World-News

Cato Institute
by Ted Galen Carpenter

08/10/06

'Iraq could move toward civil war,' the commander of U.S. Central Command conceded to Congress on Thursday. Gen. John Abizaid said securing Baghdad was the top U.S. priority, and that the violence there was as bad as he had ever seen it. Sens. Christopher J. Dodd and Chuck Hagel, a Democrat of Connecticut and Republican of Nebraska, have since said they believe an Iraqi civil war has already begun. Amid soaring civilian casualties, other U.S. commanders have said American troops will need to remain in Iraq until at least 2016. Why would anyone want to keep U.S. troops in such an environment for another decade to referee a burgeoning blood feud between Sunnis and Shiites?

https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6585


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki sharply criticized a U.S.-Iraqi attack Monday on a Shiite militia stronghold in Baghdad, breaking with his American partners on security tactics as the U.S. launches a major operation to secure the capital.

https://tinyurl.com/l32r8


From Information Clearing House

As we now know, Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon had no plan to secure any part of Baghdad. It allowed looters to destroy Iraq's governmental infrastructure and to steal thousands of tons of high explosives, weapons, and radioactive materials. And it had no coherent plan for Iraq's post-war governance.

https://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080806N.shtml

Griesmyer said Cortez confirmed that he held the girl down as Barker raped her. The weeping child pleaded to be set free, but Barker told her to "shut up".

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14401.htm

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Soldiers "Hit Golf Balls Before Going Out to Kill Family"

US soldiers accused of raping and murdering a 14-year-old Iraqi girl drank alcohol and hit golf balls before the attack. One of them grilled chicken wings afterwards, a criminal investigator told a US military hearing yesterday.

https://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080806L.shtml

On Thursday, the administration faced a blunt warning about the possibility of a civil war in Iraq from one of its military leaders.

https://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/06/news/civil.php



Iraqi civil war has already begun, U.S. troops say

Villages have been abandoned by Sunni and Shiite Muslims; Sunni insurgents have killed thousands of Shiites in car bombings and assassinations; Shiite militia death squads have tortured and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of Sunnis; and when night falls, neighborhoods become open battlegrounds.

https://tinyurl.com/h4l7c


From Information Clearing House

Testimony begins in hearing for US soldiers accused of rape. An Iraqi medic who responded to a home where US soldiers allegedly raped and killed a teenage Iraqi girl and murdered her sister and parents described on Sunday a display of carnage so horrific he said it made him sick for two weeks.

https://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080706L.shtml

"Peace mom" Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden and 13 other US activists on Saturday joined Iraqi lawmakers in demanding a timetable be fixed for withdrawing US troops from Iraq.

https://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/080606G.shtml