Summaries here and here and here. Also this.
Contours of chaos.
one of every seven Iraqis – 14 percent of Iraq’s population – is now displaced by the war.… Article
Much more:
The number of Iraqis kicked out of their homes has surged 16 percent in October despite claims by the government that it has declined.
The Red Crescent, Iraq’s Red Cross equivalent, said at least 100,000 more Iraqis were forced to leave their homes in October.
“The number of internally displaced people in the country has surged to 2.3 million from 2.2 million,” said Amal al-Karbouli, Red Crescent’s deputy head.
“The promises may by the government of Nouri al-Maliki to help the displaced people return to their homes have not been honored,” Karbouli added.
[snip]
The fleeing Iraqis blame ongoing U.S. military activities in which heavy weapons including tanks, warplanes and helicopter gun ships are deployed as well as sectarian killings and coercion for most of their suffering.
Karbouli said Maliki was almost doing nothing to help Iraqi refugees whether inside or outside the country. Article
When the immunity shoe so adamantly touted by the woebegone G. Walker administration is on the other foot:
An Iraqi judge has ruled that there is enough evidence to try two former Health Ministry officials, both Shiites, in the killing and kidnapping of hundreds of Sunnis, many of them snatched from hospitals by militias, according to American officials who are advising the Iraqi judicial system.
The case, which was referred last week to a three-man tribunal in Baghdad, is the first in which an Iraqi magistrate has recommended that such high-ranking Shiites be tried for sectarian violence. But any trial could still be derailed by the Health Ministry, making the case an important test of the government’s will to administer justice on a nonsectarian basis.
The Iraqi investigation has confirmed long-standing Sunni fears that hospitals had been opened up as a hunting ground for Shiite militias intent on spreading fear among Sunnis and driving them out of the capital. Even before the case, Baghdad residents told of death threats against doctors who would treat Sunnis, of intravenous lines ripped from patients’ arms as they were carried away, and of relatives of hospitalized Sunnis who were killed when they came to visit.
[snip]
…The former officials were taken into custody in February and March amid reports that they had been implicated in sectarian violence and corruption. But the status of the judicial inquiry into their activities and its findings have not previously been reported.
The inquiry included testimony from nine witnesses, some of whom have been granted visas to live in the United States for their protection.
If the trial goes ahead, it would be held in a new Rule of Law complex in the Rusafa section of the capital. The installation was built by the American military this year and the government has allocated $49 million to operate it. Judges live at the heavily fortified compound to protect them from assassins and renegade militias. The proceedings, which could happen in the next few weeks, would be videotaped and, according to Iraqi law, open to the public.
But one looming question is whether the Iraqi government will move forward with the trial, which would shine a light on some of the most serious sectarian abuses committed under government cover. The Health Ministry could try to block the case by invoking a section of the Iraqi criminal law that precludes prosecution of officials who are carrying out their official duties. The Interior Ministry has used this tactic to preclude investigation of a senior National Police officer accused of sectarian crimes.
The Iraqi judges slated to try the case have informed the Health Ministry that they want to proceed and have asked for the agency’s approval. The Health Ministry has yet to respond.
[snip]
Michael Walther, an American Justice Department official who is leading a task force that is advising the Iraqis on how to investigate crimes and conduct trails, said the trial could help ease sectarian differences. “There is a perception among the Sunni population that the court is nothing more than an instrument for the tyranny of the majority,” he said in a telephone interview. “This would demonstrate that the court can be a balancing factor.” Article
Noted FYI:
Iran opened two consulates in northern Iraq on Tuesday in a bid to improve ties with the Kurdish region, one in a building that was raided by US forces in January.
The two missions were opened in the Kurdish cities of Arbil and Sulaimaniyah, taking to four the number of Iranian consulates in Iraq, in addition to an embassy in Baghdad.
The Arbil consulate was opened in a building that was raided in January by US forces who detained five Iranians, accusing them of aiding the insurgency.
The building had been closed since then and the five Iranians — who Tehran insists are diplomats — are still in US military custody.
At the opening ceremony in Arbil, Tehran’s ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi Qomi told reporters that the continued detention of the five was an “illegal act against the Iraqi sovereignty.”
“They are still in custody. We hope they would be released.”
A senior US military official said later that two of the five were among nine Iranians who would be released as they posed no threat.
[snip]
It was also agreed that Tehran would allow Iraq to open two consulates in the Iranian cities of Kermanshah and Orumiyeh.
Shiite Iran already has two consulates in the Iraqi Shiite cities of Karbala and Basra. Article
Oil-related news:
Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government has signed seven more oil deals, moves that are bound to irk Baghdad, which has called previous deals illegal.
The KRG announced the deals Tuesday as it moves forward in developing its own hydrocarbons sector. The leadership in Iraq’s national government has largely condemned the Kurdish moves, saying the region should wait until a national strategy for developing the country’s oil and gas reserves is agreed to.
[snip]
The KRG signed deals for two exploration blocks each with India’s Reliance Energy Ltd. and a subsidiary of Austria’s OMV.
One block each was awarded to a venture between subsidiaries of MOL Hungarian Oil and Gas and Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd.; a venture between Gulf Keystone Petroleum International Limited, Texas Keystone Inc. and Kalegran Ltd.; and another “western company, with details to be announced in coming days.” Article
Developments as regards mercenary mayhem:
Iraqi torture victims and their relatives can proceed with a lawsuit against a defense contractor that provided interrogators to the U.S. military in Iraq, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
The lawsuit was filed in 2004 on behalf of Iraqi nationals who say they or their relatives had been tortured or mistreated while detained by the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq.
The plaintiffs sued CACI International Inc, which provided interrogators at Abu Ghraib, and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc.’s Titan unit, which provided interpreters to the U.S. military in Iraq.
U.S. District Judge James Robertson dismissed the claims against Titan because the translators performed their duties under the direct command and under the exclusive operational control of military personnel.
But he ruled the lawsuit against CACI can go forward. He said CACI interrogators were subject to a dual chain of command involving company and military officials, with significant independent authority retained by CACI supervisors in Iraq.
The judge also said the interrogators had a requirement to report abuse not only up the military chain of command but also to CACI. CACI argued that it was acting on behalf of the military and cannot be held liable. Article
Buried under bureaucracy and image management: Sweep enough under the rug and it becomes an unignorable mound of muck (emphasis added).
Pretty much alone in the media, E&P for weeks had been charting a troubling increase in non-combat deaths among U.S. troops in Iraq. So it came as no surprise recently when the Pentagon announced that it would probe the perplexing trend. Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, operations director of the Joint Staff, said commanders in Iraq were concerned enough about the spike in non-combat deaths — from accidents, illness, friendly-fire or suicide — that it had asked for an assessment by an Army team.
According to Pentagon figures, 29 soldiers lost their lives in August for non-hostile reasons, and another 23 died of non-combat causes in September. Compare that with the average for the first seven months of this year: fewer than nine per month. The spike has coincided with extended 15-month deployments, one senior military official said.
The military officially counts about 20% of the nearly 3900 U.S. fatalities in Iraq as “noncombat.” It has officially confirmed 128 suicides in Iraq since 2003, with many others under investigation (and still more taking place on the return home). Article
Noted FYI:
Former chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix says he fears the United States has a secret plan to keep its troops in Iraq.
Dr Blix, who warned against the invasion of Iraq after his inspectors found no evidence that weapons of mass destruction were being held by Saddam Hussein, is in Sydney to receive the Sydney Peace Prize.
“One fear I would have is that the US has a hidden thought to remain in Iraq,” Dr Blix told ABC radio on Wednesday.
“One reason why they wanted in was that they felt they must leave Saudi Arabia.
“After the Gulf War in 1991 they left their troops in Saudi Arabia to protect pipelines,” he explained.
“And when they felt they could no longer stay in Saudi Arabia, Iraq was the next best place because it was more secularised than Saudi Arabia and had the second biggest oil reserves in the region.”
Mr Blix also said the US military wanted to be very close to Iran, to which it has a very fierce attitude.
[snip]
Dr Blix recalled the UN team’s failure to find any weapons of mass destruction in 700 searches of 500 sites in Iraq.
“The aims of the war were, first of all, to eliminate weapons of mass destruction that did not exist,” he said.
“Secondly, to establish a democracy, and what they ended up with was anarchy; and thirdly, they wanted to weed out al-Qaeda which was not there but which came there (after the invasion).”
He said the elimination of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was the war’s only positive outcome. Article
Beyond parody: Fact trumps fiction any day. In this case, in the form of a ‘tourist’s guide to the Green Zone.’