We are occupied. That is a fact. The occupiers have a team of Iraqis willing to work with them. The coming elections will be completely rigged. - After extensive meetings with many parties and people we came to the conclusion that contesting the elections would contribute to the process of legitimising the occupation...

http://207.44.245.159/article7637.htm

http://www.monthlyreview.org/0105peet.htm


Informant: Shanti Renfrew

by Jessi Winchester

Liberty For All

01/06/05

The brave military personnel facing death daily in Iraq questioned Rumsfeld about inferior and unsafe equipment as well as long deployments and were met with total disrespect and lack of caring. A soldier from Tennessee received a big cheer from the 2,300 troops assembled for the question and answer session when he asked why those put in harm's way were given vehicles that lacked adequate armor. He said many soldiers were forced to rummage through landfills looking for scrap metal and used bulletproof glass to enhance their equipment in an effort to keep themselves safe...

http://www.libertyforall.net/2005/jan2/Heartless.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

US reserves nearly "broken", says chief

MSNBC

01/05/05

The U.S. Army Reserve, tapped heavily to provide soldiers for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is 'degenerating into a 'broken' force' due to dysfunctional military policies, the Army Reserve's chief said in a memo made public Wednesday. 'I do not wish to sound alarmist. I do wish to send a clear, distinctive signal of deepening concern,' Lt. Gen. James Helmly said in a Dec. 20 memo to Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker. The Army Reserve is a force of 200,000 part-time soldiers who opted not to sign up for the active-duty Army but can be mobilized from their civilian lives in times of national need...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6790738/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

US troops laughed as Iraqi drowned, court told

Sydney Morning Herald [Australia]

01/06/05

An Iraqi civilian testified today that US soldiers forced him and his cousin at gunpoint off a bridge into the Tigris River and laughed as his relative drowned. Marwan Fadil told the court martial of army Sergeant 1st Class Tracy Perkins, who is accused of killing 19-year-old Zaidoun Hassoun by having subordinates push him into the river, that they begged the soldiers to stop. Perkins faces up to 29 years of confinement on charges of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Defence lawyers have said there was no death, no body and no crime...

http://tinyurl.com/4dwkc


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

On my last deployment in Iraq elements of my unit were instructed by a Captain to fire on children throwing rocks at us.” This is not what he signed up for, Benderman said.

http://207.44.245.159/article7623.htm

Baghdad Burning: Iraqi Girl Blog:

New Year and Elections:

People don't really sense that this is the first stepping stone to democracy as western media is implying. Many people sense that this is just the final act of a really bad play...

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#110466627142368992
http://snipurl.com/bsqy


From Information Clearing House

by Stewart Nusbaumer

Common Dreams

01/04/05

The U.S. war planners underestimated the Iraqis' will to resist and they underestimated the insurgents' ability to develop a wartime strategy. After 'shock and awe' the resistance would surely be reduced to a 'rag-tag resistance,' right? The planners overestimated the U.S. military's technology and firepower, which they always do.

Twenty-one months into this war, the world's most powerful military is stymied, unable to halt the expanding Iraqis insurgency and the rising number of American dead. Those who planned this war knew as much about Iraq as those who planned the Vietnam War knew about Vietnam, which is why Iraq will end as Vietnam ended. In America's defeat...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0104-33.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by Pat Buchanan

WorldNetDaily

01/05/05

To the architects of this war, Iraq was to be a projection of U.S. power, a strategic base camp flanking and paralyzing the rogue states of Iran and Syria, an Arab democracy that would attract the admiration and envy of other peoples, producing a domino effect across the Middle East. Thus far, that has turned out to be a myth.

Iraq today appears as an exposed salient, a bridge too far, a war against a dispossessed Sunni minority that we can neither win nor walk away from without its becoming the haven for terrorists it never was before we invaded...


http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42249


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp