Iraq Occupation Focus
www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk
Newsletter No.185
11th November, 2011
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Military news
Iraq eager to see U.S. troops leave
Los Angeles Times (October 23rd) reports: Eight years after U.S. troops overthrew Saddam Hussein, there is little enthusiasm among people on the street for a sustained U.S. presence.
And although some Iraqis undoubtedly fear that the U.S. withdrawal could lead to greater instability, others — notably the lawmakers elected after the U.S.-enabled democratic transition — appear to think that a quick U.S. departure is about the best thing that could happen.
CIA to continue covert operations in Iraq
Press TV reports (October 26th): As the US prepares to withdraw its forces from Iraq, the CIA is looking for ways to continue its secret so-called "counterterrorism" and intelligence programs inside the country. On October 21, President Barack Obama announced that all US forces would withdraw from Iraq by December 31 and "America's war in [on] Iraq will be over." US officials, however, have made it clear that the CIA plans to continue the programs, which have been run by the Joint Special Operations Command and other military organizations for years, in the country.
The US departure from Iraq is an illusion
James Denselow writes for The Guardian (October 25th): There are a number of avenues by which the US will be able to exert military influence in the country.
State department figures show that some 17,000 personnel will be under the jurisdiction of the US ambassador. In addition, there are also consulates in Basra, Mosul and Kirkuk, which have been allocated more than 1,000 staff each. Crucially, all these US staff, including military and security contractors, will have diplomatic immunity. Essentially, the Obama administration is reaping the political capital of withdrawing US troops while hedging the impact of the withdrawal with an increase in private security contractors working for a diplomatic mission unlike any other on the planet.
There are an estimated 400 arms deals between Baghdad and Washington, worth $10bn, with an additional 110 deals, worth $900m, reportedly pending. Many of these, as part of the deal, require US trainers, who would be working through the Office of Security Co-operation in the embassy.
Nato has a training mission in Iraq that will stay through 2013. With the US in de facto control of Iraq's airspace, Obama is likely to increase his reliance on drones and targeted killings.
U.S. training of Iraq cops slammed by watchdog
AP report (October 24th): A U.S. State Department program to train Iraqi police lacks focus, could become a "bottomless pit" of American money and may not even be wanted by the Iraqi department it's supposed to help, reports by a U.S. government watchdog show.
The findings by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction paint what is supposed to be the State Department's flagship program in Iraq in a harsh light.
US forces arrest Iraqi in aerial operation
Aswat-al-Iraq reports (October 29th): U.S. forces carried out an aerial landing near a checkpoint and arrested an Iraqi along with his family, Karbala's Security Commission member announced. US forces released the family, and transported the man via helicopter to an unknown destination, Jassim al-Fatlawi told ?Aswat al-Iraq.
Curfew in Mosul city
Aswat al-Iraq reports (October 28th): Security sources announced here that a curfew was imposed early this morning upon information about suicide attacks, at a time when some are planning demonstrations denouncing random arrests in the province.
American Soldier Killed
NY Times reports (November 5th): An American soldier died in an attack in Iraq, the military said in the first report of a combat fatality since President Obama announced last month that all United States troops would leave the country by the end of the year. An Iraqi security service official said the soldier died from a grenade thrown at his convoy in Kirkuk.
Daily Life
Iraqi PM: 615 detained in anti-Baathist sweep
AP reports (October 30th): Iraq’s prime minister said Saturday that 615 people have been detained in a security sweep targeting members of the former ruling Baath party.
Arrests on this scale are likely to alarm Sunni Arabs, who consider use of the term “Baathists” by Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government to be a coded way to refer to Sunni politicians, army officers, and other prominent members of their community.
Thousands of Iraqis protest Baathist arrest campaign
Reuters reports (October 28th): Thousands of Iraqis blocked a highway in western Anbar province Friday to protest against a campaign to arrest former military officers and members of Saddam Hussein's banned Baath Party.
In neighboring Salahuddin province, demonstrators took to the streets to support a symbolic move by the provincial council to declare the area autonomous, partly in protest against the Baathist round-up that has angered minority Sunnis across Iraq.
Baghdad a shanty town, says governor
Azzaman reports (October 27th): There are more squalid locales in Baghdad than proper housing units, the city’s Governor Salahudeen Abdulrazzaq said.
Abdulrazzaq was quoting latest statistics collected by the Planning Ministry on the type and quality of housing in the Iraqi capital, home to 6.7 million people.
“The count of dwellings and family abodes in Baghdad conducted by the Planning Ministry shows that there are 1.9 million shanties in the capital,” the governor said.
Two Iraqi, US journalists arrested in Basra
Aswat al-Iraq reports (October 27th): Security forces arrested two journalists, Iraqi and US, for having photography without official permission, media source said.
53 people at imminent risk of execution in Iraq
AI report (October 21st): The death sentences of 53 people, including five foreign nationals, were ratified by the Iraqi presidency on 20 October. They are at imminent risk of execution.
Universities and the Costs of the Iraq War
Hugh Gusterson writes for the BRussells Tribunal (September 15th): The political scientist Mark Duffield has observed that the effect of Western intervention in Iraq has actually been to “demodernize” that country. This is ironic given that the military campaigns against Iraq and Afghanistan have been accompanied by narratives of the West’s obligation to modernize backward nations.
Nowhere is the truth of Duffield’s observation clearer than in the story of what has happened to Iraq’s education system, especially its higher education system. Western intervention has ended up destroying Iraq’s universities, formerly among the best in the region, as functional institutions. “Up to the Early 1980s, Iraq’s educational system was considered one of the best in the Middle East. As a result of its drastic and prolonged decline since then, it is now one of the weakest,” concludes a 2008 official report.
Iraqi Christians say government not serious in protecting them
Azzaman reports (November 3rd): Iraqi Christians have marked with anger and sorrow the first anniversary of the attack on a church in Baghdad in which scores of worshippers were killed and many others wounded.
But while the deadliest single attack on Iraqi Christians since the 2003 U.S. invasion has occurred Baghdad, it is the Christians of Mosul whose survival is at stake.
Europe lawmakers warn of humanitarian crisis at Iranian camp
AFP report (November 1st): European parliamentarians issued a fresh warning of a looming "humanitarian catastrophe" at an Iranian exiles' camp in Iraq and urged the UN to provide protection for its 3,400 residents.
MEP Struan Stevenson, who heads the parliament's delegation for relations with Iraq, said in an e-mail that 180 lawmakers from the main political groups had signed a petition urging the postponement of a December 31 deadline set by Baghdad to close the camp.
US watchdog slams Iraq sewage plant efforts
AFP report (October 30th): A watchdog's report slammed US efforts to build a sewage treatment plant in the insurgent bastion of Fallujah, Iraq, saying the project was years delayed and millions of dollars over-budget.
The audit from the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which highlighted the project as a case study for reconstruction efforts, comes with barely two months to go before all US troops must withdraw from Iraq.
The plant was initially set to cost $35 million to service 100,000 residents and be completed by February 2006. Thus far, it has cost $107.9 million and services just 38,400 homes, with Iraq set to commit a further $87 million before it is finally due to be finished in 2014.
Unreported Afghanistan
Hundreds oppose idea of permanent US bases
PAN reports (October 24th): Hundreds of people staged a protest demonstration in the capital Kabul, opposing permanent US military bases in the country.
Organised by the National United Front (NUF), the protesters, including former mujahedeen, students and teachers, gathered in front of the Kabul University at around 9am.
The protestors chanted: "Down with America and long live Islam, national consensus is the only way to resolve the conflict and we don't want the presence of foreign troops in our country."
U.N. Tally Excluded Most Afghan Civilian Deaths in Night Raids
Counterpunch reports (October 26th): A July United Nations report asserting that only 30 civilians died in targeted raids in Afghanistan during the first six months of 2011 reflected only a very small fraction of night raids in which civilians were killed, according to officials of the independent Afghan commission which had co-produced the 2010 report on civilian casualties with the U.N. Mission.
Officials of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which collaborated with UNAMA on its 2010 civilian casualties report, told IPS that the number of night raids that UNAMA investigated in some fashion could only have been a very small proportion of the total number of targeted raids with civilian casualties.
A leading official of the independent commission has also objected publicly to UNAMA’s exclusion from the total in last year’s report of most of the allegations of civilian deaths in raids that had been brought to its attention.
U.S. Night Raids Killed Over 1,500 Afghan Civilians in Ten Months
Counterpunch reports (November 3rd): U.S. Special Operations Forces killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals.
That number would make U.S. night raids by far the largest cause of civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan.
