World-News

The eight Iraqis arrived in London yesterday for this week's long-awaited mediation into how much compensation the government is willing to pay to civilians who were tortured while held in British custody.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/06/military.iraq


From Information Clearing House



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

Nick Turse, TomDispatch.com, writes: "According to recent reports, the proposed Iraqi service contracts, which may be paid off in cash or crude oil, will be worth $500 million each. That is roughly what the Pentagon paid out on June 18 alone - the day before the Times broke its story about Big Oil's return to Iraq - for natural gas and aviation fuel. Over half the total amount, in excess of $268 million, was handed over to one of the oil giants set to benefit from the Iraq deal: BP (formerly British Petroleum). Only days earlier, two of the other majors from the coterie of potential no-bid contractors, ExxonMobil and Chevron, nabbed contracts from the DoD - in ExxonMobil's...

http://www.truthout.org/article/the-iraqi-oil-ministrys-new-fave-five



Iraq's Complicated Oil Fields

Spencer Ackerman, of The Washington Independent: "In mid-June, Iraq's oil minister, Husain Shahristani, announced that he would grant no-bid development contracts for Iraq's oil fields to Western oil giants. Exxon, Shell, BP and Total stood to earn billions off the deals, since Iraq possesses nearly as much potential oil reserve -- and perhaps even more -- as Saudi Arabia, the nation with the world's most oil. Within days, The New York Times reported that a team of US State Department advisers urged Shahristani and other ministry officials to grant the contracts to the oil barons."

http://www.truthout.org/article/iraqs-complicated-oil-fields



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Iraq+oil
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Oil
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Exxon
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Chevron
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=DoD
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Spencer+Ackerman

By Robert Dreyfuss

The long-running showdown over the proposed US-Iraq treaty, aimed at legitimizing the American occupation of Iraq, is coming to a head, and it doesn't look good for the United States.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20241.htm



Breaking Iraq and Blaming Iran

British Black Ops and the Terror Campaign in Basra

By Andrew G. Marshall

Understanding the anatomy of the conflict that has raged in Basra since 2003 is a pivotal study in understanding the wider "War on Terror." The British, for nearly a century maintaining a destabilizing presence in the region, notably in Basra, have not given up their Empire's long-standing tradition of "Divide and Conquer."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20243.htm



Iraq demands troop withdrawal timetable in U.S. defence pact talks

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday he is negotiating a deal with Washington that will for the first time set a timetable for a withdrawal of foreign forces as part of a framework for a U.S. troop presence into next year.

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/07/07/afx5188344.html



Iraqis Consider Alternative Deal For U.S. Presence

An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, says the move was made because of public and political opposition in Iraq to a status of forces agreement.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92267256



Cold Shoulders

by Kathy Kelly

Umm Hamdi doesn't want her son to pick up a gun or lay an explosive device, for Iraq or for anyone. She would rather see him pick up a book. She cries herself to sleep at night wishing she could just see him. But she can't bring her daughters back to the maelstrom of violence her native country has become with the U.S. invasion.

http://peacejournal.org/cold-shoulders-by-kathy-kelly/



Nouri al-Maliki ready to oust US from Iraq green zone

"By the end of the year, there will be no green zone," he added. "The separation by huge walls makes people feel angry." Dabbagh acknowledged that getting rid of the green zone would be a huge undertaking, given the thousands of American soldiers, private contractors and foreign workers who live inside.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article4322520.ece


From Information Clearing House

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Iraq Insists On Withdrawal Timetable For US Troops
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/08/10207/

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Iraq official: US could be out by 2011

CNN

07/08/08

A deadline should be set for the withdrawal of U.S. and allied forces from Iraq, and the pullout could be done by 2011, an Iraqi government spokesman said Tuesday. Ali al-Dabbagh said any timetable would depend on ‘conditions and the circumstances that the country would be undergoing.’ But he said a pullout within ‘three, four or five’ years was possible...

http://tinyurl.com/696wkp



The shift
Is the tide turning against the War Party?

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

07/09/08

The tectonic plates of the geopolitical landscape are shifting, visibly, as the consequences of our crazed foreign policy are being felt at home and abroad. That alarming crunching sound you hear is the impact of the sudden realization that, in Iraq, the government our troops are fighting and dying for is openly demanding that we leave. As I’ve written on previous occasions, this has been a long time coming, but now, alas, the moment has finally arrived: the ‘liberated’ peoples of Iraq, under the tutelage of their elected leadership, are now telling us that it’s time to say good-bye...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13110


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=al-Maliki
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=pullout+Iraq
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http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/justin

by Devvy Kidd

Our soldiers are coming home and dying from DU exposure. Their children from both Gulf Wars are being born with horrible birth defects and yeah, I do get a little emotional about this. A phony "war of liberation" and nation building that is a gross misuse of our military, but fits in perfectly with the plans of the mad power mongers who own Washington, DC. There will NEVER be any "success" or "mission accomplished" in Iraq. Every single nation building invasion the U.S. has ever participated in has turned into a nightmare........

http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd373.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=war+of+liberation
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=mission+accomplished
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Depleted+Uranium+Poisoning+%28D.U.%29/
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/Devvy

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she's "proud'' of the U.S. decision to wage the Iraq war and insisted that the world is not more dangerous than it was when George W. Bush took office.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/04/condoleezza-rice-i-was-pr_n_110876.html


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Condoleezza+Rice

U.S. journalist Zoriah Miller says he was censored by the U.S. military in the Iraqi city of Fallujah after photographing Marines who died in a suicide bombing.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43066


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Fallujah
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=censorship

Large crowds of Shiites on Friday denounced the security pact Baghdad is negotiating with Washington for a long-term US military presence in violence-wracked Iraq.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=26754



Shiite clergy want referendum over US troop presence

Iraq's Shiite leadership indicated Friday that it will press the Baghdad government to hold a national referendum on the issue of a further stationing of US forces in the country.

http://tinyurl.com/69ayzm


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=military+presence
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=troop+presence
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=security+pact

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/05/10134/



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tom+Hayden

http://groups.google.de/group/archive_news/t/5161d12500db4f70?hl=en

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A Devil's Bargain

For Truthout, Carolyn Eisenberg writes: "With the president's signature now affixed to the bill, the clever deal is done. In exchange for another 'blank check' for a year of war, the Democrats have wrested from their Republican colleagues and the White House a host of domestic benefits ... Depending on their source of news, few Americans may be aware that Congress has now allocated another $162 billion to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until next summer. In many media outlets, the only coverage pertained to the new educational benefits for soldiers. But even when the war funding received nominal attention, one would be hard-pressed to find in the mainstream media, or for that matter in the halls of Congress, any critical discussion of this political deal."

http://www.truthout.org/article/a-devils-bargain



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