Archive for March 2008
Russians, Saudis Expect U.S. Attack On Iran
Russians, Saudis Expect U.S. Attack On Iran
The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack on Iran.
If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If there were a shred of integrity left in American political life, perhaps a third act of naked aggression–a third war crime under the Nuremberg standard–by the Bush Regime could be prevented.
On March 30, the Russian News & Information Agency, Novosti, cited a high-ranking security source: “The latest military intelligence data point to heightened US military preparations for both an air and ground operation against Iran.”
According to Novosti, Russian Colonel General Leonid Ivashov said “that the Pentagon is planning to deliver a massive air strike on Iran’s military infrastructure in the near future.”
The chief of Russia’s general staff, Yuri Baluyevsky, said last November that Russia was beefing up its military in response to US aggression, but that the Russian military is not “obliged to defend the world from the evil Americans.”
On March 29, OpEdNews cited a report by the Saudi Arabian newspaper Okaz, which was picked up by the German news service, DPA. The Saudi newspaper reported on March 22, the day following Cheney’s visit with the kingdom’s rulers, that the Saudi Shura Council is preparing “national plans to deal with any sudden nuclear and radioactive hazards that may affect the kingdom following experts’ warnings of possible attacks on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactors.”
And Admiral William “there will be no attack on Iran on my watch” Fallon has been removed as US chief of Central Command, thus clearing the way for Cheney’s planned attack on Iran.
The Iranians don’t seem to believe it, despite the dispatch of US nuclear submarines and another aircraft carrier attack group to the Persian Gulf. To counter any Iranian missiles launched in response to an attack, the US is deploying anti-missile defenses to protect US bases and Saudi oil fields.
Two massive failures by the American media, the Democratic Party, and the American people have paved the way for Cheney’s long-planned attack on Iran. One failure is the lack of skepticism about the US government’s explanation of 9/11. The other failure is the Democrats’ refusal to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush for lying to the Congress, the American people, and the world and launching an invasion of Iraq based on deception and fabricated evidence.
If an American president can start a war exactly as Adolf Hitler did with pure lies and not be held accountable, he can get away with anything. And Bush and his evil regime have.
Hitler launched World War II with his invasion of Poland after staging a “Polish attack” on a German radio station. On the night of August 31, 1939, a group of Nazis disguised in Polish uniforms seized a radio station in Germany. Hitler announced that “last night Polish troops crossed the frontier and attacked Germany,” a claim no more true than the Bush Regime’s claim that “Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction.” Hitler’s lie failed, because his invasion of Poland, which began the next day allegedly in reprisal for the Polish attack, had obviously been planned for many months.
Iran is a beautiful and developed country. It is an ancient civilization. It has attacked no one. Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Iran is permitted by the treaty to have a nuclear energy program. The Bush Regime’s case against Iran is based on the Bush Regime’s desire to deny Iran its rights under the treaty.
The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have repeatedly reported that they have found no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Despite all the disinformation from US Gen. Petraeus and other Bush Regime military lackeys, Iran is not arming the Iraqis who are resisting the American occupation.
If Iran were arming insurgents, the insurgents would have two weapons that would neutralize the US advantage in the Iraqi conflict: missiles to knock down US helicopter gunships and rocket-propelled grenades that knock out American tanks. The insurgents do not have these weapons and must construct clumsy anti-tank weapons out of artillery shells. The insurgents are helpless against US air power and cannot mass forces to take on the American troops.
Indiscriminate American violence has reduced Iraq to rubble. The civilian infrastructure is essentially destroyed–electricity, water and sewer systems, medical care and schools. Depleted uranium is everywhere poisoning everyone, including US troops. There is no economy, and half or more of Iraqis are unemployed. Literally no Iraqi family has escaped an injury or a death as a consequence of the US invasion. Millions of Iraqis have become displaced persons. A developed country with a professional middle class has been destroyed because of lies told by the President and Vice President of the US. The Bush Regime’s lies are echoed by a neoconservative media, and have gone unchallenged by the opposition party and an indifferent American public.
In Afghanistan, death and destruction rains on even the smallest village from the air. America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wars against the civilian populations.
Just as the world could not believe Hitler’s next horror and thus was always unprepared, the Iranians despite all the evidence cannot believe that even the Great Satan would gratuitously attack Iran based on nothing but lies about non-existent nuclear weapons.
Iran’s only chance would be to strike before the US delivers the first blow. Instead of using its missiles to take out the Saudi oil fields and to sink the US aircraft carriers, instead of closing the Strait of Hormuz, instead of arming the Iraqi Shi’ites and moving them to insurgency, Iran is perched like a sitting duck in denial even as the US and its Iraqi puppet Maliki move to eliminate Al Sadr’s Iraqi Shi’ite militia in order to avoid supply disruptions and a Shi’ite rebellion in Iraq when the US attack on Iran comes.
It is important to emphasize that Iran is making no moves toward war. Having tamed, blackmailed, and purchased Congress, the US media, and US allies and puppets, Cheney might delight in the arrogance with which he can now attack Iran free of any restraint or fabricated provocation.
On the other hand, he might cover himself by orchestrating an “Iranian provocation” to justify his attack as a response. But like Hitler’s planned attack against Poland, Cheney’s attack on Iran has long been in the works.
On March 29 the Associated Press reported that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi “poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders” at the Arab summit that day. Gadhafi told the Arab “leaders,” many of whom are on the American payroll, that their American masters would turn on them all, just as America turned on Saddam Hussein after using him to fight a proxy war against Iran.
Saddam had once been an ally of Washington, Gadhafi reminded the Arabs, “but they sold him out.” Gadhafi told the American puppets, “Your turn is next.”
Gadhafi asked, “Where is the Arabs’ dignity, their future, their very existence?” If Arabs remain disunited, he predicted, “they will turn themselves into protectorates. They will be marginalized and turn into garbage dumps.”
Indeed, it is this disunity that permits the US to bomb and murder at will in the Middle East.
Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider’s Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.
‘Your turn is next,’ Gadhafi warns Arab leaders after US toppling of Saddam
‘Your turn is next,’ Gadhafi warns Arab leaders after US toppling of Saddam
DAMASCUS, Syria: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi poured contempt on fellow Arab leaders at a summit Saturday and warned that they might be overthrown like former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Gadhafi’s rambling, off-the-cuff speech to the opening of the Arab summit both bewildered and brought reluctant smiles to the faces of the other leaders.
The maverick Libyan’s litany of insults at Arabs and his undiplomatic railing at the disarray of Arab regimes have become almost a tradition at the annual gathering.
Dressed in lush purple and pink robes with a traditional Libyan cloak and cap, Gadhafi blasted Arab countries for doing nothing while the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 and overthrew Saddam.
“How can we accept that a foreign power comes to topple an Arab leader while we stand watching?” he said. He said Saddam had once been an ally of Washington, “but they sold him out.”
“Your turn is next,” Gadhafi told the leaders, some of whom looked stunned while others broke into laughter at his frankness. “Destruction will be yours.”
In recent years, Gadhafi has dramatically repaired ties with the United States — once his top enemy — by giving up his country’s weapons of mass destruction programs and paying compensation for the 1988 Pan Am bombing. Libya is hoping for a landmark visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, though one is still not set, and has stepped up economic ties to the West.
Still, that hasn’t stopped Gadhafi from denouncing U.S. domination of the world and criticizing other Arab countries for their closeness to Washington.
In his speech, Gadhafi slammed Arab disunity and inaction on the region’s multiple crises.
“Where is the Arabs’ dignity, their future, their very existence? Everything has disappeared,” he said. “Our blood and our language may be one, but there is nothing that can unite us”
“If they (Arabs) will not reorganize themselves, they will turn into protectorates. They will be marginalized and turn into garbage dumps,” he said.
Gadhafi also mocked a plan by the Arab League to start Arab cooperation on a joint nuclear program. “How can do we that? We hate each other, we wish ill of each other and our intelligence services conspire against each other. We are our own enemy.”
Gadhafi repeated his frequently made proposal that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict be settled by creating one democratic state where the two peoples live together, to be called Isratine.
He threw a compliment-cum-backhanded insult at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, praising him as the “hero of Oslo,” referring to the 1993 Oslo peace accords that created the Palestinian Authority, now headed by Abbas, but are derided by many Arabs for failing to bring a final peace.
Abbas scowled at the comment.
Gadhafi has angered other Arab leaders with his sharp remarks at past summits.
Last year, he boycotted the summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, but gave a televised speech saying “Liza” — referring to Rice — had dictated the gathering’s agenda.
In 2005, he told the summit in Algeria that Palestinians and Israelis are “stupid.” A year earlier, he sat smoking cigars on the conference floor of the Tunisia summit to show his contempt for the other leaders.
During a 2003 gathering, he traded insults with Saudi King Abdullah in the conference hall.
Is an International Financial Conspiracy Driving World Events?
Is an International Financial Conspiracy Driving World Events?by Richard C. Cook |
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Was Alan Greenspan really as dumb as he looks in creating the late housing bubble that threatens to bring the entire Western debt-based economy crashing down? Was something as easy to foresee as this really the trigger for a meltdown that could destroy the world’s financial system? Or was it done, perhaps, “accidentally on purpose”? And if so, why? Let’s turn to the U.S. personage that conspiracy theorists most often mention as being at the epicenter of whatever elite plan is reputed to exist. This would be David Rockefeller, the 92-year-old multibillionaire godfather of the world’s financial elite.
The lengthy Wikipedia article on Rockefeller provides the following version of a celebrated statement he allegedly made in an opening speech at the Bilderberg conference in Baden-Baden, Germany, in June 1991:
This speech was made 17 years ago. It came at the beginning in the U.S. of the Bill Clinton administration. Rockefeller speaks of an “us.” This “us,” he says, has been having meetings for almost 40 years. If you add the 17 years since he gave the speech it was 57 years ago—two full generations. Not only has “us” developed a “plan for the world,” but the attempt to “develop” the plan has evidently been successful, at least in Rockefeller’s mind. The ultimate goal of “us” is to create “the supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers.” This will lead, he says, toward a “world government which will never again know war.” Just as an intellectual exercise, let’s assume that David Rockefeller is as important and powerful a person as he seems to think he is. Let’s give the man some credit and assume that he and “us” have in fact succeeded to a degree. This would mean that the major decisions and events since Rockefeller gave the speech in 1991 have probably also been part of the plan or that they have at least represented its features and intent.
Therefore by examining these decisions and events we can determine whether in fact Rockefeller is being truthful in his assessment that the Utopia he has in mind is on its way or has at least come closer to being realized. In no particular order, some of these decisions and events are as follows: The implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations has led to the elimination of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs as well as the destruction of U.S. family farming in favor of global agribusiness. Similar free trade agreements, including those under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, have led to export of millions of additional manufacturing jobs to China and elsewhere. Average family income in the U.S. has steadily eroded while the share of the nation’s wealth held by the richest income brackets has soared. Some Wall Street hedge fund managers are making $1 billion a year while the number of homeless, including war veterans, pushes a million. The housing bubble has led to a huge inflation of real estate prices in the U.S. Millions of homes are falling into the hands of the bankers through foreclosure. The cost of land and rentals has further decimated family agriculture as well as small business. Rising property taxes based on inflated land assessments have forced millions of lower-and middle-income people and elderly out of their homes. The fact that bankers now control national monetary systems in their entirety, under laws where money is introduced only through lending at interest, has resulted in a massive debt pyramid that is teetering on collapse. This “monetarist” system was pioneered by Rockefeller-family funded economists at the University of Chicago. The rub is that when the pyramid comes down and everyone goes bankrupt the banks which have been creating money “out of thin air” will then be able to seize valuable assets for pennies on the dollar, as J.P. Morgan Chase is preparing to do with the businesses owned by Carlyle Capital. Meaningful regulation of the financial industry has been abandoned by government, and any politician that stands in the way, such as Eliot Spitzer, is destroyed. The total tax burden on Americans from federal, state, and local governments now exceeds forty percent of income and is rising. Today, with a recession starting, the Democratic-controlled Congress, while supporting the minuscule “stimulus” rebate, is hypocritically raising taxes further, even for middle-income earners. Back taxes, along with student loans, can no longer be eliminated by bankruptcy protection. Gasoline prices are soaring even as companies like Exxon-Mobil are recording record profits. Other commodity prices are going up steadily, including food prices, with some countries starting to experience near-famine conditions. 40 million people in America are officially classified as “food insecure.” Corporate control of water and mineral resources has removed much of what is available from the public commons, and the deregulation of energy production has led to huge increases in the costs of electricity in many areas. The destruction of family farming in the U.S. by NAFTA (along with family farming in Mexico and Canada) has been mirrored by policies toward other nations on the part of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Around the world, due to pressure from the “Washington consensus,” local food self-sufficiency has been replaced by raising of crops primarily for export. Migration off the land has fed the population of huge slums around the cities of underdeveloped countries. Since the 1980s the U.S. has been fighting wars throughout the world either directly or by proxy. The former Yugoslavia was dismembered by NATO. Under cover of 9/11 and by utilizing off-the-shelf plans, the U.S. is now engaged in the military conquest and permanent military occupation of the Middle East. A worldwide encirclement of Russia and China by U.S. and NATO forces is underway, and a new push to militarize space has begun. The Western powers are clearly preparing for at least the possibility of another world war. The expansion of the U.S. military empire abroad is mirrored by the creation of a totalitarian system of surveillance at home, whereby the activities of private citizens are spied upon and tracked by technology and systems which have been put into place under the heading of the “War on Terror.” Human microchip implants for tracking purposes are starting to be used. The military-industrial complex has become the nation’s largest and most successful industry with tens of thousands of planners engaged in devising new and better ways, both overt and covert, to destroy both foreign and domestic “enemies.” Meanwhile, the U.S. has the largest prison population of any country on earth. Plus everyday life for millions of people is a crushing burden of government, insurance, and financial fees, charges, and paperwork. And the simplest business transactions are burdened by rake-offs for legions of accountants, lawyers, bureaucrats, brokers, speculators, and middlemen. Finally, the deteriorating conditions of everyday life have given rise to an extraordinary level of stress-related disease, as well as epidemic alcohol and drug addiction. Governments themselves around the world engage in drug trafficking. Instead of working to lower stress levels, public policy is skewed in favor of an enormous prescription drug industry that grows rich off the declining level of health through treatment of symptoms rather than causes. Many of these heavily-advertised medications themselves have devastating side-effects. This list should at least give us enough to go on in order to ask a hard question. Assuming again that all these things are parts of the elitist plan which Mr. Rockefeller boasts to have been developing, isn’t it a little strange that the means which have been selected to achieve “peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity” involve so much violence, deception, oppression, exploitation, graft, and theft? In fact it looks to me as though “our plan for the world” is one that is based on genocide, world war, police control of populations, and seizure of the world’s resources by the financial elite and their puppet politicians and military forces. In particular, could there be a better way to accomplish all this than what appears to be a concentrated plan to remove from people everywhere in the world the ability to raise their own food? After all, genocide by starvation may be slow, but it is very effective. Especially when it can be blamed on “market forces.” And can it be that the “us” which is doing all these things, including the great David Rockefeller himself, are just criminals who have somehow taken over the seats of power? If so, they are criminals who have done everything they can to watch their backs and cover their tracks, including a chokehold over the educational system and the monopolistic mainstream media. One thing is certain: The voters of America have never knowingly agreed to any of this.
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| Richard C. Cook is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Richard C. Cook | |
Crise systémique globale- Fin 2008 : Déroute des fonds de pension
Crise systémique globale
- Fin 2008: Déroute des fonds de pension
Selon LEAP/E2020, d’ici la fin de 2008, nous allons assister à une formidable déroute de l’ensemble des fonds de pension de la planète, mettant en péril tout le système des retraites par capitalisation. Ce cataclysme financier aura une dimension humaine dramatique puisqu’il correspond à l’arrivée à la retraite de la première vague des baby-boomers aux Etats-Unis, en Europe et au Japon : les revenus des fonds de pension s’effondrent au moment même où ils doivent commencer à effectuer leur première grande série de versements aux retraités. Dans ce numéro 23 du GEAB, notre équipe anticipe l’évolution de cette prochaine crise des fonds de pension, précise les pays les plus touchés (notamment en Europe) et présente des recommandations opérationnelles et stratégiques pour y faire face.Parallèlement, dans ce GEAB N°23 LEAP/E2020 anticipe les prochains mois de cette crise systémique globale qui est désormais une évidence pour tous, s’attachant à anticiper les effets pervers des prêts de la Réserve fédérale américaine qui sont en train de fragiliser encore plus l’ensemble du système financier américain, et analysant les risques à venir qui pèsent sur les établissements bancaires aux Etats-Unis et dans certains pays européens particulièrement exposés. Parallèlement notre équipe analyse l’impact de la crise économique et financière US actuelle sur les probabilités et les conséquences d’une attaque de l’Iran par Israël et les Etats-Unis avant les prochaines élections présidentielles américaines.
En tout état de cause, avec l’annonce d’un plan de sauvetage d’urgence de la cinquième banque d’affaires US, Bear Stearns (1) (prélude à sa vente ou à sa mise en liquidation dans les prochaines semaines), on assiste bien à la faillite d’un grand établissement financier dès le premier trimestre 2008, comme anticipé par notre équipe dans le GEAB N°19 (2).
Simultanément, le Dollar US a repris sa chute libre par rapport à l’Euro, au Yen, au Yuan; l’or est à plus de 1.000 USD/once, le pétrole à plus de 110 USD/baril, les bourses mondiales en baisse de 20% en un trimestre, et la dernière tentative de stopper la crise financière avec le prêt de 200 Milliards USD aux banques par la Réserve fédérale américaine a déjà montré qu’il avait échoué … tous les fondements de l’ordre économico-financier de ces dernières décennies s’écroulent sous nos yeux, à un rythme de plus en plus rapide. Ce sont bien tous les signes d’une crise systémique (3).
La prise de conscience désormais généralisée que le monde fait face à une crise d’une ampleur et d’une nature nouvelles permet déjà à nos chercheurs d’affiner certaines de leurs anticipations. Ainsi, en ce qui concerne les devises, notre équipe a entrepris de revoir ses estimations sur la valeur du Dollar US par rapport aux trois autres monnaies mondiales stratégiques, à savoir l’Euro, le Yen et le Yuan. Ainsi, LEAP/E2020 estime désormais que le taux EURUSD atteindra 1,75 à la fin 2008 (au lieu de 1,70 comme l’avait anticipé notre équipe dès 2006) ; le taux USDYEN tombera à 90 et le taux USDYUAN à 6 (4).
Evolution du Dollar Index (panier de monnaies références (5)) au 14/03/2008 / Source FxStreet
Devant l’ampleur de la Très Grande Dépression US désormais en plein développement (6), LEAP/E2020 se félicite de constater que les autorités américaines, suite aux nombreuses protestations (7), ont finalement décidé de maintenir la parution synthétique des indicateurs économiques US sur le site EconomicIndicators.Gov. Dans une période aussi troublée, il est en effet important que l’information statistique sur l’économie des Etats-Unis reste aisément et largement disponible. Les finances d’une multitude d’acteurs privés et publics, individuels et collectifs en dépendent.Dans cette même logique, la Réserve fédérale d’Atlanta fait oeuvre utile en diffusant gratuitement un DVD intitulé « Se préparer à la crise : reconnecter son flux financier vital » (« Crisis Preparedness: Reconnecting the Financial Lifeline »), qui permet aux opérateurs de toute nature d’anticiper la crise, et donc de mieux s’y préparer (8). Dans la perspective de la phase d’effondrement de l’économie réelle aux Etats-Unis, prévue pour Septembre 2008 par LEAP/E2020 (9), ces conseils officiels prennent tout leur sens. Notamment, comme nous le soulignons depuis des mois, en cas de crise grave, « le liquide est roi » (« Cash becomes king » comme le répète ce DVD), et ce que la crise soit liée à un désastre naturel ou provoqué par les hommes comme l’illustre parfaitement le fait que les assureurs américains ont désormais perdus plus d’argent à cause de la crise des subprimes qu’à cause du cyclone Katrina, pourtant le pire désastre naturel de l’histoire des Etats-Unis (10).
Réserves propres des établissements de dépôts américains (1950 – 02/2008) / Source Réserve fédérale de Saint Louis
Pour finir, des courbes comme celle ci-dessus illustrent de manière frappante combien la situation est infiniment plus grave que ne peuvent même l’imaginer les dirigeants les plus intelligents (et ils sont peu nombreux). Elle montre à quel point le système financier américain, et derrière lui celui d’une grande partie de la planète, est atteint mortellement. Les banques US n’ont plus d’argent ; c’est aussi simple et dramatique que cela. La contagion va maintenant entrer dans une seconde étape de son développement et va donc bien générer une nouvelle série de faillites bancaires d’ici l’été, comme anticipé dans le GEAB N°20, entraînant la rupture du système financier mondial dans la seconde moitié de 2008.
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Notes:(1) Source : Reuters, 14/03/2008(2) Nous avions annoncé Février 2008 dans le GEAB N° 19, et c’est finalement le 14 Mars que cette première banque américaine aura fait défaut. Nous rappelons par ailleurs que désormais, selon notre anticipation de Novembre 2007, d’autres banques américaines, européennes et asiatiques vont suivre.
Notes:(1) Source : Reuters, 14/03/2008(2) Nous avions annoncé Février 2008 dans le GEAB N° 19, et c’est finalement le 14 Mars que cette première banque américaine aura fait défaut. Nous rappelons par ailleurs que désormais, selon notre anticipation de Novembre 2007, d’autres banques américaines, européennes et asiatiques vont suivre.
(3) D’ailleurs CNN/Money ne s’y trompe pas qui titre son dossier spécial : « Problème N°1 : L’argent de l’Amérique ». Source : CNN/Money. Car en effet, à la base, il s’agit bien de cela : l’évaporation pure et simple de milliers de milliards de dollars US accumulés de manière illusoire ces dernières années dans les comptes d’établissements financiers, d’entreprises, de particuliers et de gouvernement, à travers toute la planète. C’est ce qu’avait précisément notre équipe dans les premiers GEAB dès le début de l’année 2006.
(4) LEAP/E2020 souhaite souligner que si les Etats-Unis et Israël lancent une attaque sur l’Iran cette année, nos estimations, développées dans le GEAB N°23, sont encore plus négatives pour la valeur du Dollar US d’ici la fin 2008. Et concernant les rumeurs d’une action concertée des banques centrales pour mettre fin à la chute de la devise américaine, soyons clairs, elles n’ont aucun fondement : une telle action ne peut plus être mise en œuvre, les banques centrales ayant des intérêts désormais divergents du fait du découplage entre les grandes régions économiques mondiales, comme l’a anticipé LEAP/E2020 depuis plusieurs mois. L’effondrement du Dollar US se nourrit de l’entrée en récession de l’économie américaine et d’une dévaluation connexe d’environ 50% par rapport aux autres grandes devises.
(5) Monnaies du Dollar Index : Euro, Yen, Dollar Canadien, Livre britannique, Franc suisse et Couronne suédoise. Si le Yuan chinois était intégré à cet index sa chute serait encore plus forte.
(6) Il y a même désormais des sites web qui se spécialisent sur le sujet, par exemple Depression2.TV dont le sous-titre est éloquent : « Survivre à la Seconde Grande Dépression ».
(7) Extrait du communiqué posté sur le site EconomicIndicators.Gov : « … l’ESA (Economics and Statistics Administration) avait initialement prévu de cesser le service (de publication des indicateurs) pour des raisons budgétaires, mais face aux réactions reçues par l’ESA, la décision a été prise de continuer le site … ».
(8) Source : Banking Information, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta (pour commander le DVD auprès de la Fed d’Atlanta, voici le lien direct ici)
(9) Voir GEAB N°22
(10) Source : Bloomberg, 14/03/2008
Chinese exporters shun flagging dollar
Chinese exporters shun flagging dollar
By Robin Kwong in Hong Kong
Rising numbers of Chinese exporters are shunning the US dollar or devising ways to offset the impact of the falling currency as they confront rising labour and raw material costs at home.
According to Alibaba.com, the online company that matches Chinese suppliers with international buyers, the vast majority of their almost 700,000 Chinese suppliers no longer use dollars to settle non-US transactions to minimise foreign exchange risk.
“They are moving to euros, pounds, Australian dollars or even quoting prices in renminbi,” David Wei, chief executive, told the Financial Times. Moreover, he added, prices quoted in dollars were now often valid for just seven days compared with the 30-60 days common previously.
The dollar has long been the currency of choice for Chinese and other exporters around the world. However, the impact of its recent weakening has led exporters to begin questioning its place as the de facto world currency.
The renminbi, which western governments have long alleged is undervalued, thus giving Chinese exporters an unfair advantage, has appreciated 6.7 per cent against the US dollar in the past six months. Economists expect it to rise 10-15 per cent against the dollar in 2008.
Quanzhou Leething Garment & Knitting, a Chinese men’s underwear factory, said it had started encouraging clients to pay in euros instead of dollars in November. While the Chinese currency has appreciated against its US counterpart in recent months, it has moved little against the euro.
Other companies have taken more unusual approaches, such as setting their own exchange rates and therefore in effect raising prices.
Xiao Zheng, chairman of Dongguan City Shima Toys in southern China, said its price quotations were valid for three months but were calculated based on an exchange rate of Rmb6.6 to the dollar.
With the official exchange rate at Rmb7.01 to the dollar on Thursday, this in effect raised prices 5.8 per cent.
“We are thinking about renewing our quotations every other month and we are also going to offer quotations in euros very soon,” said Mr Xiao.
William Fung, managing director of Li & Fung, a global supply chain company, said international buyers would have to accept higher export prices from China, especially for goods such as toys that are largely made only in the country.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aac6859e-fc35-11dc-9229-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
UK/US backed attack on Basra aims to break popular and trade union resistance
UK/US backed attack on Basra aims
to break popular and trade union resistance
28.03.2008
In a series of telephone calls from Basra over the past 48 hours, Iraqi trade union activists appeal for solidarity and describe how the so-called ‘Security Plan’ started midnight 24 March with intense shelling and fire from all kind of weapons.
The attacking forces now besieging Basra stretched all the way to the city from Dhi Qar province. Two armoured divisions are deployed, in addition to thousands of policemen, backed by US and British planning and air cover.
They have cut off electricity supplies, food and water on the city of 1.5 million people. Hundreds have been killed or injured in a savage, premeditated and unprovoked attack, now spreading to much of Iraq as the people protest and show solidarity with Basra’s beleaguered people.
They describe the attack as far worse than the invasion of 2003 and begun in the same barbaric manner that the criminal Saddam employed against Basra to crush the March 1991 people’s uprising. They remind us that the present puppet Iraqi government sentenced Saddam’s Defence Minister to death few months ago for similar crimes of waging war on civilians.
The assault is backed by the US and British occupation forces, particularly in providing air cover. US planes are also bombarding areas in the Basra, several southern cities and Baghdad, where tens of thousands marched yesterday denouncing the “puppet regime”. It is now, along with many other cities, under a strict curfew enforced by regime and occupation forces.
Trade union leaders have asked us to inform the public in Britain that the government’s attack on Basra serves the occupation. The city is “steadfast” and the onslaught will end in “utter failure.” The city streets were free of the occupying forces before the assault and the regime’s attacks will make it even more dependent on the occupation forces, they stressed.
Naftana, the UK support committee for the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions in the struggle for democratic trade unionism in Iraq, condemns British collusion in the preparation of the assault on Basra city and British participation in air strikes.
Naftana urges all to join in calling for an immediate withdrawal of British forces from Iraq, ending the US-led occupation, and for the payment of reparations to Iraq.
In the absence of adequate media coverage of the nature and context of this savage onslaught, Naftana wants to set the record straight on UK involvement.
In December 2007, the Basra Development Commission (BDC) was formally announced after discussions between Gordon Browne and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih. (1) Browne appointed a British businessman, Michael Wareing, Chief Executive of KPMG International as “Commissioner”, apparently heading the BDC. (2) Wareing visited Basra in February and made outrageous comments, confirming his real interests to be those of predatory business rather than the security, development and well-being
of Basra and its people.
Wareing told The Observer: “If you look at many other economies in the world, particularly the oil-rich economies, many of these places are quite challenging countries in which to do business. … Frankly, if you can successfully operate in the Niger Delta, that is a very different benchmark from imagining that Basra needs to be like London or Paris.” (3)
Wareing’s appointment was welcomed by Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a major advocate of the 2003 invasion and of privatisation. On March 13 the British Defence Minister Des Browne met with Salih in Basra Airport.
Browne promised to show new action on ‘security’ in Basra province and to bring Umm Qasr port up to ‘the highest international standards’. (4) What this meant was made clear by Salih who threatened the Governor, people of Basra and port workers’ union of Umm Qasr saying ‘there must be a very strong military presence in Basra to eradicate these militias’. (5)
What Salih, himself a former militia leader, was concerned about were organised port workers who had earlier confronted the American SSA Marine corporation in Umm Qasr and the Danish Maersk corporation in Khor az-Zubair in the two years after these companies were imposed by the occupying forces in 2003. (6)
The new plans involve privatisation measures opposed by the port workers, who are supported by other trade unions and port management. It is likely that the planned corporate takeover of the port is required in order to facilitate the activities of international oil companies.
Nevertheless, the scale of what was afoot was not apparent, but the link between military action and breaking trade unionism was. On March 17-18 the US Vice-President Dick Cheney was in Baghdad meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who presently heads the attack on Basra city. (7) Top of the agenda was the oil law (8) and how to insure its passage. The oil law means that international oil majors will control Iraqi oil for many decades.
Various reports reveal that the present carnage was coordinated and agreed with British and American leaders. Naftana believes they commanded it.
Why? The tide of national public opinion has turned against long-term troop deployment in both the UK and the USA. If the war was fought for oil and total domination of Iraq, then those most closely associated to those interests must speed up their plans. The present onslaught aims to break popular resistance, especially from the Sadrist movement, to the passage of the oil law and to the occupation itself.
Beyond that, with local elections looming next autumn, it aims to destroy morally and physically the popular base which would otherwise be set to drive, first from local
power, and subsequently from national power, the US/UK allies, Nouri al-Maliki (al-Dawa party), his main allies in the Supreme Islamic Council, led by Abdulaziz al-Hakim, and the Kurdish leaders, Talbani and Barzani.
Naftana calls on all who support democratic trade unionism to stand by the people of Iraq, with the port workers of Umm Qasr and the oil workers of Southern Iraq, with workers in Baghdad and many other cities who are in danger of physical elimination.
Naftana For further information on Naftana and IFOU:
Sabah Jawad – 07985 336886 sabah.jawad@googlemail.com
Kamil Mahdi – k.a.mahdi@exeter.ac.uk
Sami Ramadani – 07863 138748 sami.ramadani@londonmet.ac.uk
Notes for editors: Naftana (‘Our Oil’ in Arabic) is an independent UK-based committee supporting democratic trade unionism in Iraq. It works in solidarity with the IFOU. It strives to publicise the union’s struggle for Iraqi social and economic rights and its stand against the privatisation of Iraqi oil demanded by the occupying powers. For more
information see the IFOU’s website:
(6) Since 2003 the first shortened its name to SSA Marine. See on Umm
Qasr:
Qasr:
and on Khor az-Zubair http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13196
(8) http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080317082409.1u8it4sf&show_article=1
Homepage: http://www.basraoilunion.org
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/03/394961.html?c=on#c192181
Air Force officer disciplined for saying Bush allowed September 11 attacks
Air Force officer disciplined for saying
Bush allowed September 11 attacks
By: WSWS
on: 28.03.2008
A US Air Force officer in California recently accused President Bush of deliberately allowing the September 11 terror attacks to take place. The officer has been relieved of his command and faces further discipline. The controversy surrounding Lt. Col. Steve Butler’s letter to the editor, in which he affirmed that Bush did nothing to warn the American people because he “needed this war on terrorism,” received scant coverage in the media.
Universally ignored by the press, however, was that the officer was not merely expressing a personal opinion. He was in a position to have direct knowledge of contacts between the US military and some of the hijackers in the period before the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.
Lieutenant Colonel Butler, who wrote in a letter to the editor of the Monterey County Herald charging that “Bush knew about the impending attacks,” was vice chancellor for student affairs at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California—a US military facility that one or more of the hijackers reportedly attended during the 1990s.
In his May 26 letter to the newspaper, Butler responded to Bush supporters, who had written the paper opposing the congressional investigation into the September 11 events. He wrote:
“Of course President Bush knew about the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. His daddy had Saddam and he needed Osama. His presidency was going nowhere. He wasn’t elected by the American people, but placed in the Oval Office by a conservative supreme court. The economy was sliding into the usual Republican pits and he needed something on which to hang his presidency…. This guy is a joke. What is sleazy and contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain.”
The letter provoked immediate retaliation against the 24-year Air Force veteran. Butler was transferred from the Monterey installation and threatened with court martial under Article 88 of the military code, which prohibits officers from publicly using “contemptuous words” against the president and other officials.
Last week the Air Force announced it had concluded its investigation of the case and suggested Butler would likely face “nonjudicial punishment,” such as a fine or a letter of reprimand, rather than a stiffer sentence. If he refuses this punishment, however, Butler, who is ready to retire, could still face a court martial.
The issue is a particularly sensitive one for the Pentagon and the Bush administration. While many people believe that the Bush administration viewed September 11 as a priceless opportunity to implement an ultra-reactionary program of militarism and repression, Butler is different. His military assignment brought him into contact with at least one of the alleged hijackers.
Shortly after September 11, several US news outlets reported that Saeed Alghamdi—named as taking part in the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in western Pennsylvania—had taken courses at the Defense Language Institute, the US military’s primary foreign language facility, where Butler was a leading officer overseeing students (essentially, dean of students).
Alghamdi, a 41-year-old Saudi national, was one of several alleged hijackers, including accused ringleader Mohamed Atta, who reportedly trained at US military facilities, according to a series of articles published between September 15 and 17 in the Washington Post, Newsweek magazine, the New York Times and several other newspapers.
On September 15, Newsweek reported: “U.S. military sources have given the FBI information that suggests five of the alleged hijackers of the planes used in Tuesday’s terror attacks received training at secure U.S. military installations in the 1990s.”
The magazine said that Saeed Alghamdi was among three who had taken flight training at the Navy Air Station in Pensacola, Florida—known as the “cradle of US Navy aviation”—which also administers training of foreign aviation students for the Navy. The magazine, citing “a high-ranking Pentagon official” as its source, reported that two others—both former Saudi air force pilots who had come to the US—also attended such facilities. One received tactical training at the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama and the other language training at the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
Over the next few days, more detailed information appeared in several other newspapers. A September 16 article in the New York Times reported: “Three of the men identified as the hijackers in the attacks on Tuesday have the same names as alumni of American military schools, the authorities said today. The men were identified as Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz al-Omari and Saeed al-Ghamdi.
“The Defense Department said Mr. Atta had gone to the International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama; Mr. al-Omari to the Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas; and Mr. al-Ghamdi to the Defense Language Institute at the Presidio in Monterey, Calif.”
The Knight Ridder news service also reported that Saeed Alghamdi had been to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey and the Associated Press cited Air Force sources indicating that more than one of the hijackers may have received language training at the installation.
The media dropped the story after the Air Force officials issued a cursory statement aimed at preventing any further inquiry into links between the US military and the terrorists. While acknowledging that some of the suspected terrorists “had similar names to foreign alumni of U.S. military courses,” the statement said discrepancies in biographical information, such as birth dates and name spellings, “indicate we are probably not talking about the same people.” Without providing any substantiation, the statement suggested the hijackers may have stolen the identities of foreign military personnel who received training at the bases.
Following this less than convincing explanation, the Air Force refused to release the ages, countries of origin or any other information about the individuals whose names matched those of the alleged hijackers—making it virtually impossible to verify the claim that these were not the same individuals.
Attorney General John Ashcroft and the FBI also refused to make public any information. Asked by Florida Senator Bill Nelson whether any of the hijackers were trained at the Pensacola base, the Justice Department refused to give a definitive answer, and the FBI said it could not respond until it could “sort through something complicated and difficult,” according to the senator’s representative.
To receive such training, the hijackers would have had connections to Arab governments that enjoyed close relations with the US government. A former Navy pilot at the Pensacola air station told Newsweek that during his years on the base, “We always, always, always trained other countries’ pilots. When I was there two decades ago, it was Iranians. The Shah was in power. Whoever the country du jour is, that’s whose pilots we train.”
Military officials acknowledged that the US has a longstanding agreement with Saudi Arabia to train pilots for the kingdom’s national guard. Candidates receive air combat training and other courses on several Army and Navy bases, in a program paid for by Saudi Arabia. Significantly 15 of the 19 hijackers were believed to be Saudi nationals.
According to its web site, the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey—founded in 1946 as the Military Intelligence Service Language School—“provides foreign language services to Department of Defense, government agencies and foreign governments” to support “national security interests and global operational needs.”
As vice chancellor for student affairs, Butler had extensive contact with students, according to Pete Randazzo, a close associate of the officer and president of the National Association of Government Employees Local 1690, which represents civilian employees at the language school.
“He would go and have lunch with the students, sit in their classrooms. He was a very caring officer over there,” Randazzo told the Herald. Butler was also navigator of a B-52 bomber during the Persian Gulf War, which made it likely he was familiar with Saudi military operations, given the close relations between the US and Saudi Arabia during the 1990-91 war against Iraq.
In the 1990s, several officers were disciplined under Article 88 of the military code for publicly denouncing Clinton, including an Air Force general who went so far as to ridicule the president as a “gay-loving, pot-smoking, draft-dodging womanizer” in front of 250 people at an awards banquet.
With Butler’s comments, however, the Pentagon faces a more delicate problem. The Lieutenant Colonel may well know considerably more than he is saying about US military-intelligence apparatus involvement in the September 11 events, and, on the eve of his retirement, took the opportunity to set the record straight.
See Also:
September 11 cover-up crumbles: Who was covering for Moussaoui, and why?
[29 May 2002]
Cover-up and conspiracy: The Bush administration and September 11
[18 May 2002]
Was the US government alerted to September 11 attack?
[16 January 2002]
“Return to Iraq”: Rageh Omarr, Al Jazeera… MUST SEE!!!
”Return to Iraq”:
Rageh Omarr, Al Jazeera…
MUST SEE!!!
Much has changed since Rageh was last in Baghdad
“The Witness” is presented as five youtube videos:
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Part 4:
Witness presenter Rageh Omaar returned to Iraq five years after reporting on the US-led invasion. He found much had changed and, as ordinary Iraqis told him, rarely for the better.The extraordinary account of his journey can be seen on Al Jazeera.”In 2003 I was a fresh-faced young correspondent, full of ambition and fear. For me this return was as much a personal quest as it was a professional assignment.
My six years of reporting in Iraq from 1997 onwards left me with a lasting affection for Iraqis and their country.
I returned because I wanted to know what happened to the colleagues I worked with – the ordinary Iraqis I met back then.
My first stop was the Palestine hotel, where I filed my first reports as US soldiers approached Baghdad advancing alongside the Tigris river and where my friend Taras Prostuk was killed.
Today, that hotel, home to many reporters before the war, is deserted and much of the capital is unrecognisable from the friendly place I could once freely wander around.
Baghdad’s Green Zone was once Saddam’s seat of power. Now it is the base for the new Iraqi government.
Covering nearly six square miles, ringed by concrete walls and checkpoints, it is protected by thousands of private security guards.
The new security measures mean it is now almost impossible to leave the area unaccompanied.
It is frustrating that I could not meet some of my Iraqi friends. They could not come and see me from the neighbouring Red Zone because they did not have special passes.
Today Baghdad is far more dangerous. There are only a few places we can film outside the car and even those areas feel strangely empty because so many residents have fled.
‘Vivid pictures’
Walls and razor wire are everywhere. They are not only here to keep insurgents and coalition troops apart but also to separate Sunnis from Shias.
In Saddam’s day, religious and tribal differences were suppressed under his dictatorship.
In post-war Iraq, sectarian loyalties and divisions have fuelled violence between warring groups vying for power.
And for many Iraqis the last five years have seemed like a lifetime.
Their individual stories paint a vivid picture of what the US-led invasion, occupation and sectarian violence has done to their country.
One such example is that of Kadhim Al-Jubouri. He had been a weightlifter, representing Iraq at a national level but fell out with Saddam Hussein’s sons over a business deal. He was sentenced to nine years in Abu Ghraib prison as a result.
Revenge came on April 9, 2003 when he famously began assaulting the towering statue of Saddam Hussein in Firdos Square with a hammer.
Hundreds joined him in his demolition job on the statue before it toppled, symbolising the Iraqis’ rage against decades of dictatorship and their relief that it was over.
Mixed feelings
However, Kadhim says that his relief has now turned to regret.
Five years have seemed like a
lifetime for many Iraqis
“When we had elections and the government started taking shape, the militias started killing everyone,” he says. “Things got worse and I began to change my mind.
“It was far worse than the two previous years of occupation. While I believe Saddam was a tyrant, a killer, a criminal, he did give us security, and there were opportunities for business and work. Now I don’t know whether to feel happy or sad.”
Kadhim is not the only one to feel let down by how things have turned out.
From the Iraqi journalists and minders I worked with, to my friends who are now living as refugees in Jordan and Syria, to the widow and family of Tareq Ayoub, the Al Jazeera journalist killed by US forces in Baghdad, all express disappointment at the last five years and see the US military as occupiers rather than liberators.
Some, however, still believe the invasion was for the best.
Mowiffek Al Rubaie was a neurologist but after returning from exile to take up public office he is Iraq’s national security adviser.
He attended the execution of Saddam Hussein, an event that many Iraqis say was closer to a killing by a sectarian lynch mob than a calm and measured enforcement of a death sentence passed by an Iraqi court of law.
Although al-Rubaie says mistakes were made on that day he maintains it was the right decision and that it was a historic development that brought a new chapter to the country.
But his optimism is very much the exception rather than the rule in modern day Iraq.
I also met Mohammed Said al Sahaff during my trip, the former information minister dubbed “Comical Ali” by the Western media. Everything he said was laughed at by westerners at the start of the war.
But now he is having the last laugh as everything he said has turned out to be true – and everything Blair and Bush said on Iraq has turned out to be laughable.”
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C182F818-9E25-4078-8293-422F3E83ABF6.htm
Dick Cheney gave the orders for Basra campaign-Bush hails Iraq militia crackdown
Dick Cheney gave the orders for Basra campaign
-Bush hails Iraq militia crackdown-
Maliki’s government busy trying to save face by issuing a dead line for Mahdi fighters, but the reality is another way around it is Al-Sadr asks AL-Maliki to leave the city, Maliki was saved by the American helicopters when the fighters surrounded his resident in Basra, Al-Qabas reported about the main problem faced the government in this bad presentation that forced Maliki to use his relatives with extra forces came from Karbala:
Members of army and the police did not carry out the military orders many of them deliberately went back to their homes with lack of desire to fight this battle and the complicated tribal links among the forces and militants, but there also Mahdi Army’s experience factor in urban, guerrilla war.
Notice what Nazar Hatim wrote to the same newspaper:
For the media it is the government forces against Mahdi Army, but the reality is more complicated than this, there are the oil smuggle mafia and even “Heaven Soldiers” group, all these groups use AL-Sadr as a cover for their operations.
At the end of his report he mentions the 17 soldiers arrested yesterday but he don’t says their nationality, are they the same American soldiers reported yesterday
Zuhair Al-Dujaili take a preview on the government performance for the few last months:
The bumpy political process, Maliki-government tendency to beautify its performance for the last two years, hiding the real problems and using fake media report manipulating facts, the reality is now exploding in form of political and security crises, for the time being the government can use military forces to solve some of these crises but not enough to extinguish the fires that erupt around.
Cheney’s orders
For Al-Arab newspaper sources tell about Dick Cheney gave the green light to start Basra campaign against Mahdi Army in his visit to Baghdad see this, what do you think they are talking about? …growing flowers?, and the goal is to give the Iraqi forces more confidence in itself to carry on the security responsibilities in the south of Iraq.
American commander of South-Iraq discussed with high rank marines officers; how to involve southern Iraq militias such as Mahdi Army, Ali bin Abi Talib Brigades and Al-Taf Brigades in a final battle.
The topic had been raised during Dick Cheney recent visit to Iraq, where he agreed on the subject, considered it important by the end of George Bush presidential term.
_____________________________________________________________
Bush hails Iraq militia crackdown
‘No retreat’
“We have made up our minds to enter this battle and we will continue until the end. No retreat,” Mr Maliki said in a speech broadcast on Iraqi state television.
The prime minister has personally overseen the operation in Basra, which involves some 30,000 troops and police.
But Mehdi Army fighters loyal to radical Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr remain in control of some densely-populated areas.
Speaking at a US Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio, Mr Bush said “normalcy” was returning to Iraq.
“As we speak Iraqis are waging a tough battle against militia fighters and criminals in Basra, many of whom have received arms and training and funding from Iran,” he said.
Mr Maliki’s move against Basra’s militias underlined “his leadership and his commitment to enforce the law in an even-handed manner”, the US president added.
Rising violence
He spoke as one of several Americans injured this week in rocket attacks on Baghdad’s Green Zone died, amid fresh missiles attacks on the fortified area.
Meanwhile, one of Iraq’s two main oil export pipelines from Basra was blown up in a bomb attack, sending oil prices above $107 a barrel.
And Basra’s police chief survived a bomb attack that killed three of his bodyguards.
With many shops and markets shut, residents in the city said they were beginning to run out of food and water.
In Baghdad, thousands of Sadr supporters marched to demand Mr Maliki quit over the Basra operation and there was sporadic fighting in Shia areas of the capital.
In other developments:
- The FBI said it had recovered the bodies of two US security contractors kidnapped in Iraq in 2006
- A prominent Sunni civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, Tahseen Sheikhly, was kidnapped by gunmen
- Dozens died in clashes between the security forces and militias in the southern city of Kut
- Clashes have also been reported in the towns of Hilla and Diwaniya, as well as the Shia holy city of Kerbala
The number of gunfights in southern Iraq appears to be growing, says the BBC’s Crispin Thorold in Baghdad.
The fighting still seems to be mainly with members of the Mehdi Army, our correspondent says.
The militia had held to a ceasefire since last August, contributing to the general fall in violence across Iraq.
The government says it aims to re-impose law and order in Basra, which the British military handed over to Iraqi forces in December.
However, Moqtada Sadr’s supporters say the government wants to weaken the militias before local elections in October.
At stake, analysts say, is control of Iraq’s only port city and the region’s oil fields.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/middle_east/7317123.stm
Thursday: 225 Iraqis, 1 US Soldier, 3 US Contractors Killed; 538 Iraqis Wounded-WASHINGTON – Muqtada Sadr cuts free
Thursday: 225 Iraqis, 1 US Soldier,
3 US Contractors Killed;
538 Iraqis Wounded
-Muqtada Sadr cuts free-
Although the fighting continues in Basra, followers of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad instead took to the streets in mostly peaceful protests. The cleric himself has asked for peace talks, but the prime minister is refusing. At least 225 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 538 more were wounded in various incidents across Iraq. Also, the FBI is in possession of three new bodies belonging to kidnapped American contractors, and an American soldier was killed this afternoon by an IED explosion in Baghdad.
Ten of thousands of al-Sadr followers protested peacefully in Baghdad. They are demanding an end to the U.S.-backed Iraqi government headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was once championed by al-Sadr, and to his crackdown against the Mahdi Army. The prime minister has said that he will see the crackdown through to the end, even though the Sadrists are asking for peace talks. The demonstrations were held in predominantly Shi’ite neighborhoods, in particular the Sadr City suburb, which was named for al-Sadr’s father. Some analysts believe the crackdown is actually meant to politically cripple the cleric. The Mahdi Army was observing a unilateral cease-fire at the time of the crackdown.
Meanwhile, the casualty totals from the Mahdi Army clashes in Baghdad has risen to 30 people dead and 200 more wounded, upping yesterday’s figures by 16 dead and 60 wounded. Many of the wounded are women and children caught in the crossfire. Four soldiers were wounded during an armed attack in Sadr City. U.S. forces killed two suspects who were launching indirect attacks, and another 24 suspects were killed in and around Baghdad. Also, a spokesperson for the Baghdad Security Plan was kidnapped from his home in the al-Amin neighborhood.
In more violence, three people were killed and 15 more were wounded during a mortar attack on a bus terminal in Karaj Alawy. Two people were wounded by mortar fire in Batawin. Mortars falling on a prison left one dead and four injured. In Ur, one person was killed and two were injured during mortar shelling. A car bomb near a Red Crescent office left no casualties. No casualties were reported as a Dawa Party office in Shabb was set on fire. Three people were injured during separate shelling in Karada. Also, five dumped bodies were recovered.
As many as 29 people were killed and another 39 more were wounded during an air attack by U.S. forces in Hilla. Some unconfirmed reports have placed the number of dead at sixty. In street clashes as many as 30 have been wounded, including women and children.
In Basra, the casualty figures were upped by 60 dead and 300 injured to a total of 100 people killed and 500 others wounded over the last three days. Reports out the city today mention heavy mortar fire and more armed attacks. Last night, a roadside bomb killed three bodyguards working for the city’s police chief. Also, some of the police casualties are being treated in Baghdad.
The totals so far in Kut have been 49 people killed and 75 more injured, adding 31 dead and 63 wounded since yesterday’s preliminary reports.
Four Iraqi soldiers were killed in Daquq when gunmen attacked their checkpoint.
Gunmen attacked an army patrol in near Nasariya in al-Rifai, killing two Iraqi soldiers.
In Kirkuk, a car bomb killed two Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers and wounded six others, including two civilians. These may have been in two separate events.
A roadside bomb killed four policemen and wounded four more in Mahaweel.
Four bodies were found near Balad Ruz.
Outside Muqdadiyah, police have found a mass grave containing 37 bodies. The age of the grave was not given, but it could date from the Saddam era. Mass graves from that period and quite a few recent ones dot the Diyala province.
Also, a main oil pipeline outside Basra was bombed.
Clashes with the Mahdi Army left three policemen dead in Hamza. Another officer was wounded along with two Iraqi soldiers.
In Diwaniya, one gunmen was killed and a policeman was wounded in an operation that netted eight suspects.
Security forces arrested 48 in Karbala.
A roadside bomb in al-Kafl left three policemen dead and another four wounded.
A bomb in Fallujah was defused.
In Amara, a Badr party office was attacked with rocket propelled grenades. A resident of a neighboring structure was injured. Two people were killed and seven wounded in the crossfire during clashes at the Yugoslave Brigde.
In Samarra, al-Qaeda connected gunmen killed a father and son, who were members of the Sons of Iraq organization. A woman and a child were also injured.
Eight Iraqi soldiers were wounded during clashes in Talbiyah. A father and son were killed in a drive-by shooting.
A mortar in Baiji killed a woman and injured five civilians including a woman. A roadside bomb killed an Iraqi soldier.
A roadside bomb in Khanaquin injured two civilians.
The district office in Khan Bani Saad was attacked but no casualties were reported.
Power plants throughout southern and central Iraq were attacked and left inoperative.
http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=12591
_______________________________________________________________
Muqtada cuts free
By: Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON – The escalation of fighting between Mahdi Army militiamen and their Shi’ite rivals, which could mark the end of Muqtada al-Sadr’s self-imposed ceasefire, also exposes General David Petraeus’ strategy for controlling Muqtada’s forces as a failure.
Petraeus reacted immediately to Sunday’s rocket attacks on the Green Zone by blaming them on Iran. He told the BBC the rockets were “Iranian provided, Iranian-made rockets”, and that they were launched by groups that were funded and trained by the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Petraeus said this was “in complete violation of promises made by President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts”.
Petraeus statement was clearly intended to divert attention from a development that threatens one of the two main pillars of the administration’s claim of progress in Iraq – the willingness of Muqtada to restrain the Mahdi Army, even in the face of systematic raids on its leadership by the US military and its Iraqi allies.
The rocket attacks appear to have been one of several actions by the Mahdi Army to warn the United States and the Iraqi government to halt their systematic raids aimed at driving the Sadrists out of key Shi’ite centers in the south. They were followed almost immediately by Mahdi Army clashes with rival Shi’ite militiamen in Basra, Sadr City and Kut and a call for a nationwide general strike to demand the release of Sadrist detainees.
Even more pointed was a strong warning from Muqtada aide Abdul-Hadi al-Mohammedawi to the United States as well as to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), whose Badr Organization militiamen, in the uniforms of Iraqi security forces, have targeted the Madhi Army throughout the south. “They don’t seem to realize that the Sadrist trend is like a volcano,” he told worshippers Friday in Kufa. “If it explodes, it will crush their rotten heads.”
The signs that the Madhi Army will no longer remain passive mark a major defeat for the US military command’s strategy aimed at weakening the Mahdi Army.
When he took command in Iraq in early 2007, Petraeus recognized that the US occupation forces could not afford to wage a full-fledged campaign against the Mahdi Army as a whole. Instead it adopted a strategy of dividing the Sadrist movement.
Petraeus and the ground commander in Iraq, Lieutenant General Ray Odierno, hoped that there were leaders in the Sadrist movement who would be willing to give up further military resistance and accept the US occupation and the existing government.
For months, the command tried to generate a “dialogue” with “moderates” in the Sadrist camp. It issued a series of statements hailing Muqtada’s willingness to change the purpose of his movement. Most recently, on January 17, Odierno said, “I believe he is trying to move forward with more of a religious organization and get away from a militia type-supported organization.” But he admitted, “That could change.”
Meanwhile, Petraeus targeted selected elements of the Mahdi Army in raids in Sadr City and the Shi’ite south, portraying its targets as “criminals” and “rogue elements” which had broken away from Muqtada and were armed, trained and financed by Iran. Odierno suggested in his January 17 press briefing that such renegade groups were causing “the majority of the violence”.
But the “moderate” Sadrists who would be willing to make a deal with the US never materialized. Last July, a US commander in Baghdad claimed that Sadrist representatives had initiated “indirect” talks with the US military. But in January, Odierno would say only that they had been meeting with “local leaders” in Sadr City, not with representatives of the Sadrist movement.
The Mahdi Army’s blunt warnings of military countermeasures followed months of raids against Muqtada’s political-military organization by both US forces and the Badr Organization. According to a senior Sadrist parliamentarian, between 2,000 and 2,500 Mahdi Army militiamen had been detained since Muqtada declared a ceasefire last August.
The raids have been aimed at weakening the Madhi Army’s political hold on Shi’ite cities in anticipation of eventual provincial elections.
During 2007 there were signs of strong support for Muqtada in Najaf, Basra and Karbala, as Sudarsan Raghavan reported in the Washington Post last December. In Najaf, portraits of Muqtada and his father, grand ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq Sadr, who was assassinated by Saddam Hussein’s security forces in 1999, had “mushroomed defiantly in the streets”.
Muqtada’s image had also been “pervasive” in Karbala, according to Raghavan, until security forces loyal to the ISCI arrested more than 400 of Muqtada’s followers in an obvious effort to destroy its organization in the city.
For months Muqtada had refrained from authorizing a full-fledged response to such attacks on his forces. But on Tuesday an officer at Muqtada’s headquarters in Najaf said the Mahdi Army should be prepared to “strike the occupiers” as well as the Badr Organization.
Revealing the contradictions built into the US position in Iraq, even as it was blaming Iran for the alleged renegade units of the Mahdi Army, the US was using the Badr Organization, the military arm of the ISCI, to carry out raids against the Mahdi Army. The Badr Organization and the ISCI had always been and remained the most pro-Iranian political-military forces in Iraq, having been established, trained and funded by the IRGC from Shi’ite exiles in Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.
It was the ISCI leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim who had invited two IRGC officers to be his guests in December 2006, apparently to discuss military assistance to the Badr Organization. The Iranian officials were seized in the home of Hadi al-Ameri, the leader of the Badr Organization and detained by the US military. The George W Bush administration continued throughout 2007 to cite those Iranian visitors as evidence of the IRGC’s illicit intervention in Iraq.
But the Badr Organization had become the indispensable element of the Iraqi government’s security forces, who could be counted on to oppose the Mahdi Army in the south. And in a further ironic twist, it was the leaders of the ISCI and of the Nuri al-Maliki government, which depended on Iranian support, who insisted last summer and autumn that the US should credit Iran with having prevailed on Muqtada to agree to a ceasefire. The close collaboration of the US command with these pro-Iranian groups against Muqtada appears to be the main reason for the State Department’s endorsement of that argument last December.
The Petraeus assertion that the rocket attacks on the Green Zone were Iranian-inspired strongly implied that Iran is still providing arms to Shi’ite militias. However, Odierno told a press briefing in mid-January, “We are not sure if they’re still importing sic weapons into Iraq.”
That admission came only after many months in which US officers in the border provinces were unable to find any evidence of arms coming across the border from Iran.
Those officers also found no trace of the alleged presence of the IRGC personnel in Iraq. Last November, the French weekly news magazine Le Point quoted Major Scott A Pettigrew, the military intelligence chief in Diyala province on the Iranian border, as saying, “I have never seen any activity or presence of the Quds Force. I see nothing here that resembles a proxy war with Iran.”
