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Hi spliffslips,

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Hello spliffslips,
Hey check this article out
http://www.nynews.com/newsroom/062703/e01w27empire.html

I found an article at National Review Online that I thought you'd like to
see:

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-fishbein062603.asp

War Blog Iraq War Updates
Iraq Democracy Watch: "Turning in the widening gyre
The Financial Times has the scoop of the day, with a report that, "The Pentagon has sent a team of outside policy experts to conduct an independent review of postwar operations in Iraq amid growing criticism that the US failed to prepare adequately for occupation."
But even more important, the FT summarizes an intelligence report from Kroll, a corporate security group, geared toward would-be investors.  Out of four possible scenarios, a "stable, soft landing," "complete fragmentation," a "wobbly landing," or an "Iraqi revolt," the last two are considered by far the most likely.  With an Iraqi revolt getting an "even" chance.
I would put my money, currently, on the Iraqi revolt.  Cross your fingers I am dead wrong.
Nonetheless, the Guardian quotes "US officers" as saying that attacks are increasing.  And the Washington Post has a couple of scary quotes:

"I thought we were holding our own until this week, and now I'm not sure," said retired Air Force Col. Richard M. Atchison... "If we don't get this operation moving soon, the opposition will continue to grow, and we will have a much larger problem."
Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency expert on Arab military issues, said, "There are a lot of worrisome aspects about the current situation. Resistance is spreading geographically, resistance groups seem to be proliferating in Sunni areas, resistance elements appear to be tactically adaptive, resistance elements appear to be drawn from multiple elements of Sunni society, our operations inevitably create animosity by inflicting civilian casualties, disrupting lives, humiliating people and damaging property."

And, the Guardian says, yesterday Al Jazeera had word from TWO new resistance groups (not one, as I said yesterday).  The Popular Resistance for the Liberation of Iraq brings my running list to nine.  (I'll start posting the list regularly if it continues to grow.)
Meanwhile, the NYT reports that yesterday was "...a fourth straight day with little or no electricity. Continued acts of sabotage have reduced living conditions to 19th-century levels...[and] Gasoline lines have reappeared as filling stations have had to cut their work hours."  Furthermore, according to the Post , "Iraqis are using buckets to draw water from the Tigris River..."
And Middle East On-line reports that the topic of conversation of the day in the cafes of Baghdad is, "Who was worse, Saddam or the Americans?"  That apparently keeps people going for quite some time.
"



U.S. Soldier Shot Shopping in Baghdad-Witnesses: "A U.S. soldier was shot in the headwhile buying digital video discs at a shop in Baghdad onFriday, the shop owner and other witnesses said. (Reuters)"

In Yahoo! News: War with Iraq



US soldier killed as search continues for two more believed abducted: "Another US soldier was killed in an ambush south of here overnight, as fears grew that two soldiers had been abducted by Fedayeen guerrillas who intended to use their armoured vehicle for an attack. (AFP)"

In Yahoo! News: War with Iraq



Leader of Iraqi Shiite group opposes violence against coalition: "The leader of a key Iraqi Shiite movement said he opposed violence against the governing US-led coalition following a spate of attacks against US and British troops in largely Shiite areas, saying he preferred peaceful means to bring about an end to the occupation. (AFP)"

In Yahoo! News: War with Iraq



How the money is dispersed in Baghdad in IraqWar.info

US soldier killed south of Baghdad


Armed attacks on US troops in Kufah, Fallujah, as occupation searches for two missing soldiers in Balad.


KUFAH, BALAD & FALLUJAH, Iraq - One US soldier was killed and nine others wounded late Thursday in an attack on their unit in the town of Kufah, south of Baghdad, a US military officer said Friday.

The soldiers out on patrol with Iraqi police were attacked by gunmen, Marine Major Rick Hall said in the town, near the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Najaf, around 130 kilometres (80 miles) south of Baghdad.

The attack occurred at around 8:30 pm (1630 GMT), he added.

"They were conducting a motorised patrol and the exact circumstances are still under investigation," he said.

"It is really unusual because the situation between Najaf and Kufah is usually quiet," Hall said.

The latest death brings to 57 the number of US troops who have died since President George W. Bush declared the war in Iraq effectively over on May 1, according to a count from US military statements.

Meanwhile, US military intelligence believes that Fedayeen militia abducted two US soldiers and their Humvee light armoured vehicle for use in attacks on US troops in Iraq, an army officer said Friday.

"They believe Fedayeen militia were using it, trying to get close to Americans with the vehicle to probably conduct another terrorist attack against them," Major Robert Twinner said.

"The last time they spotted the vehicle was in Baghdad," he said.

The two soldiers were believed to have gone missing Wednesday in a remote location around 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Balad, he added.

"The best intelligence reports we have right now is that it was Fedayeen. They actually abducted the soldiers and took the vehicle," he added.

"We have no status on the soldiers at this time, we haven't found them but we will find them," he insisted, adding that they were from the 3rd Infantry Division and not the 4th Division as a soldier had previously said.

The Fedayeen militia loyal to Saddam Hussein put up some of the strongest resistance to US and British forces who invaded Iraq in March to topple Saddam's regime.

In the flashpoint town of Fallujah, US troops guarding the local government building came under rocket propelled grenade (RPG) attack overnight, local residents said on Friday.

There were no reports of any US casualties in the attack, at around 1:00 am (2100 GMT Thursday), when an unknown number of attackers fired a single RPG at the US position, they said.

The US troops returned fire but apparently without hitting any of the attackers, who fled. The troops deployed throughout the town, backed by helicopters, and sealed off its main road in search of the attackers.

A US army spokesman said he was unable to confirm the attack, the second in three days.

US forces have recently increased their presence in the town, carrying out intensive searches in swathes of the region.

The town, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, has been something of a flashpoint since US troops shot dead at least 16 people at a demonstration in late April.

While the major combats have been declared over and the regime dissolved, US troops trying to rebuild the country have come under daily guerrilla-style attacks which have caused nearly 20 deaths.

From: spliffslips



--------------------
Iraqi information minister stands by his stories
--------------------

'Authentic sources' cited in false claims of victory

Associated Press

June 27, 2003







DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Iraq's former information minister, who gained notoriety during the war for wildly implausible claims of victory, went on Arab television yesterday and stood by his statements, saying they came from "many authentic sources."

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf denied that U.S. tanks were in Baghdad even as television showed them in the capital.

"There is no presence of American infidels in the city of Baghdad," al-Sahhaf asserted outside the Palestine Hotel on April 7. Baghdad fell April 9.

In his first appearance since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime - an interview with the Al-Arabiya satellite network, al-Sahhaf did not directly back down from some of his false claims during the war.

Asked where he got his information, he said: "From authentic sources. Many authentic sources. And these also will be dealt with by history."

Al-Sahhaf said he had surrendered to American forces, was questioned and let go.

"Through friends, I went to the Americans," he said. "I was interrogated about a number of subjects related to my job. After that, I was released."

The interview came a day after Britain's Daily Mirror reported that al-Sahhaf had been taken into custody. The Dubai-based station said the interview aimed to dispel that claim.

A Defense Department spokesman, Col. Jay DeFrank, said the U.S. Central Command had no information on his being in American custody.

Al-Arabiya showed a five-minute segment of the 30- minute interview conducted yesterday in a Baghdad suburb.

In the excerpt, al-Sahhaf was reluctant to talk about the fall of Hussein's regime.

"The time is not ripe yet to say what happened. When history is ready, then we can talk about it," he said. "It was a difficult situation, not for one individual, but for everybody."

Al-Sahhaf said he was not afraid of the future. "Everyone could face something that hurts him. But I don't expect that I will be hurt," he said.

He appeared fit in civilian clothes. But al-Sahhaf was thinner and his hair was white - a sharp change from his previous look of military fatigues and black hair tucked under a beret.

The full interview will include "important information about the last war and the fall of the Iraqi regime," Al-Arabiya said.

Al-Sahhaf "was exclusively interviewed in his hide-out in Baghdad," it said.

Abu Dhabi television said it, too, had an interview with al-Sahhaf, which it planned to air late yesterday.

Al-Sahhaf appeared on television in daily press briefings in Baghdad before and during the U.S.-led war, speaking about Iraqi military successes and insulting coalition forces, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

When the Palestine Hotel came under U.S. tank fire April 8, he had to admit that coalition forces were in the capital. But, smiling, he made it sound like it was all part of Iraq's plan.

"We blocked them inside the city. Their rear is blocked," he said in hurried remarks that were a departure from his daily news conference.

Al-Sahhaf disappeared April 9, the day Baghdad fell. He is not on the list of the 55 most-wanted Iraqi officials.

A month ago, Al-Arabiya announced that it would offer al-Sahhaf a job as a commentator on Iraqi affairs if it located him. He might not be credible, station officials said, but he is popular and was in the Iraqi regime.





Copyright (c) 2003, The Baltimore Sun

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This article was found on Alertnet (http://www.alertnet.org) and sent to you by Spliffslips (spliffslips@aol.com).
Spliffslips said:
"We have to remember Iraq is a dangerous place"

WRAPUP 1-New anti-US attacks in Iraq as minister said freed
< http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/B429837.htm >
By Nadim Ladki

BAGHDAD, June 26 (Reuters) - Attackers launched a flurry of deadly new strikes on U.S. targets in Baghdad on Thursday as a former Iraqi minister dubbed "Comical Ali" said ...

----------------------------------------
(c) 1998-2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means,
is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content,
or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
---------------------------------------

U.S. Troops Comb Iraq for Missing Comrades
Yahoo! News: War with Iraq: "U.S. troops in Iraq searched on Fridayfor missing American comrades and hunted for clues to thekilling of other soldiers in the face of growing resistance tothree months of occupation. (Reuters)"

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Troops pay to get better gear Standard equipment lacking in some cases
By John Diamond
USA TODAY


WASHINGTON -- The U.S. soldiers who invaded Iraq went into battle with the most modern and lethal equipment ever carried by an armed force. In some cases, they paid for it themselves.

Combat soldiers interviewed by an Army investigative team after the capture of Baghdad reported that they dipped into their own pockets to buy such accessories as pistol holsters, rucksacks, boot soles, underwear, rifle sights, global-positioning-system handsets and field radios, rather than use Army-issue versions.

''Soldiers still spend too much of their own money to purchase the quality packs, pouches, belts, underwear, socks and gloves they believe they need for mission success and comfort,'' says a report drafted by Program Executive Office Soldier, the unit in charge of developing equipment for Army combat soldiers. A copy of the draft was obtained by USA TODAY.

The Army investigative team heard complaints of socks that were too hot, boot soles unable to handle the Iraqi terrain, a pistol magazine that sometimes failed to feed a bullet into the chamber, and field radios too weak to reach friendly units a few city blocks away.

While the Pentagon equips the military using regulation-bound procedures, soldiers for years have bought equipment based on word-of-mouth advice about what works best in combat. By interviewing troops just after the war, the Army is tapping into that wisdom.

''You do better going to L.L. Bean,'' says retired Army colonel Kenneth Allard, who headed a team that urged more off-the-shelf purchases back in 1994. ''It has been a scandal for so long because it takes so long to get Gore-Tex; it takes so long to get everything the typical mountain-climbing expedition has as a matter of course.''

The draft report found that some of the government-issued gear performed well. Body armor saved lives; sniper rifles were lethal at nearly a mile; the M-4 rifle outperformed the Iraqis' AK-47s; and tools such as battle axes and bolt cutters proved highly useful in urban combat.

But the report, written by Army Lt. Col. Jim Smith, cites example after example of soldiers using their own money to buy gear they felt performed better in combat than items provided at taxpayer expense.

An Iraqi celebrates the attack of a military truck convoy by hitting the destroyed vehicle with his sandal, Thursday, June 26, 2003 at the Youssefiyah area south of Baghdad, Iraq (news - web sites). A big truck hauler carrying a smaller vehicle was directly hit and caught fire and damaged another vehicle behind. According to an eyewitness, four U.S. soldiers were allegedly in the damaged truck. US military convoys and patrols are increasingly under attack following the war in Iraq. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das)

Italian troops arrive at the U.S. Tallil air base, about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the city of Nasiriya in southern Iraq (news - web sites), Thursday, June 26, 2003. An advanced team of about 100 soldiers from the Italian Army and Air Force are the first of about 1,700 soldiers to arrive in Nasiriya in the coming days and weeks for a humanitarian operation following the war in Iraq. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano

Italian troops arrive at the U.S. Tallil air base, about 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the city of Nasiriya in southern Iraq (news - web sites), Thursday, June 26, 2003. An advanced team of about 100 soldiers from the Italian Army and Air Force are the first of about 1,700 soldiers to arrive in Nasiriya in the coming days and weeks for a humanitarian operation following the war in Iraq. (AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano)

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Greetings,

Patti wants you to know about a story on www.theage.com.au


Personal Message:
Shame on Sean Penn

Bing can't sue Penn over film

June 25 2003

URL: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/25/1056449282714.html

You have been sent this message from spliffslips@aol.com as a courtesy of washingtonpost.com

Land of No Return

By Sharon Waxman

KIRKUK, Iraq

Even when you're 13, living in a soccer stadium has its down side.

The press box, your home for over a month, is at the top of the stadium, so every trek to the kiosk that sells gum (for you) and cigarettes (for your dad) is a five-story hike down steep, broken stairs. A trip to the outhouse -- a concrete structure over a hole in the ground -- is another walk down those same stairs.

But the worst part is the water. With only one hose available for all 700 people living in the stadium, there's always a wait. And even with the help of the men, it is a chore to haul the jerrycans up the narrow stairs.

Plus, the water's not the best. The people here say a baby died recently of diarrhea.

But Medea Nazim manages to stay cheery, since that's her nature. "I go to school," she says in enthusiastic English, exhausting her vocabulary. And there are always plenty of kids around to play with. Medea is tiny for her age, and wears a denim shirt and green sweat pants. Dimples make charming creases in her brown skin when she smiles, which is often, and her brown eyes dance.

But most of the other people in Shorja Stadium are not nearly as upbeat as Medea. About 150 families have sought shelter in this bullet-pocked, looted building since the end of the war, all of them Kurds who were once expelled from this northern city during various ethnic cleansing campaigns and purges by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

They returned to their traditional homes to find them occupied by Arab families or gone completely -- bulldozed into piles of rubble by the former government. Some were chased from their homes in the southern Arab communities where they had resettled; others couldn't pay the rent in the economic privation of postwar Iraq.

Now all they do is wait. "We have gone to all the officials and no one is responding," says Sabah Mohamed Ibrahim, 40, the unofficial spokesman for the families living along the field, up in the press box, in the concrete hallways where they have hung sheets and patchwork rice sacks as separators. "This place is for sports, not for living. Twenty people here need operations." He kicks at a spigot near the playing field, where a rooster struts. Broken glass is everywhere. "A humanitarian organization brought us two tanks of water. They promised to turn it on. There's been nothing until now."

The families living in Shorja Stadium are just one example of a problem affecting thousands of families in northern Iraq. All over the major cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, displaced Arab and Kurdish families camp in abandoned buildings, waiting for someone to assign them some land, or to dislodge the people living in what were once their homes.

In a bombed-out Mosul military base, dozens of Arab families expelled by Kurds wither in the heat. At a prison north of Baghdad, dozens of displaced Arab families from the north have come to find shelter. And everywhere a visitor goes in Kirkuk, angry Kurds wave documents in your face, the deeds to the homes they once legally owned and were taken by Hussein.

"We are the original owners. We are not guilty, we did not do anything," said Sabr Ahmed Said, a 45-year-old engineer who is organizing 200 families to demand the restitution of a mostly empty lot that once held their homes. Chickens peck at the ground where he stands. He says it was once the room where he was married.

In 1988, Hussein expelled the Kurds here and gave this land to senior army officers, who now rent it to local merchants. "If these lands are not distributed to the original owners, there will be problems, because there are hundreds, thousands of such families," says the engineer.

Said appears to be stating the obvious, but no one, it seems, is willing to address the matter. The Americans are reluctant to evict people and want to wait until a local government can consider competing claims. The United Nations says that internally displaced persons don't fall under its mandate. Relief organizations say they cannot do more without cash, and permission from the Americans.

In the meantime, April becomes May becomes June, days turn to weeks turn to months of blazing summer heat. Conditions worsen in ersatz shelters like the stadium, teetering on the edge of a humanitarian crisis.

Medea finishes school this week. Then, like the adults, she'll have nothing to do.

U.S. Army 1st Lt. John Evans, a cop from New York on reserve duty, looks dismayed when he learns of the reported death of another child at Shorja Stadium. It would be the third in two months. (A humanitarian organization investigated the death and found recent graves, but said none of them was child-size.)

"We've been trying to get groups in there to improve conditions," he says. "We have had health teams go in there. I'm not saying they don't need help, but we've not totally ignored them either."

Evans is the man in charge at the Civilian Military Operations Center in Kirkuk, a small building beside the gutted and bombed former headquarters of Iraqi intelligence, where the U.S. occupation deals with humanitarian problems. Initially, the Army wanted to move the Kurdish families from the stadium, he says. But then they thought again: If they placed the families somewhere comfortable, that might attract dozens of new families. And then what?

Instead, the authorities made a tactical decision to leave the families where they were and not to improve conditions at the stadium too much for fear of attracting still more refugees. "If you build something, it becomes a permanent structure, and that becomes another problem," Evans says.

He also acknowledges that there has also been no progress on the stickier issue of land redistribution. The complexities of sorting out decades of ethnic repression are something the U.S. authorities here have decided is beyond their capacity.

Whoever sorts it out has a monumental task. Throughout his rule, Hussein regularly emptied villages of Kurds in an attempt to create a more Arab population in the north, where a strong Kurdish separatist movement threatened his rule.

Hussein focused many of these efforts in oil-rich Kirkuk, which he wanted firmly under Arab control. Often, Kurdish families were given "permission" to take their belongings to another city and warned not to return to their homes on pain of arrest or death. Their homes and land were given to impoverished Arabs, who were apparently happy to have them.

By 1988, it is estimated that more than half the towns and villages in Kurdish areas of Iraq had been razed and their populations deported to southern Iraq. It was at that time that Hussein gassed the Kurdish village of Halabja to deter residents from collaborating with Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq war.

Every time the Kurds rebelled, as they did in 1991 after the first Gulf War, or in 1998, Hussein responded with a vengeance, rounding up Kurdish men (many are still missing; the bodies of some have been found in mass graves) and using the collective punishment of evicting and destroying entire neighborhoods.

Arab families have been living in some of these homes for a decade or more. If they are evicted, they, too, need somewhere to go. Evans waves his hands at boxes filled with file folders of claims made by families to recoup houses occupied by others: 1,300 in Kirkuk so far.

"Our instructions are to take all claims, record them, keep a copy [of the deed] and give it to a deputy mayor who is charged with resettlement," he says. As of yet, there is no such deputy mayor. "Down the road it will be taken over by a civil organization to mediate, or to the judicial system."

The United Nations has decades of experience dealing with displaced persons. But "on property issues, the U.N. was not asked and is not mandated to intervene," says Malak Allaouni, the local U.N. representative for humanitarian aid. "We do monitor the situation."

Allaouni is sitting in a house that is being painted and restored for the opening of a U.N. office in Kirkuk. Like humanitarian groups, the U.N. was slow to move in here because of security risks. He agrees with the U.S. approach of limiting aid to the stadium families.

"Most of these people didn't own property. They are vulnerable people, destitute," he says. Encouraging others like them to return would be bad. "The situation does not appear suitable to have people return in a weakened economic situation. If you have too large assistance, then you aggravate the problem."

As for the mounting humanitarian problem, "the sanitation was not satisfactory" at Shorja, he agrees. "I don't know why [assistance] hasn't taken place."

Humanitarian organizations say they are trying to respond, but if the Americans will not attack the main problem -- land distribution -- then nothing they do will matter much.

"It's an unbelievable mess," says a representative for one such group, who visited the stadium recently. He asked to not be named because his group is vying for U.S.-paid contracts to help displaced people.

"The property issue, resettlement, none of it is being addressed by the OCPA [Office of Coalition Provisional Authority]. I've told them, 'You're burning daylight, get moving,' but nothing happens. They told me 'days not weeks' to start addressing wide-scale problems. That was two weeks ago," he says.

Even if the Americans don't want to evict anyone, he says, there is a lot of uninhabited land that could be quickly divvied up. Many Shorja families, for example, once lived on a several-mile-square lot about a mile from the stadium. Hussein had cleared the land to build apartment buildings for Arab families, but construction never began.

"There's low-hanging fruit here," he says.

In response, Evans says that a lead humanitarian organization will be designated soon to take charge of aid to the displaced persons, and local officials should be ensconced in office soon to look at the land issue.

"Hopefully, we can get the government up and running as soon as possible," he says. "We want to step back. We're trying to back away as quickly as possible."

The mirror image of Shorja Stadium can be found at an abandoned military base in Mosul. The remnants of fierce fighting are everywhere. Burned hulks of cars are strewn along the roadways while shards of twisted metal poke from the empty windows of bombed buildings. An anti-mine brigade is making its way through the complex, marking each cleared building with red paint.

Several hundred yards from their work, about 15 members of the Sabah family cling to civilization. Several adults and nine children moved into this army barracks recently after Kurdish fighters, pesh merga, evicted them from their home in al-Huriya, a village on the outskirts of Kirkuk.

"The pesh merga kicked us out by force. They brought guns, rifles, mortars, tanks," said Aida Sabah, 60. "We had a car. We took our mattresses, our blankets. About 150 families left. Those who didn't have a car walked."

Originally shepherds, the Sabah family had been living in various Kurdish villages since the 1980s, when they were given land by Hussein. In 1995, the Kurds returned to evict them, and in 2000 they were given other Kurdish land in al-Huriya, when Hussein expelled those residents and blew up their houses. They said the government told them to take the land.

Conditions at the army base are even more dire than at Shorja. The Sabah family has no water, no electricity and, unlike at Shorja, no humanitarian groups are helping them.

Barely a mile away, 10 more families from al-Huriya live in small, bare concrete rooms on another part of the base. These families have been here for six weeks, having fled their homes when Kurdish families warned them that the pesh merga were coming to kill them. Their situation worsens by the week. They fetch water by car from a broken spigot several blocks away. Their government rations are running out.

These Arab families say they knew that taking the Kurdish land in al-Huriya was unjust. "The government was trying to make al-Huriya into an Arabic village," says Ahmed Ali, 30. "We knew it was wrong, and it was temporary. But the government told us to go."

They do not seek to return there, they say. They just need land somewhere, and a bit of money to build a house. "We are poor people. We just need any land, even 100 meters, and we will build our houses. We won't make any trouble," said Ajem Jasem, 78.

A couple of weeks ago, the men here went back to al-Huriya to ask the Kurds for the wheat and barley they had planted in January. It is harvest time, the moment they wait for all year. The Kurds made them leave empty-handed.

The Sabah family made the same request, but they also turned to the Americans for help. "Our men went back there and talked to the Kurds. They told us: 'You have no business here.' We went to the Americans and they said, 'We will give you your rights back,' " says Aida Sabah. She doesn't know if the Americans will do anything. "We are waiting here," she says, "until God decides."






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Al-Qaeda warns of suicide attacks
In IraqWar.ru (English)

FREE T-SHIRT WHEN YOU SUPPORT OUR TROOPS & SEND A CARE PACKAGE 39.95 FREE SHIPPINGU.S. Army military police Capt. Joe Hissim from Oxford, New Jersey helps an Iraqi policeman to adjust his new armband June 23, 2003 at the local police headquarters in Falluja, northwest of Baghdad. U.S. troops from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team issued new uniforms, weapons and patrol cars to the local Iraqi police force. REUTERS/Radu Sigheti