Posts Tagged ‘Iraq’
Monday, April 26th, 2010
Matthew Campbell; 26/4/10
U.S. helicopter allegedly fires on unarmed reporters – A US soldier who took part in an attack in which 12 people, including a Reuters journalist, were killed and two children injured has written an emotional apology to the victims’ families in Iraq. Ethan McCord is seen carrying the children to safety in a Pentagon video of the attack in a Baghdad suburb three years ago. The film was released on the internet this month by WikiLeaks, the website dedicated to publishing secret documents. “The acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war,” writes Mr McCord in an apology, which is also signed by Josh Stieber, another former soldier from the same unit. “We humbly ask you what we can do to begin to repair the damage we caused.” The release of the 38-minute video embarrassed the Pentagon and prompted indignation at the spectacle of soldiers from Bravo Company killing with the seeming detachment of video gamers.
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Tags: Iraq, Terrorism, USA
Posted in Human Rights, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Sunday, April 18th, 2010
Alicia Wood; 18/4/10
Ahmed Shab Aldoury has no one left. His parents were killed in a bomb blast that levelled his Baghdad house when he was 15 and he has been on the run ever since. Two weeks ago, Ahmed, 19, was detained in Villawood Detention Centre after travelling through Syria, Malaysia, Indonesia and Christmas Island. He became one of 40 Iraqis who held a week-long hunger strike after their applications for asylum were rejected by the Immigration Department. In 2008, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, ruled that Ahmed was a genuine refugee, and he was granted legal refugee status in Jakarta. Now he is urging the Australian government to allow him to stay. ”If they send me back to Iraq, they send me dead,” he told The Sun-Herald last week… He said he would have preferred to arrive in Australia legally but, after waiting two years in Indonesia, he met many legal refugees who had been waiting more than nine years to be resettled in Australia.
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Tags: Australia, Indonesia, Iraq, Migrants & Refugees
Posted in Australia, Human Rights, Iraq, Refugee & Migrant, USA | No Comments »
Friday, February 26th, 2010
26/2/10
Private American security guards working for the US military in Afghanistan removed hundreds of handguns and automatic weapons from stores intended for the exclusive use of the Afghan police and used them on drunken rampages that killed two Afghan civilians and injured at least two more. The guards included a former US marine with a criminal record of assault and a former soldier discharged from the US army after testing positive for cocaine, congress heard yesterday. Justin Cannon, Christopher Drotleff and a guard using the name “Eric Cartman” from the cartoon South Park were employees of a subsidiary of the Blackwater Worldwide group, implicated in a litany of extrajudicial shootings since 2003 in Afghanistan and Iraq. Cannon and Drotleff have been charged with killing two Afghans and injuring a third last May when they opened fire on a car carrying four civilians in Kabul, while under the influence of alcohol. The men, hired to train Afghan soldiers, had no permission to carry guns.
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Tags: Afghanistan, Iraq, Mercenaries, USA
Posted in Afghanistan, Aid / Trade, Human Rights, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
22/2/10
The buried antiquities of Ur, the biblical birthplace of Abraham and one of the cradles of civilisation, could outshine those of ancient Egypt, archeologists believe. With Iraq ravaged by war and strife since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, Baghdad’s struggling government has had greater priorities than funding large-scale digs at Ur, where only small teams have been working since 2005. “When the (large-scale) excavations restart, tonnes of antiquities will see the light of day, filling entire museum wings,” enthused Dhaif Moussin, who is in charge of protecting a site that has been prone to looting. “This site will become perhaps more important than Giza,” he added, referring to the plateau outside the Egyptian capital of Cairo where some of mankind’s most treasured antiquities have been unearthed, including the Sphinx and several notable pyramids.
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Tags: History, Iraq
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Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
17/2/10; http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/letters/aussie-winners-not-compelled-to-be-grinners/2010/02/16/1266082267953.html?page=3
The settlement of the class action against AWB is not the end of the story (”Settlement bolsters AWB”, February 16). We still need to know the detail of why the federal police failed to prosecute any of those responsible for paying bribes to a country with which we were at war. Colin Simpson, Little Hartley
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Tags: Australia, Iraq, Trade, USA
Posted in Aid / Trade, Australia, Human Rights, Iraq, USA | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Rebecca Urban; 16/2/10
Grains exporter AWB has settled a potential $100 million-plus class action brought by investors who claimed to be kept in the dark over secret payments to Iraqi companies, marking an end to the company’s legal battles in Australia. Less than a week into a four-week hearing in the Federal Court in Sydney, AWB has announced it has settled the long-running case for $39.5m, including the applicants’ legal costs. The settlement, which is still subject to the court’s approval, is not expected to involve an admission of liability. Describing the deal as “commercially acceptable”, AWB chairman Peter Polson said it was in the best interests of the company’s shareholders. “The company is pleased to put this matter behind it as this is the final legal matter directed against the company in Australia arising out of activities under the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program,” Mr Polson said in a statement.
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Tags: Australia, Iraq, Terrorism, Trade, USA
Posted in Aid / Trade, Human Rights, Iraq, Sex Trade, USA | No Comments »
Saturday, February 13th, 2010
Carol Leonnig, Nick Schwellenbach; 13/2/10
Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security contractor of defrauding the US government for years through phoney billing, including charging taxpayers for parties, spa trips and a prostitute. In court records unsealed this week, a husband and wife who worked for Blackwater said they had firsthand knowledge of the company falsifying invoices, double-billing federal agencies and improperly charging the US government for personal expenses. They said they witnessed ”systematic” fraud in the company’s security contracts with the US State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Louisiana after hurricane Katrina. Blackwater is the US State Department’s largest security contractor, and a State Department spokesman said on Thursday that his agency and the Justice Department reviewed the allegations in 2008, when the lawsuit was filed under seal in federal court in Virginia.
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Tags: Iraq, Mercenaries, USA
Posted in Aid / Trade, Iraq, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
Susannah Moran; 11/2/10
AWB has admitted for the first time it knew it was paying “transport fees” that would end up with Saddam Hussein’s regime. However, the company denies this was in breach of UN sanctions and says the UN and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade knew it had to pay the fees as part of its contract with the Grain Board of Iraq. The grains exporter also made a bold prediction that shareholders would fail in a $100 million class action that began yesterday, because the Australian courts aren’t allowed to rule on issues of public international law where it relates to the conduct of the UN, the Australian government or the Iraqi regime.The long-awaited class action began yesterday in Sydney in the Federal Court before judge Lindsay Foster, with lawyers for the shareholders opening their case against AWB. John and Kaye Watson, retired wheat farmers, are leading the class action on behalf of about 1000 investors.
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Tags: Australia, Iraq, Terrorism, Trade, USA
Posted in Aid / Trade, Australia, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Christopher Hope; 10/2/10
Tens of thousands of secret documents could contradict evidence given by members of the Blair government to the inquiry into the Iraq war, its chairman, Sir John Chilcot, has suggested as the former prime minister lashed out at the hunt for a ”scandal” and a ”conspiracy” over his controversial decision to back the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Sir John disclosed that the panel was examining far more documents than previously thought. He said the papers would form the core of the inquiry and show ”what really went on” in the build-up to the start of the conflict. He said that the inquiry team would examine the documents ”over the next few months”, adding: ”That will enable us to see where the evidence joins together and where there are gaps.”
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Tags: Iraq, Terrorism, UK, USA
Posted in Human Rights, Iraq, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
4/2/10 ; http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/ theaustralian/comments/blair_lacked_basis_for_war
As an expatriate Briton in Australia, I would like to comment on your editorial defending Tony Blair following his evidence to the Chilcot inquiry (“Blair has no case to answer”, 1/2). In the first place, the legality of the war on Iraq was, to say the least, dubious. Moreover, Blair specifically informed the House of Commons, and thus the British public, that the action was being undertaken on grounds relating to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, namely Saddam Hussein’s failure to comply with the UN’s directives to dismantle the WMDs, and the perceived threat to Europe and the Middle East that they posed. When the supposed WMDs proved to be a mirage, Blair (and George W. Bush) switched ground to the “removal of a tyrant” argument.
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Tags: Iraq, Terrorism, UK, USA
Posted in Human Rights, Terrorism, USA, War | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Paola Totaro; 3/2/10
Tony Blair not only misled the public about his decision to take Britain to war in Iraq but deliberately ordered that Cabinet critics be cut out of intelligence and military briefings in the lead-up, the Chilcot inquiry has been told. Clare Short, a former International Development minister and vehement critic of the Iraq war, has delivered a scathing description of the “presidential” style of Tony Blair’s leadership and described a Cabinet of yes men that were regarded as “his mates” while critics who were sidelined and “leaned on”. She said she believes the “machinery of government in Britain is now unsafe” and that from September 2002, she was deliberately cut out of briefings as Mr Blair had put a “block on communications” .
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Tags: Iraq, Terrorism, UK, USA
Posted in Human Rights, Iraq, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
2/2/10
The US Justice Department is investigating whether officials of security firm Blackwater Worldwide tried to bribe Iraqi government officials in hopes of retaining the firm’s work in Iraq. Citing unnamed current and former government officials, the New York Times said that the department’s fraud section opened the inquiry late last year to determine whether Blackwater employees violated a federal law banning US corporations from paying bribes to foreign officials.The inquiry is the latest fallout from the 2007 shooting in Nisour Square in Baghdad, which involved Backwater security guards and left 17 Iraqis dead, the report said. A federal judge in December dismissed criminal charges against five former Blackwater guards implicated in the episode, but Vice President Joseph Biden recently announced that the administration of President Barack Obama would appeal that decision.
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Tags: Iraq, Mercenaries, Terrorism, USA
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Saturday, January 30th, 2010
Russell Skelton; 30/1/10
The Australian Government has stopped processing Iraqi refugees in Syria following Syrian Government demands for access to the personal files of refugees approved for resettlement in Australia. Australian immigration officials are concerned that Syrian authorities may pass the information back to Baghdad, putting the families of asylum seekers still in Iraq at risk. There are also fears among refugee advocacy groups that non-Muslim refugees – mainly Christians – are being targeted and prevented from leaving the country. The Age understands that Australia has made representations to the Baathist Government in Damascus urging that the demand for personal information be dropped and international conventions restored.
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Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Iraq, Migrants & Refugees, Syria
Posted in Australia, Human Rights, Refugee & Migrant | 1 Comment »
Friday, January 29th, 2010
Henry Porter & Afua Hirsch; 29/1/10
It’s no coincidence that the four politicians who took us to war – Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Lord Falconer and Lord Goldsmith were all lawyers. Of course there were others involved, but let us be quite clear that each of these was in a position to stop the headlong rush to war by using the rule of law as an argument against the Bush regime. Only Lord Goldsmith attempted such a course, but he was flattened by Lord Falconer and Baroness (formerly Sally) Morgan and sidelined by No 10 until it was too late for Britain to withdraw.
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Tags: Iraq, UK, USA
Posted in Human Rights, Iraq, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Paola Totaro; 28/1/10
The British Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, has been humiliated by his former legal adviser who said his boss had twice overruled his entreaties against military action in Iraq while he was foreign secretary. In a tense day at the Chilcot inquiry, Sir Michael Wood, Mr Straw’s chief legal adviser at the time of the invasion, contradicted Mr Straw’s evidence that he had only ”very reluctantly” supported the military decision. Mr Straw had told the inquiry of his moral and political anguish before the invasion in 2003. But Sir Michael said that not only had Mr Straw told his US counterpart, Colin Powell, he was ”entirely comfortable” arguing for war, he had also told his legal adviser that he had often ignored legal advice from the Home Office without consequence. Sir Michael said that when he had voiced his view about the illegality of action, Mr Straw ”took the view that I was being very dogmatic and that international law was pretty vague and that he wasn’t used to people taking such a firm position”. ”When he had been at the Home Office, he had often been advised things were unlawful but he had gone ahead anyway and won in the courts.”
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Tags: Human Rights, Iraq, Terrorism, UK, USA
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Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
26/1/10; (2 Items)
At least 24 people were killed last night and 40 wounded in three car bombings that shook the Iraqi capital. The first explosion occurred about 3.30pm (11.30pm AEDT), sending plumes of smoke rising hundreds of metres over the Abu Nawaz district, near the Palestine and Sheraton hotels, just across the Tigris River from the Green Zone. The second blast came just minutes later in the centre of Baghdad near the Green Zone, with the third close by soon after. The blasts struck near the Babylon and al-Hamra hotels, popular with Western journalists.
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Tags: Capital Punishment; Mercenaries, Iraq, Terrorism, USA
Posted in Capital Punishment, Human Rights, Iraq, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
