[wvns] 60pc of Baghdad out of control

U.S. says 60pc of Baghdad not controlled
By KIM GAMEL

http://www.onelocalnews.com/akronfarmreport/stories/index.php?action=fullnews&id=123450

BAGHDAD - Security forces in Baghdad have full control in only 40
percent of the city five months into the pacification campaign, a top
American general said Saturday as U.S. troops began an offensive
against two al-Qaida strongholds on the capital`s southern outskirts.

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno said American troops launched the offensive
in Baghdad`s Arab Jabour and Salman Pac neighborhoods Friday night. It
was the first time in three years that U.S. soldiers entered those
areas, where al-Qaida militants build car bombs and launch Katyusha
rockets at American bases and Shiite Muslim neighborhoods.

The overall commander in Iraq , Gen. David Petraeus, said during a
news conference with visiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the
operation would put troops into key al-Qaida-held areas surrounding
Baghdad.

The U.S. ground forces commander discussed the new offensive and the
security situation in an interview with two reporters as he visited an
American outpost near the main market in the capital`s southern Dora
district, a major Sunni Arab stronghold.

With Baghdad and Basra — the country`s second largest city and gateway
to the Persian Gulf — under curfew, violent deaths were down
dramatically Saturday. Only three people were reported to have been
killed or found dead in sectarian violence.

The U.S. military revealed that identification cards belonging to the
two missing soldiers were found June 9 near Samara but said no one was
in the safe house. Troops approaching the building came under fire
from nearby trees, suffering two wounded before air support
intervened, the statement said.

The Islamic State of Iraq, a front group for al-Qaida, claimed in a
video posted on the Internet this month that all three missing
soldiers were killed and buried. The militants showed images of the
military IDs of Jimenez, 25, of Lawrence, Mass., and Fouty, 19, of
Waterford, Mich., but offered no proof they were dead.

Wendy Luzon, a friend of the Jimenez family, had a similar response.
"It`s better than not getting any news for weeks," she said. "Getting
this news is something good. We keep hoping that he`s alive. We have
nothing that tells us differently."

In Baghdad, aides to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told The
Associated Press that talks Saturday between the U.S. defense
secretary and the Iraqi leader were difficult.

A third said Gates told al-Maliki that political and legislative
action sought by the U.S., including a new law to share oil revenues
among all Iraqis, must be complete by September when the defense
secretary has to report to Congress on progress in Iraq.

Gates also met with President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and expressed
concern that the security situation nationwide might be spiraling out
of control, a presidential aide said.

All the Iraqi officials agreed to discuss the talks only if not quoted
by name because they were not authorized to release details. They said
they were briefed on the talks by officials who attended the meetings.

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Adm. William Fallon,
delivered a similar message to Iraqi leaders on June 10, and John
Negroponte, the No. 2 State Department official, reinforced it in a
visit at midweek.

Underscoring the challenges, Gates arrived in Baghdad on Friday to
find a city all but shut down by a security lockdown imposed after the
bombing of an important Shiite shrine north of the city. The explosion
at the Askariya shrine in Samarra destroyed the mosque`s minarets and
prompted at least two retaliatory attacks — both in southern Iraq.

On Saturday, attackers blew up the al-Ashrah al-Mubashra mosque in
Basra at dawn, residents in nearby houses said. As they were leaving,
the bombers wrote graffiti on the complex`s outer wall with the names
of revered Shiite saints, witnesses said. No injuries were reported.

___

Associated Press correspondent Qassim Abdul-Zahra contributed to this
report.

===

Statement of Iraq Freedom Congress on the Assassination of
Abdelhussein Saddam
Amjad Al-Jawhary
Iraq Freedom Congress
www.ifcongress.com

The terrorist US forces kidnapped Abdelhussein Saddam, head of the
Safety Force of the Iraq Freedom Congress after opening fire at him
and his daughter on the 4th of July in Alattiba neighborhood in
Baghdad. Two days after the abduction, his body was found in the
Forensic Center in Yarmouk Hospital. The US force that committed this
criminal act was a special task force who used special vehicles with
the assistance of the Iraqi National Guards.

Abdelhussein Saddam was born in 1957 in Basra city from a progressive
family. He was arrested in 1997 and spent two years in the
Intelligence centre for his intense criticism of Saddam's regime. In
November 2006, he joined the ranks of IFC and in April 2007, and
became the head of its Safety Force later. In June of that same year,
he was elected as an assistant member of the Central Council of the
Iraq Freedom Congress.

He was well-known for his courage and bravery. He was a popular
figure and has a distinct social influence in many areas of Basra and
Baghdad. He was well-known as a leader of the Safety Force in many
areas in Baghdad where together with the safety force members
performed field exercises and maneuvers. He was well-known for his
bravery in defying the sectarian gangs that meddle with the people's
safety and security. Throughout the period of his leadership of the
Safety Force, there had been no killing based on identity in the area
where he lived and in other areas with the presence of the Safety Force.

He was able to transform the Alaiwadeh neighborhood to lead by example
in safety and security. He also with many Safety Force personnel and
members of the Iraq Freedom Congress published and distributed the
slogan "No Sunni, No Shiite...Ours is Humane Identity" that angered
the occupation and sectarian gangs. The criminal US forces once again
prove and add another example to their criminal records that do not
differ from other terrorist gangs. They did not come to Iraq except to
steal the wealth of society.

This is the democracy that these criminal forces have brought that
turned Iraq into a jungle ruled by its laws and the laws of sectarian
gangs. It will not allow any force to raise the banner of humanity
and therefore they tried to harm the Iraq Freedom Congress by raiding
its headquarters, arrest of its members and assassinate one of their
leaders when not able to break the resolve and determination of IFC.

The Iraq Freedom Congress would respond appropriately to the criminal
act carried out by the terrorist US forces as we noted in the
abduction statement of Abdelhussein Saddam.

The assassination of Abdel Saddam Hussein by US forces mafia will not
discourage the determination of the Iraq Freedom Congress and will be
a new impetus to continue the struggle to rid the Iraqi society from
all types of terrorists. They murdered Abdelhussein, but his spirit,
ambitious aspirations, and bravery for building Iraq that is secular,
humanitarian, and free from occupation and sectarian gangs, will be
firmly in the hearts of freedom lovers.

Long live Abdelhussein Saddam
Down with the occupation and its allies
Long Live Iraq Freedom Congress

Iraq Freedom Congress

===

Between the Two Rivers, Lack of Water Kills
Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily
http://dahrjamailiraq.com

BAGHDAD, Aug 17 (IPS) - The collapse of Iraq's infrastructure has
created a worsening water crisis that is killing untold numbers of Iraqis.

Iraq, with its famous Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run the length
of the country, is now unable to provide drinking water to most of its
people.

"The two rivers are still there, great as they always were, and
flowing all through the year," chief engineer Ahmad Salman of the
Baghdad Water Authority told IPS. "Yet Iraqis are thirsty, and we are
ashamed of being engineers in the service. We have simply failed to
provide our people with half of the drinking water they need."

Much of the country is suffering severe lack of water, and the small
quantities supplied are not good for human use.

"I analysed the water supplied by the water authority, and the result
was shocking," Dr Ibrahim Ali, a laboratory owner in Baghdad told IPS.
"It is definitely not good for human consumption, and every time we
analyse it we find something new that might, in time, cause death."

The doctor added, "Various kinds of bacterial pollution and germs we
are finding can be as dangerous as biological weapons."

Iraqi hospitals are full of people with illnesses due to the unsafe
water. Doctors at several hospitals confirmed to IPS that water is one
of the worst causes of diseases, especially among children, and that
some of children had died of water-borne diseases compounded by a
severe lack of medicines.

These problems are exacerbated during the summer when both the
quantity and quality of water are at their lowest.

"One of the reasons for this lack of water is lack of electric power
and fuel for generators," a member of a local municipal council in
Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "We have got
tired of raising our needs for the water stations because our
ministers and their leaders are busy fighting over chairs so that they
make as much money as possible before they are thrown away."

U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker acknowledged to reporters Jul. 19
that Baghdad residents were receiving on average only one hour of
electricity a day. Before the U.S.-led invasion, Baghdad residents
received 16-24 hours of electricity daily. Without electricity, water
cannot be pumped to homes.

A report released Jul. 30 by the international agency Oxfam and NCCI,
a network of aid organisations working in Iraq, said that eight
million Iraqis, nearly one in three, were in dire need of emergency aid.

The report, 'Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq' said that
70 percent of Iraqis are without adequate water supplies, compared to
50 percent in 2003, the year the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was
launched. About 80 percent of Iraqis lack effective sanitation, the
report said.

According to the Oxfam report, "child malnutrition rates have risen
from 19 percent before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to 28 percent
now." Lack of potable water is at the root of most such conditions.

"It is corruption more than anything else," an engineer at the Baghdad
Water Authority, who did not wish to be named, told IPS. "The
authority is full of corruption from bottom to top, and there is no
way to improve the situation unless the political situation is
improved by removing these corrupt officials."

An IPS correspondent was advised not to go to the Iraqi Ministry of
Water Resources in the face of a danger of being kidnapped by security
men at the ministry.

"It is another weapon that the Americans are killing us with,"
62-year-old Abu Mahmood, a carpenter from Baghdad told IPS. "No water
means diseases that lead to slow, but certain death. They did it to us
at the time of sanctions and now it is their chance to do it again
without firing bullets and making scandals."

Few Iraqis see hope under the present government. "The problem is that
we do not have a government like any other country," Baghdad resident
Nabhan Mukhlis told IPS. "We should just stop complaining and
surrender to the death penalty that was issued the day Americans
decided to invade our country."

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with
Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels
extensively in the region)

*********************************************************************

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