Little Brother Forum

by Jitendra Joshi/AFP/October 7, 2007

The United States appears to be illegally torturing terror suspects contrary to denials by President George W. Bush, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday.

The country’s highest ranking Democrat also said that she still hoped to get most US troops out of Iraq by the end of 2008, despite the party’s repeated failure to win over enough Republicans in Congress to an exit strategy. (more…)

By SAMEER N. YACOUB/October 7, 2007

BAGHDAD (AP) - An official Iraqi investigation into a deadly shooting involving Blackwater USA security guards raised the number of Iraqis killed to 17 and found the gunfire was unwarranted, the government said Sunday. It also said the shootings amounted to a deliberate crime and recommended those involved face trial.

The Blackwater guards are accused of opening fire on Iraqi civilians in a main square in Baghdad on Sept. 16. They claimed they came under fire first.

The Iraqi investigative committee, which was ordered by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, found that convoys from the Moyock, N.C.-based security company did not come under direct or indirect fire before the men shot up the intersection. (more…)

Sinan Salaheddin, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Oct 04, 2007

BAGHDAD - Iraq’s self-governing Kurdish region has finalized a handful of new oil deals, further straining relations with Baghdad, which wants to centralize control of the country’s oil resources.

A spokesman for Iraq’s Oil Ministry, Assem Jihad, denounced the agreements, saying the government has “made it clear not to sign any contract until the new oil law is passed.”

In a statement issued Wednesday on its website, the Kurdistan Regional Government said it had approved four new production sharing contracts with international companies and had sanctioned the construction of two new refineries. (more…)

AFP/October 2, 2008

The United States, under fire for not taking in more Iraqis displaced by the war, plans to admit 12,000 refugees from the strife-torn country before October 1, 2008, a US official said Tuesday.

“Our plans for FY (fiscal year) 2008 include processing enough Iraqi refugees to admit 12,000 during the fiscal year,” which began Monday, the US official said on condition of anonymity.

The official’s comments came as US President George W. Bush told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in an official memorandum that the United States looked to welcome a maximum of 80,000 refugees over the next 12 months.

As of September 19, when it named a special coordinator for Iraqi refugees to help break the bureaucratic red tape that has held back thousands from entering the country, the US government had admitted about 900, well short of the target number of 7,000, according to official US figures. (more…)

AFX News Limited/rigzone.com/September/28/2007

A US official today criticised an oil deal between Texas-based Hunt Oil Company and Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), saying it had “needlessly elevated tensions” in Iraq.

Hunt had been advised by the US State Department not to sign the deal before the Iraqi parliament passed a national oil bill that will share out the country’s lucrative oil revenues, but it went ahead anyway, a US embassy official in Baghdad told reporters. (more…)

USNews.com/Political Bulletin/October 1, 2007

In a nearly 5,000-word article, the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh reports that “in a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran.” US officials “cautioned, in interviews, that the President has yet to issue the ‘execute order’ that would be required for a military operation inside Iran,” but “there has been a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning.”

On CNN’s Late Edition, Hersh said, “Instead of trying to sell…the notion of a massive bombing against the infrastructure…they’re now decided they’re going to hit the Iranians, payback for hitting us. They’re going to hit the Revolutionary Guard headquarters and facilities. They’re going to tone down the bombing. They’re going to shift it. It’s going to be more surgical. It’s going to be much more limited.” (more…)

By JEFF DONN and KIMBERLY HEFLING/AP/September 30, 2007

TEMECULA, Calif. - He was one of America’s first defenders on Sept. 11, 2001, a Marine who pulled burned bodies from the ruins of the Pentagon. He saw more horrors in Kuwait and Iraq.

Today, he can’t keep a job, pay his bills, or chase thoughts of suicide from his tortured brain. In a few weeks, he may lose his house, too.

Gamal Awad, the American son of a Sudanese immigrant, exemplifies an emerging group of war veterans: the economic casualties.

More than in past wars, many wounded troops are coming home alive from the Middle East. That’s a triumph for military medicine. But they often return hobbled by prolonged physical and mental injuries from homemade bombs and the unremitting anxiety of fighting a hidden enemy along blurred battle lines. Treatment, recovery and retraining often can’t be assured quickly or cheaply. (more…)

Joel Simon, Committee to Protect Journalists, Sep 28, 2007

The Committee to Protect Journalists sent the following letter to 14 bipartisan cosponsors of the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act, expressing support for the legislation, which calls for increased US responsiveness to the refugee crisis in the region. This legislation addresses many of the dire needs of Iraqi journalists targeted for their work for media outlets based or funded by the United States.

Dear Senators Kennedy and Smith,

I am writing to you as executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists to express our concern for the safety of Iraqi journalists and others who now may find themselves imperiled for having helped U.S.-based and U.S.-backed media organizations report the news from Iraq. We would therefore like to express our support for the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act Senate Amendment #2872 to H.R. 1585 Department of Defense Authorization, which you recently co-sponsored. CPJ is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, dedicated to defending press freedom worldwide and the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.

We have watched with alarm Iraq’s emergence in the last four years as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. At least 112 journalists and another 40 media support workers have been killed there since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003, making Iraq the deadliest nation, by far, for the press throughout CPJ’s 26 years of monitoring press freedom.

Among those most targeted have been Iraqi journalists affiliated with Western media, particularly U.S.-based news groups, and those working for government-backed media. For example, 12 journalists and 10 other staff members working for the Iraq Media Network, which has received funding from the U.S. government, have been killed since 2003. About 85 percent of the journalists and media workers killed have been Iraqis, and insurgent actions are responsible for the majority of media deaths. (more…)

Paul von Zielbauer/New York Times/September 28, 2007

Camp Liberty, Iraq - An Army sniper is taught to kill people “calmly and deliberately,” even when they pose no immediate danger to him. “A sniper,” Army Field Manual 23-10 goes on to state, “must not be susceptible to emotions such as anxiety or remorse.”

But in a crowded military courtroom seemingly stunned into silence on Thursday, Sgt. Evan Vela all but broke down as he described firing two bullets into an unarmed Iraqi man his unit arrested last May.

In anguished, eloquent sentences, Sergeant Vela, a member of an elite sniper scout platoon with the First Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment, quietly described how his squad leader, Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley, cut off the man’s handcuffs, wrestled him to his feet and ordered Sergeant Vela, standing a few feet away, to fire the 9-millimeter service pistol into the detainee’s head.

“I heard the word ‘Shoot,’” Sergeant Vela recalled. “I don’t remember pulling the trigger,” he said. “I just came through and the guy was dead, and it just took me a second to realize the shot had come from the pistol.”

Then, Sergeant Vela said, as the man, a suspected insurgent, convulsed on the ground, Sergeant Hensley kicked him in the throat and told Sergeant Vela to shoot him again. Sergeant Vela, who is not on trial but faces murder charges in connection with the killing, said he fired a second time.

His testimony on Thursday, in the court-martial of Specialist Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., another sniper who is accused of murder, provided a glimpse into the dark moments of a platoon exhausted, emotionally and physically, by days-long missions in the region south of Baghdad that soldiers call the “triangle of death.” In their testimony, Sergeant Vela and other soldiers described how their teams were pushed beyond limits by battalion commanders eager to raise their kill ratio against a ruthless enemy. (more…)

Military faces big hurdles in goals for mental health care

Gregg Zoroya/USA TODAY/September 28, 2007

The Pentagon said it would take at least eight months to complete major improvements to its mental health program, which treats troops with post-traumatic stress disorder and other conditions.

The military made the announcement this week in response to a task force report issued in June that found mental health care for the troops and their families “woefully inadequate.”

The Pentagon said that key issues such as hiring more mental health caregivers and increasing coverage under the military’s health care system, could not be met until May of next year or later. (more…)