Pentagon Plans $4.2bn Arms Sales to Iraq

Pentagon Plans $4.2bn Arms Sales to Iraq

The Pentagon issued a proposal on Monday to sell weapons worth $4.2bn to Iraq, including 18 F-16 fighter aircraft, Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, laser-guided bombs and reconnaissance equipment, according to a report from the Financial Times.

The Pentagon said the proposed arms sales would make Baghdad “a more valuable partner in an important area of the world as well as supporting Iraq’s legitimate [self-defence] needs”.

Underwrite by Chris Revelle, Full Video

Finally got the full video uploaded. Enjoy.

U.S. Businessman: Blackwater Paid Me to Buy Steroids and Weapons on Black Market for Its Shooters

Howard Lowry: "It was like a frat party gone wild. Drug use was rampant. There was cocaine all on the tables. There were blocks of hash, and you could smell it in the air."

Jeremy Scahill for the Nation

A Texas businessman who has worked extensively in Iraq claims that Blackwater paid him to purchase steroids and other drugs for its operatives in Baghdad, as well as more than 100 AK47s and massive amounts of ammunition on Baghdad's black market. Howard Lowry, who worked in Iraq from 2003-2009, also claims that he personally attended Blackwater parties where company personnel had large amounts of cocaine and blocks of hashish and would run around naked. At some of these parties, Lowry alleges, Blackwater operatives would randomly fire automatic weapons from their balconies into buildings full of Iraqi civilians. Lowry described the events as a "frat party gone wild" where "drug use was rampant." Lowry says he was told by Blackwater personnel that some of the men using the steroids he purchased were on the security detail of L. Paul Bremer, the original head of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Lowry also claims that Blackwater's owner Erik Prince tried to enlist his help to win contracts for Blackwater with the Iraqi government using an off-shore security company, Greystone, which Prince owns. The purpose, Lowry says, was to conceal Greystone's relationship to Blackwater.

Iraqi Refugee Describes Torture, Imprisonment of Husband Who Returned to Iraq to Free Jailed Son

Despite 'End' Of Combat, U.S. Assists In Iraqi Raid

by Kelly McEvers for NPR

The village of Jubail, just outside the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, consists of mostly dirt streets and mud-brick houses. On a recent day the narrow streets were lined with shrouded women clutching each other by the arm, and men wearing formal robes over everyday dishdashas.

They're heading toward a funeral.

Earlier this week, American and Iraqi forces raided this village, killing seven people, including a young boy. The incident has stoked sectarian tensions and raised questions about just how Iraqi and American forces conduct their operations — especially since President Obama announced that combat operations in Iraq are over.

A boy pours guests small cups of Arabic coffee inside the funeral tent. Then Mahmoud Hassan, 43, walks reporters toward a house and shows them where he was sleeping when the raid began.

"I was covered with a blanket, and they shot [at] me. They thought that I was dead," Hassan says. "Then immediately they got inside this room ... and started shooting. And I was there, watching them."

Hassan points to a smear of blood on the wall and an even thicker pool of blood on the floor. This is where he says his 70-year-old brother and three nephews were killed.

"There was one small kid, he was in the fifth [grade]," Hassan continues. "They shot his father in front of him. Then they shot him dead also."

Hassan says both Iraqi and American soldiers did the shooting.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!" shouts the otherwise reserved Hassan, when asked if he's sure that Americans took part. "The Americans were all over this house."

Iraq displays hundreds of recovered artifacts

Just 10,000 more to go.....

By BARBARA SURK (AP) 

BAGHDAD — Iraq displayed hundreds of recovered artifacts Tuesday that were among the country's looted heritage and span the ages from a 4,400-year-old statue of a Sumerian king to a chrome-plated AK-47 bearing Saddam Hussein's image.

The 542 pieces are among the most recent artifacts recovered from a heartbreaking frenzy of looting at museums and archaeological sites after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and in earlier years of war and upheaval. The thefts swept a stunning array of priceless antiquities into the hands of collectors abroad.

So far, 5,000 items stolen since 2003 have been recovered. And culture officials said they hoped the display would encourage more nations to cooperate in the search for 15,000 pieces still missing from the Iraqi National Museum, one of the sites worst-hit by looters after the fall of Baghdad seven years ago.

Iraq: The forgotten 'nakba'

Why has the plight of Iraq failed to capture the imagination and interest of the Arab world? - Al Jazeera

Iraqis feel ignored by the Arab world [GALLO/GETTY]

The US invasion of Iraq marked a dramatic turning point for the Arab world, but the recent partial American withdrawal generated notably little interest across the region. This is partly because it signaled neither an unequivocal end to the occupation nor an explicit continuation of US military control. But the silence also reflects the bitter reality that many have simply tuned out of Iraq.

When Baghdad fell in 2003, it drew comparisons with the loss of Palestine and the dispossession of its people in 1948. And while the US invasion did not lead to, or aim at, colonising the country, changing its name or razing its towns and villages, it did serve to remove a once powerful state from the regional political equation and, in so doing, weakened the Arab world. This emboldened Israel and Iran, while striking a critical blow against pan-Arabism.

On both the official and popular level, Arabs failed to connect with and support the Iraqi people.

In the immediate wake of the invasion, Arab governments appeared confused. Some initially played to popular sentiment and looked to boycott the newly-installed American-backed government before eventually bowing to US pressure.

A country that had once helped to support others suddenly became an economic burden to its neighbours as hundreds of thousands of refugees fled into Syria and Jordan. Baghdad lost its status as an educational centre and cultural hub for Arab intellectuals, artists, poets and novelists.

The tragic shift in its position left many Iraqis feeling like the formerly wealthy relation who lost their fortune only to find that their friends and family had disappeared along with it.

Mass Assassinations Lie at the Heart of America's Military Strategy in the Muslim World

By Fred Branfman for Alternet

"[General McChrystal says that] for every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies." -- "The Runaway General," Rolling Stone, 6/22/10

The truth that many Americans find hard to take is that that mass U.S. assassination on a scale unequaled in world history lies at the heart of America's military strategy in the Muslim world, a policy both illegal and never seriously debated by Congress or the American people. Conducting assassination operations throughout the 1.3 billon-strong Muslim world will inevitably increase the murder of civilians and thus create exponentially more "enemies," as Gen. McChrystal suggests -- posing a major long-term threat to U.S. national security. This mass assassination program, sold as defending Americans, is actually endangering us all. Those responsible for it, primarily General Petraeus, are recklessly seeking short-term tactical advantage while making an enormous long-term strategic error that could lead to countless American deaths in the years and decades to come. General Petraeus must be replaced, and the U.S. military's policy of direct and mass assassination of Muslims ended.

The U.S. has conducted assassination programs in the Third World for decades, but the actual killing -- though directed and financed by the C.I.A. -- has been largely left to local paramilitary and police forces. This has now has changed dramatically.

What is unprecedented today is the vast number of Americans directly assassinating Muslims -- through greatly expanded U.S. military Special Operations teams, U.S. drone strikes and private espionage networks run by former CIA assassins and torturers. Most significant is the expanding geographic scope of their killing. While CENTCOM Commander from October 2008 until July 2010, General Petraeus received secret and unprecedented permission to unilaterally engage in operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, former Russian Republics, Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya, the Horn of Africa, and wherever else he deems necessary.