Iraq

Why Did Bush Go To War In Iraq?

March 22, 2019 Ahsan I Butt, Aljazeera.com Educate! George W. Bush, Iraq, Wars and Militarism

Sixteen years after the United States invaded Iraq and left a trail of destruction and chaos in the country and the region, one aspect of the war remains criminally underexamined: why was it fought in the first place? What did the Bush administration hope to get out of the war? The official, and widely-accepted, story remains that Washington was motivated by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme. His nuclear capabilities, especially, were deemed sufficiently alarming to incite the war.

US Shifts Weapons From Iraq To Syria

March 15, 2019 Jack Detsch, Al-monitor.com Educate! Iraq, Syria, US Imperialism

The Pentagon rerouted millions of dollars’ worth of weapons and vehicles from Iraq to Syria in the second half of 2018, Al-Monitor has learned, as US-backed forces cornered the last remnants of the Islamic State (IS). In a series of notifications to Congress reviewed by Al-Monitor, the Defense Department said it had determined that a bevy of supplies purchased by the Pentagon for the Iraqi military would instead go to the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Pentagon sent lawmakers its last reprogramming notification for 2018 on Dec. 31, 12 days after President Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw US troops from Syria.

Top Iraqi Scholar Rejects Trump’s Plan For ‘US base’ In Iraq

February 9, 2019 Staff, Aljazeera.com Educate! Iraq, Military bases, US Imperialism

Iraq's most senior Shia religious scholar on Wednesday joined a chorus of criticism aimed at President Donald Trump who said US troops should stay in the country to keep an eye on neighbouring Iran. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said Iraq aspires to have "good and balanced relations" with all of its neighbours "based on mutual interests and without intervention in internal affairs". Iraq "rejects being a launching pad for harming any other country", he said during a meeting with UN Iraq envoy Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert at the Muslim leader's base in Najaf.

Iraq Rejects Iran Sanctions And US Troop Presence

January 8, 2019 Jim Carey, Geopoliticsalert.com Resist! Iran, Iraq, Sanctions, US Imperialism, US military

Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Ali al-Hakim laid out the latest step on the path to independence for Baghdad from the US concerning sanctions on Iran by Washington. Although Iraq currently has a 90-day waiver to trade with Iran issued on December 20th, Hakim let reporters know Iraq would be pursuing their own policy on Iran should the waiver not be renewed. Hakim explained to reporters that “These sanctions, the siege, or what is called the embargo,” imposed by the US is “unilateral, not international,” and Iraq is “not obliged [to follow] them.”

A Loose Cannon For Peace

January 6, 2019 Robert Koehler, Counterpunch. Educate! Iraq, Media, Syria, Wars and Militarism

Apparently what’s under assault is war itself, or so the Establishment believes, in the wake of the shocking announcement by the president that he plans to withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops now deployed in Syria and 7,000, or half, the U.S. troops in Afghanistan. No, can’t do that! Can’t do that! This screws everything up. “. . . we must be resolute and unambiguous in our approach to those countries whose strategic interests are increasingly in tension with ours,” writes Defense Secretary Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis in his resignation letter to Donald Trump over the issue.

Toxic Legacy Of US Assault On Fallujah ‘Worse Than Hiroshima’

December 28, 2018 Patrick Cockburn, Independent.co.uk Educate! Bombing, Iraq, US Imperialism

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study. Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents. Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s.

Did Defense Secretary Nominee James Mattis Commit War Crimes In Iraq?

December 22, 2018 By Aaron Glantz, Revealnews.org Educate! Department of Defense, Iraq, Trump Administration, War crimes

Retired Gen. James Mattis earned the nickname “Mad Dog” for leading U.S. Marines into battle in Fallujah, Iraq, in April 2004. In that assault, members of the Marine Corps, under Mattis’ command, shot at ambulances and aid workers. They cordoned off the city, preventing civilians from escaping. They posed for trophy photos with the people they killed. Each of these offenses has put other military commanders and members of the rank and file in front of international war crimes tribunals. The doctrine that landed them there dates back to World War II, when an American military tribunal held Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita accountable for war crimes in the Philippines. His execution later was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Suicide Rate Surging Among Afghanistan Iraq War Veterans

September 30, 2018 Whitney Webb, Mintpress News. Educate! Afghanistan, Iraq, suicide, Veterans

Washington - New data released Wednesday by the Department of Veterans Affairs has shown that the suicide rate among young military veterans continues to climb, despite a decline in the overall suicide rate among U.S. military veterans, amid department efforts to combat the problem. The new data was made available in the VA’s National Suicide Data Report, which found that, in 2016, 6,079 veterans ended their own lives compared to 6,281 in 2015. However, the suicide rate for veterans between the ages of 18 and 34 increased from 40.4 deaths per 100,000 veterans in 2015 to 45 in 2016, four times higher than that of other age groups.

Mass Social Unrest Leaves Iraq’s Oil Capital In Flames

September 11, 2018 Bill Van Auken, Wsws.org Resist! Class Struggle, Iraq, Oil, Protests

Iraq’s southern city of Basra, the country’s oil capital and center of its Shia majority, has seen mass protests that have left many of the buildings housing offices of the government, the main political parties, Shia militias and even the Iranian consulate in flames. Iraqi security officials announced a curfew Friday across this city of 2 million, warning that anyone found in the streets would be arrested. An earlier attempt to impose such a curfew was rescinded after crowds defied the government and set up blockades across the Basra-Baghdad highway and the main port of Umm Qasr on the Persian Gulf, through which flow both Iraqi oil exports and food supplies as well as other goods imported into the country. At least a dozen protesters have been killed in the course of the demonstrations, many of them victims of live fire by security forces.

We Stand In Solidarity With The Resilient People Of Iraq

August 3, 2018 Staff, Iraqitransnationalcollective.org Resist! Class Struggle, Iraq, Solidarity

Major, nationwide protests are currently raging throughout Iraq. Beginning in Basra among young oil workers demanding jobs for locals, the movement has spread to other major cities in Iraq. As reported by Human Rights Watch, during the protests, which began earlier in July, peaceful demonstrators, including children, have been targeted, killed, wounded, and arrested by Iraqi security forces, paramilitary forces and militias run by members of the political elite. Demonstrators are mainly young people, and while there are no centralized leader or political party affiliations, their demands are clear. Protesters are calling for fundamental necessities like clean running water, electricity, healthcare, and jobs. However, they signal a deeper call for human dignity and for radical political change in Iraq.

The US, Electricity And Iran: What’s Behind The Iraq Protests?

July 23, 2018 Imran Khan, Aljazeera.com Educate! Iraq, Protests, US Imperialism

Baghdad, Iraq - Is the United States behind the protests in southern Iraq? Well, the answer to that question is both yes and no. Yes, because the US led the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, which destroyed much of the infrastructure the country needed to remain a modern society. No, because before the US, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein punished the south's residents by not building infrastructure after they rose up against him during the 1990-1991 Gulf War. But there was another game afoot here that did allegedly involve the US. The protests in the south, which kicked off in Basra almost two weeks ago, were sparked when Iran stopped supplying electricity to that region after it said it was owed $1.5bn in unpaid bills. The protesters didn't blame Iran but pointed to what they called an inept and corrupt Iraqi government. However, in recent days Al Jazeera has been told, off the record, that the US put pressure on Iraq not to pay the Iranians.

Trump Continues Drone Attacks, Facilitates Civilian Deaths

June 11, 2018 Staff, Drone Warfare. Educate! Drones, Iraq, Somalia, Wars and Militarism

The NGO CAGE, which campaigns against discriminatory state policies and advocates observance of due process and the rule of law, reminds readers that in October 2017, US President Donald Trump replaced the Obama rules pertaining to drone strikes with his own ‘rules’ called the “Principles, Standards, and Procedures,” or PSPs. It reports that according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) these laws “make it easier to kill more people in more places outside recognized battlefields, posing grave risks of death and injury to civilians”

Iraq Elections: A Step Toward Rebuilding Popular Power

June 2, 2018 David Bacon, Peoplesworld.org Create! Electoral Politics, Iraq

The U.S. media quickly dismissed the results of Iraq’s national elections on May 12. Journalists were puzzled by what the followers of Muqtada al-Sadr and the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) might have in common, and even more, by why they garnered more Iraqi votes than any other electoral list. Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army fought the U.S. early in the occupation, and his political base is mostly among poor and disenfranchised Iraqis, especially in Baghdad’s Sadr City. This vast neighborhood of 3.5 million people, half the population of Baghdad, was known originally as al-Thawra, or Revolution, built for poor people migrating from the countryside by radical nationalist Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qassim in 1959. For many years it was a stronghold of the ICP.

US Coalition Killed Nearly 12 Times More Civilians In Mosul Than Did ISIS

May 26, 2018 By Whitney Webb, Mintpressnews.com Educate! Iraq, US Imperialism

WASHINGTON – Just a few months after the U.S. declared ISIS in Iraq “defeated,” a new study has concluded that the U.S.-led battle to remove Daesh (ISIS) from Mosul, once Iraq’s second-largest city, ultimately killed nearly 12 times the number of civilians than were killed by the infamous terror group. The study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, surveyed 1,200 households in Mosul for cases of civilian deaths by intentional violence since Daesh first occupied the city in 2014. The leading causes of reported deaths were found to have been direct results of the U.S.-led coalition battle to remove Daesh, with airstrikes accounting for around 40 percent of all reported civilian deaths and explosions accounting for another 34 percent.

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