Iraq

By Dahr Jamail, IPS

In a clear change of strategy to energise public anti-war sentiment, Iraq veterans led a determined demonstration of hundreds through the streets of downtown Seattle last Saturday, following regional Winter Soldier hearings at the Seattle Town Hall.

A larger Winter Soldier event occurred at the National Labour College in Silver Spring, Maryland from Mar. 13 to Mar. 16 earlier this year. But the strategy for those hearings appeared to be based on keeping the event from being directly affiliated with any demonstrations or anti-war activities in an attempt to reach a broader audience. Those hearings were closed to the public, and no demonstrations or other overtly public actions were tied to the event.

This tactic was apparently meant to draw in more national mainstream media coverage of the event, which, with few exceptions, did not materialise.

 read more »

by Aaron Glantz for oneworld.net

WASHINGTON - Antiwar veterans of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan took their case to Capitol Hill Thursday, baring their souls with stories of killings of innocent civilians, torture, and wrongful detentions.

On several occasions our convoys came upon bodies that had been lying on the road, sometimes for weeks, said Marine Corps veteran Vincent Emanuele, who served in al-Qaim near the Syrian border in 2004 and 2005.

"When encountering these bodies standard procedure was to run over the corpses, sometimes even stopping and taking pictures, which was also standard practice when encountering the dead in Iraq," he told the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which organized the hearing.  read more »

By William E. Odom, lieutenant general, USA (retired)

Wednesday 02 April 2008

Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq.

Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is an honor to appear before you again. The last occasion was in January 2007, when the topic was the troop surge. Today you are asking if it has worked. Last year I rejected the claim that it was a new strategy. Rather, I said, it is a new tactic used to achieve the same old strategic aim, political stability. And I foresaw no serious prospects for success.

I see no reason to change my judgment now. The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims.  read more »

By THOM SHANKER, New York Times

WASHINGTON — Army leaders are expressing increased alarm about the mental health of soldiers who would be sent back to the front again and again under plans that call for troop numbers to be sustained at high levels in Iraq for this year and beyond.

Among combat troops sent to Iraq for the third or fourth time, more than one in four show signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress, according to an official Army survey of soldiers’ mental health.  read more »

By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press March 24, 2008

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb killed four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad on
Sunday, the military said, pushing the overall American death toll in
the five-year war to at least 4,000. The grim milestone came on a day
when at least 61 people were killed across the country.

Rockets
and mortars pounded the U.S.-protected Green Zone, underscoring the
fragile security situation and the resilience of both Sunni and Shiite
extremist groups despite an overall lull in violence.  read more »

By HELEN O'NEILL, AP Special Correspondent Mar 23, 2008

A young, ambitious immigrant from Guatemala who dreamed of becoming an architect. A Nigerian medic. A soldier from China
who boasted he would one day become an American general. An Indian
native whose headstone displays the first Khanda, emblem of the Sikh  read more »

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan has led Democratic inquiries into contracting abuses in Iraq.

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.  read more »