Incidents suggest revolt spreading wider in Iraq

Compiled by Eamon Martin

Dec. 2 (AGR)— The bloodiest month since the United States led the invasion and occupation of Iraq came to a deadly close after insurgents killed 14 people from five nations in a weekend of carefully calculated attacks.

Days after President George Bush slipped briefly into the country on Thanksgiving, Iraqi insurgents responded by killing foreign civilian contract workers, military intelligence agents, diplomats and soldiers.

One-hundred-and-five troops in Iraq died in November -­ 79 American soldiers and 26 allied troops -­ the largest monthly casualty total since the war began on Mar. 20, and a grim statistic that calls into question claims by the US military that the guerrilla war is under control.

In the space of 48 hours, insurgents killed two South Korean electricians, a Colombian contractor, seven Spanish military intelligence officers, two Japanese diplomats and two American soldiers. The attacks -­ five in all -­ began several hours after the US’s top commander in Iraq, Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, declared that the situation was getting better.

The following day, the month ended with the US military embroiled in a mysterious controversy over a disputed ambush in Samarra, with Iraqi officials and local citizens challenging US military accounts, accusing American soldiers of spraying fire at random on city streets, and killing several civilians.

The US army claimed that 54 Iraqis — all combatants — were killed in Samarra as they used tanks and cannons to fight their way out of simultaneous ambushes while delivering new Iraqi currency to banks.

Initial US statements said that many of the dead Iraqis were wearing the uniform of the Fedayeen, the militia most closely associated with Saddam Hussein and most loyal to him.

But the Associated Press reported that residents of the northern town are insisting fatalities were much lower than the US’s figures and that most of the dead were armed civilians.

It quoted one of the city residents claiming that civilians had grabbed their guns when the US soldiers fired on insurgents who had attempted to ambush their convoy.

“Civilians shot back at the Americans,” said 30-year-old Ali Hassan, who was wounded by shrapnel in the battle.

Anguished residents, including middle-aged men, could be seen hugging each other in grief after the carnage on the streets, which tribal leaders warned would only increase support for Washington’s foes in the mainly Sunni Muslim town.

Two Iranians making the pilgrimage to the city’s Al-Askariya shrine, one of Shiite Islam’s holiest, were killed when their bus came under fire just 30 yards from the main hospital, police said. Another nine were wounded.

By the American account, the fighting on Nov. 30 was the bloodiest combat reported since May 1, when US President George W. Bush declared “major combat operations” in Iraq to be over.

Many residents said the Americans opened fire at random when they came under attack, and targeted civilian installations. Six destroyed vehicles sat in front of the local hospital, where witnesses said US tanks shelled people dropping off the injured. A kindergarten was damaged, apparently by tank shells.

“Luckily we evacuated the children five minutes before we came under attack,” said Ibrahim Jassim, a 40-year-old guard at the kindergarten. “Why did they attack randomly? Why did they shoot a kindergarten with tank shells?”

Ali Abdullah Amin cried about the pain in his bandaged legs, both of which were seeping blood from bullet wounds, and the hole in the left side of his stomach. “My legs hurt, my legs hurt,” the little boy moaned, as he cried in the arms of his 22-year-old cousin, Jamal Karim.

He may also have been wondering about the whereabouts of his father, Abdullah Amin al-Kurdi. Father and son were shot outside the mosque, a spot now marked by a large congealed pool of blood. Ali’s father didn’t survive.

Iraqi witnesses were unanimous that Americans were to blame, pointing to a hole in a nearby cemetery wall, which looked like the work of a shell fired from an Abrams tank.

The US military stuck by its story of the battle, and by its estimation of the Iraqi death toll. Major Gordon Tate, a spokesman at the headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit, insisted the US military was “confident” about its assessment of the “battle damage”.

Ali and his father appear to have slipped through the net. Even though the boy’s hospital bed is only 10 minutes away from the US Army’s base in Samarra, and although he was easily found by journalists, he does not appear to be part of the “battle damage assessment”.

Lt. Gen. Sanchez said this weekend that his troops conduct follow-up visits to places where they have been involved in fighting. But Ali’s cousin, Jamal Karim, said no US official had been to see him or the injured boy.

Nor, said Samarra’s hospital information officer, Sa’id Hassan Ali al-Janabi, had any “coalition” officials come to see any of the others wounded on Nov. 30. Had they done so, they could have seen his list of the injured —55 names long.

Had the same officials visited Samarra’s streets they could also have heard many accounts of the battle that differed greatly from their own. The attacks had left an ugly mood in the town, where locals were unanimous in condemning indiscriminate firing by the Americans.

“They are the most malicious people. They are not educated; they are barbarians. They said they would bring us democracy but they scare women and children. We will resist them to the depth of our soul,” said Rashid Jasem, 38, a hardware shop owner, whose store was peppered with bullet holes.

At the hospital, Fleikh Hassan mourned his 22-year-old son Sabah. Two other sons — Rashid, 18, and Fares, 32 — were both in comas.

“We were in the garden, and a shell landed in our garden,” said their grief-stricken father.

There were also civilian casualties at the State Enterprise for Drugs Industries and Medical Appliances, where Iraqi witnesses said that tanks fired a round at workers leaving for the day.

“A company bus that ferries employees to and from work was hit by a US rocket just outside the factory gates,” said the firm’s administrative affairs director, Hassan Yassin, 54. “A woman who was sitting just behind the driver was killed when the rocket came through the side window.”

Eighteen people were injured. A crater from the shell and a pool of blood remained nearby.

US Brigadier General Mark Kimmit told a Baghdad press conference that 54 militants had been gunned down, 22 wounded and one arrested, but the only corpses at the city hospital were those of ordinary civilians, including the two elderly Iranian pilgrims and a child.

Challenged about what had happened to all of the bodies, Kimmit said: “I would suspect that the enemy would have carried them away and brought them back to where their initial base was.”

Asked about the conflicting reports from senior police and hospital officials in the town, the US general insisted: “We have no such reports whether from medical authorities or police.”

A few hours earlier, Colonel Fredrick Rudesheim, who heads the 3rd Combat Brigades that was involved in Sunday’s bloody clashes, told reporters that his troops had killed 46 and captured another 11.

The mystery, which borders on solving a mathematics equation, further deepened when Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Gonsalves, who commands the 166th Armored Battalion in Samarra, said his troops were not in possession of the bodies. The death toll, he said, “is based on the reports we got from the ground.”

According to him, a total of 60 militants, divided into two groups, attacked two convoys. Another four assailants in a BMW attacked a separate engineering convoy.

If the US troops killed 46 and captured 11 of them, only three of the survivors would have been left to pick up the corpses.

On Kimmit’s figures the calculus becomes even hazier — with 54 killed, 22 wounded and one captured, 13 militants remain unaccounted for.

Residents in Samarra said they had not seen any of the militants’ bodies, 46 or 54.

The head of the local hospital, Abed Tawfiq, reported eight dead civilians but no insurgents.

Ambulance driver Abdelmoneim Mohammed said he had not ferried any combatants wounded or killed.

“If I had seen bodies, I would have picked them up. It’s not like the Americans would have done it.

“If the death toll had reached that announced by the Americans, the atmosphere in Samarra would be quite different.”

Salaheddin Mawlud, a colonel in the former Iraqi army, who now heads Samarra city council’s complaints office, said the American toll does not work.

“If there had been so many dead, we would have seen people rushing to the hospital, the police station or here, and it just didn’t happen,” he insisted.

Abdelrizek Jadwa, who owns a grocery 50 yards from the scene of one of the attacks, said he did not have the shadow of a doubt.

“After the firing, I went out of my shop. There were no wounded, no killed on the streets. Where could they have disappeared?”

The battles at Samarra were described as intense. When the exchange teams arrived, small arms fire reportedly erupted from almost everywhere — windows, roofs, alleyways and vehicles — before escalating into rocket-propelled grenade and mortar attacks.

Across town, the security detail at another bank encountered a nearly identical attack.

Samarra’s US-appointed police chief, Colonel Ismail Mahmud Mohammed, said those who attacked the US forces had withdrawn by the time the Americans returned fire.

Even chief Mohammed told the Financial Times that US forces had gone too far in “provoking” the town, and said they should stay out from now on.

“Were the French happy under the Nazis?” he asked. “It is the same thing here.”

The guerrilla war in Iraq has moved steadily beyond the Sunni Triangle, home to many supporters of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and into areas of the country once considered peaceful.

The Boston Globe reported this week that since May 1, nearly 40 percent of attacks on US and coalition targets have been outside the Sunni Triangle, according to internal Defense Department reports.

Since May, a total of 2,227 guerrilla attacks took place in the Sunni Triangle, according to figures as of the end of last week. The rest of the country has had 1,416 attacks.

Sources: Agence France Presse, Associated Press, Boston Globe, CNN, Daily Telegraph (UK), Financial Times (UK), Guardian (UK), Independent (UK), The Scotsman

Outrage over Miami FTAA police state

Congress passes tainted Medicare bill

Compiled by FV Piserchia

Dec. 3, (AGR)— Following a weekend of debate, the Senate approved a bill to reform Medicare on Tuesday, Nov. 25. The bill contained several controversial provisions, including the new prescription drug coverage, and a plan to allow experiments with privatization in limited areas.

Central to the debate was the issue of an optional prescription drug card. While the bill provided such a benefit, many seniors felt that the coverage was not enough, yet the AARP, a senior citizen advocacy group with 40 million members, lobbied Congress on behalf of the bill. AARP chief executive Bill Novelli explained: “If we miss this opportunity for getting Medicare drug coverage, the next chance could be years away.”

But many AARP members disagreed, claiming the AARP’s insurance business constituted a conflict of interest which had prevented the AARP from protecting the needs of its members.

According to the AARP’s most recent financial report, it derived $124 million in royalties in 2002 from insurance programs it sold to AARP members and $11 million from use of its brand name and logo in insurance-sales programs.

Novelli reported between 10,000 and 15,000 members have quit over the bill by Nov. 25.

The provisions of the bill that dealt with privatization were no less controversial. Four to six metropolitan areas will be selected to test a plan called “premium support” in which private insurers will compete directly with the federal Medicare program. The experiment is expected to start in 2010 and last six years. Private insurers will receive financial incentives of roughly $12 billion, to supplement their entry into the market in competition with Medicare. The insurers will compete head-to-head with the traditional Medicare program, but with more leeway in benefits and premiums. Critics say the bill stacks the deck in favor of private insurers and potentially threatens the future of Medicare, as private insurers will be able to attract healthier beneficiaries while driving out sicker ones with high premiums. The sicker people will go to the regular Medicare program, overburdening the program and causing costs and premiums to go up as much as 30 percent over six years. The Administration’s own data shows that the average Medicare premium will initially jump 25 percent. Medicare’s previous experiment with privatization through the Medicare+Advantage program, has proven to be a goldmine for insurance companies; the US General Accounting Office estimates the government overpays HMO’s by 19 percent, based on the amount of care provided.

However, the bill was not without big winners, in particular the biotech industry. The Biotechnology Industry Organization, which represents 900 biotech firms had recently hired Lee Rawls, former chief of staff to Sen. Bill Frist (R-

Sources: Associated Press, Biotechnology Industry Organization web site, Christian Science Moniter, Hillary Clinton’s website, San Jose Mercury News, New York Times, Opensecrets.org, Seattle Times, Washington Post