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The attitude of those in Baghdad who are invited to comment on the inquiry swiftly changes from expressions of pain and sadness to that of anger and strong denunciation of the war and its architects, George Bush and Tony Blair. It is striking that the one common thought that comes to the fore is that Bush and Blair have escaped justice and “got away with murder”.

They certainly don’t have any confidence that the outcome of the inquiry will lead to Blair appearing before a legal tribunal to account for his role in engineering and launching the illegal war.

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The chairman of the British Joint Intelligence Committee in 2001 told investigators Monday that elements of the Bush Administration were pushing for regime change in Iraq in early 2001, months before the 9/11 attacks and two years before President George W. Bush formally announced the Iraq war.

Sir Peter Ricketts, now-Secretary at the Foreign Office, said that US and British officials believed at the time that measures against Iraq were failing: “sanctions, an incentive to lift sanctions if Saddam allowed the United Weapons inspectors to return, and the ‘no fly’ zones over the north and south of the country.”

Ricketts also said that US officials had raised the prospect of regime change in Iraq, asserting that the British weren’t supportive of the idea at the time.

“We were conscious that there were other voices in Washington, some of whom were talking about regime change,” Ricketts said.

The head of the British Foreign Office’s Middle East department, Sir William Patey, told the inquiry that his office was aware of regime change talk from some parts of the Bush Administration shortly after they took office in 2001.

“In February 2001 we were aware of these drum beats from Washington and internally we discussed it,” Patey said. “Our policy was to stay away from that.”

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“We didn’t think Saddam was a good thing, and it would be great if he went, but we didn’t have an explicit policy for trying to get rid of him,” he added.

A third official, who was policy director for the British Defense Ministry at the time, said the discussions between the US and Britain “weren’t serious.”

“The question of regime overthrow was, I recall, mentioned but it was quite clear that there was no proposition being put in our direction on that,” he quipped.

News of the British officials comments were first reported Tuesday in the UK Independent.

Interestingly, the head of Britain’s Intelligence Committee told investigators that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared to be in charge of US policy on Iraq until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

“Up till then we felt that dealing with the State Department, we were dealing with the people who were forming the policy,” Ricketts said.

British investigators are probing how Britain got into the Iraq war and if officials misled the public. Already, a leaked report has shown that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair covered up British military plans for a full Iraq invasion throughout 2002, claiming at the time that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change.”

According to Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, the leaked report condemns the almost complete absence of contingency planning as a potential breach of Geneva Convention obligations to safeguard civilians. Coalition forces were “ill-prepared and equipped to deal with the problems in the first 100 days” of the occupation.

Blair’s lies to Parliament and the public, widespread problems with the Army’s supply chain and radio systems, and poor planning for “once Baghdad had fallen” are now confirmed in the public eye.

Particularly egregious are statements Blair made to Parliament in the build up to the invasion. On Sept 24, 2002, Mr. Blair told members of the British Parliament, “In respect of any military options, we are not at the stage of deciding those options but, of course, it is important — should we get to that point — that we have the fullest possible discussion of those options.”

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I am writing to urge you to announce an immediate cease-fire followed by a withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq and Afghanistan in the fastest way consistent with the safety of our forces.

I urge you to end the use of Predator drones that kill civilians.

I call upon you to cease all covert operations in Africa, Asia, and North and South America.

Too many of your military advisors are implicated in torture, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace. Your Justice Department operates at the zenith of injustice, defending Bush Administration criminality in U.S. Courtrooms.

I wrote to you earlier suggesting that if you did not investigate the crimes of the Bush Administration, you would be viewed as their accessory. Sadly, war crimes and torture are now committed with your name on them.

Please bring our troops home now.

Cynthia McKinney

A peace demonstration is being organized for December 12, 2009 in Washington, D.C. The Emergency Anti-Escalation Rally, also known as the End US Wars Rally, is scheduled for 11am at Lafayette Park at the White House. I wholly endorse this rally and encourage all who can to participate in Washington, DC or to help a local peace organization committed to ending U.S. wars on that date.

For more information about the Washington, D.C. December 12, 2009 demonstration, please visit www.endUSwars.org, currently under construction.

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The veto by Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi was the latest wrinkle in growing criticism over the law by the country’s biggest minorities, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Both groups are effectively demanding the allocation of more seats to their blocs in the next parliament, which is almost assured of having a Shiite Muslim majority.

On Tuesday, Kurdish officials threatened to boycott the vote in the three provinces they control in northern Iraq unless they were granted a greater share of seats.

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• A d v e r t i s e m e n t
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General Ray Odierno told reporters in Baghdad that although all American combat troops are due to pull out by August 2010, the plan could change between now and May if the security situation deteriorates.

The threat of political violence linked to the election is a major concern for the government and US forces in the wake of bloody attacks in Baghdad on August 19 and October 25 which killed more than 250 people.

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Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger visited troops Monday in Iraq at a military camp outside Baghdad for the first time as California governor, signing autographs and recounting his own experience as an Austrian tank driver.

The governor gave a short speech designed to motivate the troops. He delivered cigars, signed autographs and told them he’d return today to work out with them before breakfast.

Schwarzenegger last visited Iraq in 2003, just before he announced his run for governor. His communications director said last week the governor had been looking for the right time to visit the troops and felt it was appropriate to do so after striking a water infrastructure deal with lawmakers and before the next round of budget negotiations.

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Sunday’s twin suicide bombings in Baghdad that killed at least 155 people and wounded 500 others may have had help from within Iraq’s security apparatus, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow reported Monday.

“This was a really well coordinated attack on an area in Baghdad that’s supposed to be well protected,” Maddow told viewers. “In order to reach their targets, the bombers driving these truck bombs had to pass through several checkpoints that were guarded by security forces and those security forces were supposed to be using hand-held devices designed to detect explosives.”

Maddow quoted a comment from Brian Katulis, a Middle East expert at the Center for American Progress, who wrote, “You don’t want to do this kind of attack without having someone on the inside. It implies infiltration of the government. If there is an objective, it’s to send a message to whoever is in power that not everyone recognizes them as being in charge.”

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As Maddow noted, the Iraqi government says it has arrested at least 75 people in connection with the bombings.

This is not the first time questions have arisen about the possibility of government infiltration by insurgents. In August, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Sebari said he suspected infiltration in a blast that killed nearly 100 people. “According to our information, there has even been collaboration between security officers and the murderers and killers,” said Zebari.

In April of 2007, a bomb attack against the Iraq parliament that killed eight people, including two members of parliament, was suspected to have involved insurgent sympathizers within Iraq’s security forces. The attack “reflects the fact that perhaps there are some people within the Iraqi security forces who have been infiltrated by insurgents and terrorist organizations,” then-Australian Defense Minister Brendan Nelson said.

This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast Oct. 26, 2009.

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The bombings hit at midmorning on the first day of Iraq’s workweek.

Attacked were an intersection near the Justice Ministry and the Ministry of Municipalities and Public Works; and then, shortly thereafter, the Baghdad provincial headquarters.

The government told news agencies that al-Qaeda or Baath supporters of Saddam Hussein’s former government were behind the latest bombings.

The attacks occurred near the Green Zone, which is supposed to be one of the city’s safest areas since it includes the U.S. Embassy and the prime minister’s offices.

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After all that, it looks like the Iraqis are cutting some big deals to develop their massive oil wealth — but withthemushy Europeans and the damn Chi-coms!

Iraq’s Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani told a Washington conference on Wednesday that his government was happy with the energy auction it held earlier this year. The auction was the first chance for foreign oil firms to compete for Iraqi oil since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

BP and the Chinese oil company CNPC were the only firms to win a contract in Iraq’s bid round this summer, the first chance for foreign oil firms to compete for Iraqi oil since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Seven other oil and gas fields failed to attract bidders on the terms Iraq offered.

But a consortium headed by Italy’s ENI (ENI.MI: Quote, Profile, Research) said last week it signed a deal to develop the giant Zubair field for a remuneration fee of $2 a barrel. At Iraq’s oilfield auction in June, the consortium refused to go below $4.40 a barrel.

Another consortium headed by Exxon is still in the running for one project, but that doesn’t mollify hedge-fund gazillionaire — and natural gas honcho — T-Boone Pickens. He’s none-too-happy:

Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are “entitled” to some of Iraq’s crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq.

[...]

“They’re opening them (oil fields) up to other companies all over the world … We’re entitled to it,” Pickens said of Iraq’s oil. “Heck, we even lost 5,000 of our people, 65,000 injured and a trillion, five hundred billion dollars.”

[...]

“We leave there with the Chinese getting the oil,” Pickens said.

Nothing new — In August T-Boone called on the administration to “demand” oil contracts from Iraq before considering a withdrawal ($$). But it is an unusually brazen admission that many energy bigs did in fact consider “blood-for-oil” to be a straightforward deal.

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And what has always struck me about this proposition is how bizarre that kind of mercantilism is in a globalized world. After all, what is an “American” energy company anyway? These giants may be headquartered in the U.S. (where they get all sorts of sweet tax breaks), and their top management may be American — folks like T-Boone Pickens. A majority of their profits may end up in Americans’ accounts, but at the end of the day they’re multinationals owned by investors from around the world.

So, let’s look more closely at T-Boone’s premise that “we’re” entitled to Iraq’s oil because “we” paid a dear price in blood and treasure to “liberate” it.

Most Americans won’t gain a thing if Iraq’s oil is firmly in the hand of “American” oil companies– it’s a global energy market and whether a barrel of oil is controlled by Exxon or Lukoil doesn’t impact its price on that market. A relatively small number of Americans would benefit — Big Oil’s employees, shareholders and the employees and shareholders down its U.S.-based supply chain.

A relatively small number of Americans have paid a huge price in Iraq directly. Not just the 4,300 killed or 31,500 physically wounded, but the entire million-plus who have served there at one point or another.

So a small group would make (sometimes) huge gains if “we” had the loot, and another small group would have paid a huge direct price for those gains. But all of us who pay taxes are picking up a huge tab — a loss of national treasure that will be staggering by the time the last disabled vet is laid to rest decades from now.

And of course the ultimate price for the gains of T-Boone and his oil buddies will have been paid by the Iraqis — millions of them have been killed, internally displaced or sent fleeing to other countries to live as refugees and all of them continue to live under the weight of constant civil conflict.

That’s how the winners and losers shake out. And when you think about it that way Pickens’ whining is simply shameless.

H.E. Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki

President of the Sixty-fourth Session of the United Nations General Assembly

United Nations

New York, NY 10017

October 12th 2009

Your Excellency,

RE DEFORMED BABIES IN FALLUJAH

Young women in Fallujah in Iraq are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers and leukaemias. These deformities are now well documented, for example in television documentaries on SKY UK on September 1 2009, and on SKY UK June 2008. Our direct contact with doctors in Fallujah report that:

In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 new born babies, 24% of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75% of the dead babies were classified as deformed.

This can be compared with data from the month of August in 2002 where there were 530 new born babies of whom six were dead within the first seven days and only one birth defect was reported.

Doctors in Fallujah have specifically pointed out that not only are they witnessing unprecedented numbers of birth defects but premature births have also considerably increased after 2003. But what is more alarming is that doctors in Fallujah have said, “a significant number of babies that do survive begin to develop severe disabilities at a later stage”.

As one of a number of doctors, scientists and those with deep concern for Iraq, Dr Chris Burns-Cox, a British hospital physician, wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon. Clare Short, M.P. asking about this situation. She wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon.Douglas Alexander, M.P. the Secretary of State of the Department for International Development (a post she had held before she resigned on a matter of principle in May 2003 ) asking for clarification of the position of deformed children in Fallujah.

She received a reply dated 3rd September 2009 (two days after the Sky TV broadcast of 1st September 2009 ) from a junior minister, deputy to The Secretary of State, Mr. Gareth Thomas MP, Duty Minister, Department for International Development. In his reply he denies that there are more than two or three deformed babies in Fallujah in a year and asserts that there is, therefore, no problem. This is at wild variance with reports coming out of Fallujah. One grave digger of a single cemetery is burying four to five babies a day, most of which he says are deformed.

Clare Short passed us a copy of this letter. It bears a remarkable similarity to three other written answers we have received over a four year period, in regard to child health and the use of depleted uranium. All these letters are based on lies and an aim to confuse the recipients. In her autobiography “Honorable Deception?” Clare Short says “The first instinct of Number 10 (Downing Street) is to lie.”

We regard the mendacity of Mr. Thomas’s letter, and of the other letters we have received, as extremely serious. These letters do not deal with minor matters of corruption, or taxes, but do deal with the use of armed forces and deadly weapons.

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If, as we say in our letter to the Duty Minister of the Department for International Development, the UK Government clearly does not know the effects of the weapons it uses, nor, as a matter of policy, does “it do body counts”, how can the UK Government judge whether it is conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan according to International Law, especially in terms of “proportionality” and long term damage to the natural environment? How can the UK know about the illegality of the weapons systems it sells on the international market, such as the “Storm Shadow” missile, if the very Department of the Government that is supposed to assess the deaths and medical needs of children and adults in Iraq is not telling the truth.

We request from the United Nations General Assembly the following:

1. To acknowledge that there is a serious problem regarding the unprecedented number of birth defects and cancer cases in Iraq specifically in Fallujah, Basra, Baghdad and Al – Najaf.

2. To set up an independent committee to conduct a full investigation into the problem of the increased number of birth defects and cancers in Iraq.

3. To implement the cleaning up of toxic materials used by the occupying forces including Depleted Uranium, and White Phosphorus.

4. To prevent children and adults entering contaminated areas to minimize exposure to these hazards.

5. To investigate whether war crimes, or crimes against humanity, have been committed, and thereby uphold the United Nations Charter, The Geneva and Hague Conventions, and The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court.
Please find enclosed a copy of our letter to Mr Gareth Thomas, dated 12th October 2009, and his letter to The Rt Hon Clare Short, M.P. dated 3rd September 2009, and enclosures relating to this matter.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Nawal Majeed Al-Sammarai ( Iraq Minister of Women’s Affairs 2006 -2009)

Dr. David Halpin FRCS (Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeon)

Malak Hamdan M. Eng in Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering.

Dr Chris Burns-Cox MD FRCP

Dr. Haithem Alshaibani (Environmental Sciences)

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Author and Journalist)

Nicholas Wood MA, RIBA, FRGS
Enclosures to follow by surface mail:

1: Copy of Sky Television Documentary 1 September 2009 “The Deformed Babies of Fallujah”:

2: Copy of Sky Television Documentary June 2008 “The Deformed Babies of Fallujah”.

3: Frieder Wagners’s film “Deadly Desert Dust” 2006.

4: Report by doctors in Fallujah 4 March 2008 ” Prohibited Weapons Crisis”

5: Film the “Dying children of Iraq”,compiled by Nicholas Wood.

6: US Army briefing on the use of White Phosphorous in Fallujah on “Shake and Bake Missions”

7: Report “Who Can Forgive the Crime of using Depleted Uranium Against Iraq and Humanity” by Dr Haithem Alshaibani, September 2009 .

8: Written Answer by Mr Hilary Benn, Secretary of State, Department for International Development to Parliamentary Question. 10 March 2005.

9: Letter by Mr Hilary Benn, Secretary of State, Department for International Development to The Independent, 20 January 2007, in reply to the 98 Doctors’ letter to the Prime Minister.

10:Letter by Rt.Hon. Des Browne, M.P. UK Former Minister of Defence to Rt. Hon. Tony Benn, November 2008

11: Black Country Coroner’s District ( Sandwell, Dudley.and Walsall: ) Coroner’s Report into death of Stuart Raymond Dyson. 18 September 2009.

12: Calculations of expected child abnormalities in a city the size of Cardiff or Fallujah using UK statistics , David Halpin FRCS

Letter from Mr Gareth Thomas M.P. Duty Minister, Department for International Development, 3 September 2009 to Rt. Hon. Clare Short M.P.