World-News

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/22-4



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Yasmin+Alibhai-Brown

By Staff

The U.S-Iraq agreement calls for the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq cities by June, but officials say many will remain as reclassified personnel. Military planners acknowledge many will be renamed "trainers" and "advisers" in what officials told The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) are essentially combat roles.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21517.htm



US troops may stay in Iraq in disguise

Though the deadline for withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi cities has been decided as June 30, 2009, experts have argued that roughly 10,000 American troops should remain in Baghdad after that period, in the guise of "trainers" and "advisers" in what are effectively combat roles.

http://tinyurl.com/79zewg



U.S. upgrading key Iraqi naval base

Officials said the upgraded naval base would be located in Umm Qasr near the southern city of Basra . They said the enhanced facility would include a new pier and seawall complex.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2008/ss_iraq0738_11_24.asp


From Information Clearing House

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Semantic Trickery Will Continue Occupation of Iraq
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/22-2



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=combat+troops
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=withdraw+Iraq
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Elisabeth+Bumiller

US Military Defiant on Key Terms of Iraqi Pact
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/19



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+withdraw
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=security+pact
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gareth+Porter

House panel: Former White House counsel misled Congress on Iraq uranium claims in 2002.

http://tinyurl.com/4x9d23


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+uranium

The plan will make the withdrawal at a slower pace than Obama promised during the campaign, when he called for all combat troops to be out within 16 months -- by the summer of 2010.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-12/19/content_10527451.htm


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+withdraw
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=combat+troops

US Fires on Fallujah Shoe-Throwers

By Juan Cole

The news from Iraq on Wednesday shows that the Iraqi government's hold on power is fragile, and that it faces shadowy coup plotters from within and a continued guerrilla insurgency from without.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21493.htm

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Iraqi Shoe Thrower Prompts Racist Rant From Bill O'Reilly

By RNIF

First he says that the shoe thrower is evidence of the ingratitude, "violence" and "irrational thinking" in the "Arab world", before going to on discuss the "danger from the Muslim world" and whether torture is the right way to go about dealing with it. Note also the graphic shown at the beginning and end of the segment of the American flag and a menacing, red-coloured star and crescent.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21497.htm

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Flying Shoes, Bursting Bubbles
http://www.lewrockwell.com/grigg/grigg-w65.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=insurgency
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Fallujah
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=al-Zaidi
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bill+O'Reilly
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=racist
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Juan+Cole
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/grigg

William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "I met a chef from Texas who was like an oak tree with tattoos, and made a mean barbecue sauce. He'd been in the 101st Airborne and was about to be deployed to Iraq, but destroyed his knee in a training exercise and wound up getting discharged. He knew the war was nonsense and thought the Bush guys all deserved to rot in jail, but he still wanted to go to Iraq, and wept whenever a soldier he knew died over there because he should have been there and maybe could have saved that person if his knee hadn't buckled."

http://www.truthout.org/121708A



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=deployed+to+Iraq
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=William+Rivers+Pitt

Agence France-Presse: "An unpublished US government report says US-led efforts to rebuild Iraq were crippled by bureaucratic turf wars, violence and ignorance of the basic elements of Iraqi society, resulting in a 100-billion-dollar failure, The New York Times reported on its website."

http://www.truthout.org/121508O



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+reconstruction
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=rebuild+Iraq

On a farewell trip to Iraq, President George W. Bush said on Sunday the war has been hard, but was necessary to protect the US and give Iraqis hope for a peaceful future.

http://www.godubai.com/gulftoday/article.asp?AID=35&Section=Main



Troops Will Remain In Iraqi Cities After June, Odierno Says

American combat troops will remain inside Iraqi cities to train and mentor Iraqi forces after next summer, despite a security agreement that calls for their withdrawal from urban areas by June 30, the top U.S. military commander said Saturday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/13/AR2008121300569.html



Still Lying, Still Allowed To Lie

By David Michael Green

This astonishing little dialogue packs more deceit, and more permission to engage in deceit, into one passage than any 'blivet' I've ever seen.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21466.htm


From Information Clearing House

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Revisionist history about the Iraq war

San Francisco Chronicle
by staff

President Bush is trying mightily to rewrite the history of the Iraq war before his administration leaves power. He and members of his national security brain trust, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, would like to dispel the narrative that they misled the country into war. Instead, both Bush and Rice are trying to characterize the White House as the unwitting recipient of faulty intelligence. In recent interviews, both Bush and Rice have expressed regret that the prewar intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction proved to be seriously flawed. … The president’s attempt to disassociate himself from accountability for the phony pretext for war is simply outrageous...

http://tinyurl.com/5eus9p


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Odierno
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=security+pact
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Condoleezza+Rice
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=David+Michael+Green

Iraqi Journalist Insults President Bush

Video

Two shoes thrown at President Bush during press conference in Iraq.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21463.htm



Muntadar al-Zaidi Did What We Journalists Should Have Done Long Ago

By Dave Lindorff

Al-Zaidi listened to Bush blather that the half-decade of war he had initiated with the illegal invasion of Iraq had been "necessary for US security, Iraqi stability (sic) and world peace" and something just snapped.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21470.htm



Free Bush shoe-thrower, Iraqis urge

Thousands of Iraqis have demonstrated in Baghdad's Sadr City in support of a journalist being held in custody after throwing his shoes at George Bush, the US president.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/12/20081215144834440817.html



Shoe thrower kidnapped once

THE Iraqi TV reporter who hurled his shoes at George W. Bush was kidnapped once by militants and, separately, detained briefly by the US military.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/World/Story/STIStory_314995.html



Ducking the issue on Iraq

One Iraqi journalist shows more willingness to stand up to President Bush than the entire White House press corps.

http://tinyurl.com/62zwen



"Iraqi reporter al-Zaidi's arm, ribs broken"

Security agents have broken the arm and ribs of al-Zaidi, a reporter who hurled his shoes at Bush during a press conference Sunday in Baghdad.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=78617&sectionid=351020201



Bush shoe thrower Muntazer al-Zaidi 'too injured' for court

THE Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at United States President George W. Bush has appeared before a judge in his jail cell because he is too injured to appear in a courtroom, his brother says.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24815225-12335,00.html



Journalist threw shoe at Bush for Iraqi pride

"What made me do it was the humiliation Iraq has been subjected to due to the US occupation and the murder of innocent people," al-Zeidi said. "I wanted to restore the pride of the Iraqis in any way possible, apart from using weapons."

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/?id=391682&type=World


From Information Clearing House

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The shoe incident
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/500.html

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On Final Iraq Trip, Attempted Assault on Bush

Jennifer Loven, The Associated Press: "On an Iraq trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the war that defines his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference."

http://www.truthout.org/121508L



Across Mideast, Arabs Hail Shoe-Hurling Journalist

Qassim Abdul-Zahra and Omar Sinan, The Associated Press: "Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Monday to demand the release of a reporter who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush, as Arabs across many parts of the Middle East hailed the journalist as a hero and praised his insult as a proper send-off to the unpopular U.S. president."

http://www.truthout.org/121508C



Iraqi Shoe Thrower Captures Mideast Rage at Bush

Alistair Lyon, Reuters: "The hurling of shoes at US President George W. Bush on his farewell visit to Iraq strikes many in the Middle East as a fittingly furious comment on what they see as his calamitous legacy in the region. Arab and Iranian TV stations have gleefully replayed the clip, sometimes in slow motion, of an Iraqi reporter calling Bush a 'dog' and throwing his shoes at him - the Middle East's tastiest insults - at a Baghdad news conference on Sunday."

http://www.truthout.org/121608J



The Shoe Heard Round the World

Aaron Lake Smith, Truthout: "As with any event that pushes history forward, when you click the play button over and over to watch Muntanzer al-Zaidi mumble something in Arabic that we now know meant 'This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog!,' the question inevitably arises - Why hasn't this happened before?"

http://www.truthout.org/121808A

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Significance of Shoes Thrown

Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA)
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/15-12

The Shoes We Longed For
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/17-8

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Muntadar al-Zeidi: Hero, martyr, symbol of resistance

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

12/17/08

The shoe-throwing Iraqi journalist, who is, by now, probably half beaten to death for the ‘crime’ of paying back — in very small measure — George W. Bush for his crimes against the Iraqi people, is a folk hero to millions. And his admirers aren’t all Iraqis or other Arabs, not by a long shot. The shoe-wielding Iraqi television reporter, one Muntadar al-Zeidi, managed to sum up, in a single gesture, how much of the world feels about the 43rd president of the United States — including Americans...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13915



Keep out … a message for foreign leaders

Independent [UK]
by Patrick Cockburn

12/16/08

The sight of the Iraqi reporter Muntazer al-Zaidi hurling his shoes at President Bush at a press conference in Baghdad will gladden the heart of any journalist forced to attend these tedious, useless, and almost invariably obsequious, events. … Official press conferences of any kind seldom produce real news, but the worst are usually those given by foreign leaders on trips abroad in which they and their local ally suggest that they are in control of events and all is going according to plan. One of the many infuriating, though also ludicrous, events in Iraq since the invasion of 2003 has been American and British leaders, arriving in secret at the enormous US base at Baghdad airport and travelling, accompanied by numerous armed guards, by helicopter to the heavily-fortified Green Zone. After a few hours there they would give upbeat press conferences, sitting alongside the Iraqi leader of the day, claiming significant improvements in security and chiding the assembled journalists for ignoring such clear signs of success...

http://tinyurl.com/5j9scm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=al-Zaidi
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jennifer+Loven
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Qassim+Abdul-Zahra
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Omar+Sinan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Dave+Lindorff
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Institute+for+Public+Accuracy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Alistair+Lyon
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/justin
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Patrick+Cockburn
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Sami+Ramadani
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Aaron+Lake+Smith