The American public must come to terms with the scale of the violence and chaos we have unleashed

​March 19 marks 15 years since the U.S.-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the American people have no idea of the enormity of the calamity the invasion unleashed. The U.S. military has refused to keep a tally of Iraqi deaths. General Tommy Franks, the man in charge of the initial invasion, bluntly told reporters, “We don’t do body counts.” One survey found that most Americans thought Iraqi deaths were in the tens of thousands. But our calculations, using the best information available, show a catastrophic estimate of 2.4 million Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion.

​The number of Iraqi casualties is not just a historical dispute, because the killing is still going on today. Since several major cities in Iraq and Syria fell to Islamic State in 2014, the U.S. has led the heaviest bombing campaign since the American War in Vietnam, dropping 105,000 bombs and missiles and reducing most of Mosul and other contested Iraqi and Syrian cities to rubble.

An Iraqi Kurdish intelligence report estimated that at least 40,000 civilians were killed in the bombardment of Mosul alone, with many more bodies still buried in the rubble. A recent project to remove rubble and recover bodies in just one neighborhood found 3,353 more bodies, of whom only 20% were identified as ISIS fighters and 80% as civilians. Another 11,000 people in Mosul are still reported missing by their families.

Of the countries where the U.S. and its allies have been waging war since 2001, Iraq is the only one where epidemiologists have actually conducted comprehensive mortality studies based on the best practices that they have developed in war zones such as Angola, Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guatemala, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan and Uganda. In all these countries, as in Iraq, the results of comprehensive epidemiological studies revealed 5 to 20 times more deaths than previously published figures based on “passive” reporting by journalists, NGOs or governments.

The compromise that put Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi in office has entrenched patronage politics and fuelled public rage.

​Since the start of October, large-scale protests have rocked Iraq, killing more than a hundred people and wounding thousands. Iraqis are frustrated with high unemployment, the dismal state of Iraq’s essential infrastructure, and the long-standing corruption seen as the fundamental cause for the deterioration of country’s economy. These protests testify to the inability of Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi’s government to provide serious reform to these challenges.

As the first Prime Minister following the defeat of the so-called Islamic State, Abdul-Mahdi was welcomed with a wave of optimism, built on the promise he would tackle corruption, increase economic investment, and strengthen infrastructure and essential services. The two dominant electoral blocs that keep in him power, Binaa and Islah, have kept Abdul-Mahdi from pursuing this much-needed reform.

Both blocs have allowed Iraq’s system of political patronage to persist, prolonging corruption and leading to further deterioration of essential services. Consequently, Abdul-Mahdi is trapped between the demands of these two factions, restricting any meaningful reform efforts.

Abdul-Mahdi’s appointment as Prime Minister in 2018 was the surprise result of a compromise between Binaa and Islah, who agreed to form a governing coalition after winning the most seats. From the outset, the merger of the two blocs was a fascinating development, given their conflicting views.

The State Department approved another 120 days exempting Iraq from U.S. sanctions on Iran, just before a prior waiver was set to expire.

​The U.S. State Department has granted another Iran sanctions waiver to Iraq, further extending a grace period for vital energy imports.

A previous waiver, granted in June, was set to expire on Wednesday. The new waiver is for 120 days, according to officials close to the negotiations. No further details have been released and the State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.



Source

Sir Roger Carr says his belief that providing a 'big stick' helps countries bring about peace 'allows us to do this work in a proud and positive way, rather than with a sense of shame'

​The chairman of Britain's biggest arms producers, BAE Systems, has told peace activists that selling weapons encourages peace, following questions about their deals with Saudi Arabia.

Sir Roger Carr spoke at the company's AGM where a number of shareholders questioned the morality of working so closely with the Middle Eastern country.

According to an United Nations report, Saudi Arabia is responsible for "widespread and systematic" air strikes on Yemeni civilians.

Attacks on Fleeing Demonstrators, Ambulances, Media

​Iraqi security forces have used excessive and unnecessary lethal force in confronting at times rock-throwing protesters, killing at least 105 and wounding over 4,000 since October 1, 2019, Human Rights Watch said today. Security forces followed protesters as they dispersed, shooting at them and spraying them with scalding water cannons.

The protests started in Baghdad and southern cities on October 1, with protesters demanding improved services and more action to curb corruption. Apparent members of security forces interfered with media coverage of the protests, and the authorities blocked the internet. After Baghdad’s governor resigned on October 6, in response to complaints about forces in the capital resorting to excessive force, Prime Minister Adil Abd Al-Mahdi formed a committee to investigate allegations of excessive use of force, ordered certain army units out of specific Baghdad neighborhoods, and stated that investigations of certain officers had begun. 

“For more than a decade, Iraqi governments have said they would investigate abuses by security forces but haven’t done so,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The killing of at least 105 protesters requires a transparent investigation that results in public findings and accountability for abuses.”

Head of editorial for MENA is part-time officer in the 77th Brigade, an 'information warfare' unit which has worked on 'behavioural change' projects in the region

​The senior Twitter executive with editorial responsibility for the Middle East is also a part-time officer in the British Army’s psychological warfare unit, Middle East Eye has established.

Gordon MacMillan, who joined the social media company's UK office six years ago, has for several years also served with the 77th Brigade, a unit formed in 2015 in order to develop “non-lethal” ways of waging war.

The 77th Brigade uses social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, as well as podcasts, data analysis and audience research to wage what the head of the UK military, General Nick Carter, describes as “information warfare”.

In facing down Iran as U.S. president, Mitt Romney says he would be guided by the experience of Ronald Reagan threatening Iran with a military strike if it didn’t free 52 Americans held hostage during Jimmy Carter’s presidency. But Romney’s historical precedent is a fantasy, writes Robert Parry.

​Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney has taken a page from right-wing mythology as the foundation for his tough-guy policy toward Iran, citing the supposed “history” of Ronald Reagan scaring the Iranians into releasing 52 American hostages on Jan. 20, 1981.

This account of a macho Reagan staring down the Iranians after they had mocked Jimmy Carter for 444 days is a cherished canard of the American Right, reprised again Tuesday in Romney’s Washington Post op-ed, which states:. “Running for the presidency against Carter [in 1980], Ronald Reagan made it crystal clear that the Iranians would pay a very stiff price for continuing their criminal behavior.”

​But that swaggering tale of Reagan’s toughness is not supported by the historical record. Not only does the overwhelming evidence now show that Reagan’s campaign team negotiated secretly behind President Carter’s back to undercut his efforts to free the hostages, but Reagan then followed up their release by authorizing secret shipments of weapons to Iran via Israel.

The author of a new first-hand account of the battle of Mosul talks about his experiences on the frontline

​James Verini is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and National Geographic. In 2016 he went to cover the battle of Mosul, and Jonathan Franzen describes his book They Will Have to Die Now as a “thing of terrible beauty”.

Why did you want to go to Iraq?
The impetus was to write about life in the Islamic State. Isis was rapidly retreating from the parts of Iraq that it held and I wanted to go and talk to people there, including the former jihadis, and see what life was like for them. Once I arrived, it became immediately clear that the battle for Mosul would soon start and I decided to stay. Probably in the back of my mind was a grander motivation – namely that, as an American journalist, Iraq had been on my mind my entire professional career: 9/11 happened when I was 23, right out of uni, and it was the first big story that I covered. So jihadism and America’s place in the world and American adventures in the Middle East and Central Asia were on my mind.

Special Report: Newly available documents reveal how Ronald Reagan’s neocon aides cleared the way for Israeli arm sales to Iran in 1981, shortly after Iran freed 52 U.S. hostages whose captivity doomed Jimmy Carter’s reelection. The move also planted the seeds of the Iran-Contra scandal.

Just six months after Iran freed 52 Americans hostages in 1981, senior Reagan administration officials secretly endorsed third-party weapons sales to Iran, a move to align U.S. policy with Israeli desires to sell arms to the Islamic republic then at war with Iraq, according to documents recently released by the National Archives.
​
This Israeli arms pipeline to Iran already was functioning at the time of the policy shift on July 21, 1981. Three days earlier, on July 18, an Argentine plane strayed off course and crashed (or was shot down) inside the Soviet Union exposing Israel’s secret arms shipments to Iran, which apparently had been going on for months.

​After the plane went down, Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East Nicholas Veliotes tried to get to the bottom of the mysterious weapons flight. “According to the [flight] documents,” Veliotes said later in an interview with PBS Frontline, “this was chartered by Israel and it was carrying American military equipment to Iran. …

On July 18, 1981, an Argentine transport plane flying out of Tehran crashed inside Soviet Armenia, way off course. The three occupants' deaths blew the cover on their role in a secret Israeli arms airlift to Iran.

The aircraft, hired from Transport Arco of Argentina by a London arms dealer, flew to Tehran twice last summer, carrying ammunition, Israeli-made 106 recoilless rifles and possibly tires for Iran's U.S.-made Phantoms.

​On both occasions, it landed in Larnaca, Cyprus, changed documents to hide the flight's Israeli origin and showed its cargo to be fruit and vegetables for Iran, according to diplomatic and government sources in Turkey, Cyprus and London.

On the third flight, the plane abandoned the ruse and flew directly from Tel Aviv to Tehran, the sources said. It crashed on the return leg.