[A-List] Iraq: America Can Lose War At Home And Abroad

[Rick Rozoff <r_rozoff@xxxxxxxxx>]

1) Explosions Rock Najaf As US Forces Attack Militia
2) Nothing Sacred: US Tanks Pour Into Revered Najaf
Cemetery
3) Najaf: Holiest Shiite Shrine Damaged In Fighting
4) Fear Of Backlash As US Troops Assault Shiite Shrine
Cities, Cemeteries
5) Leading Mexican Parties Oppose Deployment Of Troops
To Iraq
6) Pro-Western Middle Eastern Nations Demand End Of US
Occupation Of Iraq
7) Iraq: Two Turks Shot Dead, Four Injured In Another
Attack
8) Freed Iraqi Prisoners Tell Of Abuse
9) Egyptian Views: Rape Of An Entire Nation
10) Analysis: America Can Lose The Iraq War At Home




1)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1108710.htm

Agence France-Presse
May 14, 2004

Explosions rock Najaf as US battles militia


A series of loud explosions has rocked the southern
edge of the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Najaf, hours
after fighting broke out between US troops and
militiamen in the city's vast cemetery.

The explosions came from an area where US forces and
radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al Sadr's Mehdi army
militia are facing off, south of the sacred Imam Ali
mausoleum.

The explosions were heard shortly before Friday
prayers at Najaf, one of Shiite Islam's holiest
cities.

Shooting was also heard from the southern and western
entrances to the city and hospital sources said seven
people, including an Afghan pilgrim, had been wounded.

Earlier, at least three US tanks were seen in a
cemetery about one kilometre from the shrine,
north-west of the city centre, and US helicopters
hovered over the area.

Armed black-clad men veiled with scarves were seen
running inside the sprawling cemetery and fanning out
across the area.

Heavy black smoke was seen rising from the cemetery
and the sound of heavy guns was heard.

In the area to the south, known as Bahr al-Najaf,
about 2,500 US soldiers are camped in the desert.

Sadr's fighters have dug in with heavy weapons on a
hill overlooking Bahr, about 100 metres south of the
shrine.

Their military command post is also in this area right
behind the shrine.

The fighting comes one day after Najaf's new police
chief Ghaleb al-Jazairi accused militiamen of
"terrorising" residents and asked them to leave.
-----------------------------------------------------
2)
http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=812677&PageNum=1

Itar-Tass (Russia)
May 14, 2004

US tanks shoot at Iraqi gunmen positions at Iraq?s
Najaf cemetery



CAIRO - A gun-battle took place between the supporters
of the Mahdi Army under the command of the radical
Imam Moqtada al-Sadr and U.S. military servicemen in
the holy Shiite city of Najaf on Friday.

According to reports from the scene, U.S. tanks have
been moved in the territory of an ancient local
cemetery and are firing at the positions of gunmen
hiding there.

The operations undertaken by the American military in
sacred Shiite towns, in particular, Najaf and Kerbela
are causing sharply negative response in the Arab and
entire Muslim world.

Friday?s clashes are taking place at the vast
cemetery, one of the biggest in the world, which
houses numerous Shiite Muslim shrines.
------------------------------------------------------
3)
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=alXy_v5KCsZQ&refer=top_world_news

Associated Press
May 14, 2004

Najaf Fighting Damages Shiite Muslim Imam Ali Shrine,
AP Says


(Bloomberg) - The Imam Ali shrine in Najaf, Shiya
Islam's holiest site, was damaged in fighting today
between U.S. forces and fighters loyal to Shiite
cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the Associated Press reported.


Four holes, about 12 inches (30 centimeters) by eight,
are visible on the shrine's dome, AP cited one of
reporters as saying. They appeared to have been caused
by machinegun fire, it said.

It wasn't clear which side was responsible, AP said.
U.S. troops have sought to avoid damaging holy sites
in Najaf and other cities, AP said.

U.S. troops are fighting an insurgency in southern
Iraq led by al-Sadr, who is holed up in Najaf. The
U.S. has accused him and his supporters of using
mosques as a base and to stock weapons. Najaf is the
burial place of the prophet Mohammed's son- in-law
Ali, whom Shiites regard as his successor. The city
draws pilgrims from inside and outside Iraq.
------------------------------------------------------
4)
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/

The Herald (Scotland)
May 14, 2004

Fears of backlash as troops battle with al Sadr
fighters
HAMZA HENDAWI


Kerbala - US forces were yesterday locked in ferocious
battles with Iraqi militiamen near two shrines in
Kerbala, the Imam Abbas and Imam Hussein, which is one
of the most sacred sites for Shi'ite Muslims.
Heavy explosions were heard in another Shi'ite holy
city, Najaf, where militiamen loyal to the radical
cleric, Moqtada al Sadr, are also facing American
troops.
Roadside bombs killed a US marine in the Falluja area
yesterday and a soldier in Baghdad on Wednesday.
Another marine died on Wednesday of wounds suffered
during a clash in the Anbar province on the same day.
In Kerbala, al Sadr's fighters regrouped in alleys
north of the Imam Hussein shrine. Smoke drifted over
the gold-domed shrine, apparently from a nearby power
generator that had been set on fire.
American forces were concerned that any damage to the
two shrines could enrage Iraq's majority Shi'ite
population as the US tries to stabilise Iraq ahead of
the transition to sovereignty on June 30.
Residents said the fighting left many homes destroyed
and shops gutted by fire. Many families fled as groups
of militiamen moved about in the side streets.
US tanks, helicopters and jets had attacked al Sadr's
fighters in Kerbala on Wednesday, partially destroying
a mosque that insurgents had used as a base, and
killed 22 militants.
Hospital officials in Najaf said four people were
killed and six injured in overnight fighting between
American forces and al Sadr supporters.
The US-led coalition has issued an arrest warrant
against al Sadr over the murder of a rival cleric.
Iraqi leaders in Najaf have proposed that al Sadr
would end the standoff if the coalition postpones its
legal case and establishes an Iraqi force to patrol
the city.
Al Sadr, himself remains defiant. He urged his
fighters to resist and compared their struggle to the
Vietnam War.
At a shrine in Najaf, where he is holed up, he said:
"I appeal to the fighters and mujahideen in Kerbala to
stand together so none of our holy sites and cities
are defiled. We are prepared for any American
escalation and we expect one."
------------------------------------------------------
5)
http://www.vnagency.com.vn/NewsA.asp?LANGUAGE_ID=2&CATEGORY_ID=34&NEWS_ID=99136

Vietnam News Agency
May 14, 2004

Mexican parties oppose government's intention of
sending troops to Iraq


Mexico - Mexican senators from the Revolutionary
Institution Party, the Party of Democratic Revolution,
the Green Environmental Party and the National Action
Party have raised their voices to protest the
government's intention to send troops to Iraq.

They said that Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez's
May 11 declaration to send Mexican soldiers to Iraq is
improper and adventurous.

Minister Derbez said at a press briefing during his
recent visit to Spain that the Mexican Government
would consider sending troops to Iraq.

He stressed Mexico's willingness to join the
reconstruction of Iraq by providing assistance in
health care, property inventory and overseeing
elections.

Mexico ranks ninth among donors to the UN's
peace-keeping forces in Iraq.
------------------------------------------------------
6)
http://english.eastday.com/epublish/gb/paper1/1267/class000100003/hwz194438.htm

Xinhua News Agency (China)
May 14, 2004

Neighboring countries call for end of US occupation in
Iraq


Parliamentary speakers from countries neighboring Iraq
have called for an end to the occupation in the
war-torn country and a wider UN role in restoring the
sovereignty to it, local newspaper Jordan Times
reported on its website on Thursday.

The speakers made the call during their meeting in
Amman, in which all delegates agreed that consensus
among different Iraqi groups and factions should be
reached before the country embarks on a true
rebuilding process including political reform and free
elections.

Parliamentary speakers from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, Turkey and Jordan as well as
representatives of Arab and international
parliamentary unions took part in the two-day meeting.

Participants continued their discussions, as the the
meeting came into its second day on Thursday, on the
current situation in Iraq, the support of the
international community towards achieving security and
constitutional process in Iraq.

"Achieving stability, freedom and prosperity for the
Iraqi people will not happen without a truly
representative political system based on national
unity and consensus," said Saleh Ben Hamid, president
of Saudi Arabia's Al Shura Council.

Ross Mountain, special representative of the United
Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said there was
an urgent need to restore stability and security in
Iraq but the prevailing conditions make it difficult
to work on the ground.

He underlined the UN role in helping Iraqis establish
an intermediate government after the handover of
sovereignty on June 30, referring to the work
undertaken by the international body to prepare for
elections in January 2005.

Meanwhile, delegates approved an initial draft
statement on the Iraqi issue. The official document is
expected to be released at the conclusion of the
meeting later Thursday, according to the website.
-------------------------------------------------------
7)
http://www.turkishdailynews.com/FrTDN/latest/for.htm#f6

Turkish Daily News
May 14, 2004

Two Turks shot dead in Iraq



ANKARA  - Two Turks working for a Turkish construction
company operating in Iraq were killed on Wednesday in
Mousul while a U.S. general revealed that four Turkish
drivers were injured in Sunday's attack targeting a
Turkish convoy.

The two Turks died after attackers opened fire on
their car as they were going to the city center from
the construction site. One of the killed was Suayip
Kaptanli who was working as a translator on a project
for the modernization of Mousul Airport by Yuksel
Construction Company. The other Turk was his driver.

No reports have been made on the cause of the attack.

Meanwhile, U.S. General Mark Kimmit said in a
statement on Sunday's attack on a Turkish convoy that
four Turkish drivers were injured.

The drivers of the trucks owned by a Turkish
contractor company were traveling from Syria to
Baghdad, said Kimmit, adding seven vehicles of the
convoy were damaged and another eight were stolen.

According to Kimmit, the trucks which were carrying
prefabricated houses, were attacked near the province
of Rutba, 360 kilometers from Baghdad.
------------------------------------------------------
8)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1108785.htm

Agence France-Presse
May 14, 2004

Freed Iraqi prisoners tell of abuse


Prisoners freed from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison today
have complained US guards tortured them, including by
hanging them from walls by their hands and making them
carry heavy loads.

US forces have begun to release hundreds of prisoners
Abu Ghraib, the jail at the centre of an abuse
scandal.

The first busload of 315 prisoners were released
today.

Abu Mustafa, 24, said he was arrested 10 months ago by
US forces who accused him of being a leader of a
terrorist group.

"They kept me in solitary confinement for six days,"
he said. "They hung me by my hands from the wall for
five hours.

"One day when I was in the hospital, a soldier came in
and asked if I was a Muslim and then started having
sex with another soldier right in front of me."

Mohammed Zadian, 45, who said he was detained for four
months, said he was also hung from a wall by his hands
for hours while he was "asked to confess that I
attacked the American forces".

He added: "I saw them attach electric wires to the
tongue and the genitals of my cousin. They also used
to give me a box of food and made me carry it around
for six hours without putting it down."

Mohammed Khazal Al-Moussawi, 31, who was held for
eight months, said he went into the prison weighing
117 kilograms and came out more than 30 kilograms
lighter.

"One of the soldiers told the prisoners that if it was
in his hands, he would kill all the Iraqis," he said.

The allegations could not be independently verified.

Another 315 prisoners are due to be released from Abu
Ghraib next week.
------------------------------------------------------
9)
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/Iraq/0,6119,2-10-1460_1526657,00.html

News 24 (South Africa)
May 14, 2004

'Rape of an entire nation'


Cairo - Arabs and Muslims are still reeling from the
sexual - and often pornographic - nature of the abuses
at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, commentators said on
Thursday.

The pictures were often taken in front of smiling
troops, including women. In one notorious image,
Private Lynndie England, a cigarette dangling from her
lips, points to men's genitals.

In another she holds a leash with an Iraqi prisoner on
the other end.

The images, first broadcast on US television and
repeatedly shown on Arabic satellite channels and
published in the region's press, have so far led to
charges against seven US soldiers.

However, there is growing suspicion they may have
acted at least with the acquiescence of superiors to
"soften up" prisoners before questioning, knowing the
shame of nudity and sex would put huge psychological
pressure on them.

Islamic extremists also apparently used the abuses as
an excuse to behead a young American, in video footage
which has shocked the world.

Egyptian novelist Ezzat el-Qamhawi said US soldiers
arrived in Iraq "with the orientalist vision of a
sensual Orient before sliding into sadism."

"This orientalist concept of the Arab world is
dominant (in the West). It's not the first time the
humanity of Arabs is violated in this way by the
Americans under the guise" of orientalism, he said.

President is lying

But when "the American president tells us that the
behaviour of these soldiers does not represent
American values, he is lying," Qamhawi said.

"Since the extermination of the Indians, American
society has been founded on violence," he said.

Sherine Abu En-Naga, a professor of English literature
at Cairo University, confessed she was very disturbed
by the parade of "indignant images."

"This scandal doesn't only have to do with physical
and moral torture, with humiliation. That observation
is banal," she said.

"But the fact is that these images reveal a moral
decay, on the part of the American authors of these
terrible infamies, but also by Arabs, who are content
to condemn them, nothing else," she said.

"This series of images lays bare the pretensions of
the United States to instil us with values they
present themselves as the guardian of."

When asked about the images, Muchira Mussa, a
journalist with the government's Al Ahram daily is
blunt: "What I saw is deplorable."

"The people who did this are sub-human, they pretend
to initiate us into democracy, but they showed us the
exact opposite.

"I felt more than disgust. I was terrified thinking
they were raping not just men and women, but an entire
nation," he said.

However, high school teacher Manal Mahmoud said he did
not believe the Americans, "used to using bodies of
men and women, especially in advertising, knew they
were breaking a taboo."

"Unveiling bodies in our countries is worse than
torture, it's decadence. There is more than a gulf
between American morals and our own," he said.
------------------------------------------------------
10)
http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=4311922&startrow=11&date=2004-05-14&do_alert=0


Russian Information Agency (Novosti)
May 14, 2004

AMERICA CAN LOSE THE IRAQI WAR AT HOME
Vladimir Simonov



MOSCOW - This had happened in Vietnam. The US
expeditionary war in the Vietnamese jungle showed that
a war can be lost not on the battlefield but on the
so-called home front. At that time, the anti-war wave
in the USA became a crucial factor that forced
Washington to think about ways of recalling the troops
without excessive moral outlays.

It appears that the history is repeating itself.
President Bush has officially announced the end of the
Iraqi war on May 1, 2003. But the US troops have lost
454 men and officers there since then and 60% of the
polled Americans say the war had been launched in
vain. Unless the security situation in Iraq improves
radically and quickly, the Pentagon strategists may
have to ponder partial or even full withdrawal from
the conquered but not defeated country.

They may be forced to do this not only by the fury of
armed resistance in Iraq, but also by the growing
rejection of the war in America.

The Congress is sitting on the time bomb of boxes with
new photo and video testimony of abuse in the Abu
Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons. Should it make these
documents public or classify them, at least for some
time?

In the latter case, the information would certainly
leak to the press and television anyway, compounding
the current atmosphere of permanent disgust and shame
in America.

But nobody knows what would happen if the horrible
information is presented to the US public and the
international community in toto. The world has been
shaken by the death of Nick Berg, the American
contractor who was captured and beheaded by an Islamic
group, which in this way wanted to take revenge on the
USA for the abuse and torture of the Iraqi detainees.

The medieval barbarity of the execution was
highlighted by its presentation in the Internet. Just
imagine what tornado of cruelty would hit the planet
if the Internet showed in colour each of the 8,000
deaths of Iraqi men, women and children killed by the
coalition troops, beheaded and torn into bits by
American bombs. Most of them were as peaceful and
innocent as Nick Berg was.

And what if the net also showed videotapes of tortures
of Iraqi detainees?

The interesting thing is that such pictures would
hardly shock many theoreticians and executors of the
military operation in Iraq. In their opinion, which
expresses the essence of the Iraqi war, the life of a
white missionary who brings the good to the aborigines
is invaluable, while the life of the aborigine is not
worth the air he breathes.

A good example is the video dairy of an American woman
who served in two prison camps in Iraq, shown by CBS
on Wednesday. There are no torture on the video; the
woman simply chatters merrily about the detainees
dying like flies. "We've already had two prisoners
die, but who cares? That's two less for me to worry
about."

The US administration is being dangerously careless in
underestimating the scale of the Americans' shock from
these revelations and colour postcards from Iraqi
prisons.

Something really unexpected and serious is happening.
Instead of positively influencing Iraq and the Middle
East as a whole by bringing Western norms of
democracy, justice and freedom, the Iraqi war has had
an adverse effect on the US troops, the Pentagon
generals and US top quarters by distorting their
notions of morals and human rights.

As a result, prominent US political scientists think
the prison scandal may blow up President Bush's hopes
for re-election. A relevant example is the recent poll
held by the Pew Centre for the People and the Press.
Immediately after the people learned about the
tortures and abuse of Iraqi detainees by US troops,
the president's rating plummeted to record low 44%,
while the popularity of his adversary, Senator John
Kerry (Dem.) is stable at 50%.

The position of the incumbent president is assessed as
"apparently vulnerable." George Bush badly needs a
positive change in the Iraqi situation, but the hopes
for it are dying as the Abu Ghraib scandal is flaring
up.

The US reputation in Iraq has changed dramatically.
The liberator country has turned into an occupier and
quickly slid to the role of a prison warden and
executioner who tortures the people he had promised to
liberate.

In this situation, plans of turning power in Iraq over
to a transition government by June 30 sound
irrational. No matter how hard the UN special envoy
Lakhdar Brakhimi may try to choose technocrats for
this government, the Iraqis will all the same view
them as US puppets. And now that the USA is associated
with the woman warden, Lynndie R. England, who led an
Iraqi detainee around on a dog leash, this label will
deprive the transition cabinet members of all
legitimacy and turn them into targets for Iraqi
avengers.

I cannot imagine how a US general would command
multinational forces into which the coalition forces
would be transformed after June 30.

In a word, the Abu Ghraib scandal has pushed the
scheme of restoring the political structures of Iraq
into a grey, shifting zone. And Washington seems to be
aware of this. No wonder that this week National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has been speedily
sent for consultations to Moscow and Berlin, the
capitals that are energetically discussing the idea of
convening an international conference on Iraq.

Meanwhile, the US occupation troops are trying to
avoid direct involvement in hostilities in such hot
spots as Falluja and to transfer their peacekeeping
functions there to Iraqis commanded by the generals
trained under Saddam Hussein. They are even pondering
the use of the troops of the rebel imam al-Sadr in
Najaf. The US administration in Iraq has hinted that
this formula of "Iraqisation" may be spread to other
cities of the country.

It is not clear if this form of "Iraqisation" will
succeed, as defeatist sentiments have reached the top
US army quarters. A perfect example is the opinion of
Army Col. Paul Hughes, who last year was the first
director of strategic planning for the US occupation
authority in Baghdad and whose brother died in
Vietnam: "Here I am, 30 years later, thinking we will
win every fight and lose the war, because we don't
understand the war we are in."










	
		
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