Surveys Pointing To High Civilian Death Toll In Iraq: "From the CSM :
Evidence is mounting to suggest that between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have died during the recent war, according to researchers involved in independent surveys of the country."
None of the local and foreign researchers were willing to speak for the record, however, until their tallies are complete.
Such a range would make the Iraq war the deadliest campaign for noncombatants that US forces have fought since Vietnam.
In Command Post: Irak
US Marines To Leave Iraq By End Of August: "From MSNBC :
All 60,000 U.S. Marines now in Iraq and Kuwait are expected to leave the Gulf and return to home bases in the United States and elsewhere by the end of August, the Marine Corps commandant said on Wednesday ...Of course, if you've been reading the Op-Ed page, you know that others have a different explanation for the Marines' departure ..."
... While up to 100,000 or more U.S. Army troops are expected to remain in Iraq to help keep peace and stability, Hagee said that Marines - now in southern Iraq - were likely to be replaced by forces volunteered by other nations.
In Command Post: Irak
Four Blasts Near US Forces In Iraq, Jazeera Says: "From Reuters :
Four explosions rocked a U.S. command post near the Iraqi town of Fallujah and a U.S. tank was ablaze, Qatar-based al-Jazeera television reported on Wednesday, citing witnesses at the scene."
U.S. officials at the Pentagon and at U.S. central command said they had no information on anything happening in Falluja, west of Baghdad.
In Command Post: Irak
France, Germany, Russia To Back Iraq Resolution: "Up with the Coalition of The Willing To Help Out Afterwards! From Reuters :
France, Germany and Russia have decided to back the latest draft of a U.S.-proposed resolution lifting U.N. sanctions on Iraq, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said Wednesday."
"Even if this text does not go as far as we would like we have decided to vote for this resolution... This is because we have chosen the path of unity of the international community," Villepin said at a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov.
In Command Post: Irak
Occupation Of Iraq Illegal, Blair Told: "And what if it was Germany, 1945? From the Guardian :
Leaked advice from the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, reveals that he warned Tony Blair two months ago that attempts at postwar reconstruction of Iraq by US-British occupying authorities would be unlawful without a further UN resolution."
Lord Goldsmith, the government's chief law officer, told the prime minister that the longer the occupation went on and the more the actions of the occupying authorities departed from their main task of disarmament, the harder it would be to justify the occupation as lawful.
In Command Post: Irak
US: IAEA Inspectors Will Soon Be In Iraq: "An update on this post , from VOA :
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher says Washington and the International Atomic Energy Agency have agreed to send a joint team to the Tuwaitha nuclear research center as soon as it is ready to go."
In Command Post: Irak
Bush got balls: "Dubya's campaign photo-op on the deck of an aircraft carrier dazzled the American people, who got an eyeful of their president "assets" thanks to his crotch-hugging uniform. A coinicidence? Richard Goldstein doesn't think so: "I can't prove they gave him a sock job, but clearly they thought long and hard about the crotch shot. ... nothing works like fighter-pilot drag, with its straps that frame and shape the groin.""
In Alternet: War On Iraq
