World-News

Gordon Brown provoked fury today by revealing the long-awaited inquiry into the Iraq war will be heard in secret and will not report until after the next election.

http://snipurl.com/k6mox



Another Whitehall whitewash

Given what we know already from leaks, the secrecy surrounding the Chilcot Iraq inquiry is as absurd as it is scandalous.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/15/iraq-gordon-brown



Brown forced into climbdown over 'secret' Iraq War inquiry

Gordon Brown has been forced into a humiliating climbdown over the Iraq War inquiry after it was revealed some parts may be held in public.

http://snipurl.com/kdu16


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gordon+Brown
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=war+inquiry

Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports: "It seems as though every week there is a new lawsuit filed against Blackwater for the killing of civilians in Iraq. While the Justice Department has failed to prosecute most of these cases (the September 2007 Nisour Square massacre being an exception), attorney Susan Burke has dedicated a substantial part of her practice to holding the company responsible for its crimes. She works in cooperation with the Center for Constitutional Rights ... beyond the specifics of her lawsuits, Burke is also alleging Blackwater/Xe remains firmly entrenched in Iraq, using affiliate companies like Greystone."

http://www.truthout.org/061409C



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

Cynthia Hubert, The Sacramento Bee: "On March 7, 2007, Army Spc. Trevor Hogue was inside his barracks in Baghdad, describing his morning on the battlefield. 'I saw things today that I think will mess me up for life,' Hogue typed to his mother, Donna, as she sat at her computer thousands of miles away from Iraq, in Granite Bay. That day the young soldier, whose assignment included driving a Humvee through perhaps the most dangerous ZIP code on the globe, saw his sergeant blown to pieces. He saw the bodies of half of the men in his platoon torn apart. Heads were cut off and limbs severed. It happened 30 yards in front of him, and he had never been so afraid, he told his mom. 'My arms are around you,' Donna Hogue wrote. 'You'll be alright.' But Hogue never really recovered. Last week, he committed suicide by hanging himself in the backyard of his childhood home. He was 24 years old."

http://www.truthout.org/061209K



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=veterans
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=army+suicide
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Cynthia+Hubert

AntiWar.Com
by Kelley B. Vlahos

06/11/09

Just last week, within a 48-hour news period, readers were treated to two diametrically opposed headlines, one touting ‘U.S. Forces Out of Iraqi Cities by June 30,’ the other, the very next day, ‘U.S. Wants Sadr City Base Open After Deadline.’ Both quote U.S. military brass directly, albeit two different generals, but the whipsawing here suggests someone up top is taking it for granted that Americans — particularly that flighty media — aren’t paying much attention to Iraq at all. So, through the din, lazy heads fix upon the first, less controversial of the two contradictory headlines, which affirms what the president wants to the world to hear: that the U.S. is getting out of Iraqi cities by the end of the month. Except it isn’t entirely true...

http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2009/06/10/us-troops-out-of-iraqi/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+withdraw
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Kelley+B.+Vlahos

The Iraq Special Operations Forces (ISOF) is probably the largest special forces outfit ever built by the United States, and it is free of many of the controls that most governments employ to rein in such lethal forces.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/bauer


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+Special+Operations+Forces
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=death+squad
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=special+forces
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Shane+Bauer

FDP, Grüne und Linke erheben in ihrer Bilanz des BND-Untersuchungsausschusses Vorwürfe gegen die frühere rot-grüne Bundesregierung und den heutigen Außenminister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD). Die "Frankfurter Rundschau" berichtete vorab unter Berufung auf den Abschlussbericht der FDP und die beiden Sondervoten von Grünen und Linken, nach Ansicht der Opposition sei es nach dem 11. September 2001 zu einem "verhängnisvollen Paradigmenwechsel" in der Innen- und Sicherheitspolitik von Sozialdemokraten und Grünen gekommen. Deutschland habe entgegen der Darstellung der damaligen rot-grünen Bundesregierung den Krieg der USA gegen den Irak 2003 unterstützt. Der Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) habe militärisch kriegsrelevante Informationen aus Bagdad an das US-Hauptquartier in Katar übermittelt.

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?H=N&Nr=19804



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=BND
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Steinmeier

huffingtonpost.com - Ex-vice president Dick Cheney's statement that "there was never any evidence to prove that" Iraq was involved in 9/11 is being widely portrayed as an admission. But it's less an admission than a PR move.

http://caf.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=rJzcSEwDa5jrNVCR1wOGUg%3D%3D



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Cheney
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=9/11
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Arianna+Huffington

BBC News: "US forces in Iraq suffered their highest casualties last month of any month since September 2008. May saw 24 US soldiers killed, bringing the total number of US casualties since the 2003 invasion to just over 4,300."

http://www.truthout.org/060109S



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

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/29-0



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=corruption
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Patrick+Cockburn

By Cesar Chelala

The Nuremberg Principles, a set of guidelines established after World War II to try Nazi Party members, were developed to determine what constitutes a war crime. The principles can also be applied today when considering the conditions that led to the Iraq war and, in the process, to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, and to the devastation of a country's infrastructure.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22719.htm



In Memory

By GRITtv

A tribute to the tens of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans who have died in these US wars.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22722.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Nuremberg
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=war+crimes
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Memorial+Day
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Cesar+Chelala