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Iraq

Newsletter: Time To Stop The Next War Now

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. There is another drumbeat growing for the United States to go to war. The media is walking in lockstep with bi-partisans in Washington, DC and with the war profiteers to this end. The likely next president, Hillary Clinton, is calling for escalation in Syria with a no fly zone that risks conflict with Russia, a nation she has been demonizing.Gulf of Tonkin How often has the United States been misled into war? How often have the people of the United States been lied to about the need for war, e.g. using a “humanitarian crisis” to justify mass slaughter and the creation of a failed state as in Libya; Weapons of Mass Destruction that did not exist in Iraq leading to a war that created much of the chaos that exists in the region today; and the 9/11 attack that has led to the longest war in US history when it should have led to the arrest of the prime suspect, Osama bin Laden, and his trial in the Hague.

How Pentagon Paid PR Firm +$500 Million For Top Secret Iraq Propaganda

By Crofton Black and Abigail Fielding-Smith for The Bureau of Investigative Journalism -The Pentagon gave a controversial UK PR firm over half a billion dollars to run a top secret propaganda programme in Iraq, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal. Bell Pottinger’s output included short TV segments made in the style of Arabic news networks and fake insurgent videos which could be used to track the people who watched them, according to a former employee.

Report: Wars In Iraq, Afghanistan Cost Almost $5 Trillion So Far

By Leo Shane III for Military Times - The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $5 trillion so far, and that total could rise even higher in the years to come, according to new calculations released by independent researchers late last week. That total includes not only the costs of equipment and personnel in those countries, but also State Department spending to help local populations, Department of Homeland Security spending linked to the wars and Department of Veterans Affairs services that expanded as troops returned home.

US Military Admits ISIS Leader Was Held In Abu Gharib

By Joshua Eaton for the Intercept. In February 2004, U.S. troops brought a man named Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badry to Abu Ghraib in Iraq and assigned him serial number US9IZ-157911CI. The prison was about to become international news, but the prisoner would remain largely unknown for the next decade. At the time the man was brought in, Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba was finalizing his report on allegations of abuse at Abu Ghraib’s Hard Site — a prison building used to house detainees singled out for their alleged violence or their perceived intelligence value. Just weeks later, the first pictures of detainee abuse were published on CBS News and in the New Yorker. Today, detainee US9IZ-157911CI is better known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State. His presence at Abu Ghraib, a fact not previously made public, provides yet another possible key to the enigmatic leader’s biography and may shed new light on the role U.S. detention facilities played in the rise of the Islamic State.

Iraq Civil Society Breaking From Cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr

By Mustafa Saadoun for Al Monitor - BAGHDAD — Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr made an exaggerated statement July 23 when answering a question by one of his followers. Sadr said, “We are the only ones able to influence the Iraqis to hit the streets.” Sadr's statement came a few days after a TV interview July 18 by his rival, former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who said that Maliki's supporters and those who voted for him are the educated people and academics, insinuating that Sadr's followers are ignorant.

Isis Escalating Violence Against Iraqi Civilians. Why Doesn’t World Care?

By Haider Newmani for The Guardian - US and coalition military forces continue to attack Isis territories in Iraq, while Iraqi ground troops prepare to retake the city of Mosul from the grip of the terrorist group. As Isis loses ground in Iraq, it escalates its violent campaign against civilians. On Sunday, a suicide bomber attacked a security checkpoint in my home city, Baghdad, killing at least 14 people. It followed the attacks on 3 July in the same city – the city I fled to become an asylum seeker in America after losing multiple family members and friends.

ICC Investigates Human Rights Abuses In Iraq

By Samuel Oakford for The Intercept - THE LONG-ANTICIPATED Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq War released Wednesday contains stinging indictments of Britain’s role in the U.S.-led invasion, detailing failures starting with the exaggerated threat posed by Saddam Hussein through the disastrous lack of post-invasion planning. An element conspicuously missing from the report, however, are allegations of systemic abuse by British soldiers — accusations that are currently being considered by a domestic investigative body as well as the International Criminal Court.

Most Labour MPs Opposing Corbyn Are Stained With Blood

By Nafeez Ahmed for MEE - A new analysis by Middle East Eye finds that nearly 100 percent of the Labour MPs who have moved to oust Jeremy Corbyn voted against an investigation into the Iraq war. The analysis is based on a detailed examination of the voting records of all the MPs who chose not to support Corbyn’s leadership. Amongst the Labour MPs who had voted in 2003 on the Iraq war, an overwhelming majority who voted against Corbyn were in favour of the military invasion of the country

Four Lessons We Must Learn From Iraq War And Chilcot Report

By Joe Glenton for International Business Times - All the evidence discouraged an attack on Iraq yet it looks like Tony Blair and his close allies lied to take Britain to war. It cost the lives of 179 soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. In the end the war also gave us Islamic State (Isis/Daesh) and so the horror slithers on. In recent and coming weeks the real issue – why we went, the deadly deception – will be blurred by references to peripheral issues about the conduct of the war. Let's be clear. Bad equipment, for example, is secondary in the big scheme of things.

Chilcott Report Oroves Iraq War Was A Mistake

By Staff of ICN - Christian peace campaigners have welcomed the release of the Chilcot Report into the 2003 war on Iraq, which directly cause the deaths of many thousands of people and destabilised the region - leading to the deaths of millions and conflicts continuing today. The report states: " We have concluded that the UK chose to join the invasion of Iraq before the peaceful options for disarmament had been exhausted. Military action at that time was not a last resort.

Iraq: Popular Protests Escalate, ‘Green Zone’ Invaded

By Ismaeel Dawood and Terry Kay Rockefeller for Iraq Civil Society. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens fill Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, demanding “An End to Sectarianism” and the establishment of a new, technocratic government. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi takes no responsibility for delays in installing new leaders. He blames Parliament, which failed to vote on his “white envelope government” and then bitterly split into opposing factions over the prospect of change. Baghdad went to sleep one night and woke the next day to two parliaments and three “governments”! Meanwhile, Iraqi Kurdistan falters along with a one-man government and no parliament! Since June 31st, 2015, protests to force Iraqi politics in the direction of reform have taken place weekly. The Iraqis are denouncing the lack of vital services (electricity and water), high-level government corruption, and rampant sectarianism.

Does The US Have A Plan In Syria, Iraq, Or Yemen?

By Dan Wright for Shadow Proof - The literal DC turf war in Syria continues to rage between the CIA and the Department of Defense. The Los Angeles Times reported the fighting between a CIA-backed Syrian rebel group, Fursan al Haq, and the Pentagon-backed Kurds has intensified in the last two months. The CIA operates part of its Syria program out of Turkey, where it provides Fursan Al Haq and others Saudi anti-tank missiles and other arms. The Kurds receive support from the Department of Defense to fight ISIS.

After Over A Million Deaths, Iraqis Push To Expose War Atrocities

By Sarah Lazare for AlterNet - Saturday marked 13 years since the United States invaded Iraq, unleashing a brutal war and occupation that would go on to take the lives of over one million Iraqi people. Meanwhile, another grim, but lesser-known anniversary passed last month: 25 years since the U.S. attacked a civilian bomb shelter in Baghdad’s Amiriyah neighborhood, killing more than 400 people, many of whom burned to death.

More U.S. Troops Killed By Halliburton Than By Iraqis

By David Swanson for American Herald Tribune - The U.S. government, from Dick Cheney to Hillary Clinton, told blatant lies about the Iraqi government creating chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in 2002, despite having been informed of the fact that Iraq was doing no such thing. U.S. leaders lied about ties between Iraq and terrorists that they also knew did not exist. Then the U.S. military attacked and invaded Iraq, in the process heavily bombing old sites of Iraqi chemical weapons from the 1980s, many of those weapons having been provided by the United States.

The Forgotten Movement To Stop The Terror Wars After 9/11

By Tom Engelhardt for Tom Dispatch - Who even remembers the moment in mid-February 2003, almost 13 years ago, when millions of people across this country and the planet turned out in an antiwar moment unique in history? It was aimed at stopping a conflict that had yet to begin. Those demonstrators, myself included, were trying to put pressure on the administration of George W. Bush not to do what its top officials so visibly, desperately wanted to do: invade Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, garrison it for decades to come, and turn that country into an American gas station.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.