12/23: Latest News from IRAQ - by PeaceNoWar

***For more reports from Iraq please check the December 23 News Form Iraq

[Web: http://www.peacenowar.net/Iraq/News/Dec%2023%2003--News.htm]

and the past Iraq news Archive [Web: http://www.peacenowar.net/#iraq]

**The Axis of Incoherence

Analysis by Jim Lobe, Inter Press Services

Web: http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=21505

WASHINGTON, Dec 11 (IPS) - As the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush searches increasingly desperately for a viable "exit strategy" from an Iraqi quagmire, its policy there is appearing ever more incoherent.



This has become especially clear over the past month in Iraq itself where the U.S. military has adopted much more aggressive counter-insurgency tactics in order to reduce insurgent attacks against its own forces, even at the expense of the larger struggle waged by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to win the "hearts and minds" of Iraqis, including the residents of the so-called "Sunni Triangle".

This incoherence -- or rather the exasperating difficulty of reconciling military tactics to strategic goals -- was best expressed this week by Lt. Col. Nathan Sussaman, the commander of a battalion that that has surrounded the town of Abu Hishma with a razor wire fence. "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for projects," he told the New York Times, "I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them."

Incoherence of a third kind is reflected in the continuing bureaucratic infighting over power within Iraq that pits the neo-conservative hawks around Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney against the "realists" and regional specialists in the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)....





**Summary of December 23 News From Iraq

**For the complete stories, please go to:

http://www.peacenowar.net/Iraq/News/Dec%2023%2003--News.htm

Capture of Saddam:

1) Who is the Iraqi Resistance, Anyway?

From Report from Baghdad Series

Despite American media claims, it's common knowledge in Iraq that most of Iraq's underground resistance forces are not the so-called "die-hard" Saddam supporters or foreign groups (such as al-Qaida). Rather, they are mainly organized by the local clans and religious clerics who have no connection to Saddam's inner circle. They are the ones who control local politics; even during Saddam's period, he needed to consult with them to get what he wanted....

2) GI 'punched Saddam for spitting at his captors'

www.telegraph.co.uk

Saddam Hussein spat at American soldiers moments after his capture and was promptly punched by one of them, according to US government sources...

3) Triumph Becomes Also a Problem

Peyman Pejman, Inter Press Service

The arrest of Saddam Hussein closes a long chapter, but poses new challenges for the coalition forces in their relations with Iraqi officials and people...It was a historic breakthrough, but not the end of the Saddam story....



Money of the War:

4) The privatisation of war

The Guardian

Private corporations have penetrated western warfare so deeply that they are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq after the Pentagon, a Guardian investigation has established....

5) Iraqi Contracts Expose Washington's True Aims - Critics

Inter Press Service

The George W. Bush administration's decision to exclude countries that opposed the U.S.-led war on Iraq from multi-billion-dollar reconstruction deals contradicts its position both on free trade and its self-described mission in Iraq, analysts here say...

6) Lenders Saddle US Soldiers With Debt

Associated Press

Military bases across the nation have become magnets for payday lenders, which charge fees as high as every two weeks per 0 borrowed - equal to a 720 percent annual interest rate...



Civilian Casualities:

7) Arresting Children

Jo Wilding, Electronic Iraq

"...Yesterday the American army came and surrounded the whole block. They just crashed into the school, 6, 7, 8 into every classroom with their guns. They took the name of every student and matched the names to the photos they got from the day before and then arrested the students...."

8) Cluster Bombs, Air Strikes Killed Hundreds

Inter Press Service

Hundreds of civilians were killed by Coalition cluster bombs and air strikes designed to "decapitate" the Iraqi leadership, according to a new report by New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which said the high cost in civilian casualties caused by the two tactics may have violated the laws of war....



U.S. Occupied Military in Iraq:

9) Blast Kills 2 Troops, Translator in Iraq

Associated Press

A roadside bomb exploded near a U.S. military convoy Monday, killing two American soldiers and an Iraqi translator, the military said....

10) Medical Evacuations From Iraq Near 11,000

United Press International

The total number of wounded soldiers and medical evacuations from the war in Iraq is nearing 11,000, according to new Pentagon data provided in response to a request from United Press International....



Hidden History of the Gulf Wars:

11) Missing U.S.-Iraq History

In These Times



Immigrants at War:

12) "Bring Our Children Home"

Inter Press Service

"Our children must come home, and not keep dying in this absurd military occupation," says Mexican Fernando Suárez, whose son, a U.S. citizen, was killed in Iraq in the first days of the war....



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