Link: http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=2&p=96992&s2=24

Since the assaults on Fallujah in 2004, the city has seen an astronomical rise in birth defects and abnormalities, including some too new to even have a proper medical name. VICE went back to Iraq to investigate. Warning: graphic images

Link: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/bipartisan-elites-yes-the-bush-administration-totally-tortured/275050/

A dozen years after 9/11, many movement conservatives still want to have it both ways. They want to insist that the Bush Administration was correct to strap prisoners down, prevent them from breathing, and force water into their lungs to terrify them with the sensation of drowning; that it was proper to intimidate them with dogs, slam heads into walls, and deprive them of sleep and darkness; but also that these tactics didn't amount to torture, just "enhanced interrogations." They would strenuously object if George W. Bush's obituary mentioned that, under his leadership, the United States government systematically and illegally tortured people.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/blog/human-rights/us-must-work-end-human-trafficking-modern-day-slavery-government-contracts

In 2004, Buddhi Prasad Gurung, a young man wishing to provide a better life for his family, left his village in Nepal for Jordan, where local labor recruiters had falsely promised him work in five-star hotels and restaurants. Based on this promise, Gurung borrowed heavily to pay the recruitment fees he had been charged. Upon arrival, the lucrative jobs in the luxury hotels did not materialize. Instead, his passport was seized, and he was transported against his will to Iraq to work for a U.S. government subcontractor called Daoud & Partners.

Link: http://pulsemedia.org/2013/04/04/true-costs-of-iraq-war-whitewashed-by-fuzzy-maths/

‘So many’, wrote TS Eliot, reflecting on the waste land left by the First World War. “I had not thought death had undone so many.” This notion is unlikely to cross the minds of those surveying the devastation left by the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The most frequently quoted fatality figure – about 115,000 Iraqis killed – is shocking. But compared to major conflicts of the past century, it is a relatively modest toll. The Battle of the Somme alone killed three times as many. More were killed by a single bomb dropped on Hiroshima during the Second World War.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article22486

It is now ten years on after the US, UK and Australia illegally invaded Iraq on 20 March 2003 on the utterly false and illegitimate excuse that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD).

Link: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/03/18/iraq-after-ten-years-paul-craig-roberts/

Ten years ago today the Bush regime invaded Iraq. It is known that the justification for the invasion was a packet of lies orchestrated by the neoconservative Bush regime in order to deceive the United Nations and the American people.

Link: http://world.einnews.com/article/138716262/4jxf7riwWRQEUdbd?afid=777&utm_source=MailingList&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Breaking+News%3A+world306-monday

The Afghan government says armed individuals who may be U.S. special forces carried out acts of torture and murder, allegations that spurred it to demand that members of the elite American military units leave a key province west of Kabul. The U.S. military says it is investigating.

Link: http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/192438211.html?refer=y

A moral injury tortures the conscience; symptoms include deep shame, guilt and rage. It's not a medical problem, and it's unclear how to treat it, says retired Col. Elspeth Ritchie, former psychiatry consultant to the Army surgeon general.

Link: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/14688-the-united-states-of-aftermath

George W. Bush, during his State of the Union address in January of 2003, looked solemnly into the television cameras and told the American people that Iraq was most assuredly in possession of 26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 30,000 munitions to deliver the stuff, mobile biological weapons labs, and uranium from Niger for use in their "robust" nuclear weapons programs. One month later, Colin Powell stood before the United Nations and fleshed out these claims in an address that will go down in history as one of the biggest bag-jobs ever perpetrated by anyone, ever.

Link: http://gulfnews.com/opinions/columnists/george-bush-tony-blair-and-the-century-s-greatest-crime-1.1147829

What US and Britain did to Iraq is nothing short of state terrorism. It’s been almost 10 years since the US and Britain unleashed ‘Shock and Awe’ on the Iraqi capital Baghdad ostensibly to punish a rogue dictator for hoarding weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in non-compliance with binding UN Security Council resolutions. In reality, Saddam Hussain had shut down his nuclear programme and destroyed Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons more than a decade earlier.

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/15/278193/cia-mossad-staged-911-to-save-israel/

Thus the world (and Americans in particular) is having to come to terms with the nasty evidence that, in order to further Zionist interests by initiating a general war against Islam, the CIA and Mossad were heavily involved in the murder of three thousand Americans. The noted analyst Kevin Barrett, has summed up this situation by saying, “Israel has reached the end of its shelf-life.” He continued, “The US is going broke and sacrificing thousands of lives in wars for Israel - wars that damage, rather than aid, US strategic interests.”

Link: http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/more-than-30-top-u-s-officials-guilty-of-war-crimes-boyle-says/28066/

More than 30 top U.S. officials, including presidents G.W. Bush and Obama, are guilty of war crimes or crimes against peace and humanity “legally akin to those perpetrated by the former Nazi regime in Germany,” the distinguished American international law authority Francis Boyle charges.

Link: http://www.azzaman.com/english/?p=471

The wars Iraq has gone through in the last three decades have produced a nation of disabled people – six million out of a population of 30 million. “People with disabilities caused by the three wars Iraq has suffered are estimated at more than 6 million,” according to Raad Abdulhusain who heads the rehabilitation of disabled people in the religious province of Najaf.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/21-2

Remember Falluja? That city in central Iraq was the scene of two furious attacks in 2004 by American Marines. That spring, they went on a bombing, shooting rampage to avenge the murder and mutilation of four American mercenaries. Instead of targeting the estimated 2,000 insurgents, the Marines almost leveled the city of 300,000, without conquering it. Seven months later, they attacked again with artillery and bombs in what was described as the bloodiest urban warfare involving Americans since the Vietnam War.

Link: http://rt.com/news/birth-defects-iraq-report-385/

US and UK weapons ammunition were linked to heart defects, brain dysfunctions and malformed limbs, according to a recent study. The report revealed a shocking rise in birth defects in Iraqi children conceived after the US invasion. Titled ‘Metal Contamination and the Epidemic of Congenital Birth Defects in Iraqi Cities,’ the study was published by the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. It revealed a connection between military activity in the country and increased numbers of birth defects and miscarriages.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/10/02-12

Ten years ago today the debate over the Iraq War came to Congress in the form of a resolution promoted by the Bush Administration. The war in Iraq will cost the United States as much as $5 trillion. It played a role in spurring the global financial crisis. Four thousand, four hundred, eighty eight Americans were killed. More than 33,000 were injured.

Link: http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2413&Itemid=259

Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In US War And Occupation Of Iraq: 1,455,590. Officially acknowledged Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed In America's War On Iraq: 4,883. Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan: 3,173. Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan in Dollars Since 2001: $1,371,440,155,101.

Link: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/08/14/israel-to-demand-guarantee-obama-will-attack-iran/

Israel in recent days has become a Hall of Mirrors in which wherever members of the war camp look in the media, they see an infinite regress of leaks and self-serving articles which promote the war narrative. There are about eight main talking points for war and Haaretz features two or three articles every day focussing on one point or another. Some of the articles are directly attributed to Ehud Barak, some contain arguments so clearly close to his own that you know he was the anonymous source.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31189.htm

The pictures flash up on a screen on an upper floor of the Fallujah General Hospital. And all at once, Nadhem Shokr al-Hadidi's administration office becomes a little chamber of horrors. A baby with a hugely deformed mouth. A child with a defect of the spinal cord, material from the spine outside the body. A baby with a terrible, vast Cyclopean eye. Another baby with only half a head, stillborn like the rest, date of birth 17 June, 2009. Yet another picture flicks onto the screen: date of birth 6 July 2009, it shows a tiny child with half a right arm, no left leg, no genitalia.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/woman-from-iraq-found-severely-beaten-next-to-threatening-note-dies-in-california/2012/03/24/gIQA3UimYS_print.html

EL CAJON, Calif. — A woman from Iraq who was found beaten next to a threatening note saying “go back to your country” has died, and police are investigating the possibility of a hate crime. Alawadi, a 32-year-old mother of five, had been hospitalized since her 17-year-old daughter found her unconscious in the dining room of the family’s El Cajon home in suburban San Diego on Wednesday, police Lt. Steve Shakowski said.

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29123

The officialUS/UK/French/Israeli line is that the “Arab Spring” has finally reached Syria. There are the legal authorities of Syria, and there are armed terrorist throngs taking advantage of genuine social grievances and unleashing violence throughout the country, which in turn triggers police repression.In Syria, such groups are in all likelihood profusely armed, trained, financed and abetted by foreign players.Russia and China are not ready to tolerate a re-run of Iraq and Libya.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/index.html

Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered In US War And Occupation Of Iraq "1,455,590", Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In U.S. War And Occupation Of Iraq 4,801, Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan: 2,87, Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan $1,295,667,663,671, For more details, click here. "All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting." - George Orwell

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/hadi-j05.shtml

Today's opening of the trial of a US Marine in connection with the 2005 massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha casts a spotlight on the criminal character of the nine-year war and occupation carried out under the Bush and Obama administrations.

Link: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/iraniraq-defectors-and-disinformation-4574/

Official Washington has a soft spot for “defectors” from hostile nations, especially if their tales of perfidy about their ex-homelands fit with favored policy. That was the case with Iraq before the 2003 invasion and now with Iran, but these “defectors” often tell lies. Iranian Army CadetsA new American war hysteria is rising, this time over Iran, and – like its predecessor with Iraq – this one employs “defectors” who come forward, often under the umbrella of neocon organizations, to impart alarming tales.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/pers-d27.shtml

The withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq after nearly nine years of military occupation has been accompanied by a surge in sectarian tensions and violence that threatens to escalate into civil war. Following the explosions that ravaged Baghdad last week, there have been further attacks on government buildings in the capital and bombings and killings in the volatile cities of Fallujah, Mosul and Kirkuk.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SmH0PF1IiaI

The U.S. troop withdrawal leaves behind a country embittered by an occupation that's cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars. And as U.S. soldiers return home for Christmas, the mood is far from joyful among veterans struggling to deal with the personal aftermath of the war. With soaring suicide rates, it's still too early to estimate the true cost of the invasion. Our correspondent Liz Wall reports.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/dec2011/pers-d21.shtml

US President Barack Obama staged a ceremony Tuesday morning at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to mark the end of the Iraq War and the return of the top US commander in Iraq, General Lloyd Austin. With the president nodding his agreement, Austin declared, "What our troops achieved in Iraq over the course of nearly nine years is truly remarkable. Together with our coalition partners and corps of dedicated civilians, they removed a brutal dictator and gave the Iraqi people their freedom."

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29958.htm

As a Nobel Prize recipient, Barack Obama faced the oxymoronic reality of having to accept prizes for peace while waging global war. Were global consciousness at an enhanced level, observers would have equated such a contradiction as akin to a reversal of the Nuremburg principles against aggressive war; a radical pardon of Hitler’s underlings recognizing that at the heart fo such military expansion was the intention of peace and liberation.

Link: http://mikephilbin.blogspot.com/2011/11/rothschild-owned-central-banks-in-all.html

As of the year 2000, there were seven countries without a Rothschild-owned Central Bank. Then along came the convenient terror of 9-11 and soon Iraq and Afghanistan had been added to the list, leaving only five countries without a Central Bank owned by the Rothschild Family. We all know how fast the Central Bank of Benghazi was set up.

Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=2&p=82838&s2=05

The political scientist Mark Duffield has observed that the effect of Western intervention in Iraq has actually been to "demodernize" that country.[2] This is ironic given that the military campaigns against Iraq and Afghanistan have been accompanied by narratives of the West’s obligation to modernize backward nations. Nowhere is the truth of Duffield’s observation clearer than in the story of what has happened to Iraq’s education system, especially its higher education system. Western intervention has ended up destroying Iraq’s universities, formerly among the best in the region, as functional institutions. "Up to the Early 1980s, Iraq’s educational system was considered one of the best in the Middle East.

Link: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/205179.html

Iraq's refusal to grant immunity to US troops remaining in the country beyond a yearend deadline has stalemated talks between the two sides over the extension of US forces' presence in the country. On Monday, a US defense official described the issue as a 'sticking point' in the negotiations, AFP reported. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the US administration was "looking at all the different options right now" to facilitate an immunity deal.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/sep2011/loot-s03.shtml

A joint congressional investigation into US government contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan confirms that the US occupation of the two countries has been a bonanza for corporate military contractors, with waste and fraud estimated as high as $60 billion.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/27-2

BAGHDAD - Rania was 16 years old when officials raped her during Saddam Hussein’s 1991 crackdown in Iraq’s Shia south. "My bothers were sentenced to death, and the price to stop this was to offer my body," she says. Cast out for bringing ‘shame’ to her family, Rania ran away to Baghdad and soon fell into living and working in Baghdad’s red light district. Prostitution and sex trafficking are epidemic in Iraq, where the violence of military occupation and sectarian strife have smashed national institutions,

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28952.htm

"Pakistan Observer" -- Some years ago, in the Indian site www.bharat-rakshak.com, this columnist had written of the NATO militaries as resembling an army of simians. Such a force - if let loose within a confined space – can create immense damage, but are unable to clean up the resultant mess. This is precisely what the world has witnessed in Iraq. Despite more than a decade of sanctions that directly resulted in nearly a million extra deaths during that period ( because of shortages created by the UN-approved measures), the regime of Saddam Hussein was able to provide food, energy and housing to the people of Iraq, whereas eight years after “liberation” by key NATO members, the country and its population are worse off than before the 2003 invasion that led to the execution of Saddam Hussein.

Link: http://www.activistpost.com/2011/08/afghanistan-and-iraq-withdrawal.html

It is strange how right after a group of Taliban fighters were allegedly able to take out a Special Forces Chinook with a shoulder-mounted rocket; support is quickly rallied to justify keeping troops in Afghanistan until “at least” 2024, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/08/20118923045869251.html

Two American men can go ahead with civil lawsuit over allegations they were tortured in Iraq at the hands of US forces. Donald Rumsfeld, the former US secretary of defence, must face a lawsuit filed against him by two American men claiming they were wrongfully held and tortured by US forces in Iraq. The US Court of Appeals in Chicago on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling last year allowing the men, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, to pursue claims that Rumsfeld and unnamed others should be found personally liable for their treatment - despite efforts by the former Bush and current Obama administration to get the case dismissed.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/video/middleeast/2011/03/201139101019805732.html

As authorities adopt stricter version of Islam, culture of tolerance is under threat. As change sweeps the Middle East, there are fears of a new crackdown in Iraq. After anti-government demonstrations last week, security forces beat and arrested hundreds of protesters. Although officials have since apologised, but protesters fear that further repressive measures may be on the way.

This footage shows how the police and army shoots people with real bullets in Alhawijah city. this is how USA democracy works in IRAQ. god bless iraqi people.
اطلاق النار الكثيف على الثوار والمتظاهرين في الحويجة واستشهاد الشهيد فلاح حبيب.
هذه هي ديمقارطية الامريكان والمالكي

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011218104510878522.html

Reports of deaths as thousands turn out to demand better service delivery and jobs from government. Violent protests have taken place at various locations in Iraq, with anti-government protesters rallying against corruption, poor basic services and high unemployment.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/15/iraqi-defector-curveball-admits-to-wmd-lies-that-led-to-war/

An Iraqi defector, codenamed Curveball, who allegedly helped convince the Bush administration that Saddam Hussein had a secret stash of biological and chemical weapons, has admitted for the first time that he made it all up.