World-News

Agence France-Presse reports that "American forces were accused of killing ten people, including women and children, in a Baghdad raid on Friday as the US military announced a senior Al-Qaeda leader was killed in an air strike."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092907B.shtml

Photo Essay

Nina Berman, writing for Alternet, interviews photographer Andrew Lichtenstein on his new book "Never Coming Home." The book and video/slideshow show the "faces behind the daily casualty statistics in the Iraq war. Each week, these men and women killed in Iraq are buried and mourned, privately and publicly, in deeply personal scenes of love, loss and remembrance."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092807I.shtml

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/28/4164/

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Hired Gun Fetish

Paul Krugman writes for The New York Times: "yes, the so-called private security contractors are mercenaries. They're heavily armed. They carry out military missions, but they're private employees who don't answer to military discipline. On the other hand, they don't seem to be accountable to Iraqi or U.S. law, either. And they behave accordingly."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092807B.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Blackwater
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=contractors
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=mercenaries
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Paul+Krugman

Speaking in February 2003, a month before the invasion, Mr Bush told his Spanish counterpart that US forces would be in Baghdad by the end of March regardless of whether the United Nations authorised the use of force.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21017707/


From Information Clearing House

US helicopters attack building in Baghdad killing two women, four children, seven men while asleep.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=22399



Civilian deaths in Iraq air strike probed by U.S.

U.S. forces are investigating an air strike in southern Iraq this week which local police said killed five women and four children, a U.S. military statement said on Thursday.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L2714965.htm


From Information Clearing House

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070927/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunresthealthmental_070927192136


Informant: Cal

Spencer Ackerman for TPM Muckraker reports that "right on the heels of a Brookings Institution report detailing the problems private military companies create for counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq, Representative Henry Waxman has released a study finding that Blackwater improperly prepared its contractors for traveling through Fallujah in March 2004 - a trip that proved to be fatal."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092707S.shtml

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Blackwater “impeded” probe into contractor deaths

CNN

09/27/07

Private military contractor Blackwater USA ‘delayed and impeded’ a congressional probe into the 2004 killings of four of its employees in Falluja, Iraq, the House Oversight Committee said Thursday in a report. Blackwater contractors Jerry Zovko, Scott Helvenston, Mike Teague and Wesley Batalona were ambushed, dragged from their vehicles and killed on March 31, 2004...

http://tinyurl.com/347j8o


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Waxman
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Blackwater
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Fallujah
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Spencer+Ackerman

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/27/4159



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=mercenaries
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Blackwater
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Pat+LaMarche

The revelation is contained in a previously unpublished transcript of talks between President George W Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in February 2003 at the US leader's Texas ranch.

http://snipurl.com/1rbvd


From Information Clearing House

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Report Says Hussein Was Open to Exile Before 2003 Invasion

Karen DeYoung and Michael Abramowitz report for The Washington Post: "Less than a month before the US invasion of Iraq, Saddam Hussein signaled that he was willing to go into exile as long as he could take with him $1 billion and information on weapons of mass destruction, according to a report of a Feb. 22, 2003, meeting between President Bush and his Spanish counterpart published by a Spanish newspaper yesterday." Also, Ernesto Ekaizer reports for El Pais Spain that "During a long conversation with then Spanish president Jose Maria Aznar, held Saturday February 22, 2003 at the Crawford, Texas Ranch, Bush made clear that the moment had arrived to remove Saddam. 'Two weeks remain. In two weeks, we will be militarily ready. We will be in Baghdad by the end of March,' he said to Aznar."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/092707B.shtml



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Karen+DeYoung
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Michael+Abramowitz