iraq

Ugandans Fighting Iraq War

 by Bennett Gordon

As the U.S. tries to draw down its military presence in Iraq, as many as 10,000 Ugandans, hired by private security firms, have stepped up to take their place, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Many of these Ugandans are paid just $600 per month, as opposed to the $15,000 per month paid to some American guards, making the country a lucrative venue for private recruiters.

“My experience in Iraq is that despite having been shot seven times, it is very great,” Moses Matsiko, who spent nearly four years working for a U.S. firm in Afghanistan and Iraq, told the Christian Science Monitor. Based on his experience in war zones, Matsiko has started his own private security firm, sending nearly 1,200 people to Iraq. He said, “If all goes well, then I hope to be sending people to Afghanistan in the near future.”
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MOSUL- BREAKING NEWS. 21th October 2009

I received this from a very reliable and trustworthy source. Many thanks to Abu R. for the top notch translation.

BREAKING NEWS
NEW INFORMATION REVEALS THAT IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS PARTICIPATED IN THE MOSUL RAIDS THAT LEAD TO THE ARRESTS OF FORMER OFFICERS OF THE DISBANDED IRAQI ARMY AND OTHER PATRIOTIC NATIONALS.

From MOSLAWI SON OF IRAQ,

Sources have confirmed new details regarding the participation of units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the latest raids in Mosul and the province of Salah Al-Deen which lead to the capture of officers of the former Iraqi army, Ba'athists, and other national leaders. The participating units of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards were commanded by a high ranking commander of the Iranian revolutionary guard named Akbar Wahidi who was operating out of the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. The raids were coordinated with Nouri Al-Maliki and unfolded as follows

1) The commander of the unit which lead the arrests was commanded by the traitor Ali Omran who was trained in Iran and is a known member of the treasonous Dawa Party.


2) The Iraqi forces participating were formed of 100 members of the current Iraqi Army, and 100 members of the national guard all commanded by Ali Omran. There faces were hidden and they were carrying pictures and names of former officers of the disbanded Iraqi army and Baathists which were provided by the Iranians.

3) Sources also confirmed Iranian instructions to the collaborating Maliki was to cast a wide net and make widespread arrests of innocent civilians to be later released under the guise of insufficient evidence they were involved in "terror" activities. This scheme was designed to provide cover for the arrests of the wanted officers of the disbanded Iraqi army.

4) We urge all national and satelite media to provide extensive coverage of these developments and protect the lives of those captured before they are taken to Iran and killed or killed in Iraq itself. We hold the occupying power fully responsible for all the actions of the occupation government and any harm that may come to the captured Iraqi nationals.

Posted by Layla Anwar at 21.10.09

03:17 September 10th, 2009

UNDERCOUNT OF DEATHS IN IRAQBy: Bernd Debusmann

- Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own -

By most counts, the death toll of U.S. soldiers in America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan stood at 5,157 in the second week of September. Add at least 1,360 private contractors working for the U.S. and the number tops 6,500.

Contractor deaths and injuries (around 30,000 so far) are rarely reported but they highlight America’s steadily growing dependence on private enterprise. It’s a dependence some say has slid into incurable addiction. Contractor ranks in Iraq and Afghanistan have swollen to just under a quarter million. They outnumber American troops in Afghanistan and they almost match uniformed soldiers in Iraq.

The present ratio of about one contractor for every uniformed member of the U.S. armed forces is more than double that of every other major conflict in American history, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That means the world’s only superpower cannot fight its war nor protect its civilian officials, diplomats and embassies without support from contractors.

“As the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have progressed, the military services, defense agencies and other stakeholder agencies…continue to increase their reliance on contractors. Contractors are now literally in the center of the battlefield in unprecedented numbers,” according to a report to Congress by the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“In previous wars, the military police protected bases and the battle space as other military service members engaged and pursued the enemy,” said the report. In listing the 1,360-plus contractor casualties, it noted that criticism of the present system and suggestions for reforming it “in no way diminish their sacrifices.”

So why are they not routinely added to military casualty counts? And why should they? A full accounting for total casualties is important because both Congress and the public tend to gauge a war’s success or failure by the size of the force deployed and the number of killed and wounded, according to George Washington university scholar Steven Schooner.

In other words: the higher the casualty number, the more difficult it is for political and military leaders to convince a sceptical public that a war is worth fighting, particularly a war that promises to be long, such as the conflict in Afghanistan. Polls show that a majority of Americans already think the Afghan war is not worth fighting.

Figures on deaths and injuries among the vast ranks of civilians in war zones are tracked by the U.S. Department of Labor on the basis of claims under an insurance policy, the Defense Base Act, which all U.S. contracting companies and subcontractors must take out for the civilians they employ outside the United States.

EXPENDABLE PROFITEERS, ROGUES?

The Labor Department compiles the statistics on a quarterly basis but only releases them in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. This can take weeks. The Department gives no details of the nationalities of the contractors, saying that doing so would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” under the U.S. Privacy Act.

Writing in last autumn’s Parameters, the quarterly journal of the U.S. Army War College, Schooner said that an accurate tally was critical to any discussion of the costs and benefits of the military’s efforts in the wars. What’s more, the American public needs to know that their government is delegating to the private sector “the responsibility to stand in harm’s way and, if required, die for America.”

Schooner wrote it was troubling that few Americans considered the deaths of contractors relevant or significant even though many of them performed roles carried out by uniformed military only a generation ago. “Many…concede that they perceive contractor personnel as expendable profiteers, adventure seekers, cowboys, or rogue elements not entitled to the same respect or value due to the military.”

That’s not surprising after a series of ugly incidents involving armed security contractors. They make up for a small proportion of the total (about 8 percent) but account for almost all the headlines that have deepened negative perceptions and prompted labels from mercenary and merchant of death to “the coalition of the billing.”

In the most notorious incident, two years ago, employees of the company then known as Blackwater opened fire in a crowded Baghdad square, killing 17 Iraqis. Five of the Blackwater shooters, who were working for the Department of State, have been indicted on manslaughter and weapons charges.

The Pentagon describes private contractors as a “force multiplier” because they let soldiers concentrate on military missions. Some of the actions of private security contractors could be termed a “perception multiplier.” Such as the after-hours antics of contractors from the company ArmorGroup North America guarding the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

Shaking off the image of rogues became even more difficult for private security contractors after a Washington-based watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight, accompanied a detailed report on misconduct and morale problems among the guard force with photographs showing nearly nude, drunken employees in a variety of obscene poses and fondling each other.

Whether contractors, even rogue elements and cowboys, should not be counted in the toll of American wars is another matter. Doing so would be part of the transparency Barack Obama promised when he ran for president.

Giant US military base in Iraq under attack Sat, 12 Sep 2009

Anaconda Camp north of the capital Baghdad

A giant US military base has come under mortar attack as the war-ravaged country is being rocked by a string of deadly bombings.

At least five mortar shells were fired at Camp Anaconda - a giant US base north of the capital Baghdad - on September 11, Xinhua quoted an Iraqi security official as saying.

There were no immediate reports of damage to the remote US base, which is being used for air and logistical support for US troops in Iraq.

In another development on the same day, a roadside bomb went off near a US patrol in the al-Azamiya district north of Baghdad.

The US military has not so far said whether there were any casualties in the attack which came only three days after four US soldiers were killed in two roadside bomb explosions in northern Iraq and in Baghdad.

Nearly 4,340 US troops have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion. (See below)

Over the past week, hundreds of Iraqis have been killed and injured in a series of bombings across Iraq.

HE/ZAP/DT

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73,846 U.S. TROOPS DEAD; 1,620,906 PERMANENTLY DISABLED*

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS ISSUES OFFICIAL REPORT CONFIRMING 7,300 U.S. TROOPS KILLED IN IRAQ

SAME GOVERNMENT AGENCY REPORT CONFIRMS 1.6 MILLION "DISABLED" BY THE WAR!

George Walker Bush has presided over the worst defeat of the United States Military since Vietnam and has deliberately skewed reporting of the deaths and injuries to conceal the facts.

Department of Veteran's Affairs, in conjunction with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has released the truth because they need the American People to know our military is literally, destroyed. They cannot release these horrific numbers via the chain of command because they are under orders to conceal the truth at all costs, so they let slip a report which now cannot be "un-slipped."

Here are the facts and a link to the government source to prove these facts:

More Gulf War Veterans have died than Vietnam Veterans.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, May 2007, Gulf War Veterans Information System reports the following:

Total U.S. Military Gulf War Deaths: 73,846

- Deaths amongst Deployed: 17,847

- Deaths amongst Non-Deployed: 55,999

Total "Undiagnosed Illness" (UDX) claims: 14,874

Total number of disability claims filed: 1,620,906

- Disability Claims amongst Deployed: 407,911

- Disability Claims amongst Non-Deployed: 1,212,995

Percentage of combat troops that filed Disability Claims 36%

Soldiers, by nature, typically don't complain. In other words, the real impact of those who are disabled from the US invasions in Iraq, Afghanistan and other Nations, is not fully reflected in the official Veterans Affairs numbers.

WHEN SOLDIERS ARE SENT TO MURDER WOMEN AND CHILDREN THEY TEND TO NEVER BE ABLE TO LIVE NORMAL LIVES THERE AFTER.

How come the government numbers of 3,777 as of 9/7/7 are so low? The answer is simple, the government does not want the 73,000 dead to be compared to the 55,000 U.S. soldiers killed in Vietnam Iraq = Vietnam.

What the government is doing is only counting the soldiers that die in action before they can get them into a helicopter or ambulance. Any soldier who is shot but they get into a helicopter before he dies is not counted.

73,000 dead amongst the U.S. soldiers for this scale operation using weapons of mass destruction is not high - we expect the great majority of U.S. soldiers who took part in the invasion of Iraq to die of uranium poisoning, which can take decades to kill.

From a victors perspective, above any major war in history, The Gulf War has taken the severest toll on soldiers.

More than 1,820 tons of radio active nuclear waste uranium were exploded into Iraq alone in the form of armor piercing rounds and bunker busters, representing the worlds worst man made ecological disaster ever. 64 kg of uranium were used in the Hiroshima bomb.

THE U.S. IRAQ NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST REPRESENTS FAR MORE THAN FOURTEEN THOUSAND HIROSHIMA'S.

The nuclear waste the U.S. has exploded into the Middle East will continue killing for billions of years and can wipe out more than a third of life on earth. Gulf War Veterans who have ingested the uranium will continue to die off over a number of years.

So far more than one million people have been slaughtered in the illegal invasion of Iraqi by the U.S. Birth defects are up 600% in Iraq - the same will apply to U.S. Veterans.

Statistics and evidence published by the government and mainstream media in no way reflect the extreme gravity of the situation.

Those working for the government and media must wake up and take responsibility for immediately reversing this U.S. holocaust.

UNDERSTANDING WHO IS MANIPULATING ALL OF US IS CRITICAL FOR ALL OF US.

For those of you who doubt the veracity of this story, who naively believe it can't be true because if it were true, you would have heard it from the government or from the main stream media, can see the proof yourselves directly from the United States Department of Veteran's Affairs web site - Source Url.:
http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/GWVIS_May2007.pdf

THIS STORY IS 100% ACCURATE. 100% TRUE. 100% VERIFIABLE.

Iraqi police load victims of a bank robbery into a truck in central Baghdad, Iraq.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

BAGHDAD —  Gunmen killed eight security guards and made off with nearly $7 million Tuesday during an early morning robbery at a bank in central Baghdad that police say is the work of insurgents attempting to finance their operations.

It is the second deadly robbery in a week in Baghdad's commercial Karradah district. Although violence has dropped dramatically over the past two years, the number of robberies in Iraq appears to be on the rise.

A special committee made up of Iraqi army, police and bank officials was formed to investigate the robbery, which netted 8 billion Iraqi Dinars — $6.9 million — said an Interior Ministry official.

The gunmen broke into the state-run Rafidain Bank at about 4 a.m., killing three on-duty guards and five others on the premises, who were either on a break or asleep, said an Iraqi police official.



BRITISH TROOPS LEAVE FOR KUWAIT INCASE THEY GET AN INVITATION TO RETURN ...

British troops are facing a final and ignominious retreat from Iraq after the delay of a deal that would have allowed them to stay to train the country’s navy.

About 100 military personnel are withdrawing temporarily after the Iraqi parliament failed to pass an agreement for their continued presence — a bilateral accord that should have been ratified by Friday.

The accord would have given them the legal basis to stay and help to protect the facilities off the southern coast, where most oil exports are shipped, and train Iraqi forces.

Instead the parliament — apparently distracted by elections in the Kurdish region at the weekend and notoriously slow at voting — will not ratify the deal in a third and final reading until September at the earliest.

If it does not do so by then, this week will be the end of independent British involvement in Iraq.

The 275 Iraqi MPs are not expected to resume work until after the holy month of Ramadan, which is due to end on about September 20.