Baghdad Travel Suspended following Mercenary Killings
From the North County Times (San Diego/Riverside, CA)
Excerpt: Iraq's prime minister on Wednesday disputed Blackwater USA's version of a weekend shooting that left at least 11 people dead and declared he would not tolerate "the killing of our citizens in cold blood."

Land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials outside the fortified Green Zone remained suspended for a second day after Iraqi authorities ordered Blackwater to stop working as an investigation continues into the Sunday incident.

The Moyock, N.C.-based firm is the main provider of bodyguards and armed escorts for American government civilian employees in Iraq.


Americans and Iraqis have offered widely differing accounts of the Sunday incident, with Blackwater insisting that its guards returned fire against armed insurgents who were threatening American diplomats. ...

... Iraqis have long resented the presence of the estimated 48,000 private security contractors _ including about 1,000 Blackwater employees _ considering them a mercenary force that runs roughshod over civilians in their own country.

Blackwater, whose convoys of SUVs careen through the streets with weapons displayed, has been singled out for much of the criticism. "Blackwater has a reputation. If you want over-over-the-top, gun-toting security with high profile and all the bells and whistles, Blackwater are the people you are going to go with," said James Sammons, a former Australian Special Air Service commander who now works for British-based AKE Group that also provides security in Iraq.
Baghdad Travel Suspended following Mercenary Killings

Labels: contractors, iraq

U.S. Weapons, Given to Iraqis, Move to Turkey
From the New York Times
Excerpt: Weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military have been recovered over the past year by the authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis are inadequate. It was also a factor in the decision to dispatch the department’s inspector general to Iraq next week to investigate the problem, the officials said.
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Labels: iraq, pentagon

Witnesses In Army Trial Killed In Crash
From the Army Times
Excerpt: "A Honolulu TV station reports that some of the 10 Hawaii-based soldiers killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq last week had been scheduled to testify against their former platoon sergeant.
The charges involve the alleged murder of an Iraqi detainee.
The KITV report does not name any of the soldiers or say how many were to be involved in the case against Sgt. 1st Class Trey A. Corrales of San Antonio. A preliminary hearing of the case is set for October in Hawaii." More

Labels: iraq

Weapons Given to Iraq Are Missing
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, according to a new government report, raising fears that some of those weapons have fallen into the hands of insurgents fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.

The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

The United States has spent $19.2 billion trying to develop Iraqi security forces since 2003, the GAO said, including at least $2.8 billion to buy and deliver equipment. But the GAO said weapons distribution was haphazard and rushed and failed to follow established procedures, particularly from 2004 to 2005, when security training was led by Gen. David H. Petraeus, who now commands all U.S. forces in Iraq.

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Labels: iraq, military

Latin American hired guns shrug off Iraq War risks for payday
From the Miami Herald
Excerpt: LIMA -- Tired of subsisting by selling cigarettes on the street, Gregorio Calixto jumped at the chance last fall to earn $1,000 a month working for a U.S.-based security company in Iraq. ...

...The Latin Americans typically served in the military back home -- many fought leftist guerrillas in places like El Salvador and Colombia -- and were taught by U.S. instructors, making it easier for them to use U.S. weapons and work under American security procedures.

But after leaving their armed forces, these soldiers found themselves in low-paying jobs. So they agreed to risk injury or death in Iraq for $1,000 to $1,500 a month -- $5 to $7 an hour -- a good wage for them, but far below the $10,000 to $15,000 monthly pay for American contract employees.

Peruvians guard the outer perimeter of a U.S. installation in Basra. Chileans protect the governmental Green Zone in Baghdad. Hondurans have provided security within the terminal at Baghdad International Airport. Salvadorans once protected the Green Zone in Baghdad, but they and some Ecuadoreans reportedly have left the jobs after media in their home countries labeled them ``mercenaries.''
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Labels: contractors, iraq

Largest Iraq contract rife with errors
From USA Today
Excerpt: Government auditors discovered something odd last year when they reviewed KBR Inc.'s annual cost estimate to provide support services for U.S. troops in Iraq. The contractor proposed charging $110 million for housing, food, water, laundry and other services on bases that had been shut down.

KBR got a contract extension for $3.7 billion, but it agreed to drop the proposed $110 million spending on closed bases and an additional $50 million of duplicate charges and math errors, according to Defense Department records obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act.

Linda Theis of the Army Sustainment Command, the agency that oversees KBR's troop-support contract, downplayed the errors. They amount to just 4.3% of the contract amount, she said. "This percentage does not indicate a systemic weakness in business systems."
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Labels: contractors, iraq, pentagon, spending

In Iraq, a Private Realm Of Intelligence-Gathering
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: On the first floor of a tan building inside Baghdad's Green Zone, the full scope of Iraq's daily carnage is condensed into a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation.

Displayed on a 15-foot-wide screen, the report is the most current intelligence on significant enemy activity. Two men in khakis and tan polo shirts narrate from the back of the room. One morning recently, their report covered 168 incidents: rocket attacks in Tikrit, a cow-detonated bomb in Habbaniyah, seven bodies discovered floating in the Diyala River. ...

... The intelligence was compiled not by the U.S. military, as might be expected, but by a British security firm, Aegis Defence Services Ltd. The Reconstruction Operations Center is the hub of Aegis's sprawling presence in Iraq and the most visible example of how intelligence collection is now among the responsibilities handled by a network of private security companies that work in the shadows of the U.S. military. ...

... The contract is the largest for private security work in Iraq. Tucked into the 774-page description is a little-known provision to outsource intelligence operations that, in an earlier time, might have been tightly controlled by the military or government agencies such as the CIA. The government continues to gather its own intelligence, but it also increasingly relies on private companies to collect sensitive information.

The deepening and largely hidden involvement of security companies in the war has drawn the attention of Congress, which is seeking to regulate the industry. The House intelligence committee stated in a recent report that it is "concerned that the Intelligence Community does not have a clear definition of what functions are 'inherently governmental' and, as a result, whether there are contractors performing inherently governmental functions."
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Labels: contractors, iraq

Former Officer Sentenced for Kickbacks
From AP via the Houston Chronicle
Excerpt: A former U.S. Army Reserve officer was sentenced to nearly two years in prison Monday for helping steer millions of dollars in Iraq-reconstruction contracts in exchange for jewelry, computers, cigars and sexual favors.

Lt. Col. Bruce D. Hopfengardner, 46, of Fredericksburg, Va., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and wire fraud last year. He served as a special adviser to the U.S.-led occupation forces, recommending funding for projects on law enforcement facilities in Iraq.

Hopfengardner was sentenced to 21 months in prison, fined $144,500 and ordered to serve three years of probation.

He admitted conspiring with Philip H. Bloom, a U.S. citizen with businesses in Romania, and Robert J. Stein Jr., a former Defense Department contract official, to create a corrupt bidding process that included the theft of $2 million in reconstruction money.
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Labels: contractors, corruption, iraq

Troops' 1-month Breaks Blocked
From USA Today
Excerpt: U.S. commanders in Iraq are rejecting a recommendation by Army mental health experts that troops receive a one-month break for every three months in a combat zone, despite unprecedented levels of continuous fighting and worsening risks of mental stress.

Instead, commanders are trying to give troops two to three days inside heavily fortified bases after about eight days in the field, said Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, chief aide to the ground forces commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno.

"We would never get the job done of securing (of Baghdad) if we went out for three months and came back" for one, Anderson said.

U.S. forces in Iraq spend more time in combat without a break than those who fought in Vietnam or World War II, according to Army psychologists who studied troops in Iraq.
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Labels: iraq, troops

Congress loads up $20 billion in pork

From the Washington DC Examiner
Excerpt: Congress has loaded up President Bush's request for "emergency" spending on the Iraq war with more than $20 billion in "pork" for members' districts.

Money for peanut storage in Georgia, spinach growers in California, menhaden in the Atlantic Ocean and even more office space for the lawmakers themselves is included in what has ballooned into a $124 billion war bill.

"This emergency supplemental bill has more ornaments hanging over our many branches of government than the White House Christmas tree," Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., said.

Originally, Bush asked for $105 billion in emergency funding. Democratic leaders say they want to grant the request to continue funding the war despite their desire to end it.

"We have provided all of the money the president requested- and more," boasted House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer. More

Labels: congress, iraq, spending

Hospital Officials Knew of Neglect
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.

A procession of Pentagon and Walter Reed officials expressed surprise last week about the living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares faced by wounded soldiers staying at the D.C. medical facility. But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army's top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.
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Labels: health, iraq, troops, veterans

Two Army Units will Forego Desert Training
From USA Today
Excerpt: Rushed by President Bush's decision to reinforce Baghdad with thousands more U.S. troops, two Army combat brigades are skipping their usual session at the Army's premier training range in California and instead are making final preparations at their home bases.
Some in Congress and others outside the Army are beginning to question the switch, which is not widely known. They wonder whether it means the Army is cutting corners in preparing soldiers for combat, since they are forgoing training in a desert setting that was designed specially to prepare them for the challenges of Iraq...
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Labels: iraq, troops

With Iraq Speech, Bush to Pull Away From His Generals
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: Pentagon insiders say members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have long opposed the increase in troops and are only grudgingly going along with the plan because they have been promised that the military escalation will be matched by renewed political and economic efforts in Iraq. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the outgoing head of Central Command, said less than two months ago that adding U.S. troops was not the answer for Iraq.

Bush's decision appears to mark the first major disagreement between the White House and key elements of the Pentagon over the Iraq war since Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, split with the administration in the spring of 2003 over the planned size of the occupation force, which he regarded as too small.

It may also be a sign of increasing assertiveness from a commander in chief described by former aides as relatively passive about questioning the advice of his military advisers. In going for more troops, Bush is picking an option that seems to have little favor beyond the White House and a handful of hawks on Capitol Hill and in think tanks who have been promoting the idea almost since the time of the invasion. More

Labels: iraq, joint chiefs, pentagon, speech, troops

Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq
From the Washington Post
Excerpt: After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon. ...

...O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

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Labels: agency, bush, corruption, CPA, gop, iraq, reconstruction

Sick veterans blame new weapon
From the Boston Globe
Excerpt: ... Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, the Army National Guard veteran has had trouble with bleeding gums. There also is blood in his urine and his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache.

There is something massively wrong with Reed, though no one is sure what it is. The Department of Veterans Affairs medical center in the Bronx has supplied him with an internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon, and a dermatologist.

Reed believes that the military's new favorite weapon -- depleted uranium coating artillery shells and tanks -- has made him terrifyingly sick. ...

...Reed says he unknowingly breathed depleted uranium dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was removed in 2003 because of herniated spinal discs. Then began a series of symptoms he had never experienced in his previously healthy life.

At Walter Reed, he ran into some buddies from his unit. ``We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. ``The doctors said, `It's all in your head.' "

Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442d Military Police, an Army National Guard unit of mostly police and correctional officers from the New York area. ...

...Depleted uranium can contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust. In 2005, the UN Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq. Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said.

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Also see: Campaign Against Depleted Uranium

Labels: depleted uranium, health, iraq, veterans

Center for War-Related Brain Injuries Faces Budget Cut
From USA Today
Excerpt: Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war.
House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center — half of what the center received last fiscal year.

Proponents of increased funding say they are shocked to see cuts in the treatment of bomb blast injuries in the midst of a war.

"I find it basically unpardonable that Congress is not going to provide funds to take care of our soldiers and sailors who put their lives on the line for their country," says Martin Foil, a member of the center's board of directors. "It blows my imagination."

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Labels: health, iraq, spending, veterans

U.S. accused of Kidnappings in Iraq
From Salon News
Excerpt: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has until 5 p.m. Friday to hand over a raft of documents to Congress that might shed new light on detainee abuse in Iraq. The documents could substantiate little-known allegations that U.S. forces have tried to break terror suspects by kidnapping and mistreating their family members.

It now appears that kidnapping, scarcely covered by the media, and absent in the major military investigations of detainee abuse, may have been systematically employed by U.S. troops. Salon has obtained Army documents that show several cases where U.S. forces abducted terror suspects’ families. After he was thrown in prison, Cpl. Charles Graner, the alleged ringleader at Abu Ghraib, told investigators the military routinely kidnapped family members to force suspects to turn themselves in.

A House subcommittee led by Connecticut Republican Christopher Shays took the unusual step last month of issuing Rumsfeld a subpoena for the documents after months of stonewalling by the Pentagon. Shays had requested the documents in a March 7 letter. "There was no response" to the letter, a frustrated Shays told Salon. "We are not going to back off this."

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Labels: iraq, prisoner, rumsfeld

U.S. Lied to Britain about Use of Napalm During Iraq War
From the Independent (UK)
Excerpt: "...Despite persistent rumours of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm, Adam Ingram, the Defence minister, assured Labour MPs in January that US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq.

But Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. "The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you," he told Mr Cohen. "I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position. ..."
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Labels: iraq, napalm, UK

Ex-Marine Says Public Version of Saddam Capture Fiction
From WHAM TV in Rochester, NY
Excerpt: ..."I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced," Abou Rabeh said.

"We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed," he said...
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Labels: iraq, saddam, troops

Families of Fallen US Troops Raise $600,000 for Refugees
From AFP - US National Bureau
Excerpt: A delegation of military family members whose sons died while fighting in the Iraq war will travel to Jordan from December 27, 2004 to January 4, 2005 to deliver $600,000 worth of humanitarian supplies for refugees from the U.S. attack on Falluja.
"This delegation is a way for me to express my sympathy and support for the Iraqi people. The Iraq war took away my son's life, and it's taken away the lives of so many innocent Iraqis. It's time to stop the killing and to help the children of Iraq," said Rosa Suarez of Escondido, CA, whose son Jesus was a marine who died in Iraq on March 27, 2003."
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US Military Experts: Prepare for a Decades-Long Counterinsurgency Campaign
From the Christian Science Monitor
Excerpt: In a week that saw the deadliest single attack on Americans in Iraq - and the first major US contractor to pull out - more and more military experts are warning that drastic changes are needed to both US strategy and American public expectations if there's to be success there. ...
... The ICG and others don't expect the insurgents to fade away after Iraq's January 30 election. The best scenarios say it will take years to defeat them. But the game plan so far - including the November assault on Fallujah that killed over 1,000 alleged fighters - has failed to stop the bombings and attacks around the country.
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Labels: iraq, troops

What happened to Iraq’s oil money?
From NBC Nightly News
Excerpt: Iraq's oil resources generate billions of dollars — money the United States promised to protect after overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Now, Frank Willis, a former senior American official in Iraq, tells NBC News the United States failed to safeguard the oil money known as the Development Fund for Iraq. "There was, in my mind, pervasive leakage in assets of Iraq, and to some extent, those assets were squandered," says Willis. ...
...Iraq’s U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer, pledged last year to hire a certified public accounting firm to ensure proper controls. But the United States gave the contract not to an accounting firm but to a tiny consulting company, Northstar — which NBC News found is headquartered at a private home near San Diego...
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Labels: contractors, iraq, oil, reconstruction

U.S. troops say they were outnumbered by looters who took explosives
AP via Boston Globe
Excerpt: "Explosives were looted from the Al-Qaqaa ammunitions site in Iraq while outnumbered U.S. soldiers assigned to guard the materials watched helplessly, soldiers told the Los Angeles Times.

About a dozen U.S. troops were guarding the sprawling facility in the weeks after the April 2003 fall of Baghdad when Iraqi looters raided the site, the newspaper quoted a group of unidentified soldiers as saying. U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen witnessed the looting and some soldiers sent messages to commanders in Baghdad requesting help, but received no reply, they said. 'It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots,' one officer said." more

Labels: iraq, troops

American Contractors Involved in Chalabi Raid
From the Ft. Wayne Journal-Gazette
Excerpt: When Iraqi police raided the Baghdad home and offices of politician Ahmad Chalabi on May 20, U.S. officials hurried to distance themselves, saying the operation was an Iraqi affair and no U.S. government employees were involved.
But eight armed American contractors paid by a U.S. State Department program went on the raid, directing and encouraging the Iraqi policemen who eyewitnesses say ripped out computers, turned over furniture and smashed photographs.

Some of them helped themselves to baklava, apples and diet soda from Chalabi's refrigerator, sitting in a garden outside to enjoy the looted snacks, according to members of Chalabi's staff who were there.

The contractors work for Dyn-Corp, a subsidiary of California-based Computer Sciences Corp. and the company in charge of training and advising the Iraqi police on a State Department contract. A State Department official confirmed the DynCorp workers' presence during the raid. A DynCorp spokesman declined to comment.

Labels: contractors, iraq

Mass graves to reveal Iraq war toll
(Up to 50,000 Iraqis "liberated" the hard way during war)
Guardian (UK)
Excerpts: The task of identifying thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians who died during this year's war has begun with the exhumation of a mass grave at one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces in Baghdad...
Nobody knows exactly how many Iraqis died in the war, but an Anglo-American research group, the Iraq Body Count, has estimated the number of civilian fatalities at between 6,000 and 7,800. The number of military casualties is between 10,000 and 45,000. ...
"It is very important for the families to get the bodies back, but this has to be done in an organised, respectful and scientific way," said Nada Doumani, of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who estimated that there were between 10 and 15 mass graves in Baghdad. ...
Mr Ahmed said that some families were unlikely to ever get the bodies of their relatives back.
"During the war the American soldiers told my volunteers not to go near the bodies in burnt-out tanks, because they would almost certainly have been attacked with depleted uranium," he said.
"We never knew what the Americans did with these bodies, and we probably never will." ...

Labels: iraq

Use of depleted uranium weapons lingers as health concern
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Excerpt: The ideal legacy of the war in Iraq is a free and democratic society, but a sinister legacy of another kind is possible as well -- cancers and birth defects.
Depleted uranium weapons used by the U.S.-led forces in the war have left battle sites throughout Iraq contaminated with abnormally high levels of radiation...

The Pentagon and United Nations estimate that U.S. and British forces used 1,100 to 2,200 tons of armor-piercing shells made of depleted uranium during attacks in Iraq in March and April -- far more than the estimated 375 tons used in the 1991 Gulf War.

U.S. tanks, Bradley fighting machines, A-10 attack jets and Apache helicopters routinely used depleted uranium rounds, but in the recent war, the ammunition was used in and near heavily populated areas, not just in the desert...

Labels: depleted uranium, health, iraq, UK

'US wants to control Iraq's oil, join OPEC'
Business Day

Labels: iraq

Iraqi Civilians Killed in Blast at Ammunition Storage Site
New York Times

Secret Exposure: U.S. Tested Chemical Weapons On Own Citizens
Local (Ok.) News

Labels: iraq

Who were those cheering Iraqis?

Labels: iraq

"Victory" in Baghdad?
From the Independent (UK)

Labels: iraq

US Soldier killed in Qatar

Four US Troops killed in Afghan helicopter crash
Charlotte Observer

See the Gallery of Heroes

Labels: iraq

Pentagon considers mass graves for US Troops
From the Denver Post
"The bodies of U.S. soldiers killed by chemical or biological weapons in Iraq or future wars may be bulldozed into mass graves and burned to save the lives of surviving troops, under an option being considered by the Pentagon..."

Five Degrees of Osama
Fortune Magazine
Also see: Meet The Carlyle Group

Labels: carlyle group, iraq

Nationwide Protest Photo Gallery
from CNN
Hundreds of Thousands march on the capitol
Washington Post
Tens of thousands march against war in San Francisco
San Francisco Chronicle
Thousands march in Portland
From The Oregonian
600 protesters gather in Indianapolis
From the Indianapolis Star

Labels: iraq

FBI Agents Probing Terror Links Say They Were Told, ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’
ABC News

FBI lawyer who rejected Moussaoui search is given award
Minneapolis Star Tribune

Labels: FBI, iraq

Turkey backtracks on approving U.S. use of bases
Fox News
Bush steps up pressure on European Union to admit Turkey
London Times
Administration to delay aid to local law enforcement
New York Times
Aid to states 'not a top priority' for Bush
Financial Times
Bush cuts funds for new parents
New York Times
Bush restoring cash bonuses for political appointees
New York Times
Judge Denies NYC Secret Evidence Request
ABC News
Lawyer can seek release of US enemy combatant
Reuters
U.S. to spend hundreds of millions upgrading Turkish bases
AP via Yahoo

Labels: iraq

Iraq challenges Bush to a duel
ABC News
White House rejects Bush-Saddam duel offer
CNN

Labels: iraq