EU-DIGEST

That assurance was given at a time when Blair was publicly pushing the U.N. to force Saddam into compliance. Campbell denied any lack of sincerity in the efforts to secure a solution through the U.N.

Labels: Britain, EU, Iraq war, Tony Blair

The war in Iraq had "no basis in international law", a Dutch inquiry found today, in the first ever independent legal assessment of the decision to invade. In a series of damning findings, a seven-member panel in the Netherlands concluded that the war, which was supported by the Dutch government following intelligence from Britain and the US, had not been justified in law. "The Dutch government lent its political support to a war whose purpose was not consistent with Dutch government policy," the inquiry in the Hague concluded. "The military action had no sound mandate in international law." In a further twist, it emerged that the UK government refused to disclose a key document requested by the Dutch panel.

Editorial note EU-Digest: It is hoped that the US Administration under the leadership of President Barrack Obama and the British Government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown will also have the courage to install independent commissions to review the legality of the Iraq war during the Bush Administration. And consequently, if these inquires show no evidence is found that the Iraq war was justified, take the appropriate legal action against those responsible for withholding accurate information on the actual situation in Iraq before the invasion, and the death of thousands of innocent lives in Iraq and the numerous military casualties of this war. It has been suggested that the only proper action for Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who took the decision to take the Netherlands into the war in Iraq, would be to step down.

Labels: Bush Administration, EU, Iraq war, The Netherlands

IRAQ: US military deaths in Iraq war 4,143 and total coalition military casualties 4448

As of Saturday, Aug. 16, 2008, at least 4,143 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associate Press report.The British military has reported 176 deaths; Italy, 33; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 21; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Denmark, seven; El Salvador, five; Slovakia, four; Latvia and Georgia, three each; Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, Romania, two each; and Australia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, South Korea, one death each.

Labels: Casualties, Iraq war, US

IRAQ - Middle East Still at War: The U.S. is Losing but The Winners are Unclear - by Phyllis Bennis

Despite and because of its huge military presence and the continuing horror of the occupation and war in Iraq, there is no question that Washington has lost significant influence in the Middle East. U.S. efforts to dominate and control the region's governments, resources, and people are failing. U.S.-backed governments and movements across the Middle East are rejecting the Bush administration's demand that they isolate, sanction, and threaten the other governments and movements that Washington deems the bad guys - those linked to Iran. Instead the U.S.-backed governments are themselves launching new bi-, tri-, and multi-lateral negotiations with "the bad guys" outside of U.S. control, and often in direct contradiction to U.S. wishes.

Labels: Iraq war, US

Serbia Denies 'Secret Iraq Arms Deal'

Serbia's state-run arms exporter has rejected claims that the Iraqi government secretly arranged to buy substandard weapons from Belgrade. "All Iraqi officials were acquainted with all the contracts that have been concluded with us," said Stevan Nikcevic, general director of the public company Jugoimport-SDPR, which deals with the export and import of arms and military equipment. Nikcevic said the New York Times article was full of false details regarding the contract the Serbian company had concluded with Iraq's Ministry of Defence. According to the report by the United States-based paper on Saturday, the deal, which was signed without the knowledge of senior Iraqi leaders, was previously worth $833 million but was later reduced in size to $236 million.

Labels: Iraq war, Serbia

Exhausted, Overextended Troops Ready to 'Unravel' - by Bobby Muller

Iraq: Exhausted, Overextended Troops Ready to 'Unravel' - by Bobby Muller

A central theme of General David Petraeus' tour of Capitol Hill are his pleas for patience with the U.S. war in Iraq. He called for a "pause" against the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, citing the need to consolidate the gains that have been achieved over the past few months. The crushing burden the US military already endures ought to give serious pause to Members of Congress. The health of our military must be a top priority because current deployment rates are grinding up our military men and women, tearing at the bonds of families, eroding military readiness -- and leaving the US less secure at home.

Labels: Iraq war

How we can avoid another Iraq disaster

The Green party here and in Europe is pressing for the UN to publish a distillate of its reports into all countries' human rights records in an index, ranking governments' practices from best to worst. This will have several positive effects. Many governments will protest that they have been misjudged, and purge jails of political prisoners before UN inspectors arrive. All countries will seek to increase their standing, so it will exert a continuous motivation to improve governance. Importantly, it will become far harder to demonize a regime on whom our leaders intend to wage war if people can easily see there are many worse performers. Most importantly, the worst performers can be legally investigated and taken to the international criminal court. Once this has happened a couple of times, those near the bottom will start to ask for help in improving their governance.

Labels: Iraq war

For the complete report from the Daily Times click on this link

Iraq: The Three Trillion Dollar War —Joseph E Stiglitz

With March 20 marking the fifth anniversary of the United States-led invasion of Iraq, it’s time to take stock of what has happened. In our new book The Three Trillion Dollar War, Harvard’s Linda Bilmes and I conservatively estimate the economic cost of the war to the US to be $3 trillion, and the costs to the rest of the world to be another $3 trillion — far higher than the Bush administration’s estimates before the war. The Bush team not only misled the world about the war’s possible costs, but has also sought to obscure the costs as the war has gone on.

Was this incompetence or dishonesty? Almost surely both. Cash accounting meant that the Bush administration focused on today’s costs, not future costs, including disability and health care for returning veterans. Only years after the war began did the administration order the specially armored vehicles that would have saved the lives of many killed by roadside bombs. Not wanting to reintroduce a draft, and finding it difficult to recruit for an unpopular war, troops have been forced into two, three, or four stress-filled deployments. The US administration has tried to keep the war’s costs from the American public. Veterans groups have used the Freedom of Information Act to discover the total number of injured — 15 times the number of fatalities. Already, 52,000 returning veterans have been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

America will need to provide disability compensation to an estimated 40 percent of the 1.65 million troops that have already been deployed. And, of course, the bleeding will continue as long as the war continues, with the health care and disability bill amounting to more than $600 billion (in present-value terms). Americans like to say that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Nor is there such a thing as a free war. The US — and the world — will be paying the price for decades to come.

Note Eu-Digest: Joseph E. Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize of economics at Colombia University is the co-author, with Linda Bilmes, of "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Costs of the Iraq Conflict"

Labels: Casualties, Iraq, Iraq war, US Economy

Iraq at Easter - Five years of war and no end in sight - by Carolyn Arnold

This year, when the US president celebrates his expensive orgy of devastation in Iraq with "no regrets," when waterboarding is hailed as a tool to manage terrorism, and spying on citizens is praised as patriotic, when 20 children die every minute for lack of food or medicine, when our nation is on the brink of a serious financial crisis, and when our profligate use of fossil fuels is threatening the very planet we live on, just how should we celebrate the Easter Message triumph of life over death?

Labels: Iraq war

Five years and more of the Iraq war

The lessons of Iraq are clear. The numbers are simple. The solution and the outlook, sadly, are neither. And, unless voters and presidential candidates focus a lot more attention on this issue than they have in recent weeks, clarity will continue to elude us. The woes of the economy, the tactics of the presidential horse race, and the sexual behavior of two New York governors are just a few of the stories that have helped push Iraq off the front page. Right now, there's a brief surge - to use an overworked word - of attention on Iraq: Last week saw the fifth anniversary of the invasion on March 19, 2003. But we must pay continued attention to Iraq - and to the deteriorating situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan, from which Iraq has too long distracted us. If we don't, we'll squander a precious chance to use the searing heat of a presidential election cycle to generate the light we need to see Iraq more clearly.

Labels: Iraq war, US

Europe idle as US battles meltdown - by Ambrose Evans - Pritchard

It is the first time since the Great Depression that the US Fed has stepped in directly to absorb credit losses, crossing a line deemed unthinkable just months ago. The dramatic late-night move on Sunday required dredging up Article 13 (3) of the Federal Reserve Act, which allows the Fed to shower money on almost anybody it wishes by a vote of five governors in "unusual and exigent circumstances".Jean-Michel Six, chief Europe economist at Standard & Poor's, said the Europeans were in no mood to rescue America. "There is monetary war going on. The ECB view is that Fed is a victim of its own mistakes and should pay for its past crimes. Frankly, they don't see why they should be cutting rates when inflation (3.3pc) is accelerating," he said.

There are now echoes of October 1987 when the German Bundesbank (and therefore Europe) refused to ease monetary policy, even though the dollar was in freefall and Wall Street was fragile. The spat was the backdrop to the Black Monday crash.

Note EU-Digest: The ECB is on the right track, the problems of the US economy are of the US her own making. If the ECB cuts the interest rates in Europe, inflation would rise and Europe's economy would also spiral into disaster.

Labels: Britain, Christianity, Energy, EU, EU Economy, euro, France, Gas Supplies, Healthcare, Iraq war, Islam, Italy, Romance, Russia, Sarkozy, Sex Appeal, Turkey, US, US Economy

Iraq - Troop surge in Iraq not successful, historian said - "US replaced Sadam by 50 new Sadams: - by Cole Bockenfeld

The troop surge in Iraq is not nearly as successful as the media portrays it to be, a Middle East historian said in a lecture Monday in Giffels Auditorium. In "The Iraq Surge One Year On," Chris Toensing, editor of the Middle East Report, disputed assertions by neo - conservatives in the media concerning the "apparent success of the surge." He said the war in Iraq is far from over. The claims of success are correctly based on two figures - the decrease in the number of violent deaths in Iraq and the increase in Sunnis cooperating with American forces to fight al-Qaida, he said. Although American and Iraqi casualties have decreased by about half from a year ago, Toensing said the number of violent attacks is still high, and the current number of 500 civilian deaths a month is very violent by any standard.

The second factor - that Sunni Arabs are turning against al-Qaida fighters - is a phenomenon that began before the surge of American troops. The "Anbar Awakening" and other similar movements have about 72,000 "armed, concerned local citizens," Toensing said. The U.S. military is paying about 60,000 of them $300 per month, in addition to arming and training them to fight, he said. The "awakenings" of Sunni leaders allying with the U.S. has a strong "mercenary" aspect to it, Toensing said. Tribal bands are helping quell violence in their areas, but are setting up independent fiefdoms to take over the lucrative black market, which is being used to finance al-Qaida attacks, he said. There has been a localization of politics, and many Iraqis feel the U.S. invaded to replace one Saddam with 50 Saddams - ruthless local leaders that often act independently of the central government,

Labels: Iraq war, the Surge, US

George W Bush, White House told 935 lies after September 11

US President George W Bush and other top officials issued almost one thousand false statements about the national security threat from Iraq following the September 11 attacks, according to a study by two not-for-profit organisations. The Associated Press reports the study, published on the website of the Centre for Public Integrity, concluded the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanised public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretences”.

According to the study, 935 false statements were issued by the White House in the two years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.“The cumulative effect of these false statements – amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts – was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war,” the study concluded.

Labels: Bush, Iraq, Iraq war

IRAQ - December 2007 - 4204 total of which 3897 US soldiers

During the above period there have also been been 38,876 wounded and 132 suicides. Twenty percent of the U.S. troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan come from the Army National Guard. Many are from small towns, and go to war alongside family and friends.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that the strain of the war in Iraq is increasingly forcing senior Pentagon leaders to be blunter about the military's inability to sustain war operations indefinitely, a shift in tone that may mean more troops come home sooner.The Army is expected to grow to 547,000 soldiers by 2010, and Casey has left the door open for an even bigger increase beyond that. But time is running short for the Army now, Mr. McCaffrey says. "We can probably sustain a force in Iraq indefinitely (given adequate funding) of some 10-plus brigades," McCaffrey wrote in a post-trip report. "However, the US Army is starting to unravel."

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Friday painted a bleak picture of the situation of children in Iraq, where an estimated 2 million boys and girls continue suffer from poor nutrition, disease and interrupted education. Thousands of families have been obliged to leave their homes because of violence or threats, and hundreds of children have lost their lives in the violence, UNICEF said in a press release. Iraq Body Count’s research shows that 27,000 civilian deaths from violence were reported in 2006. This represents a huge increase compared to preceding years: 14,000 killed in 2005, 10,500 in 2004 and just under 12,000 in 2003 (7,000 during the actual war/invasion, and another 5,000 during the ‘peace’ that followed). Early indications are that roughly 20,000 violent civilian deaths will be recorded for the first 9 months of 2007. By year’s end, 2007 looks to be the second-worst calendar year for violence in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, trailing only behind 2006, and still almost twice as deadly for civilians as the first year.

Labels: Casualties, Europe, Iraq war, Military, Russia; US

Iraq calmer, but more divided - by Ned Parker

The U.S. troop buildup in Iraq was meant to freeze the country's civil war so political leaders could rebuild their fractured nation. Ten months later, the country's bloodshed has dropped, but the military strategy has failed to reverse Iraq's disintegration into areas dominated by militias, tribes and parties, with a weak central government struggling to assert its influence.

Labels: Bush, Iraq war, US

IRAN: Bush has nothing to offer but scare tactics - by Marianne Means

Bush stubbornly refuses to admit that the Iranian menace has changed. He had been told of the new information in August by national intelligence director Mike McConnell but went ahead anyway to beat the drums of war by raising the specter of World War III with Iran. Without the war scares, you see, what does he have to offer? The public has hit the mute button on him. Without scare tactics, his popularity would be even lower than its present 30 percent. And he was, after all, accustomed to a Central Intelligence Agency under the thumb of Vice President Dick Cheney, famous for seeing the worst in everything. Bush claimed not to know the details of the report until recent days. Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Joe Biden said he didn't believe Bush's excuse and that if Bush believes nothing has changed in the wake of the intelligence report, he is in denial.

Labels: Bush, Iraq war, US

Ex-Top US Iraq Commander Says Bring Troops Home - by Ann Flaherty

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq shortly after the fall of Baghdad, said this week he supports Democratic legislation that calls for most troops to come home within a year. His comments come as welcomed ammunition for the Democratic-controlled Congress in its standoff with the White House on war spending. This month, the House passed a $50 billion bill that would pay for combat operations but sets the goal that combat end by Dec. 15, 2008. The White House threatened to veto the measure, and Senate Republicans blocked it from passing.

Labels: Iraq war, US

War takes deadly toll on Iraqi journalists - by Christian Berthelsen

Five Iraqi journalists were killed in separate attacks Sunday, marking one of the deadliest days for reporters covering war-torn country in nearly a year. Four reporters for Iraqi media organizations were reported shot to death in ambushes near Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Previously reported was the death of Salih Saif Aldin, a correspondent for The Washington Post who apparently was shot to death Sunday while on assignment in the dangerous Sadiyah neighborhood of southwest Baghdad.

Labels: Iraq war

Eight Iraqi parliamentary blocs push for bill against US act

Eight Iraqi parliamentary blocs representing different ideological and political tendencies called Sunday for probing the recent act of the US Senate on splitting Iraq at an extraordinary parliament session. The session has to reach a decision on preventing the implementation of the US act under any pretext, said a joint statement issued here by the eight political forces. The forces are the Sadrist Trend, the Iraqi Accord Front, the United Iraqi Alliance, the National Dialogue Front, the Virtue Party, the Iraqi National List, the Turkmen Front and the Arab Front. The statement, read at the premises of the Iraqi House of Representatives here by the Iraqi National List MP Ezzat Al-Shabanderi, reacted to the move sponsored by US Democrat senator Josef Baden.

"His act constitutes a grave precedence that could define the nature of the future relationship between Iraq and the United States," it underlined. "The US Senate seems to be planning for a long-term occupation of Iraq.
"The act runs counter to all rules and norms of the international relations and infringes on the rights of the Iraqi nation to self-determination.
"The act, worse still, came at a time when the Iraqi sectarian violence was escalating and the Iraq national texture was dissolving," according to the statement.

Labels: Iraq war, USA

This past month (September) 63 US and two EU soldiers (one Roumanian and British) were killed.

This past Sunday alone, there were 35 civilians killed; Baghdad: 1 farmer killed by gunmen south of the capital; and 5 bodies found. Mosul: politician killed along with 3 bodyguards; 2 policemen killed by gunmen; 2 shot dead in market; 11 bodies found. Al-Uhaymer: 7 bodies found and taken to Baquba morgue. Haswa: 3 bodies.

In September there were 1,280 civilians killed. This brings the total of civilian deaths as a result of the violence to 81,119. The total number of "coalition" troop casualties since the beginning of the war now stands at 4053. A total of 36,943 soldiers have been wounded so far during the conflict and 122 coalition troops have committed suicide.

Labels: Casualties, Coalition, EU, Iraq war