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Tuesday,
July 10, 2012. Chaos and violence continue, rumors about affairs with a
visiting pop star circle Baghdad, another US service member is dead
from the Iraq War, Iraqis get ready for the Summer Olympics, and more.
Marcella
Lee: 26-year-old Army Specialist Carl Hall III was from Harbison Canyon
near Alpine, where his parents still live. Hall was injured back in
November 2011 when his convoy was hit by an IED. Hall sustained
injuries to his head and more than 40 shrapnel wounds to his leg but
doctors were able to save his leg with multiple surgeries. Hall was
brought back to recover in North Caroline. His parents say he was doing
well and was able to enjoy the birth of his son. But ended up dying
due from complications related to his injuries.
Elizabeth
Hall: It was the miracle of just him being able to come home. I was
there when his son was born so he seen his son born, so he was there for
that. His son was born February 23rd so he had the four months with
spirit and that was pretty much what was keeping him going.
Services
for Carl Hall IIII will be tomorrow, ten in the morning at Fort
Rosecrans National Cemetary. Because his death is apparently from
injuries received during Operation New Dawn, the Pentagon will include
him in the count for that period of the Iraq War. Those who die of
injuries received will be included in either Operation Enduring Freedom
or Operation New Dawn based upon when they were injured.
BRIAN
CASTNER: You become numb to it eventually, but I would never call it
business as usual. And in fact, the post-blast mission is one that only
really developed as the war went on. When I initially went through EOD
school, there was no section of the training that was called post-blast
investigation. And in fact on my first trip to Iraq in 2005, the first
time I did one, and I got tasked, and they said go out and do an
investigation, I had to ask, well, what does that even mean? What do you
want me to look for? So as the war developed, and as the IEDs, the
improvised explosive devices, became less just an obstacle to clear and
were more a focus of the war, our career field developed those skills as
we went.
GROSS: So what kind of evidence would you look for at the site of an IED explosion?
CASTNER:
Anything that would tell you how it was made, what the target was, if
there was a key identifying feature that would link it to one bomber or
another, or one group or another. So that's anything from the color of
the wire used to connect the battery to the blasting cap, to getting an
explosive sample of the type of explosives used, to collecting the VIN
number on the car, to getting DNA samples of the people who were there
so maybe you could identify which one the bomber was.
GROSS:
But this isn't like going to, like, a crime scene after the fact, where
you're slowly getting evidence and putting it in plastic bags. You are
going to the site of explosions, and there are screaming people all
around you, and you're going through body parts, basically, like looking
for evidence of what happened in the explosion. And take one of those
experiences, for us, and just describe what the experience was for you.
CASTNER:
Right, so you get the call, and you're at your home base, at the FOB,
and sometimes we wouldn't even need a call, you would see the towers of
black smoke rising from downtown Kirkuk. And you know the call is
coming, so you go and get ready. And you get out there as fast as you
can, which is usually about 20 to 30 minutes after it went off. And we
actually didn't want the Iraqi police or U.S. forces to clean up. We
needed everything there to be able to sift through. And in fact that
would be the most frustrating part, is you would show up, and the loved
ones would already be picking up bodies or pieces of bodies, and they're
already loading on the destroyed car onto a flatbed.
And
it's bad enough that you're out there doing this but they're getting in
the way of you doing your job. And so extremely quickly, we could be
there for 10 minutes because the longer you're there, the more chance
you have to get shot at or have a mortar dropped on your head or
something. So you get out, and as quickly as you can, starting at the
burned-out car and then working your way out. You just look for
everything you can, and sometimes, in fact, you're looking for pieces of
ordinance that haven't exploded. An artillery round will kick out, and
it'll be in somebody's house a block away, and you need to grab that and
make sure you dispose of it so nobody gets hurt.
Violence continues in Iraq. Alsumaria notes that 1 person was shot dead in Kirkuk Province today. KUNA notes that death and reports that another Kirkuk shooting left a police officer wounded. All Iraqi News notes an Anbar Province home bombing claimed the lives of 2 Iraqi soliders and left three more injured. In addition, IANS reports
a Baquba roadside bombing claimed 1 life and left two people injured, a
Muqdadiyah truck bombing injured four people, two sticky bombings
"outside Baquba" left five people injured, a Baghdad attack on a
mmilitary officer left his driver dead and a Mosul roadside bombing
claimed 1 life and left two people injured.
Meanwhile Kitabat notes
that some form of poisonous gas at Lake Habbaniyah in Anbar Province is
killing the fish and producing a foul smell. A fisherman states that
everything in the lake region dies: shrimp, fish and birds that eat the
fish. Currently, it's suspected that the gas is sulfur. In August
2009, Duraid Adnan and Timothy Williams (New York Times) were claiming
Lake Habbaniya was part of a "beach season" though the lake's water
was described as "muddy" and they noted people drive "their cars right
onto the sand, pulling up next to the water." The US base Al Taqqadum
was located there. And, at Militaryphotos.net,
you can find video posted of Lake Habbaniya: "The vehicle graveyard at
Lake Habbaniya is one of seven established during 2005 when it was
decided the costs of shipping wrecks back to the US was prohibitive.
The vehicles shown have suffered hull breach, internal fire, structural
failure, or are classified as 'beyond economical repair'." Whether it's
sulfur or something else, there's a good chance it didn't occur
naturally but resulted from pollution. All Iraqi News reports
a fire broke out in central Baghdad today, a landfill which further
threatened surrounding structures because of the failure to clean
surrounding areas and everyone using it as a dumping ground.
Al Rafidyan reports
that Moqtada al-Sadr has criticized the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate for
their June 29th festivities which included bringing in performers who,
his opinion, promote debauchery and immorality. More than likely his
remarks are directed at Madeline Matar who a Lebanese recording artist
(click here for Alsumaria's article on her in Arabic and note the photo). She is said to have arrived at the Baghdad concert in a presidential motorcade. You can click here for her Facebook page.
Could there be more to it? Could the "presidential motorcade" have hinted at a sex scandal for Nouri?
All Iraqi News reports
Nouri's spokesperson Ali al-Dabbagh insisted today he was being
verbally attacked with rumors and stated he had spoken to both Moqtada
and Nouri to assure them that the concert was just a concert and that he
had no inappropriate relationship with Madeline Matter. He insisted he
has told all of his friends that this was just a malicious smear
against him.
Why is Ali al-Dabbagh having a
meltdown in public? He's been a spokesperson for some time and, if
Nouri believes him, there shouldn't be any problem. His intense denial
might indicate that there is something more here including that he might
be covering for Nouri.
Were that to be the
case, Nouri might end up taken out the way most politicians are today --
not with bullets but with sex scandals.
Currently, Nouri al-Maliki is trying to hold onto his post of prime minister by offering up a Reform Committee. Mustafa Habib (Niqash) addresses some of the issues this raises:
Firstly,
there are problems that have to do with agreements between the feuding
political blocs about which positions certain high ranking politicians
would fill; this included discussion of the vacant seats in certain
important ministries, that al-Maliki was occupying in the interim.
Another
involved the powers of the federal court and yet another had to do with
relations between the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi Cabinet, or
executive branch; relations were strained with Parliament and ministers
often coming to different conclusions. And finally there was the problem
of how to balance the demands of the Iraqi Constitution with all of the
above.
Despite what appear to be good
intentions, there is no doubt that al-Maliki's opponents do not trust
him any more than they did before. There has been plenty of press
coverage and public relations work on al-Maliki's behalf but the parties
who wanted to oust him don't think he is serious about the alleged
reforms.
"This call for reform is nothing
more than a political manoeuvre and an attempt to gain more time," Hani
Ashour, an adviser to the opposition Iraqiya coalition, told NIQASH. The
essence of the current political crisis is the fact that al-Maliki has
not honoured the Erbil agreement, under which he formed this
government."
The so-called Erbil agreement
was formulated in Erbil to end a nine month dispute over who should run
the government following disputed 2010 elections. It gave al-Maliki the
right to form a government if he met certain conditions and gave his
electoral opponents certain high powered jobs; basically it was a power
sharing deal.
The fact that al-Maliki has
done almost nothing to honour that deal doesn't give his opponents much
faith that he will change now.
Nouri
and Moqtada are two of the main political players in Iraq. Other main
players include KRG President Massoud Barzani, Speaker of Parliament
Osama al-Nujaifi, Iraqiya head Ayad Allawi and President Jalal
Talabani.
Jalal, of course, fled the country
due to the political crisis. He stated he had to have an emergency
procedure. That ended up being knee surgery. All Iraqi News reports
that Luis Ayala, Secretary-General of the Socialist International,
phoned Jalal to congratulate him on his successful knee surgery. Ayala
conveyed his hope that Jalal would be able to join the Socialist
International in September.
In a ceremony held in Erbil last Sunday, July 8th, the Kurdistan Region's National Security Board was established.
In
the ceremony, attended by the Region's President and a number of top
ranking KRG officials, the long awaited Kurdistan Region's National
Security Board was announced.
Masrour Barzani, the head of the Kurdistan Region's Protection Agency was appointed as the Chancellor of the Board.
Dr. Khasraw Mohammed Gul was appointed his Deputy.
In
his speech, President Barzani praised the National Security Board for
what he described as "their genuine contribution to peace and
prosperity" in Kurdistan Region, urging the security forces to do "their
outmost to respect human rights" in dealing with security issues.
Goran (aka Change) is a third party in the KRG and CIA-backed. Alsumaria reports that Goran is insisting this National Security Council will lead to totalitarianism. Kitabat adds that Goran is stating these are the steps to a dictatorship. AFP notes that some are taking exception to Masroor Barzani -- Massoud Barzani's son -- being named to head the council.
Power is confirmed in many ways. For example, Tim Arrango (New York Times) writes
a lengthy piece on Moqtada today that really says nothing -- power.
You give a speech on Friday and Nouri's grabbing from it and passing it
off as his own at the start of the week -- power. Dar Addustour notes
that Nouri spoke today about the need to restore property to its owners
and also about the need to distribute the wealth in a manner that would
be fair to all Iraqis.
Nouri's State of Law starts an outrageous rumor about you -- power. Alsumaria reports
State of Law MP Samira al-Moussawi is insisting that the KRG supplying
Turkey with crude oil is part of a scheme that ExxonMobil came up with.
State of Law's been whining about ExxonMobil since October and Nouri's
been demanding the multi-national corporation cancel its deal with the
KRG since November. Hoshmando Othman (Rudaw) observes:
The
deal further fueled the existing tension between the Kurdistan Region
and Baghdad over the legality of Kurds' inviting foreign companies to
search for oil in their region. The 2005 Iraqi constitution recognizes
Kurdistan as a federal region run by its regional parliament and
government.
KRG takes into consideration two Articles of the Iraqi constitution that allow the
Kurds
to conclude exploration deals with foreign companies for natural
resources in their own region, but Baghdad still does not recognize the
contracts signed between KRG and foreign oil companies, so far numbering
over fifty, and considers the deals illegal.
ExxonMobil's
move despite the risk of being blacklisted by Baghdad can be seen as an
indication of growing Western and other international oil companies'
interest in the Kurdistan Region, which estimates its oil reserves at 45
billion barrels, equal to more than 40 percent of that of the rest of
Iraq. KRG offers production share agreements to the oil companies while
Baghdad limits its offer to service contracts.
Furthermore,
the discovery of significant reserves of natural gas - estimated over
100 trillion cubic feet, surpassing Libya's gas reserve - attracted
those European companies, which form the Nabucco gas pipeline project
that is due to link Caucasus' gas fields to Europe through Turkey.
Nabucco is meant to reduce Europe's dependency on Russian gas.
Alsumaria notes
Iraqiya MPs held a press conference today in front of Parliament to
insist that Nouri stop the mass arrests he's ordered on the outskirts of
Baghdad -- Yusufiya and Abu Ghraib and Ghazaliyah mainly -- and that he
release the 70 to 80 people that have been arrested.
Nouri has a record of carrying out mass arrests. Sadam Hussein did as well. Dar Addustour reports that Peter Arnett,
internationally known journalist, is stating that, following an 18
month investigation, he has learned that Saddam Hussein's son Uday was
plotting to overthrow his father and, among the supporting evidence for
this claim, Arnett says he has a letter from March 2003 written by a
military commander who pledges his support to Uday Hussein.
Uday
Hussein was infamous for many things. These days, especially this time
of year, he's most infamous for having athletes tortured when their
performance did not meet his 'standards.'
On
sports, every four years the Summer Olympics are held. Iraq will be
competiting this year. They first participated in 1948 and this will be
their 13th time participating. Noor Aamer Jassim tells Amelie Herenstein (AFP),
"Weapons and ammunitions are all outdated -- all of our equipment is
old compared to other countries, Arab and Eureopean. Sports is my life.
I hope to win a medal, to see my country's flag raised." She and two
other Iraqi women will join with five Iraqi men to compete in the
Olympics in London -- "two runners [one is Dana Hussein], a swimmer
[Muhannad Ahmad], an archer, a shooter [Noor Aamer Jassim], a boxer, a
weightlifer [Safa Rashid] and a wrestler."
Dana
Hussein, wearing a pair of second-hand track shoes she bought in Jordan
by herself, made her debut in the women's 100m heat at the
National Stadium as part of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on August 16,
2008. "I have realized my dream of competing at the Olympics, and I am
extremely happy to come to Beijing," said the 21-year-old girl, "It
does not matter what we will achieve at the Games, the important thing
is we are here."
AP noted last March,
"In addition to often not being able to even reach an outdoor
university field, where Hussein trains during the winter months, she
says she has no money to fund her ambition, gets no government support,
no access to a gymn to do fitness training has no indoor track to use
during Iraq's sizzling summers, and no sports psychologist to advise her
how to keep it all together."
Muhannad Ahmad talent and looks should garner Iraq attention in the swimming competition ( there's a photo with the AFP story). But it's not been easy for swimmers in Iraq. Alsumaria reports
today that police prevent Iraqis from swimming in the rivers and that
the pools are a challenge in terms of cleanliness due to power shortages
and the fact that the government does not provide fuel for generators
used for pools. In Baghdad, Iraqis can pay $4.30 (in US dollars) to
three hours of swimming.
Let's note Iraqi women for a second. On Sunday, we addressed
the nonsense that the 'great' [illegal] Iraq War brought sports to
Iraqi women. Not the case at all. Just because the lie came from a
one-time US athlete who is now a brand a corporation flunky doesn't make
the lie true. We noted Christine Breenan's USA Today report
from April 2004 on Iraq's sports legend Iman Sabeeh (she was a
runner). Iraqi community members were kind enough to pass on that the
women's vollyball team won the Arab Tournament in 1983 and that Noor
Basil and Maysa'a Hussein competed in the Summer Olympics of 2000 in
Sydney. They noted Iraqi women like Eman Nouri who holds the country's
record in the long jump (5.67 meters, July 13, 1977)
Today in Iraq, women see:
* Decrease in women's presence and participation in media, journalism, and sports
* Decline in levels of health
* Decline in economic level of widows and orphans
* Decline in social rights
* Decline in scientific successes for women
* Decline in women's political participation
* Decline in leadership positions for women
* Increase in unemployment among young women
* Continued practice of customs and traditions harmful to women
* Lack of legislation advocating for women
* Low participation of women in executive and judicial branches
* Decline in women's freedom
* Decline in number of educated girls
* Decrease in the number of women Ministers from 27 to 1
That's the present for Iraqi women as noted in Women's Campaign International's new report [PDF format warning] " Iraqi Future Search." We'll note the report further in tomorrow's snapshot.
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