makes security worse.
A significant change in Iraqi politics over the past four years has been the growing hostility of the Shia towards the US. Although the government of Mr Maliki is in effect a Shia-Kurdish coalition, 59 per cent of Iraqis think the US controls things in Iraq according to the poll. Many Shia see the US as covertly manipulating the real levers of power in order to exclude them. For instance the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, the main security service, under General Mohammed Shahwani, is wholly funded by the CIA at a reported cost of $3 bn since 2004.
The Sadrists are not likely to move into total opposition to Mr Maliki's government because Mr Sadr has sought to avoid direct military confrontation with the US since his Mehdi Army militia clashed with American forces in 2004. "The Prime Minister has to express the will of the Iraqi people," the head of the Sadrist bloc in parliament, Nasser al-Rubaie, said yesterday. "They went out in their millions asking for a timetable for withdrawal. We noticed the Prime Minister's response did not express the will of the people."
iran
april 1st.
- MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) -- Russian military intelligence services are reporting a flurry of activity by U.S. Armed Forces near Iran's borders, a high-ranking security source said Tuesday.
- "The latest military intelligence data point to heightened U.S. military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran," the official said, adding that the Pentagon has probably not yet made a final decision as to when an attack will be launched. He said the Pentagon is looking for a way to deliver a strike against Iran "that would enable the Americans to bring the country to its knees at minimal cost." He also said the U.S. Naval presence in the Persian Gulf has for the first time in the past four years reached the level that existed shortly before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
- Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, vice president of the Academy of Geopolitical Sciences, said last week that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran's military infrastructure in the near future.
- A new U.S. carrier battle group has been dispatched to the Gulf.
- The USS John C. Stennis, with a crew of 3,200 and around 80 fixed-wing aircraft, including F/A-18 Hornet and Superhornet fighter-bombers, eight support ships and four nuclear submarines are heading for the Gulf, where a similar group led by the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has been deployed since December 2006. The U.S. is also sending Patriot anti-missile systems to the region.
Total boss
quizzed in Iran probe 
The boss of French oil giant Total is being questioned by police as part of a probe into alleged corruption in Iran.
Total said Christophe de Margerie and two employees were being interviewed about the firm's role in the South Pars natural gas project in Iran.
The company said it was "confident" the investigation would not uncover any illegal activities.
The inquiry concerns allegations that illegal payments were made to win the gas contract in 1997.
Mr de Margerie was also placed under
investigation last year over claims he paid bribes to win
bids in Iraq.
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From a letter of Fay Turney's to the British People:
Friday
March 30, 2007
Guardian
Unlimited
To British People,
I believe that for our countries to move forward, we need to start withdrawing our forces from Iraq and leave the people of Iraq to start rebuilding their lives.
I have written a letter to the people of Iran apologising for our actions.
Whereas we hear and see on the news the way prisoners were treated in Abu Ghrayb (sic) and other Iraqi jails by the British and American personnel, I have received total respect and faced no harm.
It is now our time to ask our government to make a
change to its oppressive behavior (sic) towards other
people.
UK wins diluted support from UN over Iran
By Daniel Dombey in London, Gareth Smyth in Tehran, Mark Turner in Beirut and agencies
Published: March 29 2007 19:20 | Last updated: March 30 2007 10:43 Financial Times
UN Security Council members on Thursday night agreed to a watered-down statement expressing concern at Iran’s capture of 15 UK naval personnel, as the stand-off between the two countries hardened.
After hours of negotiations, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, Britain’s ambassador to the UN, said the council called “for an early resolution of this problem, including the release of the 15 personnel”. Russia had blocked a tougher statement that would have demanded an immediate release.
Ashley
Seager, economics correspondent
Friday March 30, 2007
Guardian
Unlimited
Oil prices shot up to their highest in over six
months today on continued tension between Britain and
Iran over British naval staff held by Tehran.
London Brent crude futures jumped over $1 a barrel, pushing through $69 for the first time since early last September during hectic trading. It later retreated towards $68 but dealers said any further escalation in the spat between the two countries would be immediately reflected in the oil price.
BBC WORLD NEWS:US officials have ruled out a deal to exchange 15 Royal Navy personnel captured in the Gulf for five Iranians seized by American forces in Iraq. State department spokesman Sean McCormack rejected suggestions that a swap could be made. The five, believed to be members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, were seized in January in the Iraqi city of Irbil. The five Iranians were captured in a raid along with equipment which the Americans say shows clear Iranian links to networks supplying Iraqi insurgents with technology and weapons. US officials have condemned Iran's actions and publicly supported the UK.
Iraq
Iraq's Devastated Healthcare System
Ali al-Fadhily, , 6 April 2007
BAGHDAD (IPS) - Iraqis surviving violence are not so sure
they can also survive disease.
"Iraq was known to be the best in healthcare in the
region," Dr. Iyad Muhammad from Ramadi General
Hospital told IPS. "Best doctors, hospitals, nurses
and cheapest medicines. The situation now is the
opposite."
Dr. Muhammad said several doctors have been killed, and
many more have fled the country. Patients are looking to
follow them too, he said, with many prepared to sell
their property to go abroad for treatment.
"Our situation now has become worse than during the
sanctions period (in the 1990s after the first Gulf war)
when more than one million died and we had very little
medicine and supplies to treat them."
Iraq's health index has deteriorated to a level not seen
since the 1950s, Joseph Chamie, former director of the
United Nations Population Division and an Iraq specialist
has said.
With only sparse care now available at hospitals, Iraqis
in need cross the border to Syria and Jordan for
treatment. That comes at a price because as foreigners
they can go only to private hospitals.
Iraqi officials say remedies are on the way. "There
have been many contracts to construct new hospitals, and
our ministry is studying more all over Iraq," Ahmed
Hussein from the Iraqi Ministry of Health told IPS.
"The existing hospitals are old and we would rather
build new ones."
But widespread corruption has been reported in the
Ministry of Health, which is being led by politicians
with no experience in healthcare. The ministry is
officially led by a member of the movement of Shia cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr.
Sectarianism determines who gets the kind of treatment
still available.
"You go to a hospital and you find pictures of
clerics all over the place, as if you were in a
shrine," Qassim Brissam, a Shia Iraqi analyst in
London told IPS on telephone. "Clerics are not
doctors, and they should not run hospitals."
Iraqi doctors are painfully aware that growing
sectarianism has worsened the deteriorating health
system.
"I appeared on a documentary concerning Iraqi
hospitals, and that was the biggest mistake I ever
committed," Dr. Rafi Jassim from Baghdad told IPS.
"I was lucky to learn in proper time that militias
were to raid my house that night. Now I am on the run
just like any fugitive criminal, and my family faces the
threat of a terrorist attack any moment."
A combination of sanctions, war and occupation has
brought to Iraq the world's worst deterioration in child
mortality rate. According to a report 'The State of the
World's Children' released by UNICEF this year, Iraq's
mortality rate for children under five was 50 per 1000
live births in 1990, and 125 in 2005, an annual average
deterioration of 6.1 percent.
Sexual Assault of Women Soldiers on
Rise in US Military
Helen Benedict - Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/news/feature
/2007/03/07/women_in_military/
I have talked to more than 20 female veterans of the Iraq
war in the past few months, interviewing them for up to
ten hours each for a book I am writing on the topic, and
every one of them said the danger of rape by other
soldiers is so widely recognized in Iraq that their
officers routinely told them not to go to the latrines or
showers without another woman for protection. The female
soldiers who were at Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, for example,
where U.S. troops go to demobilize, told me they were
warned not to go out at night alone... Spc. Mickiela
Montoya, 21, who was in Iraq with the National Guard in
2005, took to carrying a knife with her at all times.
"The knife wasn't for the Iraqis," she told me.
"It was for the guys on my own side."
According to one report, 1/3rd of foreign
occupation troops in Iraq are mercenaries
angryarab,blogspot,com
scandal taints 2,000 firms 
More than 2,000 firms linked to the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq were involved in making illicit payments to the Iraqi government, a report says.
It found Saddam Hussein received $1.8bn (£1bn) from firms including Daimler Chrysler and Volvo, and it also named individuals said to have benefited.
Some of those issued denials or declined to comment at this stage.
The UN report said the firms would not necessarily have known about the bribes and surcharges.
Paul Volcker, who led the inquiry, said
corruption would not have been so pervasive had there
been better discipline by UN management and he emphasised
the need for wide-ranging UN reforms.
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This is most suspicious. Call me
conspiratorial--please, do; I mean it. It does not offend
me in those times. The New York Times published this
picture today with this caption: "Graffiti on the
wall of a home in the Amil district of Baghdad reads
"Wanted blood, Hell for infidels." As families
begin to return to the neighborhoods they fled, the
threat of sectarian violence remains."
But anybody who knows Arabic will notice something really
odd and fishy about the graffiti: It is not written by an
Arabic speaker. It does not read Arabic, and the basic
words for blood and infidels are misspelled, and the
sentence structure is wrong. As if it was written in
another language and then google-translated, or
something.
.......................................
Iraqi boys cry in a hospital after surviving a
road side bomb attack in Kirkuk, Iraq, 290 kilometers
(180 miles) north of Baghdad, Wednesday, March 21, 2007.
Five of their relatives were wounded in the blast and
their father was killed. (AP Photo/Emad Matti, 3/21/07).
Dr Haidr al-Maliki was as an army psychiatrist during Saddam Hussein's regime. He now works as a child psychiatrist at Ab Ibn Rushed Hospital in Baghdad. He lives with his wife and four children.
There used to be about 80 psychiatrists in Iraq, now there are just 20 to 25. And some of them will leave. Fifteen or so will eventually go to the UAE or to Jordan; it's difficult.
About a year ago, during Ramadan, four boys aged about 15 to 20 came into my private clinic, in front of my patient. They asked "Are you Dr Haidr?" I said yes. And they shot me several times. One bullet went into my right shoulder, another into my right arm. I am left with nerve injury and muscle atrophy. Afterwards they told me I couldn't go to my clinic and that I had to leave the country. They didn't say why. So, now I don't go out, I just stay at home. My own private jail. I can't do anything. If I even think about going for a drink in my club 500m from my house, I will be killed.
Iraqi people are living in difficult times. Most of us have been exposed to aggression: attacks in the street, car bombings, kidnappings. Most Iraqi people now deal with each other in an aggressive way; they show disturbed behaviour; they have lost their civility. We don't know how to treat these problems really. But I can't leave Iraq. If I and my friends leave, who will help our people?
I was asked to open the child psychiatry centre in Ab
Ibn Rushed hospital, but I have no training in children,
really. I read books and I try to help. Most of the
children are suffering from post-traumatic stress
disorder, especially those who have been exposed to
kidnapping. Most of the children I see are bedwetting.
They have disturbed behaviour or epilepsy. We treat them
with simple medication; it is very difficult. Most of the
families come here for help and sometimes we can do
nothing for them, except offer support and advice.BBC
WORLD NEWS
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Bad Water Afflicting Iraq's Children
Report, IRIN, 26 March 2007
BAGHDAD (IRIN) - Mohammed Hussein Shureida, 40, sets
aside a huge portion of his monthly income to buy water
from private tankers and protect his family from
waterborne diseases that can result from drinking Iraq's
tap water."I nearly lost my six-year old son last
summer as he developed acute diarrhea from the bad water
we were drinking," said Shureida, a taxi driver from
the Baghdad slums of Sadr city. "Medicines were not
easy to get, causing my son to suffer a lot until he
recovered and since then we decided not to drink tap
water," added the father-of-three.
Four years after the US-led invasion of Iraq that ousted
deceased former president Saddam Hussein, the majority of
Iraqis find it difficult to get safe water, despite the
fact that the country is blessed with two abundant
natural water sources, the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers.Like much of Iraq's infrastructure, its national
water networks have been left to fall into disrepair over
the past two decades as a result of Iraq's long economic
stagnation under United Nations-imposed sanctions during
Saddam's era.
Since 2003, Iraq's water problems worsened as the
country's main water treatment and pumping stations were
stripped of vital equipment by looters immediately after
the collapse of the former regime.Acts of sabotage
damaged infrastructure even further. Municipal water
became dirty and contaminated - exposing children to
dangerous waterborne diseases.
"Now our main sources for potable water are the
private tankers that roam in our district. Although it is
expensive to buy water from them, it's better than
getting water with diseases and then having to struggle
to get medical treatment," said Shureida. "It
costs me something like 150,000 Iraqi dinars [about US
$120] per month just to secure good water for
drinking."
Marking World Water Day on 22 March, the UN Children's
Agency (UNICEF) in Iraq warned that the chronic shortage
of safe drinking water could push up incidences of
diarrhea, a leading killer of children in the country.
"Iraq's young children are particularly vulnerable
to diarrhea, which can easily kill or lead to severe
malnutrition and stunted growth," said Roger Wright,
UNICEF Representative for Iraq, in a statement issued on
World Water Day.UNICEF launched a water tanker service in
April 2003 to help the worst-affected families in
Baghdad. Tanker trucks full of safe drinking water were
sent daily to the most deprived areas of the capital,
Baghdad, and Basra in the south of the country.
Last year, UNICEF tankers reached about 120,000 people
per day in Baghdad, delivering 400 million liters of safe
water to 10 residential areas, five schools and six main
hospitals - as well as to a growing number of displaced
families in the capital.
But lack of funds has forced UNICEF this month to halt
its water service.
"Latest reports suggest we are already seeing an
increase in diarrhea cases, even before the usual onset
of the 'diarrhea season' in June. It is particularly
worrying that water tankering services have had to be
halted in Baghdad this month due to lack of funds,"
Wright said.
Vinod Alkari, UNICEF Iraq's Chief of Water, Sanitation
and Hygiene, said that the use of water tankers is
"usually only a short-term solution in the aftermath
of emergencies. But Iraq is still facing a growing
humanitarian crisis. If people are cut off from this
critical service, it will push them to the edge of
desperation and risk the health of their
children."The Iraqi government has said that it can
take care of the problem without the help of
UNICEF."Great efforts are being exerted despite all
the challenges as about US $650 million is allocated for
water projects this year," said Ayad al-Safi, the
undersecretary of Iraq's Ministry of Municipalities and
Public works."UNICEF was helping us by providing
essential water treatment chemicals like chlorine, but we
can manage that as we are establishing 25 water treatment
units all over Iraq, treating from 4,000 to 10,000 cubic
meters of water every day," al-Safi added.
However, the government's efforts to repair water
networks have been hampered by continuing violence in
restive areas, ongoing electricity outages, attacks on
infrastructure and engineering works and under-investment
in the water sector.While precise figures for the number
of people, especially children, affected by waterborne
diseases in Iraq are not available, doctors are
expressing serious concern over the issue.Dr Rafid Shaker
Nazal of the hospital in Baghdad's Sadr City, where about
3.5 million people live, said that his hospital is
treating 50 to 70 people per month for waterborne
diseases."Gastro-enteritis, brucellosis, hepatitis
and typhoid fever are common among the children of this
area due to bad drinking water. What makes it more
difficult is that medicines are not available and health
centers do not have enough qualified personnel," he
said.
This item comes to you via IRIN, the
humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office
for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The
opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of
the United Nations or its Member States. Reposting or
reproduction, with attribution, for non-commercial
purposes is permitted. . Terms and conditions
.........................................
Even Humanitarian Workers Fear Reprisal NGOs Get
Caught in the Middle of Sectarian Warfare Posted 0 hr. 22
min. ago 
Patrick Baz/AFP/Getty BAGHDAD, IRAQ: An Iraqi man
loads boxes of humanitarian food supplies onto a truck at
the Sunni Muslim Umm al-Qura mosque in Baghdad. www.iraqslogger.com
){kind=link}
BAGHDAD, 25 March 2007 (IRIN) - Fae’ek Ahmed, 30
works for a local Iraqi NGO that has been helping
displaced families by providing them with essential
supplies such as food, clean water, clothes and medicines
in the capital, Baghdad, and in neighbouring provinces.
Single but with parents to support, he lives in fear of
being killed after receiving death threats from unknown
sources.
“Helping people can be dangerous in my country.
Every day when I go to a displaced camp to deliver aid, I
have a premonition that something bad will happen to me.
“I’ve been doing humanitarian work since 2003.
In the beginning it was safe and we were doing amazing
work; helping people who were displaced after the war,
people who’d had their houses destroyed in Baghdad.
Later on, we started to help families displaced in Anbar
province because of fighting in the area. But since then
we’ve become targets for many armed groups.
“We could get caught in crossfire between insurgents
and US forces or could be targeted by militias.
“I wake up early every morning to go to work in the
Mansour district of Baghdad, which is about 15 minutes by
car from Karrada district, where I live. If I go early, I
can avoid traffic jams - as attacks usually happen when
traffic is at a standstill. The attacks do not
distinguish between children, women, men or the elderly,
so no one is safe and anyone can become a victim.
I wear normal clothes and carry my aid worker shirt with
me to avoid being attacked because some people might see
the name of my NGO on my shirt and decide to attack me.
“I have been threatened three times, one time by a
phone call and two times by letters left at the door of
my house telling me to stop helping displaced families.
But I can’t stop doing what I do. Recently, some
colleagues were kidnapped. Because of that, we’ve
now been forced to have a low profile in our work. The
result of this has been delays in the delivery of aid to
many desperate families as we cannot move as freely as
before.
“I love seeing families who are in urgent need
receiving food supplies, medicines and clothes. It’s
amazing to know that you’re helping a human being
survive in such hard circumstances, even though you also
know that your life is in danger.
“We are always welcome in displacement camps. You
can see women shedding tears of happiness because when
they see us they know they will get food for their
children. Because of our work, heads of families, mostly
unemployed, can sleep well at night without having to
worry about how they will feed their families the next
day.
“Once, I was delivering aid to a camp with some
colleagues when armed men stopped our convoy and forced
us to get out of the truck. They hit two of my colleagues
with a piece of wood and said we couldn’t go to a
certain area to help some families who were from a
different sect to theirs. They put a gun to my head and
told me that if we resisted, they would turn us into food
to feed the ants.
“We went back to Baghdad and since then we’ve
stopped going to any displacement camp without full
authorisation and protection from every armed group
operating there. I know we could be seen as siding with
one group or another but the reality is that we are
victims of people who have no heart.
“When I leave home for work, I pray to God asking
for protection because I never know if I’m going to
be the next murdered aid worker on the front pages of
newspapers.”
AP (UAE)
08/02/2007
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal,
which opened with a preliminary meeting, does not have
the legal authority of an international organisation and
cannot impose penalties, but its main aim is
to condemn leaders in history books,
Mahathir said.
Kuala Lumpur: Former Malaysian Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohammad urged Iraqi insurgents
yesterday to make the United States "pay a very high
price" for its occupation of Iraq.
In his most provocative public remarks on the Iraq war
yet, Mahathir said he wanted to "congratulate the
Iraqi resistance" for successfully turning public
opinion against US President George W. Bush and British
Prime Minister Tony Blair. "Make sure that the
Americans will pay a very high price for their
adventure," Mahathir said at an international
anti-war conference in Kuala Lumpur. "Unfortunately,
you may have to kill a lot of Americans. When the coffins
go back, when the body bags are carried back to America,
it will help the Americans to change their minds,"
Mahathir said to loud applause from 1,500 activists.
"If President Bush is willing to lead his army, but
from the front, then by all means let's all go to
war," he said. "But since he's not going to do
that, I think we should strive with all our might to
spread the new faith, the new belief that war is not an
option, war is not a way of settling any dispute."
War crimes tribunal
Mahathir spoke after launching a tribunal that plans to
hold trials based on complaints by Iraqis and
Palestinians against world leaders including Bush, Blair,
Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Israeli
ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The Kuala Lumpur War
Crimes Tribunal, which opened with a preliminary meeting,
does not have the legal authority of an international
organisation and cannot impose penalties, but its main
aim is to condemn leaders in history books, Mahathir
said.AP (UAE)
08/02/2007
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egypt
Egypt: A permanent emergency? By
Martin Asser
BBC News
For nearly two years, Egypt has been inching towards constitutional changes that could allow it to end one of the longest "emergencies" in history. Emergency powers were implemented in 1981, after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, and have been in force ever since. But critics of Mr Sadat's enduring successor, Hosni Mubarak, say new government amendments will enable a replacement of emergency laws with something just as authoritarian - but permanent.
The 34 new articles were approved by parliamentary vote on 19 March, with the opposition boycotting proceedings.
Now the Egyptian public is being given the chance to decide on them in a national referendum that the government .In what has been seen as a show of official anxiety, the president has decreed that the referendum is being held on a date 10 days earlier than that expected. The opposition cried foul, saying the truncated campaign - just six days between decree and referendum - was meant to prevent organisation of an effective "no" vote. Voters (like the MPs before them) have to approve or reject all the amendments as a single package - despite the diverse nature of the articles. The threshold is a simple majority of those that voted, so the expected low turn-out will be no help to opponents.
The US, which has put considerable pressure on Egypt in the past over its democratic shortcomings, has only expressed "some concerns" about some of the amendments. Amnesty International, on the other hand, is calling it the most serious undermining of human rights in Egypt since 1981Amnesty International, a London-based human rights group, says the amendments "will write into permanent law emergency-style powers that have been used to violate human rights" since 1981.
Article 179 seems particularly draconian, stating that Articles 41, 44 and 45 (paragraph two) of the constitution must not "hamper" investigations into terrorist crimes. These articles prevent detention without judicial authorities' permission, police searches without a warrant and eavesdropping on personal communications.