4um: Idiocy in D.C., Progress in Baghdad

In order to preserve the cosmic harmony, it seems the gods insist that good news in one place be offset by misfortune elsewhere. It may well be that Gen. David Petraeus is going to lead us to victory in Iraq. He is certainly off to a good start. If the karmic price of success in Iraq is utter embarrassment for senior Bush officials in Washington, D.C.--well, in our judgment, the trade-off is worth it. The world will surely note our success or failure in Iraq. It will not long remember the gang that couldn't shoot straight at the Justice Department--or, for that matter, the antics of congressional Democrats--unless either so weakens the administration as to undercut our mission in Iraq.

Obviously, it's too early to say anything more definitive than that there are real signs of progress in Baghdad. The cocksure defeatism of war critics of two months ago, when the surge was announced, does seem to have been misplaced. The latest Iraq Update (pdf) by Kimberly Kagan summarizes the early effects of the new strategy backed up by, as yet, just one additional U.S. brigade deployed in theater (with more to be added in the coming weeks):

This "rolling surge" focuses forces on a handful of neighborhoods in Baghdad, and attempts to expand security out from those neighborhoods. . . . A big advantage of a "rolling surge" is that the population and the enemy sense the continuous pressure of ever-increasing forces. Iraqis have not seen such a prolonged and continuous planned increase of U.S. forces before. . . . The continued, increasing presence of U.S. forces appears to be having an important psychological, as well as practical, effect on the enemy and the people of Iraq. . . . [Meanwhile] in Ramadi, in the belt south of Baghdad stretching from Yusifiyah to Salman Pak, and northeast in Diyala Province, . . . U.S. and Iraqi forces have deprived al Qaeda of the initiative.

This sense of momentum is confirmed by many other reports in the media, and from Americans and Iraqis on the ground.

But back in Washington, congressional Democrats are still mired in the fall of 2006 and seem determined to be as irresponsible as ever. They're being beaten back--in part thanks to the fighting spirit of stalwart congressional Republicans. Last week, the Senate defeated a resolution that would have restricted the use of U.S. troops in Iraq and set March 31, 2008, as a target date for removing U.S. forces from combat.

On the same day, on a mostly party-line vote, the House Appropriations Committee reported out the Democratic version of a supplemental appropriations bill for the war. It was an odd piece of legislation--an appropriation to fight a war replete with provisions intended to ensure we lose it.

Here's what the Democratic legislation does, according to the Washington Post: "Under the House bill, the Iraqi government would have to meet strict benchmarks. . . . If by July 1 the president could not certify any progress, U.S. troops would begin leaving Iraq, to be out before the end of this year. If Bush did certify progress, the Iraqi government would have until Oct. 1 to meet the benchmarks, or troops would begin withdrawing then. In any case, withdrawals would have to begin by March 1, 2008, and conclude by the end of that summer."

Got that? Oh yes, in addition to the arbitrary timelines for the removal of troops, there's pork. As the Post explains, "Included in the legislation is a lot of money to help win support. The price tag exceeds the president's war request by $24 billion." Some of the extra money goes to bail out spinach farmers hurt by E. coli, to pay for peanut storage, and to provide additional office space for the lawmakers themselves. So much for an emergency war appropriations bill.

The legislation may collapse on the floor of the House this week. It certainly deserves to. Republicans can insist on a clean supplemental--no timelines to reassure the enemy that if they just hang on, we'll be gone before long, and no pork. They can win this fight--and if they do, combined with progress in Iraq, the lasting news from March 2007 will not be Bush administration haplessness; it will be that we are on the way to success in Iraq.

Amid official attempts to nail down 'protection guidelines' for those confronting depleted uranium, Gulf War veterans press for clarity. And the prospect of DU's use in Kosovo raises the stakes.

A soldier's boots are often treated with sacred regard, once they carry a warrior safely through combat.

But for one US soldier, who volunteered for his Gulf War tour, Mark Panzera, his boots were the first sign that something was very wrong.

He was an Army mechanic in the 144th Service and Supply Company of New Jersey, which in 1991 prepared US tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles that had been hit by "friendly fire" for shipment home.

This front-line equipment had been inadvertently hit by American gunners shooting radioactive depleted-uranium (DU) bullets at what they thought were Iraqi tanks.

For weeks after the mistake, the 144th worked at a salvage site in Saudi Arabia, getting into every corner of every vehicle to recycle equipment, wearing T-shirts and shorts, eating on and sleeping beside the vehicles.

Suddenly one morning, Mr. Panzera recalls, before his team began work, two experts arrived looking like astronauts, wearing hooded masks and suits - and carrying radiation detectors.

Before the two unexpected visitors approached the vehicles, they first ran their instruments over the awestruck mechanics. Their clothes were contaminated, but Panzera's boots especially set the detectors crackling.

The dust left over from the impact of DU bullets hitting the tanks had clung to the cleanup crew.

"'You're hot,' they told us, and I asked: 'What do you mean?' " Panzera remembers. "I was angry. Nobody tells you nothing, and the next day you are contaminated."

Later, Panzera received an official letter confirming his exposure to DU radiation. He has been seeking government compensation for what he says is DU- related illness.

By the Pentagon's own admission, its policy toward use of DU weapons has been inconsistent. Several military and independent reports describe the potential danger of DU particles trapped inside the body, though most deem the overall risk to be "acceptable." Strict federal and military rules govern every aspect of DU use and decontamination.

But the Pentagon today calls its own regulations - based on US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) guidelines, which require masks and suits when dealing with DU contamination - "total overkill."

In 1993, a report from the US General Accounting Office, the government's investigative arm, found that Army officials "believe that DU protective means can be ignored during battle."

Then, in 1995, all four branches of the US military approved a multimedia DU training kit. In January 1998 it was endorsed as "impressive" by the deputy secretary of defense, John Hamre.

The kit, obtained by the Monitor through the Freedom of Information Act, said "the greatest threat is during open-air, live-fire testing. We can call combat a great big open-air, live-fire test." An area hit by DU "remains contaminated, and will not decontaminate itself."

"They [the NRC] have their own standards. The military's [standards] are under review," says Bernard Rostker, the Pentagon's special assistant for Gulf War illnesses. He first raised doubts publicly only last August. He said the "extremely restrictive" NRC rules are "poorly suited" to war, and "need to be rewritten."

Critics say the Pentagon has reasons for its apparent downgrading of DU dangers: The bullet pierces enemy armor like no other, it's cheap, and any confirmed link with health problems could trigger a flood of compensation and reparations claims.

And the cost of cleaning up DU residue in the Gulf would be prohibitive, as well. The price tag for removing 152,000 pounds of DU in the now-closed, 500- acre Jefferson Proving Ground in Indiana has been estimated to be $4 billion to $5 billion. More than four times that amount of DU was spread during the Gulf War, over a significantly larger area.

"The government is institutionally incapable of telling the truth on this matter," says Bill Arkin, a former military intelligence analyst and columnist for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. His analysis: DU is too troublesome for the Pentagon to keep in its arsenal.

In January 1998, Rostker reported that "failure" to alert troops to DU hazards "may have resulted in thousands of unnecessary exposures," but said those exposures "had not produced any medically detectable effects."

Angry veterans say that DU could be a reason that an estimated 1 in 7 of them report a set of symptoms known as Gulf War Syndrome, and have pushed their case on Capitol Hill. They estimate that hundreds of thousands of troops were exposed to DU during the fighting or on post-battle tours of the front line. Climbing on destroyed Iraqi tanks was a favorite activity, along with collecting war souvenirs. Among other sources, the veterans point to a 1990 report commissioned by the US Army that links DU to cancer and also makes clear that "there is no dose so low that the probability of effect is zero." They also remember Pentagon reluctance to divulge health hazards in the Vietnam War.

"This [DU] is the Agent Orange of the 1990s - absolutely," says Doug Rokke, a former Army health physicist who was part of the DU assessment team in the Gulf War, and DU project director for the training package.

Underscoring the official inconsistencies, Sen. Russell Feingold (D) of Wisconsin said in September that the Pentagon's "assertion that no Gulf War veterans could be ill from exposure to DU ... contradicts numerous pre- and postwar reports, some from the US Army itself."

In a sign of the Pentagon's own confusion, Rostker told a White House oversight panel last November that he was "misguided" to issue so strong a statement - that ruled out DU as a cause of Gulf War Syndrome - in an August report. "I stand corrected," he stated.

The problem seems as political as it is scientific: "Misinformation disseminated by both the Iraqi government and the US Department of Defense has made analysis of DU impacts difficult," notes Dan Fahey, Gulf War veteran and author of an extensive DU report for veterans' groups published last year.

Protection guidelines for handling DU are as difficult to establish as a single speed limit for every American road, says Ron Kathren, director of the US Transuranium and Uranium Registries in Richland, Wash. But NRC guidelines "are in fact adequate" for DU, he says, and "if they are 'overkill,' that's OK, too. I'd rather err on the side of safety."

Col. Eric Daxon, a senior Pentagon radiation expert with the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, said in an interview that the military needs to come up with its own "acceptable risks" of DU, compared to the other threats of combat.

Protecting soldiers from DU can also put them at risk during battle, he said. Gas masks and suits can overheat a soldier and impair vision. The goal today is to keep exposures "as low as reasonably achievable," he adds.

"Reducing the total risk ... of getting shot, of getting wounded, of getting long-term cancers" is the new aim, he says. "We are really trying to balance all of those things."

As the Pentagon now weighs the use of DU munitions in NATO's war against Yugoslavia, the debate about the risks of DU is certain to escalate.

"I think we have been inconsistent," says the Pentagon's Rostker in the interview. "We published a standard ... that is inconsistent with the hazards of DU."

As those arguments continue, Panzera has had several operations and health problems that he attributes to his DU exposure. Worried about taking contamination home before he left the Gulf, Panzera cut holes in his uniform and exchanged it for a new one. He left his soldier's boots "in the middle of the desert."

"I guess they are waiting until half of us are dead before they give in," he says, echoing the view of many US veterans whose patriotism has long since given way to cynicism. "My volunteering days are over."

Rokke was an officer, correct? How did he get to be an officer, BAC - did he pin badges on his chest all by his own lonesome?

You know I looked up more info about the hallowed profession of health physicists that you refer to and by golly I discovered that the biggest and best paying employers of this particular profession are government ( Department of Defense)and national laboratories, as well as government contractors. Now if I'm not mistaken that presents a bit of a conflict for the profession - ie. biting the hands that feed them.

"If you desire national recognition as a health physics professional, you may seek certification at either of two educational and experience levels. Certification may be obtained from the American Board of Health Physics (ABHP) and, for technicians, through the National Registry of Radiation Protection Technologists (NRRPT)."

Major Rokke may not have received official accreditation but experiencially he was a health physicist based on his employment with the US military and likely could have been accredited if he chose to pursue it.

Btw, I checked into Rokke's official military records - he has them posted on various sites - and as of 86/06/05 under the "Principal Duty" column, the US Military refers to him as NUC Med Sc Off and then on 91/03/25 he is referred to as "Theatre Health Physicist" and as of 92/09/15 he was referred to as EXECUTIVE OFFICER and as of 94/08/01 he is referred to as Project Director ( USACMLS) and from 95/11/30 to 98/11/20 he is referred to again as NUC MED SCIENCE OFF.

So go figure Dr. Rokke must have been held in high regard by the US Military - he got promotions. Also I read an official letter of introduction of 1LT Rokke to CPT's Armstrong, Brannon and Carter dated 12 Dec 90 and the letter seems to be quite flattering about specifically "the technical expertise" of 1 LT. Rokke, a 68B with the 12th PVNTMED. Once again - go figure - the US Military evidently didn't believe Dr. Rokke was a "liar" BAC as you are in the habit of referring to him, and of yes, in the same breath you pretend "to support our troops."

HAHAHA - Mr. ooozer ( it is Mister, yes? not 1st lieutenant or any other military designation, yes?)- anyways MISTER BAC, you have a strange way of showing support for our military when you name call one of them "liar." Nice.

P.S. Rokke's PhD thesis is entitled "Perceived Physics Concepts needed to teach Secondary Technology Education as General Education" - his thesis was over 350 pages long - I guess Rokke can't be too stupid about physics concepts.

I was defending the credibility of scientists you were attempting to riducule, kind of like you do with DU and "health physicists".

That's kind of different than talking about bombs, as my technical knowledge in that area is not very good, that's why that topic skips over my head.

It's like accusing me of talking in Chinese about something when I don't speak Chinese.

Defending scientists is different than talking about bombs, though I suspect you already know that.

I was only kidding about you being a David Ickes lizard person, but sometimes you make it hard to be civil when you are so rude.

Nazi Germany would have been destroyed regardless, and the Soviet Union would not have become strengthened, and millions of Eastern Europeans, Baltics peoples and additional Russians would not have died. IMO.

Exactly, diana. Thanks for pitching in - I had lost track of BAC challenging me on this.

Russia lost 17-20 Million soldiers ( prodded onwards by the NKVD) fighting the Germans. In the course of battles, Russia ended up destroying 3/4 of the German ground forces. We stepped in after Hitler made his strategic error - Hitler's defeat was determined as soon as he decided to attack Russia.

The Brits survived the Battle of Britain. The Brits were winning on the African front.

America came in for clean up duty and to fight the Japanese. We lost approx. 300,000 men in WW II. Britain lost 600,000. Russia lost 17-20 Million. Can you imagine such numbers of losses?

There's no doubt that Stalin and his communist government would have fallen right after the Russian-Eastern European fighters changed their focus from defeating the Germans to bringing down Uncle Joe and hanging him in Red Square along with his NKVD officers.

Churchill and FDR gave communism an extension on life. Nothing much is written about the Eastern European lives that were condemned to servitude under communism generally or immediate death in the Soviet gulag camps. Oh well...

ABSOLUTELY FALSE. Doug Rokke is NOT a health physicist. His claim that he was is a LIE. As is most everything he told your source, robin. But I guess since you bozo'd yourself, you shall remain clueless. And now you want Diana to join you in that state.

Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Yet you've tried to defend him, even having been previously posted everything I've posted on this thread about him ... and more. That leads me to suspect the veracity of any source you might offer. If you'd have at least acknowledged that your first source, Rokke, was a liar about his credentials and other claims, we might be able to begin a rational discussion. But a rational discussion to find the truth about any subject cannot be built on a foundation of lies and misinformation. That's what I've been trying to tell you 4umers.

False. The sources I've offered who have made statements about Rokke have been named.

HON FRANK HOUGH called him a "junior lieutenant". But the official reply from the US government he read before insulting Rokke in that way said he was a FIRST Lieutenant and the JUNIOR OFFICER of the 14 officers in the unit. And ALL you have to support his claim he was anything else is HIS WORD ... the word of a man who LIED about his education ... his credentials.

Yet on DU site after site, we find Dr Rokke being prominently quoted as an expert. Yet, clearly Dr Rokke has lied about his credentials and anyone doing even a modest internet search will discover this. So why don't those sites correct the misinformation and stop using him as an expert? Because the truth doesn't matter to them. Only the agenda. And the facts aren't the facts they cite. Otherwise there'd be a few REAL health physicists to support their claims.

All right, asshole; show us that Rokke is anything else, than advertised - or is this another of your famous LIES?

Guess they didn't. Wouldn't be the first time the mainstream media got it wrong.

HON FRANK HOUGH (Agricultural) [4.44 pm]: On Wednesday night I asked Hon Dee Margetts for an apology for the rubbish she released around Lancelin about Dr Rokke and depleted uranium. Hon Dee Margetts put out a brochure that states -

It also says that Dr Rokke was a former head of the Pentagon etc. On the other page it states -

Hon FRANK HOUGH: The member should not get so excited. In the brochure it states that Dee Margetts -

It then refers to the recent visit and the sea swap trial. The Greens (WA) have an apparent hatred for the American Navy, farmers, miners and small business. I would like to get to the bottom of it and the matter of the member’s friend, Dr Rokke, the expert. As the honourable member says in the uncorrected proof of Hansard of 13 August -

In Dr Rokke’s address on depleted uranium in the The San Francisco Times he states -

Who is Dr Rokke? We find out that Dr Rokke is a schoolteacher. A letter to me from the Consul General of the United States, Oscar De Soto - sounds like the name of a motor car - states -

The people of Lancelin are very upset about what is going on. The honourable member has raced into Lancelin and the bullpen, thrown in a red rag, and run like buggery. I am left to sort it out with the residents in my home town, who are worried about the depleted uranium etc.

Let us go on about Dr Rokke and his boss. Who is his boss? It is Robert Cherry, PhD, certified health physicist, and a retired US Army colonel. What does he say about Dr Rokke? In a letter of his to The Age he states -

Dr Rokke had been saying how sad it was that he had lost friends in Desert Storm, but apparently they are all alive and well! The letter continues -

But I do that to support a position on the topic being discussed. You mean to say you don't have a position on the topic being discussed? You just join in to defend the credibility of the scientists? Why don't you do that with structural engineers when RickyJ calls them ALL morons?

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12 KJV

BAC - you asshole - you consistently cherry-pick out-of-context statements to "allude" to the possibility that the facts might not be the facts; then leap as though you actually discovered something.

The rest of the world knows Rokke's credentials - YOU prove otherwise - as in factual evidence, not in terms of, "Can you prove your wife isn't cheating on you?"

After the war, Hitler's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop listed three main reasons for Germany's defeat (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4508901.stm ): (1) unexpectedly stubborn resistance from the Soviet Union, (2) the large-scale supply of arms and equipment from the US to the Soviet Union, under the lend-lease agreement, and (3) the success of the Western Allies in the struggle for air supremacy.

Consider this. During the war the US supplied the Soviets with 450,000 lorries. And that's just one category of support. "After the collapse of the Soviet system, Russian historians were able to look into the archival files and total up the real figures. One study, by M.N. Suprin, calculates the caloric content of Lend-Lease foodstuffs sent to the USSR, divides the total by the caloric needs of the Red Army and arrives at a stunning conclusion: "The foodstuffs provided by Lend-Lease to the USSR would have sufficed to feed an army of ten million men for 1,688 days, that is, for the course of the entire war." Another study, by Boris Sokolov, which translates as THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR, estimates that the US supplied 92.7% of the USSR's railroad equipment, including locomotives and rails, and from 15% to 90% of production in all other categories. Weeks, who reads Russian, surveys these recent studies and cites them to show that Lend-Lease was indeed "Russia's Life-Saver." (http://www.amazon.com/Russias-Life-Saver-Lend-Lease-U-S-S-R-World/dp/0739107364 )

"Bombing diverted a lot of manpower and military equipment from the front in Russia, while it restricted the expansion of the German war economy." To suggest they, on their own, could have beaten Nazi Germany is highly optimistic. Especially since in technology, Germany was far ahead of the Soviets. A time would have come when that advantage in technology was decisive.

The reality is that Britain is a island, and it was completely dependent on the US help to provide the materials needed to battle the Axis and to get those materials to the island. Without the US taking sides to make sure that materials were available and arrived, Britain would have been starved out in no time. Prior to our entry in the war, the US provided huge quantities of arms and other materials. The US turned over destroyers to Britain to fight the submarine menance. US ships were involved in prewar shooting incidents to protect the British supply line. The ONLY thing keeping Britain afloat was US assistance. Had we sued for peace, the Axis would have starved them out and eventually unleashed weapons that were far ahead of everyone else on them. The Second Battle of Britain would have been a far different engagement.

But we weren't going to fight the Japanese. Under your presidency, we were going to apologize to Japan after they attacked Pearl Harbor (after all, we forced them to do it) and sue for peace to avoid hundreds of thousands of dead and the economic costs of fighting such a war. The media would make sure of it. Right?

robin ... listening to only one side of a debate yet thinking she has the whole story. ROTFLOL!

BAC, do your own research. I did my research to satisfy my own curiosity. It doesn't take much finger power, BAC.

For instance, I found these directions/options right off wikipedia. Go from here, BAC. Tah tah.

"Rokke's actual military records and doctoral thesis have been posted to theveteran2@yahoogroups.com and teachnonviolence@yahoogroups.com.

Anyone can also request the military records using the Standard Form 180 and the process detailed at the Department of Veterans Affairs website http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/. This site gives instructions to submit a SF 180 - Request Pertaining to Military Records.

Rokke's doctoral thesis is available in the University of Illinois Library at Champaign-Urbana."

I don't have Dr. Rokke's permission to post links to the pdfs in their entirety. But you can read the identical formal documents I read by following the instructions given in wikipedia...that is, if you want to learn the truth. I suspect you'd rather keep to the smear-untruths posted on the web per weekly standard/newsmax military desk jockey warriors.

Weren't you blubbering all over yourself a day ago telling Hammerdown how much you respected his son for serving in the military? But somehow you find it soooo easy to diminish the service of Dr. Rokke, who also served in the military - and why is that BAC? You respect only some military but not all military or you respect military all except whose last name begins with "R" or maybe you respect military only if they don't speak out against the instances when the DOD knowingly puts soldiers' health at risk re: DU exposure? What are your exceptions to the rule for "respect" you show the US military?

Hundreds of tonnes of depleted uranium used by Britain and the US in Iraq should be removed to protect the civilian population, the Royal Society - Britain's premier scientific institution - says, contradicting Pentagon claims it is not necessary.

The society's statement fuels the controversy over the use of depleted uranium, which is an effective tank destroyer and bunker-buster but is believed by many scientists to cause cancers and other severe illnesses.

The society was incensed because the Pentagon had claimed it had the backing of the society in saying depleted uranium was not dangerous.

In fact, the society said, both soldiers and civilians were in short and long- term danger.

Depleted uranium is left over after uranium is enriched for use in nuclear reactors and after reprocessing spent nuclear fuel. Thousands of tonnes of it are stored in the US and Britain.

Because it is effectively free and 20 per cent heavier than steel, the military experimented with it and discovered it could penetrate steel and concrete much more easily than convential weapons.

It was adopted as a standard weapon in the first Gulf War despite its radioactive content and toxic effects. It was used again in the Balkans and Afghanistan by the US.

Depleted uranium has been suspected by many campaigners of causing the unexplained cancers among Iraqis, particularly children, since the previous Gulf War. Chemicals released in the atmosphere during bombing could equally be to blame.

The UN Environment Program has been tracking the use of depleted uranium in the Balkans and found it leaching into the water table.

It has recommended the decontamination of buildings where depleted uranium dust is present.

Professor Brian Spratt, chairman of the Royal Society working group on depleted uranium, said a recent study by the society had found that the soil around the impact sites of depleted uranium penetrators might be heavily contaminated.

"We recommend that fragments of depleted uranium penetrators should be removed, and areas of contamination should be identified and, where necessary, made safe," he said.

'you folks' who? what polls? only polls on this thread are sited by you, cheerleading enabler.

"Why not. Lies are all you folks have been grasping at all along."
try again, strawman.

again with fairy tales from the paid government propagandist... nice try, Silver Shirt.

March 15, 2007

Give Us Some Real Political Leaders

BAGHDAD, Mar 15 (IPS) - Many Iraqis are now looking to local political leadership to fill wide gaps in a fractured government that is failing to provide security and basic needs.

March 13, 2007

Security Meet Ends, Insecurity Does Not

BAGHDAD, Mar 12 (IPS) - The security conference held last Saturday in Baghdad produced statements, drew mortar fire, and brought little hope of security.

February 13, 2007

More Troops, And More Violence

BAGHDAD, Feb 13 (IPS) - Violence and bombings have only increased after the proposed "surge" of 21,500 U.S. troops in Iraq.

February 12, 2007

Iran 'Fooling' U.S. Military

NAJAF, Feb 12 (IPS) - New evidence is emerging on the ground of an Iranian hand in growing violence within Iraq.

March 15, 2007 - MidEastWire.com Daily Iraq Monitor

March 15, 2007

Al Sharqiyah TV:

Iraqi security sources said that hundreds of Al-Mahdi Army members continue to receive training in the Kermanshah area in western Iran with the participation of a group of Al-Mahdi Army commanders who left Iraq for Iran six weeks ago. The sources said that the Iranian Revolution Guards Intelligence Unit and Al-Quds Operations Command asked Al-Mahdi Army to establish a command-in-waiting that would include new elements that are not publicly known, while maintaining the central command of Al-Mahdi Army militia. The command-in-waiting will include young elements and other elements that are not wanted by Iraqi and US forces.

The sources have mentioned the names of some commanders who have great influence within Al-Mahdi Army. Among these names, which could not be verified from independent or Al-Mahdi Army sources, are Walid al-Zamili, Mustafa al-Ya'qubi, Ali Kharsan, Awn Abd-al-Nabi, Hashim Abu-Raghif, Jabir Jabiri, Amar Muhaysan, Riyad al-Nuri, and Abbas al-Kufi, most of whom are outside Iraq at present, in addition to the known commanders of the sectors. The sources also mentioned the names of the publicly-known personalities in the Sadr Trend who are active in Iraq. Among these names are Abd-al-Zahra al-Suway'idi in Al-Sadr City; Salim Husayn and Hazim al-A'raji in Al-Karkh; Muhammad al-Zubaydi in Al-Rasafah; Ali Salim in Basra; and Abd-al-Razzaq al-Nadawi in Al-Diwaniyah. Government sources repeatedly declined to give official information on the movement of Al-Mahdi Army in Iraq and Iran, thus making it difficult to verify the information coming from government and non-govern! ment sources at the same time.

The Iraqi government had in the past received a report on a training operation held in two Lebanese areas; namely, in Hirmil and Al-Nabi Shit, but Hezbollah denied any link to such training operations. The secret report presented to the Iraqi government by an Iraqi security agency said that the rumours about the training of Al-Mahdi Army in Lebanon led to discharging Hezbollah official Nawwaf al-Musawi, who was replaced by Hasan al-Rahal to coordinate the training operations in Lebanon.

An explosion of a booby-trapped car driven by a suicide bomber rocked the Al-Karradah area in southeastern Baghdad, killing two people and wounded two others, according to an initial casualty toll. A security source said that the explosion targeted an Iraqi Police checkpoint at Kahramanah Square, adding that the casualty toll is expected to rise since the area where the explosion took place is usually crowded with people. Eyewitnesses said that they saw six wounded people following the explosion, which took place at 1500.

A bus exploded in front of the General Company for Mechanical Industries in Al-Iskandariyah in northern Babil Governorate, south of Baghdad. Security sources said that the bus exploded when the employees arrived at the company this morning, killing at least five people and wounding 21 others. Ambulances rushed to the site of the explosion and evacuated the wounded to hospitals.

An armed group in Iraq announced that it kidnapped an Iraqi officer with the rank of brigadier general. It posted on the Internet his identity cards, which showed that he holds the post of deputy director at the Iraqi Defence Ministry, but it did not describe him as an officer. Jamal Rashid Muhammad Ali was shown wearing civilian clothes in all his identity cards, which were posted by Ansar al-Sunnah Group on the Internet. The group said that the kidnapping operation took place in an area in Baghdad, without making any demand to release him.

Unidentified gunmen today assassinated an escort of Iraqi Construction and Housing Minister Bayan Dazhyi near his house in Al-Kazimiyah in northern Baghdad. A source at the Construction and Housing Ministry said that unidentified gunmen attacked Asu Abdallah Ghafur, an escort of the minister, while on his way to the ministry, which is located inside the Green Zone in central Baghdad.

US-Iraqi forces imposed curfew on the city of Al-Dulu'iyah in Balad District, north of Baghdad, following an airdrop over the city and an armed attack on a police station there. Iraqi Police sources said that US forces were dropped from five helicopters over the Al-Jubur neighbourhood in central al-Dulu'iyah, adding that the US forces killed two young men in an air bombardment near their houses and carried out raid-and-search campaigns in a number of areas, during which they arrested nine people, including a brigadier general in the former Iraqi Army and his brother.

Sources said that unidentified gunmen attacked Al-Hardaniyah Police Department in northern Al-Dulu'iyah and clashed with policemen. As a result, a gunman was killed and another was wounded, while officer with the rank of first lieutenant was seriously wounded and curfew was imposed. - MIDEASTWIRE.COM, Middle East

Roundup of Iraq violence -- March 18, 2007

By Mohammed al Dulaimy

McClatchy Newspapers

The daily Iraq violence report is compiled by McClatchy Newspapers in Baghdad from police, military and medical reports. This is not a comprehensive list of all violence in Iraq, much of which goes unreported. It’s posted without editing as transmitted to McClatchy’s Washington Bureau.

-- Around 9:30 a.m. a roadside bomb exploded in Al-Mustansiriyah square (not far away from Al-Mustansiriya university) targeting an Iraqi police vehicle. The blast killed one Iraqi policeman and injured two other policemen and two civilians.

-- Around 1:00 p.m. random gunfire by gunmen near Al Rusafi square targeting civilians claimed the life of one civilian and injured two.

-- Around 4:45 p.m. a parked car bomb exploded in Al Shaab neighborhood near Shalal market. The blast targeted civilians and claimed the lives of three civilians and injured seven.

-- Around 5:50 p.m. a roadside bomb targeted a U.S. military convoy in Al Kamalia neighborhood. the blast damaged one Humvee, Iraqi police said.

-- Police found five unidentified bodies throughout the capital. All the corpses were found in the western side of Baghdad (Karkh). The number of corpses found in each neighborhood as follows: Two dead bodies in Dora, two dead bodies in Amil and one in Saidiyah.

-- Around 2:30 p.m. gunmen attacked a mini bus carrying passengers was heading to Baghdad in Hibhib town of Al Khalis (20 Km north of Baqouba). The attack claimed the lives of 7 (including one child less than two years old and 2 women) and caused severe injuries to 4.

-- Two gunmen were killed in a clash with the British forces in Al-Hussein area (8 Km west of Basra) early morning today, Iraqi police source said.

BERKELEY, United States, Mar 16 (IPS) - Author of the upcoming book "The Iran Agenda: the Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis", due for release in September from Polipoint Press, Reese Erlich recently spent three weeks investigating Kurdish resistance organisations in Iran and Iraq's Kurdish region. He tells IPS that "the United States is officially funding armed groups to overthrow the Islamic government" in Tehran. In an interview with IPS's Omid Memarian, Erlich, who has covered the Middle East as a freelance journalist for the past 20 years and co-wrote 2003's "Target Iraq", says that Washington's strategy is primarily focused on media propaganda -- such as websites and satellite television and radio stations -- but also includes covert military training.

The Iranian government has itself accused opposition groups of destabilising the border region, and recently warned Kurdish Iraqi officials to expel armed bandits and anti-Iranian groups from their province, or face military incursions.

IPS: What do the Kurdish opposition groups look like? What constitutes the daily life of these small groups who are fighting an established government?

Reese Erlich (RE): The Kurdish compounds are like small villages. They have barracks for the single men peshmurga. Political cadres live with their families in small homes, much like Iraqi Kurds in that area. They have meeting halls and offices. PJAK's [Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistanê, or Party of Free Life of Kurdistan] conditions are much more like guerrillas, living in the cold mountains with more rudimentary huts.

I described one PJAK leader as the "very model of a modern guerrilla general." He has a cell phone, internet access and satellite TV. The women guerrillas claim they only watch news programmes, but I got them to admit they also like movies with Brad Pitt and Mel Gibson.

IPS: Is the U.S. support limited to media or does it include other activities, such as military operations?

RE: Secretly, U.S. intelligence services are also sponsoring armed attacks within Iran. I discovered the U.S. and Israeli support for PJAK in Kurdistan and from so-called former MEK members. The U.S. asks a Mujahedin-e Khalq Organisation (MEK or MKO) member if they have left and if they support democracy. If they answer yes, they can be trained and armed for clandestine actions inside Iran.

I believe that Kurds and other minorities within Iran have legitimate grievances. They are not allowed to learn in their local languages and face other forms of discrimination. But the U.S. finds the most extremist of minority groups and encourages them to engage in violence. The PJAK is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and has become a nationalist cult built around the personality of Abdullah Ocalan. MEK is really a cult, run by very secretive and authoritarian leaders. Both these groups consider themselves social democrats, but ironically, they receive the most support from extreme right wingers in the U.S.

IPS: How do they get support from [sympathisers in] Iran when the Iranian government has extensively shut down their operations in the west of Iran?

RE: I met with three Iranian Kurdish opposition groups with camps in northern Iraq. KDPI [the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran] and Komala say they recruit new members from Iran and both have peshmurga militias. But neither currently engages in armed activity inside Iran. It's hard to know what actual support they have inside Iran, but they historically certainly had supporters in the Kurdish regions. PJAK is much smaller and more isolated. But they have picked up some support from young people angry at the oppression they face inside Iran.

>From my sources among Kurds, all three groups carry out clandestine meetings with supporters inside Iran. When big demonstrations broke out inside Kurdistan in 2006, all three groups participated in the demonstrations. PJAK took a more militant line, calling for armed struggle, and that appealed to some youth.

IPS: What can they achieve while there are many dynamics to reform the Iranian political system?

RE: All three groups agree on certain things. They say they support a revolution in Iran with the ultimate aim of establishing a democratic, federal system. They want the central government to control major issues such as foreign affairs, the military and economy. But local regions should control education, health, police and similar local issues. They do not call for separatism. The danger, of course, is that if Iraqi Kurdistan becomes independent and the Iranian government continues its current policies, the mood could shift in support of separatism.

It's very hard to judge how much support these groups have in Tehran. I met with some intellectuals, NGO leaders and others who -- I suspected -- supported one or another group. But since the groups are illegal, they can't be very specific. I think the support for much greater local control or federalism is strong among the Kurds I met.

IPS: Does the Iranian opposition, which is supported by U.S. money, support any kind attack against Iran?

RE: KDPI strongly opposes any U.S. military attacks against Iran, arguing it will just alienate Iranians, including those who oppose the government. PJAK welcomes such attacks in hopes they will topple the government. Komala says it neither supports nor opposes such attacks. U.S. attacks might help topple the regime, they argue, but they don't advocate it.

U.S. military officials I spoke with deny any U.S. support of PJAK. The official position of the Bush administration is to support Iranians to bring about a new government, but they don't officially call for "regime change." In reality, the U.S. is doing everything in its power to overthrow the Iranian government and install one friendly to the U.S.

IPS: Is there any direct connection between the Kurdish opposition groups and U.S. officials? Do they meet on regular basis?

RE: In 2006, top Komala and KDPI leaders visited the U.S. to meet with middle level State Department and intelligence officials. It was an official meeting covered in the press at the time. They wouldn't tell me the content of the meetings except that the meetings were very friendly.

Hejri visited Washington in 2006 to meet with State Department and other U.S. government officials. Hejri and other KDPI leaders deny accepting U.S. financing, although he said KDPI would accept such aid if offered.

Morteza Esfandiari, the KDPI representative in the U.S., told me that KDPI had applied to get some of the 85 million dollars allocated to "promote democracy" in Iran in order to improve its satellite TV station.

The KDPI opposes U.S. or Israeli military attacks on Iran's nuclear power facilities as counterproductive.

I think it will very hard for Iran to crush the Kurdish opposition. Kurds are a very independent people who have never liked repression from the central government. In addition, the Kurdish guerrillas can retreat into Iraq, and return to fight another day.

IPS: The Iranian government has a very friendly relationship with Iraq's president, who is a Kurd himself and has strong ties with Iranian officials. Why does the Iraqi government allow the Kurdish opposition groups to operate in Iraq?

RE: The KRG (Kurdish Regional Government) allows Komala and KDPI to maintain compounds in Iraq and train peshmurga, so long as they don't carry out armed actions inside Iran. I think KDPI and Komala agree to those terms. PJAK does carry out armed actions. KRG officials claim they can't stop PJAK because of the rugged mountain terrain. In reality, they just look the other way, since PJAK has U.S. and Israeli backing.

Kurdish nationalism is very strong. The KRG, which has good relations with Iran, can't ignore the plight of Kurds living in Iran. So they compromise by not allowing the two major groups to engage in guerrilla activity. But it's a situation that can't last forever. Last year, on two occasions, Iran shelled Iraqi Kurdish villages, killing five people as a warning to the KRG.

In the past, Iran has asked the KRG to shut down opposition groups operating in Kurdistan. They even made a deal with one of the Iraqi Krudish groups to attack KDPI's camp. But KDPI was warned in advance and no one was hurt. Right now the KRG relies on the U.S., and the U.S. wants Iran attacked. So I don't think Iran's entreaties will go anywhere. If the general political situation changes, however, who knows?

*Omid Memarian is an Iranian journalist and civil society activist. He has won several awards, including Human Rights Watch's highest honour in 2005, the Human Rights Defender Award. His blog can be found at http://omidmemarian.blogspot.com/. (FIN/2007)

if you were even a quarter less cluless than the Chamberlains you source, you might have a chance, but I doubt it.

Doug Rokke is a fellow who spent 30 years in the US Army. The army tasked him to look at depletetd uranium issue and to do some cleanup. He did his job. And now he is sick from it.

and I am one who does know that you are aware of all this - you do have sympathy for Rokke's health plight just as we all do as well. But to me that is enough credentials combined with the fact that he is very intelligent and has information and experience to back up what seems to me an 'expert' view on this subject.

when the army sent him into that DU field to do clean-up and he learned the hard way it kills people, that is all the credentials he needs.

Galatians 3:29 And if ye [be] Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

a. While the lend-lease program helped Russia, it wasn't all rosey for us ( ie. America, in case you get confused about the nation I'm speaking about, BAC). If you had looked at the next reader comment to the one you cut and pasted from re: the amazon title, you might have discovered that the lend-lease program was not exactly in America's best interests or in the interests of the world - Stalin, the bloodiest Dictator of the 20th century - and that Professor Weeks paints Roosevelt's role in helping Stalin as somewhat questionable:

"...But Prof. Weeks doesn't stop there, he also paints a lively picture of the political developments leading to the decision of President Roosevelt to come to the rescue of the bloodiest Dictator of the 20th century, Joseph Stalin, in his fight against his opponent and recent collaborator, Hitler.

Prof. Weeks also demonstrates that Stalin was actively working through the channels of his espionage agencies to influence the US administration to deliver material aid to the USSR (he cites the Venona decrypts and material from Russia, most notably the NKVD's "Operation Snow"). It becomes clear that the large-scale infiltration of various US government branches by the Soviet espionage agencies played an important role in the speedy decision to send vast amounts of military and civilian goods to Stalin's Soviet Union. Stalin also ordered his agents to obtain military secrets from the US, both before and during the war, even when the Soviet Union was a nominal ally of the US.

At times, aid to the USSR was given priority over aid to Britain by President Roosevelt. Roosevelt's dubious and naive role in his dealings with Stalin is presented in some detail as well.

Weeks also shows that Stalin always rightly understood the might and potential of the American economic potential. US technical assistance had already played a major role in the mechanisation of both the Soviet agriculture and the Red Army. Stalin has been able to use the huge "tractor factories", built with the help of Ford, among others, to establish the necessary industrial base for the mechanisation of his huge tank forces before the outbreak of the Second World War..."

b. It's not just my view. There are a multitude of books that allude to the same thing. In fact, the Brits and Canadians in particular and Europeans generally take offense over the bravado and swagger of chest beating tinhorn macho men like yourself, BAC, who claim it was America that won the war. Au contraire. America's entry helped but the war was already on the way to being lost by Hitler due to his choice to attack Russia. That meant Hitler was committed to fighting on 3 fronts. The Germans were doomed. The British maintained naval superiority and had survived the Battle of Britain - no way would Hitler take Britain. Rommel was getting his butt kicked on the North African front. And if the US had not jumped in - Russia would have finished off Hitler and soon after Uncle Joe would have fallen - the communists could not have survived the uprising of their own people and the Eastern Europeans if FDR and Churchill had not backed the Stalinists' villanous asses and called them "allies."

As for Pearl Harbor -HA! -faux reason that caused 300,000 US servicemen deaths including the 2500 at Pearl Harbor - American boys' blood on FDR's hands - read the book "Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor" by Robert Stinnett. From Amazon " Robert Stinnett served the U.S. Navy with distinction during World War II examines recently declassified American documents and concludes that, far more than merely knowing of the Japanese plan to bomb Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt deliberately steered Japan into war with America."

c. And you still have not answered my question, did we liberate Poland at the end of the war - the matchstick that triggered the start of WWII - if there's any single measure of who won the war, it's who liberated Poland, yes?

Also, you don't seem too concerned about the millions upon millions of Eastern European Christians who were doomed to Uncle Joe's brutal rule and gulag camps. Oh well. They're only Catholics and Orthodox Christians - they don't count much in your books, BAC. They are not "special."

d. As for Japan - the Russians beat them up pretty good as well - they crushed their supply lines.

It is amazing the number of people who died from wars and communism during the 20th century!

Hitler was a small time evil as compared to Uncle Joe and his communist compadres, who were the bigtime genociders. The communists took blood letting very seriously. There's good reason for why they were associated with the color red.

What the Naziis did in the concentration camps was unforgiveable but the communists murdered many many many times what Hitler did - and oddly enough there never were any Nuremberg style Trials held to bring them to justice.

Nazii-fixated folks like BAC probably view Catholics and Orthodox Christians as being disposable, forgettable, not special so why bother faulting Uncle Joe and the communists? Uncle Joe was "our" ally after all as well as his swell NKVD who kept the Russians and Eastern Europeans marching forward, never to turn back. That's jolly good Russian nationalism, BAC would claim.

Most everyone has been taught that all the Germans loved Hitler, and he killed 6 million Jews, which all the gentiles in Europe were so happy about.

Nothing is further than the truth; he killed millions of people, he imposed impossibly high standards on all the civilians, made them snitch on neighbors, threw people in camps for the slightest infractions, raided other countries, it was a demonic regime and demonic regimes including Japan and Cambodia in the 1970s can only last so long.

Germany and Russia would have continued to fight and could have worn each other down to the point where both countries could have ended up with humane regimes. At least nazi Germany ceased to exist, but as we know Soviet Union was only empowered and millions across Europe died who otherwise would probably not have, that is what I think.

I realize among some only those 6 million matter, some have strong religious/tribal beliefs which tell them only their people matter, but the fact is many millions of all kinds of people died causing much grief, misery and destruction.

There would have eventually been uprisings and the nazi regime overthrown, even without the help of the Soviets.

The German and Austrian people were increasingly miserable in spite of what the History Channel tells us, it would only have been a matter of time, and a very short time at that.

And they became furious when they found out how much they had been lied to by their govt, and how some very bad information such as pertaining to the camps had been kept from them.

On 4th October 1992, at about 6.30 in the evening, El Al flight LY 1862, a Boeing 747-200 crashed into a block of 12-story flats in Bijlmer, on the outskirts of Amsterdam, killing its crew of three, a "non-revenue passenger", and at least 43 people on the ground. Because some of the people in Bijlmer were migrants, who were without documents, the full number of victims remains unknown.

According to Seán MacCárthaigh, of the Irish Times, who arrived shortly after the crash,"The El Al plane had scythed through the top five stories of two buildings; about 40 flats took a direct hit. Then a huge fireball rolled through the complex and apartment after apartment popped into flames.... A giant cloud of choking white smoke engulfed the area."

What this choking smoke consisted of was a mystery. From day one, right up until 1998, the Israeli government insisted that there was "no dangerous material on that plane. Israel has nothing to hide." This did not however explain why, after the crash, over 850 Bijlmer survivors - residents, police and rescue workers - sought treatment for a host of maladies including fatigue, breathing problems, hair loss, neurological ailments, mental confusion, depression, encephalomyelitis and disabling joint pains.

Over several years Dutch newspapers and citizens groups searched for further details in the face of what seemed evidently to be a series of cover ups. Then, on October 4, 1998, the Dutch newspaper, the NRC Handelsblad, published a leaked copy of a page from the plane's cargo documentation. According to the leaked paperwork, Flight 1862 was carrying 10 tons of chemicals, including hydrofluoric acid, isopro-panol and dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) - three of the four chemicals used in the production of sarin nerve gas.

The DMMP, supplied by Solkatronic Chemicals Inc. of Morrisville, Pennsylvania, was destined for the Israeli Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) in Nes Ziona, outside of Tel Aviv. IIBR is the Israeli military and intelligence community's front organization for the development, testing and production of chemical and biological weapons.

Once again there were lies and a cover up. Israel maintained that the chemicals were to be used to test gas masks - but only a few grams would be needed for such tests. In fact, there were enough chemicals on Flight 1862 to produce 270 kilos of sarin - sufficient to kill the entire population of a major world city.

There was more - once again with lies from the powers that be. In the months following the crash, the Dutch citizens' group Onderzoeksgrep Vliegramp Bijlmermeer (OVB) reported how, "in addition to the cocktail of toxic chemicals that came free during the disaster," traces of uranium, zirconium and lanthanum had turned up in soil samples taken from the crash. Worse, there were traces of uranium in faeces samples taken from survivors.

One year after the crash, the Laka Foundation, an independent Dutch nuclear research group, revealed that the El Al jet - like all Boeing 747s - carried 1,500 kg of depleted uranium (DU) onboard in the form of counterweights in the tail fins, horizontal stabilizers and wings. DU is an extremely dense metallic by-product of the production of U235, the fissionable uranium isotope used to manufacture nuclear weapons and fuel. It contains residual amounts of radioactive U235, the less radioactive U238 and trace amounts of U236.

A Boeing document has acknowledged that swallowing or breathing DU dust can cause "a significant and long-lasting irradiation of internal tissue." DU has been implicated as a cause of Gulf War Symptom - a series of physical and mental debilities remarkably similar to the symptoms reported by the Bijlmer survivors - as a result of the use of depleted uranium shells in that conflict. Large areas of Iraq have also been contaminated and large numbers of children have died with cancers. DU oxidizes at temperatures as low as 350 C. The fire at Bijlmer, fuelled from the airplane itself, reached 1100-1400 C.

In response to concerns the Dutch government issued a report which assured the public that the counterweights had remained intact and never posed a threat to health. However, LAKA published its own findings that only 163 kg of the 430 kg of depleted uranium on the plane had been recovered. The shock from this rebuttal triggered the demand for a full Dutch Parliamentary inquiry.

The Bijlmer hearings were chaired by Christian Democratic opposition deputy Theo Meijer and was televised weekly. A phone line for psychological counselling was necessary for many viewers.

At the committee hearings it came out that an El Al cargo flight between New York and Tel Aviv touched down every Sunday evening. The flights were never displayed on arrival monitors and the documentation for the flight was processed in a special unmarked room. According to the testimony of the Dutch Attorney General, Vrakking, the El Al security detachment at Schiphol was a branch of Mossad, the Israeli secret service. A Dutch Air Guidance Organization employee told the hearing that the "policy" since 1973 was to keep quiet about all El Al activities. Schiphol workers testified that El Al planes were never inspected by customs or the Dutch Flight Safety Board. Maintenance workers were uncomfortable about clearing Flight 1862 for take off as there were many "carry over items" on the maintenance sheet that were uncorrected - but their supervisors had ordered them to clear it for take off.

The Dutch press reported that security officials had been waving Israeli air cargo through Schiphol since the 1950s. Shipping the kinds of chemicals aboard LY1862 ordinarily would be a violation of the Chemical Weapons Treaty (which the US has signed). By refueling the jets at commercial, rather than NATO airfields, a way was found around the military treaties. "Schiphol has become a hub for secret weapons transfers," according to Henk van der Belt, an investigator working on behalf of the Bijlmer survivors. "Dutch authorities have no jurisdiction over Israeli activities at the airport."

A Televisieproduktie Amsterdam (TVA) report identified Schiphol as one of several European airports that allows El Al to transfer cargo without supervision. TVA claimed that Belgian politicians now fear that "a disaster like the crash in Holland in 1992 is possible at [Belgium's] Zaaventem. This airport is, like Schiphol, under control by the secret police of Israel."

That is EXACTLY what you have implied, as my post was concerning the contamination of DU used by the military for munintions based upon a DOE report. The contamination consisted of plutonium, neptuniuam, U-239, U-236, and other transuranic elements.

Your first post to me on the subject was a rant about Rokke, who is your favorite strawman whenever facts concering the dangers of DU are mentioned.

Pentagon stance on DU a moving target

March 15, 2007

Give Us Some Real Political Leaders

March 13, 2007

Security Meet Ends, Insecurity Does Not

February 13, 2007

More Troops, And More Violence

February 12, 2007

Iran 'Fooling' U.S. Military

March 15, 2007 - MidEastWire.com Daily Iraq Monitor

March 15, 2007

Roundup of Iraq violence -- March 18, 2007

By Mohammed al Dulaimy

McClatchy Newspapers