This video is called Chicago Iraq War Protest; on March 20, 2007.
From AFP:
The New York Times on Sunday called for US troops to leave Iraq now, writing that President George W. Bush’s plan to stabilize the country through military means is a lost cause.
“It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit,” the influential daily wrote in a rare, single-issue editorial taking up one-half of an entire news page.
“Like many Americans, we have put off that conclusion, waiting for a sign that President Bush was seriously trying to dig the United States out of the disaster he created by invading Iraq without sufficient cause, in the face of global opposition, and without a plan to stabilize the country afterward.
It has since emerged, the Times concluded, that Bush has “neither the vision nor the means to do that.”
“It is frighteningly clear that Mr. Bush’s plan is to stay the course as long as he is president and dump the mess on his successor. Whatever his cause was, it is lost,” the daily opined.
The Times editorial went on: “Continuing to sacrifice the lives and limbs of American soldiers is wrong. The war is sapping the strength of the nation’s alliances and its military forces.”
See also here.
C.J. Chivers of the New York Times: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Iraq Oil Labor Unions Defy Bush and Congress On Oil Law
Posted by: “bigraccoon” bigraccoon@earthlink.net redwoodsaurus
Sun Jul 8, 2007 6:26 am (PST)
Iraqi Oil: A Benchmark or a Giveaway?
Why Iraqi oil workers oppose the much-vaunted oil law.
David Bacon
July 6, 2007
A strike by Iraqi oil workers in early June threw into question the conditions that some in the U.S. Congress would place on ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq. At the same time, Iraqi nationalists have grown more vocal in their accusations that the occupation itself has an economic agenda, centered on seizing control of the country’s oil.
Across the political spectrum in Washington, many now demand that the Maliki government meet certain benchmarks, which presumably would show that it’s really in charge in Iraq. But there’s a particular problem with the most important benchmark that the Iraqi government is being pressured to meet: the oil law. The problem is, in Iraq, it may be the single most unpopular measure the United States is trying to get the government to enact.
In the United States, this law is generally presented as a means to share the oil wealth among different geographic regions of the country. Many Iraqis, however, see it differently. They look the proposed law and see instead the way its welcomes foreign oil companies into the oil fields. They see the control it would give those oil companies over setting royalties, deciding on production levels, and even determining whether Iraqis get to work in their own industry.
In early June, the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) shut down the pipelines from the Rumeila fields near Basra, in the south, to the Baghdad refinery and the rest of the country. It was a limited strike to underline its call for keeping oil in public hands, and to force the government to live up to its economic promises.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki responded by calling units of the 10th Division of the Iraqi army and surrounding the strikers at Sheiba, near Basra, on June 5 and 6. According to reports in the Basra news media, U.S. aircraft flew over the strikers as well. The Prospect has asked the Combined Press Information Center in Baghdad to confirm or deny these overflights; as yet, it has not done so.
Maliki also issued arrest warrants for the union’s leaders. On June 6, the union postponed the strike until June 11. Facing the possibility that a renewed strike could escalate into shutdowns on the rigs themselves — or even the cutoff of oil exports, which would shut down the one of the few income streams that the national government can claim — Maliki blinked. He agreed to the union’s principal demand: Maliki said he would hold implementation of the oil law in abeyance until October, while the union gets a chance to pose objections and propose alternatives.
This will undoubtedly get Maliki in trouble in Washington, where his government will be accused of weakness, incompetence, and a failure to move on the oil law benchmark. In Iraq, however, Maliki faces a fact that U.S. policymakers refuse to recognize: The oil industry is a symbol of Iraqi sovereignty and nationalism. Handing control to foreign companies is an extremely unpopular idea.
The oil workers union has now emerged as one of the strongest voices of Iraqi nationalism, protecting an important symbol of Iraq’s national identity, and, more importantly, the only source of income capable of financing the country’s post-occupation reconstruction. U.S. legislators trying to impose the oil law might take note that they are requiring the Maliki government to betray one of the few reasons Iraqis have for supporting it — its ability to keep the oil revenue in public hands.
CONTINUED –
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=iraqi_oil_a_benchmark_or_a_giveaway
—
See related interview, Iraqi Union Leaders Call for an End to the Occupation and photo essay, Unions Struggle to Protect Iraqi Oil.
David Bacon is a writer and photographer, and associate editor for New America Media. He is the author of The Children of NAFTA and sits on the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Committee of the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition.
LikeLike
Pingback: ‘Worm’ turns out to be related to jellyfish | Dear Kitty. Some blog