Military news
Pentagon wants $3 billion for the War in Iraq that we thought was over
Russia Today reports (February 14th): The American public has been told that the Iraq War is a thing of the past. Even still, the US Department of Defense is asking the federal government for almost $3 billion for “activities” in a country that they shouldn’t be in.
The last US troops were supposedly withdrawn from Iraq just before 2012 began, but after years of a war that abruptly ended this past December, the Pentagon still wants billions to continue doing…something in Iraq. According to the latest budget request, the DoD think around $2.9 billion should cover the cost of “Post-Operation NEW DAWN (OND)/Iraq Activities.”
In a report published Monday by Wired.com, they acknowledge that the funding that the Pentagon wants now is almost as bizarre as the war itself. For nearly $3 billion, the DoD says that will be able to afford “Finalizing transition” from Iraq.
Abuse
Why Was No One Punished for America's "My Lai" in Iraq?
AlterNet reports (February 12th): The plea bargain in the last Haditha massacre case handed down in January is a fitting end to the Iraq war. In the most notorious case of U.S. culpability in Iraqi civilian deaths, no one will pay a price. And that is emblematic of the entire war and its hundreds of thousands of dead and millions displaced.
Sergeant Frank Wuterich, the squad leader who encouraged and led his marines to kill 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha in November 2005, was the last of eight originally charged in the massacre. The others were let off on technicalities, or to help the prosecution. One officer, not involved in the killing but the coverup, was acquitted in a military trial.
The responsibility for these killings came down to Wuterich’s role, but he never actually went through a full trial. The military prosecutor opted for the slap-on-the-wrist of demotion to private for the 24 civilian deaths. Wuterich, who admitted to much more in a “60 Minutes” interview in 2007—including rolling grenades into a house filled with civilians without attempting to make an identification—copped only to “dereliction of duty.”
Daily life
Health groups discover radioactive materials in Fallujah
Al-Sumaria TV reports (February 16th): The industrial street in Fallujah District is subject to a radioactive contamination resulting from military operations that were carried out in the past years, a source told Alsumaria stressing that health authorities fear the outbreak of cancer diseases as a result of this contamination.
This contamination is the result of military operations led in 2003 and 2004 by US forces, authorities in charge of the scan declared.
“We discovered 2 radioactive materials in the industrial street of Fallujah,” Fallujah governor Adnan Hussein advanced. “There have been birth defects and environmental pollution in the District,” Head of Health and Environment Committee in Anbar Province Taleb Hamadi stated stressing that this contamination is the result of military operations in Fallujah and Anbar. “We are all aware of parties behind these operations,” he added.
Legacy of US Iraq’s Invasion : Near extinction of Christian population?
Navaid Hamid writes (February 14th): With the withdrawal of the US led forces from Iraq, Operation Iraqi freedom turns into Operation Iraqi Christians decimation.
Around fourteen months back, in November 2010, I had written about the pressures on the Christian minority community in Iraq and my fear about their extinction from their motherland in one of my piece, “Operation Iraqi freedom and Christians in Iraq” which was carried by number of news portals. ( http://www.aina.org/news/20101102214511.htm / http://twocircles.net/2010nov02/operation_iraqi_freedom_and_christians_i... and others)
A month after the withdrawal of the Allied forces from Iraq and its becoming a sovereign state, one of the serving US Military Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio admitted in an interview to CNA in Rome, “Yes, you can say in a certain sense that the invasion of Iraq did provoke this tremendous diminution of the Christian population in that country. And what the future holds, that still remains to be seen,” Archbishop Timothy believes that the collapse of Iraq’s Christian population is among the legacies of America’s invasion in 2003 and he is absolutely correct.
Before the invasion of Iraq, Christian population was around 1.4 million of the total population which dwindled to around one hundred forty thousand at the time of the withdrawal of the Allied forces.
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