World-News

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
by Mary Dejevsky

06/01/06

How much more lethal can the Iraq war become? About 1,000 Iraqi deaths every month, a U.S. death toll of more than 2,000 and nine British soldiers killed in the past month. Monday's roadside bomb in Baghdad, which killed two journalists, critically injured another and took the lives of two U.S. soldiers and an interpreter, showed that being embedded with troops now offers scant protection. Hopes that an elected Parliament and transferred sovereignty would cause the violence to decline have proved vain. Five months after landmark elections, Iraq's government is still incomplete. Even if it had a full lineup of ministers, it is hard to see it restoring law and order now that conflicting interests have run amok...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/272245_iraq01.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0601-04.htm



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Basra

Washington Free Press
by Joseph Sonntag

05/06

"Almost daily there are reports in the media about group executions in Iraq. The explanations are either very vague ('who did it?') or else the violence is portayed as sectarian strife between Shiites and Sunnis. Groups of men are found with their hands tied behind their back and bullet holes in their head. Often there are signs of prior torture. Other reports tell of non-combatant groups of Iraqis, sometimes Sunnis, sometimes Shiites, who are indiscriminately killed and wounded by car-bombs. Usually the mainstream media portrays these attacks as internecine Iraqi struggles with no apparent connection to the US 'mission.' Could there be another explanation of these group assassinations and indiscriminate attacks on civilians?

http://tinyurl.com/qc3od


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

A midnight visit from the secret police was the great anxiety in what was dubbed the "Republic of Fear" under Saddam Hussein; now Iraqis dread waking to find someone has scrawled "Go or die" on a note by the gate or daubed it on a wall.

http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=MAC413372


From Information Clearing House

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0526-07.htm



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Basra

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0526-09.htm


Informant: Kev Hall