From London daily The Morning Star:
Selling off Iraq
(Monday 29 May 2006)
The Bush Agenda: Invading the World One Economy at a Time by Antonia Juhasz
(Duckworth, £10.99)JOHN MOORE learns more of Washington’s wholesale sell-off of Iraq in a new study of the events that took place post-invasion.
WHAT was the motivation behind the Bush administration’s unprovoked invasion of Iraq?
Its central purpose was to gain control of the oil, but there was even more on the agenda than that.
Antonia Juhasz describes in convincing detail the economic invasion of Iraq – a case study in corporate-driven globalisation strategy.
A series of orders issued by Paul Bremer, the president’s envoy in Iraq and administrator of the coalition provisional authority, had full legal force over all Iraqis.
Designed to “liberalise” the economy, the orders included privatisation of all Iraq’s 192 government-owned industries, including water, electricity, schools and hospitals.
They allowed complete foreign ownership of all Iraqi businesses, including the banking sector, with unrestricted repatriation of profits.
Foreign investors have been given 40-year leases on Iraqi real estate, with unlimited renewal options and with any dispute to be taken to international courts.
All tariffs and other charges on imports are ended, as are farming subsidies, leaving the market open to a flood of cheap foreign goods, such as US wheat imports.
The vice-chairman of the US rice council told a house committee that the liberation of Iraq freed the Iraqi people and “also provided hope for the US rice industry.”
The WTO, the World Bank and the IMF could not have been better pleased.
US massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha: here.
And here.
Halliburton in Iraq: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
I read until I got up to this point “unprovoked invasion of Iraq”. Do your homework and read about the cease fire agreement and the violations of said agreement. If it where up to you kiwat would be enslaved. If you still have no idea what im talking about then quit blogging and read a book.
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Hi rusty, I see you have no problem with the main content of this entry (oil and other corporate interests). The official reasons for Bush’s invasion were: supposed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; and supposed links between secularist Saddam Hussein and out and out religious Osama bin Laden. Both have turned out to be lies, as even the Bush administration has admitted by now.
See Bush himself admitting there were no WMD in Iraq:
http://youtu.be/soohikNdbWs
As for Saddam Hussein being a dictator: he was so at his worst in the 1980s, when he was a close buddy of Cheney and Rumsfeld, who went to Iraq to sell him arms. So that also was not the reason.
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In Haditha, Memories of a Massacre
Iraqi Townspeople Describe Slaying of 24 Civilians by Marines in Nov. 19 Incident
By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 27, 2006; Page A01
BAGHDAD, May 26 — Witnesses to the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha say the Americans shot men, women and children at close range in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal in a roadside bombing. Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident who said he watched and listened from his home as Marines went from house to house killing members of three families, recalled hearing his neighbor across the street, Younis Salim Khafif, plead in English for his life and the lives of his family members. “I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: ‘I am a friend. I am good,’ ” Fahmi said. “But they killed him, and his wife and daughters.”
The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who were trying to shield them, witnesses told a Washington Post special correspondent in Haditha this week and U.S. investigators said in Washington. The girls killed inside Khafif’s house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, according to death certificates. Two U.S. military boards are investigating the incident as potentially the gravest violation of the law of war by U.S. forces in the three-year-old conflict in Iraq. The U.S. military ordered the probes after Time magazine presented military officials in Baghdad this year with the findings of its own investigation, based on accounts of survivors and on a videotape shot by an Iraqi journalism student at Haditha’s hospital and inside victims’ houses.
An investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service into the killings and a separate military probe into an alleged coverup are slated to end in the next few weeks. Marines have briefed members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and other officials on the findings; some of the officials briefed say the evidence is damaging. Charges of murder, dereliction of duty and making a false statement are likely, people familiar with the case said Friday. “Marines overreacted . . . and killed innocent civilians in cold blood,” said one of those briefed, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine who maintains close ties with senior Marine officers despite his opposition to the war.
Haditha is one of a chain of farm towns on the Euphrates River where U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled foreign and local insurgents without resolution for much of the war. The first account of the killings there was a false or erroneous statement issued the next day, Nov. 20, by a U.S. Marine spokesman from a Marine base in Ramadi: “A U.S. Marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another.” The incident was touched off when a roadside bomb struck a Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment supply convoy. The explosion killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, who was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Following in the footsteps of two Marine uncles and a Marine grandfather, Terrazas had planned to go to college when it was all done, his family said.
Insurgents planted the bomb on a side road off one of Haditha’s main streets, placing it between two vacant lots to try to avoid killing — and further alienating — Haditha’s civilians, residents said. It went off at 7:15 a.m. Terrazas was driving the Humvee, and he died instantly. Two other Marines in the convoy were wounded. “Everybody agrees that this was the triggering event. The question is: What happened afterward?” said Paul Hackett, an attorney for a Marine officer with a slight connection to the case. The descriptions of events provided to The Post by witnesses in Haditha could not be independently verified, although their accounts of the number of casualties and their identities were corroborated by death certificates. In the first minutes after the shock of the blast, residents said, silence reigned on the street of walled courtyards, brick homes and tiny palm groves. Marines appeared stunned, or purposeful, as they moved around the burning Humvee, witnesses said.
Then one of the Marines took charge and began shouting, said Fahmi, who was watching from his roof. Fahmi said he saw the Marine direct other Marines into the house closest to the blast, about 50 yards away. It was the home of 76-year-old Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali. Although he had used a wheelchair since diabetes forced a leg amputation years ago, Ali was always one of the first on his block to go out every morning, scattering scraps for his chickens and hosing the dust of the arid western town from his driveway, neighbors said.
In the house with Ali and his 66-year-old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, were three of the middle-aged male members of their family, at least one daughter-in-law and four children — 4-year-old Abdullah, 8-year-old Iman, 5-year-old Abdul Rahman and 2-month-old Asia. Marines entered shooting, witnesses recalled. Most of the shots — in Ali’s house and two others —
were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, physicians at Haditha’s hospital said. A daughter-in-law, identified as Hibbah, escaped with Asia, survivors and neighbors said. Iman and Abdul Rahman were shot but survived. Four-year-old Abdullah, Ali and the rest died.
Ali took nine rounds in the chest and abdomen, leaving his intestines spilling out of the exit wounds in his back, according to his death certificate. The Marines moved to the house next door, Fahmi said. Inside were 43-year-old Khafif, 41-year-old Aeda Yasin Ahmed, an 8-year-old son, five young daughters and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family, according to death certificates and neighbors. The Marines shot them at close range and hurled grenades into the kitchen and bathroom, survivors and neighbors said later. Khafif’s pleas could be heard across the neighborhood. Four of the girls died screaming. Only 13-year-old Safa Younis lived —
saved, she said, by her mother’s blood spilling onto her, making her look dead when she fell, limp, in a faint.
Townspeople led a Washington Post reporter this week to the girl they identified as Safa. Wearing a ponytail and tracksuit, the girl said her mother died trying to gather the girls. The girl burst into tears after a few words. The older couple caring for her apologized and asked the reporter to leave. Moving to a third house in the row, Marines burst in on four brothers, Marwan, Qahtan, Chasib and Jamal Ahmed. Neighbors said the Marines killed them together.
Marine officials said later that one of the brothers had the only gun found among the three families, although there has been no known allegation that the weapon was fired. Meanwhile, a separate group of Marines found at least one other house full of young men. The Marines led the men in that house outside, some still in their underwear, and away to detention.
The final victims of the day happened upon the scene inadvertently, witnesses said. Four male college students — Khalid Ayada al-Zawi, Wajdi Ayada al-Zawi, Mohammed Battal Mahmoud and Akram Hamid Flayeh — had left the Technical Institute in Saqlawiyah for the weekend to stay with one of their families on the street, said Fahmi, a friend of the young men. A Haditha taxi driver, Ahmed Khidher, was bringing them home, Fahmi said. According to Fahmi, the young men and their driver turned onto the street and saw the wrecked Humvee and the Marines. Khidher threw the car into reverse, trying to back away at full speed, Fahmi said, and the Marines opened fire from about 30 yards away, killing all the men inside the taxi. After the killings, Fahmi said, more Americans arrived at the scene. They shouted among themselves. The Marines cordoned off the block; then, and for at least the next day, Marines filed into the houses, looked around and came out.
At some point on Nov. 19, Marines in an armored convoy arrived at Haditha’s hospital. They placed the bodies of the victims in the garden of the hospital and left without explanation, said Mohammed al-Hadithi, one of the hospital officials who helped carry the bodies inside. By some accounts, some of the corpses were burnt. The remains of the 24 lie today in a cemetery called Martyrs’ Graveyard. Stray dogs scrounge in the deserted homes. “Democracy assassinated the family that was here,” graffiti on one of the houses declared. The insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq said it sent copies of the journalism student’s videotape to mosques in Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, using the killings of the women and children to recruit fighters. After Haditha leaders complained, the Marines paid compensation put variously by townspeople at $1,500 or $2,500 for each of the 15 men, women and children killed in the first two houses. They refused to pay for the nine other men killed, insisting that they were insurgents. Officials familiar with the investigations said it is now believed that the nine were innocent victims. By some accounts, a 25th person, the father of the four brothers killed together, was also killed.
As the official investigations conclude and fresh information continues to surface in Haditha, several aspects of the incident remain unclear or are in dispute. For example, John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, which helped break the news that spurred the military investigation, said he had been told by Marine officers that the rampage lasted three to five hours and involved two squads of Marines. Although Marines’ accounts offered in the early stages of the investigation described a running gun battle, those versions of the story proved to be false, officials briefed by the Marines said. Also, one member of Congress who was briefed by Marines said in Washington that the shooting of the men in the taxi occurred before the shootings in the houses.
Another point of dispute is whether some houses were destroyed by fire or by airstrikes. Some Iraqis reported that the Marines burned houses in the area of the attack, but two people familiar with the case, including Hackett, the lawyer, said warplanes conducted airstrikes, dropping 500-pound bombs on more than one house. That is significant for any possible court-martial proceedings, because it would indicate that senior commanders, who must approve such strikes and who would also use aircraft to assess their effects, were paying attention to events in Haditha that day.
The Marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines have rotated back home, to California. Last month, the Marine Corps relieved Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani of command of the 3rd Battalion. Two of his company commanders were relieved of their commands, as well. Authorities said a series of unspecified incidents had led to a loss of confidence in the three. In Haditha, families of those killed keep an ear cocked to a foreign station, Radio Monte Carlo, waiting for any news of a trial of the Marines. “They are waiting for the sentence — although they are convinced that the sentence will be like one for someone who killed a dog in the United States,” said Waleed Mohammed, a lawyer preparing a file for Iraqi courts and the United Nations, if the U.S. trial disappoints. “Because Iraqis have become like dogs in the eyes of Americans.'”‘
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*GOP Kills Bill to Police Halliburton*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Date: Wed Jun 21, 2006 12:00 pm (PDT)
If a guest came to your house for a short stay (and then stayed longer
than he was welcome) and trashed your house by destroying your water
pipes; killing all your plants; causing the family’s breadwinner to lose
his (her) job; ruining your relationships with your neighbors, in fact,
with everyone in your town; throwing mud all over your curtains, causing
a small fire that left soot all over your walls; and running up
exorbitant bills at the local stores after you gave him your charge card
to purchase some groceries, you might decide that person was a very bad
guest.
Well, folks, that is exactly what George W. Bush has done to this
country.
He has caused our drinking water supply to be less safe, our air quality
to be less safe. He has run up debts that we may not be able to pay off
for generations. He has ruined our relationships with countries around
the world. He is destroying our forests and giving away our public land,
for pennies, to his mining and drilling friends. …land we paid for and
expected to have remain public for the enjoyment of all. He has caused
additional people to lose jobs that paid a decent wage and thrown more
people into situations where they have no health coverage. He has caused
the deaths of tens of thousands in Iraq and the maiming of many more
tens of thousands, American and Iraqi.
Do the Republicans in Congress give a hoot that Bush has TRASHED America
and left us friendless and broke, in horrific debt to nations that may
soon be our enemies?
No, the Republicans do not give a flying fig.
In fact, they are gleeful to aid and abet Bush’s destruction of
America’s financial security and national reputation in the world.
The Republicans in Congress are the skunks at our national picnic.
>
.
TELL your friends and neighbors how the Republicans voted to ALLOW
criminals to continue ripping off the America tax payers.
Tell them.
————————————————————————
*GOP Kills Bill to Police Halliburton*
Republicans in Congress have made it clear they’re willing to fight for
military contractors’ right to lie, cheat and defraud taxpayers.
by Bob Geiger
AlterNet
June 21, 2006
>
Read this at: http://alternet.org/story/37849/
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*Frontline program, “The Dark Side”*
Posted by: “hapi22” hapi22@earthlink.net robinsegg
Date: Wed Jun 21, 2006 2:30 pm (PDT)
Two friends have written to inform me (and, then, you) that the
Frontline program can be viewed online at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/
You can watch the streaming video here (maybe now, maybe starting
tomorrow at 5 p.m.?) and can also read additional interviews and
commentary on Cheney.
Don’t miss this opportunity to get some new and starling information..
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