World-News

USA Today

10/22/07

The State Department so badly managed a $1.2 billion contract for Iraqi police training that it can’t tell what it got for the money spent, a new report says. Because of disarray in invoices and records on the project — and because the government is trying to recoup money paid inappropriately to contractor DynCorp International, LLC — auditors have temporarily suspended their effort to review the contract’s implementation, said Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen Jr. ...

http://tinyurl.com/236rnk


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Iraqi nationalism is the only political force capable of uniting Sunni and Shiite Arabs and ending the sectarian civil war, but for the past four years the United States has systematically worked to suppress it.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/65797/


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=sectarian
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Dreyfuss

Riverbend - Iraqi Girl Blog

It is estimated that there are at least 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria today. I believe it. Walking down the streets of Damascus, you can hear the Iraqi accent everywhere. There are areas like Geramana and Qudsiya that are packed full of Iraqi refugees. Syrians are few and far between in these areas. Even the public schools in the areas are full of Iraqi children. A cousin of mine is now attending a school in Qudsiya and his class is composed of 26 Iraqi children, and 5 Syrian children.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18600.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=refugees
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Riverbend

Christian Berthelsen of The Los Angeles Times reports, "US forces engaged in an hours-long gun battle with militants during an early-morning raid in the Iraqi capital's Shiite Muslim district of Sadr City on Sunday. American officials said as many as 49 people were killed in the fighting. The Iraqi government said many of the victims were civilians and protested the action."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102207K.shtml



Iraqi gov't protests deadly U.S. raid in Baghdad

Associated Press photos showed the bodies of two toddlers, one with a gouged face, swaddled in blankets on a morgue floor. Their shirts were pulled up, exposing their abdomens, and a diaper showed above the waistband of one boy's shorts. Relatives said the children were killed when helicopter gunfire hit their house as they slept.

http://snipurl.com/1sib8



Photo Gallery: Scores killed in US Iraq raid

Women and children among victims of air strike targeting "criminals" in Sadr City.

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m37424&hd=&size=1&l=e



From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=US+raid

Many reluctantly leave safe-havens of Syria, Jordan to return to 'death row'.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21387023/


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=refugees

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKCOL53898220071021?rpc=401


From Information Clearing House

It's The Resistance, Stupid

By Pepe Escobar

The ultimate nightmare for White House/Pentagon designs on Middle East energy resources is not Iran after all: it's a unified Iraqi resistance, comprising not only Sunnis but also Shi'ites.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18597.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+oil
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Oil
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Pepe+Escobar

http://therealnews.com/c.php?c=071021AM&e=65



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Blackwater

James Glanz, reporting for The New York Times, writes, "attempts by American-led reconstruction teams to forge political reconciliation, foster economic growth and build an effective police force and court system in Iraq have failed to show significant progress in nearly every one of the nation’s provincial regions and in the capital, a federal oversight agency reported on Thursday."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102007Y.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=James+Glanz

Future of Freedom Foundation
by Sheldon Richman

10/15/07

If Iraq is really a sovereign country, which is the fiction maintained by the Bush administration, then why aren’t the Blackwater USA personnel who are accused of murdering 17 innocent Iraqis accountable to the criminal justice system in that country? Private contractors such as Blackwater have had immunity from criminal prosecution, but Congress now has voted to make them liable under U.S. law. That seems odd...

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0710h.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Blackwater
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=contractors
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Sheldon+Richman