The Iraq page - news archive

Video clips of the public meeting addressed by George Galloway on 7th June at the Broadgreen Centre are now online

At 1pm on Saturday 29th September at the Council House in the Market Square, Nottingham folks turned out to continue the call for troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and Iraq. To date, the total number of UK troops killed in operations in Iraq to 170 since the US-led invasion of 2003. Further, the numbers killed on operations in Afghanistan since 2001 now stands at 81, after two soldiers died in a road accident on 20 September.

The UK must do more to meet its "moral obligation" to the thousands of refugees fleeing violence in Iraq, Amnesty International says. The campaign group says the UK, as one of the leaders of the 2003 invasion, should be helping the estimated 2m who have fled to Syria, Jordan and Europe. The UK has forcibly returned more people to Iraq than any other European nation, which is staggering, it says.

The US security firm Blackwater has resumed limited operations in the Iraqi capital Baghdad four days after a deadly shootout involving the company. The company provides security to all US state department employees in Iraq. It had been ordered by the Iraqi government to halt operations while a joint US-Iraqi inquiry was held.

Opinion Research Business (ORB), BBC Newsnight’s chosen pollsters, conducted a survey of 1,500 Iraqi households in August in which people were asked if anyone in the household had died as a result of the conflict since 2003*. This is the usual method for assessing the number of deaths in a warzone, and has been used in Darfur and the former Yugoslavia. ORB concludes “Given that from the 2005 census there are a total of 4,050,597 households, this data suggests a total of 1,220,580 deaths since the invasion in 2003. Calculating the affect from the margin of error we believe that the range is a minimum of 733,158 to a maximum of 1,446,063.

These mercenaries are involved with more than just security duties, they are often involved in intelligence gathering too and are heavily armed. Of course it's dangerous work but there are obvious advantages to using mercenaries instead of regular forces. When they get killed or injured there is less media coverage and they are not included in coalition forces casualty figures. Also, up until now, there has been little scrutiny of their behaviour which has often been as atrocious as that of the regular army.

The Iraqi government has ordered the American private security contractor Blackwater, which provides protection for US officials in the country, to shut down its operations after its guards were accused of killing 10 civilians and injuring 13 others in Baghdad. Employees of the company are alleged to have opened fire indiscriminately after a bomb exploded on Sunday in the Mansour district of the city, packed with people shopping for Ramadan.

An Iraqi Kurd asylum seeker is facing forcible removal from Britain for the second time this year. Mohammed Abdul Rahman, a 31-year-old taxi driver who is being held at Campsfield House detention centre, has pledged to return to the UK. His determination to re-enter Britain by any means illustrates the extreme desperation of Kurdish asylum seekers fearful of returning to northern Iraq - a region increasingly scarred by car bombs, threatened by civil war and now in the grip of a cholera outbreak.

A man said to have been an interpreter for the British Army in Basra has been killed by militia gunmen on the very day that his wife learnt she was pregnant with their first child. Nine or ten masked men went to the home of Moayed Ahmed Khalaf in the al-Hayaniah district of Basra and beat him in front of his wife and mother, four sources told The Times. They then dragged him away, telling the frantic women that they would bring him back shortly. Khalaf’s body was found on Al Qa’ed Street later that night. He had been shot multiple times, according to Colonel Ali Manshed, commander of the Shatt-al-Arab police station.

Iraqi interpreters working for the British Army have been advised to leave Basra or be killed. The warning was issued by a leading member of the city’s security forces after militiamen attacked and destroyed the home of one interpreter and narrowly failed to kidnap another. There were unconfirmed reports yesterday that a third had been killed.

In the week in which General Patraeus reports back to US Congress on the impact the recent ‘surge’ is having in Iraq, a new poll reveals that more than 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have been murdered since the invasion took place in 2003. Previous estimates, most noticeably the one published in the Lancet in October 2006, suggested almost half this number (654,965 deaths). These findings come from a poll released today by O.R.B., the British polling agency that have been tracking public opinion in Iraq since 2005.

Here is just one point which was picked up by myself and several other CiFers. Mongomerie, referring to General Patraeus's testimony, wrote this:

He presented independently verified data that showed a significant reduction in fatalities - particularly in Baghdad.

Independently verified data? Really? I must have missed that. What link does Tim use to substantiate this claim? A link to an NGO perhaps? No, it's a link to the slides produced by the Pentagon to accompany the general's statement. Not hugely independent then.

British forces have been sent from Basra to the volatile border with Iran amid warnings from the senior US commander in Iraq that Tehran is fomenting a "proxy war". In signs of a fast-developing confrontation, the Iranians have threatened military action in response to attacks launched from Iraqi territory while the Pentagon has announced the building of a US base and fortified checkpoints at the frontier.

The UK government is currently arresting and detaining Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers. The UK Government has forcibly deported 89 Iraqi Kurdish asylum seekers on 4 different occasions over the last 3 years. The first 3 forcible deportations were carried out by military aircraft from Brize Norton, a military airbase near Oxford. The last deportation was by a so-called humanitarian plane from London on 5 September 2007. The International Federation of Iraqi Refugees however fears more deportations are planned back to Iraqi Kurdistan, given the increasing numbers of Iraqi Kurds being arrested and held in detention centers all over the UK.

The latest of four opinion polls commissioned by the BBC and ABC has provided a revealing insight into the everyday lives, hopes and fears of people living in Iraq.

The irony is that Patraeus does understand how difficult the situation is, unlike "sweets and flowers" Wolfowitz, "last throes" Cheney or any of the previous body count military men who failed so miserably. Patraeus genuinely does seem to understand that traditional military methods will not work, that winning the support of the local population is crucial and he even understands some of what that entails. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if Patraeus had been listened too from the start, and I mean from at least a year before the invasion, there's a chance that the last four and a half years could have been very different.

Syria is the only country, other than Jordan, that was allowing people in without a visa. The Jordanians are being horrible with refugees. Families risk being turned back at the Jordanian border, or denied entry at Amman Airport. It’s too high a risk for most families. We waited for hours, in spite of the fact that the driver we were with had ‘connections’, which meant he’d been to Syria and back so many times, he knew all the right people to bribe for a safe passage through the borders. I sat nervously at the border. The tears had stopped about an hour after we’d left Baghdad. Just seeing the dirty streets, the ruins of buildings and houses, the smoke-filled horizon all helped me realize how fortunate I was to have a chance for something safer.

Yesterday, British troops withdrew from Basra city. The pathetic spinning which accompanied it would have been amusing but for the tens of thousands of deaths it attempts to cover up. It is clear that the heavier the incoming political fire, the more the cheerleaders for the war take cover behind "our boys" in Iraq. How very brave...

More than two-thirds of the British public think UK troops are losing the war in Iraq, a survey suggests. The poll, conducted for BBC Two's Newsnight programme, indicated that 52% believe victory is impossible. A further 17% of the 1,001 people questioned thought British troops were losing - but could eventually win.

The head of the British army during the Iraq invasion has said US post-war policy was "intellectually bankrupt". In a Daily Telegraph interview, former chief of the general staff, Gen Sir Mike Jackson, added that US strategy had been "short-sighted". He said former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was "one of the most responsible for the current situation".

Despite his policies not being vastly different to Blair's, there was enough difference in style to convince many people that things were looking up. The lack of obvious sycophancy when he met Bush earlier this summer, and his competent handling of the recent floods and the foot and mouth crisis earned him a ten point lead over the Tories (helped, of course, by the Tories' own ineptitude). Now though, there is a potential stumbling block in front of Gordon and, unsurprisingly, it's an Iraq-shaped stumbling block.

Latest figures from the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, show the number of Iraqis fleeing their homes is rising. The latest figure is 60,000 per month, compared to a previous level of 50,000, a UNHCR spokeswoman said. The body estimates 4.2m Iraqis have been displaced since the 2003 invasion. Of those, two million have gone abroad.

A MILITARY adviser to President George W Bush has warned that British forces will have to fight their way out of Iraq in an “ugly and embarrassing” retreat. Stephen Biddle, who also advises the US commander in Iraq, said Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias in the south would try to create the impression they were forcing a retreat. “They want to make it clear they have forced the British out. That means they’ll use car bombs, ambushes, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] . . . and there will be a number of British casualties.”

Senior military commanders have told the Government that Britain can achieve "nothing more" in south-east Iraq, and that the 5,500 British troops still deployed there should move towards withdrawal without further delay.

The humanitarian disaster in Iraq is being compounded by a mass exodus of their medical staff fleeing chronic violence and lawlessness. A report by Oxfam International shows the lack of doctors and nurses is fracturing a health system on the brink of collapse. The research revealed that many hospitals, and medical teaching facilities in Baghdad have lost up to 80 per cent of their teaching staff.

Barely four years ago, the interpreters who agreed to help the Americans and British were hailed by Iraqis (and saw themselves) as part of a civilian army of liberation. It is a measure of how far even moderate Iraqi opinion has been alienated there that they are now widely seen as opportunists, at best, and at worse condemned as traitors.

Last week, Neil Clark wrote an extraordinary piece on Comment is Free opposing the campaign to pressure the government into giving political asylum to Iraqi employees of the British. Unsurprisingly to most, but shockingly for Nick Cohen, an overwhelming number of comments condemned Neil's position. CiF had to shut down the thread after only three hours.

Mohammad’s body was found dumped in wasteland on the outskirts of Basra. His killers had burnt cigarettes into his back, broken one of his hands and legs and shot him three times in the head and twice in the chest. His crime: to have worked as an interpreter for the British in Iraq.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed that a serviceman from the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment was killed on Saturday during an attack on a patrol base in Helmand province. His death brings to seven the number of British troops in Afghanistan killed in action or from wounds sustained in battle since July 12. This is compared with a monthly average of 0.7 since the conflict began in November 2001. All seven fatalities were members of a 1,500-strong frontline force primarily charged with fighting the Taleban. If the death toll continued at this rate, 42 battle-group personnel would be killed in the next six months and a frontline soldier embarking on a typical tour of duty in the country would stand a one in 36 chance of being killed.

For several years the British have been proudly telling the world about how well their operation is going in Basra, showing their supposed superior methods, experience and tactics to those rough Yanks to the North. The UK press has picked up on this as part of a flag waving exercise, indeed we're still listening to this - only now in Afghanistan.

Today, we are calling the fact that, around now, on our best estimate, a million people have died in Iraq as a result of the chaos launched by the US and UK led invasion. That is a million people, the majority of them women and children, who would overwhelmingly be alive today were it not for the actions of governments acting on behalf of the large majority of readers of this blog, paid for by our taxes.

Six hundred Iraqis would be eligible to settle in Britain if asylum regulations were relaxed for those now working for British Forces. The British military employs about 500 civilians in southern Iraq in jobs from interpreters to drivers and cleaners. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office employs about 100 local staff, mainly at the embassy in Baghdad.

First it was the request for the five British residents held in the Guantanamo gulag to be returned home, now Gordon Brown might be about to reverse another of Tony Blair's ill-considered decisions.

‘In the autumn‘? ‘Appropriate pace’? This isn’t good enough. These people are dying right now. And not by a nice swift, lights-out bullet to the back of the head. They’re being power drilled in the hands and legs and head so their mutilated bodies can serve as warning to others. Those 91 interpreters could be dead ‘in the autumn’.

Britain was accused yesterday of abandoning 91 Iraqi interpreters and their families to face persecution and possible death when British forces withdraw. The Times has learnt that the Government has ignored personal appeals from senior army officers in Basra to relax asylum regulations and make special arrangements for Iraqis whose loyal services have put their lives at risk.

Now newstatesman.com has obtained a draft of an English lesson devised by children’s advertising agency Kids Connections, which has been commissioned by the MoD to produce and market the £200,000 project.
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A student ‘fact sheet’ states that the occupation has resulted in “Over 150 healthcare facilities completed and many more are in progress. 20 hospitals rehabilitated. Immunisation programme re-started in 2003. 70 million new text books distributed to schools. Sewage and wastewater treatment plants operating again.” Yet this rosy picture seems woefully at odds with a report by the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq, backed by Oxfam, which states that Iraq is facing a humanitarian crisis "of alarming scale and severity".

The world is stunned today after new evidence emerged which proves that the U.S. Government is supplying arms to evil Iraqi insurgents. Up to 190,000 U.S. supplied weapons may have made their way into the hands of our sworn enemies in the War on Terror. The word from Washington is that President Bush has decided to declare war on his administration in the autumn of this year...

Two thousand Iraqis are fleeing their homes every day. It is the greatest mass exodus of people ever in the Middle East and dwarfs anything seen in Europe since the Second World War. Four million people, one in seven Iraqis, have run away, because if they do not they will be killed. Two million have left Iraq, mainly for Syria and Jordan, and the same number have fled within the country.

Nearly a third of Iraqis need immediate emergency aid while the conflict in the country "masks the humanitarian crisis", according to a report. Although the everyday threat of armed violence is the biggest problem facing most ordinary Iraqis, eight million - almost one in three - are in urgent need of water, sanitation, food and shelter, the report by Oxfam and the aid agency network NGO Co-ordination Committee in Iraq (NCCI) said.

AFTER months of lying low, the anti-American Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has re-emerged with a shrewd two-tiered strategy that reaches out to Iraqis on the street and distances him from the increasingly unpopular government. Al-Sadr and his political allies have largely disengaged from government, thus contributing to a political paralysis. His outsider status has enhanced al-Sadr's appeal to Iraqis, who consider politics less and less relevant to their daily lives.

I'm writing to ask your support for a blog-based campaign to write letters to MPs, asking that the Government grant the right of asylum to all Iraqis who have worked for the British Army, the old Coalition Provisional Authority-South and contractors in the 'British zone' of Iraq, and to their families.

The Danish military has secretly airlifted out of the country about 200 Iraqis who were helping its troops. The Iraqi civilians, mostly those working as aides and translators in the southern region of Basra, will now be offered asylum in Denmark. A military spokesman said the operation was carried out because of fears the Iraqis might be targeted by militants after the Danish troops pulled out.

Recently, however, in Afghanistan, such isolated incidents from U.S. or NATO (often still U.S.) air attacks have been occurring in startling numbers. They have, in fact, become so commonplace that, in the news, they begin to blur into what looks, more and more, like a single, ongoing airborne slaughter of civilians. Protest over the killings of noncombatants from the air, itself a modest story, is on the rise. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, dubbed "the mayor of Kabul," has bitterly and repeatedly complained about NATO and U.S. bombing policies.

Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.

TYR can exclusively reveal that the Iraqi insurgency is being funded by the trade in a toxic, explosive, and highly addictive substance that is peddled on Britain's streets. Junkies, known as "petrol heads", are willing to spend almost anything to get their hands on their next "tank". It offers them a passing sense of boundless power and confidence - but the downsides include thousands of people a year being killed and injured, billions of tonnes of CO2 emissions, and our cities filled with toxic, stinking smoke.

By March-April 2007, renewed political tensions once more threatened to destabilise the city, and relentless attacks on British forces in effect had driven them off the streets into increasingly secluded compounds. Basra's residents and militiamen view this not as an orderly withdrawal, but rather as an ignominious defeat. Today the city is controlled by militias.

Vincent Cable, the party's Treasury spokesman, spoke out after Labour's new deputy leader was forced on the defensive over her campaign condemnation of the Iraq war.
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Mr Cable said: "Harriet Harman faces a serious problem of credibility. She made a whole series of statements when she was running for the deputy leadership that are wholly contrary to the policies set out by Gordon Brown. Her comments on the Iraq war are clearly in line with the vast majority of Labour members and the general public. What is now required is for Gordon Brown to come into line with her opinion, rather than the other way around."

The claim follows a ruling on June 13 by the Law Lords in the House of Lords—the highest court in Britain—in the Al-Skeini and others v Secretary of State for Defence case. The case was brought by the families of six Iraqi civilians who died in British-occupied Basra in 2003. One of the dead, Baha Mousa, died in British custody while UK soldiers on patrol shot the other five.

The families of more than 100 service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are still waiting for inquests into their deaths a year after ministers promised to tackle the backlog, it emerged last night.

The number of refugees worldwide has risen for the first time in five years, largely because of violence in Iraq, according to a United Nations report. The total number of refugees rose by more than 14% last year to nearly 10 million, the UN refugee agency says. The number of internally displaced people also reached a record high of almost 13 million, the report says.

Senior Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat MPs challenged the Prime Minister over whether his "liberal intervention" strategy would survive after he leaves office next week because other countries were turning against it. They clashed with Mr Blair when he was quizzed for the last time by the Commons Liaison Committee, which is composed of the chairman of all the select committees.

Tony Blair agreed to commit British troops to battle in Iraq in the full knowledge that Washington had failed to make adequate preparations for the postwar reconstruction of the country. In a devastating account of the chaotic preparations for the war, which comes as Blair enters his final full week in Downing Street, key No 10 aides and friends of Blair have revealed the Prime Minister repeatedly and unsuccessfully raised his concerns with the White House.

Today there's a fine example of the 'if it wasn't for Iraq, he'd have been perfect' school of post-Blair commentary, from Andrew Rawnsley The essence is that Blair signed up for Iraq a year ahead (yes, anything new?), gave Chirac the finger when he (correctly) warned what happens if you try any of that post-imperialist shit in the Arab world (again, nothing new there) and then found that his best friend George was listening fine, but the levers were being pulled by Cheney and Rumsfeld (ya don't say?). Result: incompetence, corruption, loss of control and the inevitable slide into chaos in Iraq and, worst of all (if you're a Grauniad journo) Blair's halo slips permanently out of sight.

Former SNP MP Jim Sillars has handed a 10,000-word dossier to Lord Advocate Eilish Angiolini urging her to charge the PM under Scots law. He claims Blair should be held to account for conspiring to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime and for starting the war in Iraq. Both are illegal under international law. An attempt to have Blair hauled before a criminal court in England failed after lawyers said it wasn't the place to deal with international law. But Sillars claims Scottish courts have the power to try Blair for war crimes if they believe an established offence, such as murder, has been committed in the process.

AS the body of the 150th soldier to be killed in Iraq was borne the in solemn procession along Wootton Bassett High Street, residents of all ages stopped to pay their respects. The body of 30-year-old Corporal Rodney Wilson, of 4th Battalion The Rifles, was flown back to RAF Lyneham yesterday afternoon.

With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.

British casualties in Iraq have reached another grim milestone with the killing of a soldier in Basra, the 150th to die in the conflict. The soldier, from the 4th Battalion, The Rifles, was shot yesterday while taking part in a mission in the al-Atiyah district, north-west of the city. He was flown to the main British medical base for emergency treatment but died of his injuries.

Iraq’s ‘government’ has issued arrest warrants for the leaders of the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions - on strike since 4th June. The oil unions are protesting against the new oil law and for improvements to wages, health and other working and living conditions. The new ‘democratic government of Iraq’ acted with a degree of leniency and understanding familiar to any Iraqis who survived the Saddam years – in fact the prime minister, Nuri al Maliki, promised to quell any threats to Iraqi oil production with ‘an iron fist’.

Nearly 200 people were victims of Baghdad's sectarian violence in the first week of June, with 32 bodies dumped around the capital on Thursday, an Iraq Interior Ministry official said. The unidentified bodies bore the hallmarks of Iraq's sectarian violence between Shiite and Sunnis: gunshot wounds and signs of torture. They are among the 199 bodies that police have recovered in the first seven days of the month, the Interior Ministry official said.

An experienced British officer serving in Iraq has written to the BBC describing the invasion as "illegal, immoral, and unwinnable," which, he says, is "the overwhelming feeling of many of my peers." In a letter to the BBC's Newsnight and MediaLens.org he accuses the media's "embedded coverage with the U.S. Army" of failing to question "the intentions and continuing effects of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation."

More than 4 million Iraqis have fled their homes, seeking refuge either inside the country or beyond its borders as the situation deteriorates, the United Nations refugee agency said today, urging countries to do more to ease their plight. “The situation in Iraq continues to worsen, with more than 2 million Iraqis now believed to be displaced inside Iraq and another 2.2 million sheltering in neighbouring States,” said Jennifer Pagonis a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)

The UK's former ambassador in Washington has called for a speedy withdrawal from Iraq, insisting troops' lives are being wasted. Sir Christopher Meyer said the campaign was now not worth the death of "another single further British or American serviceman". "I personally believe that the presence of American and British forces is making things worse, not only in Iraq, but in the wider area around Iraq. The argument against staying for any greater length of time strengthens with every day that passes," he said.

Senior British officers in Iraq have produced plans to speed up the withdrawal of troops, allowing the vast majority of the UK's 5,500 troops to return home within 12 months or less, it emerged yesterday. But government sources stressed that the proposal was one of several options which the Ministry of Defence is developing to present to Gordon Brown when he takes over as prime minister later this month. He is due to visit Iraq, where commanders will brief him on when the army could pull out.

Two thirds of Baghdad remain out of the US military's control, three months after an influx of troops to stabilise the city, the New York Times has reported. The newspaper said on Sunday it had obtained a leaked military report, providing the first examination of a US troop "surge", ordered by George Bush, the US president in February.

General Sir Michael Rose told the BBC's Newsnight programme: "It is the soldiers who have been telling me from the frontline that the war they have been fighting is a hopeless war, that they cannot possibly win it and the sooner we start talking politics and not military solutions, the sooner they will come home and their lives will be preserved."

Gates told reporters in Hawaii that he is thinking of "a mutual agreement" with Iraq in which "some force of Americans . . . is present for a protracted period of time, but in ways that are protective of the sovereignty of the host government." Gates said such a long-term U.S. presence would assure allies in the Middle East that the United States will not withdraw from Iraq as it did from Vietnam, "lock, stock and barrel."

The raid on the Finance Ministry in Baghdad by 40 policemen in 19 vehicles who calmly cordoned off the street in front of the building before abducting five Britons shows how little has changed in the Iraqi capital despite US reinforcements and a new security plan. It has always been absurd to speak of men "dressed in police uniforms travelling in police vehicles" as if they were gunmen in disguise. "Of course they have the uniforms and the vehicles, because they are real policemen," said an Iraqi minister after a similar operation in which 150 people were abducted from the Ministry of Higher Education in the capital last year.

Transcript

The Bush administration is developing plans to "internationalise" the Iraq crisis, including an expanded role for the United Nations, as a way of reducing overall US responsibility for Iraq's future and limiting domestic political fallout from the war as the 2008 election season approaches.

Farmers in southern Iraq have started to grow opium poppies in their fields for the first time, sparking fears that Iraq might become a serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan. Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent.

The little-noticed second surge, designed to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq, is being executed by sending more combat brigades and extending tours of duty for troops already there. The actions could boost the number of combat soldiers from 52,500 in early January to as many as 98,000 by the end of this year if the Pentagon overlaps arriving and departing combat brigades.

In a newspaper interview, Mr Carter said of the Bush years: "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history." And speaking on BBC Radio 4, Mr Carter criticised Mr Blair, who leaves office next month, for his close relations with Mr Bush, particularly concerning the Iraq war.

Surprise, surprise, Prince Harry will not be going to war. Was there ever anyone stupid enough to think otherwise? The establishment says it's too dangerous. Of course it's dangerous. War is dangerous. It's also dangerous for those who are out there already.

Rising from the dust of the city's Green Zone it is destined, at $592m (£300m), to become the biggest and most expensive US embassy on earth when it opens in September. It will cover 104 acres (42 hectares) of land, about the size of the Vatican. It will include 27 separate buildings and house about 615 people behind bomb-proof walls. Most of the embassy staff will live in simple, if not quite monastic, accommodation in one-bedroom apartments.

GORDON Brown will remove all British forces from Iraq before the next election under a plan to rebuild support among disillusioned Labour voters. Scotland on Sunday can reveal the Prime Minister elect is working on a withdrawal plan that could see troop numbers slashed from 7,000 to as few as 2,000 within 12 months.

UK soldiers discuss Tony Blair's latest visit to Iraq.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on his last visit to Iraq before stepping down in June, urged Iraq's leaders to speed up reconciliation efforts to end the violence in the country Saturday _ after three blasts rocked the compound where he met with Iraq's leaders.

Although no definitive figures can be given on the total number of Iraqis who have died as a result of the US war and occupation—including those killed in the invasion and subsequent armed violence and those whose lives have been cut short by disease and hunger, particularly among the young and old—every serious estimate places the excess death toll between several hundred thousands and one million human beings.

Food and fuel supplies are reportedly running out in the central Iraqi city of Samarra because of a curfew imposed after an insurgent attack 12 days ago. Four babies are said to have died in the city's hospital because of a lack of fuel to power their incubators.

There will be no election discussion before Gordon Brown becomes UK Prime Minister. John McDonnell MP has failed to attract enough support from Labour Party members of the UK House of Commons to qualify as a candidate for the election process. There will be no involvement by individual members of the Labour Party or by the trade unions where John McDonnell has some support. One consequence is that there will be less public discussion on the Iraq war and the renewal of Trident, a nuclear missile system.

After Britain's first violent pre-Second World War grab of Iraq and its oil, in 1920 in response to Iraqis wanting to control their own country Britain bombed them. Churchill said they "could be cheaply policed by aircraft armed with gas bombs".

Iraq faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation, UK foreign policy think tank Chatham House says. Its report says the Iraqi government is now largely powerless and irrelevant in many parts of the country. It warns there is not one war but many local civil wars, and urges a major change in US and British strategy, such as consulting Iraq's neighbours more.

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq's declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft U.S. government report. Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.

In the midst of all the spin and kerfuffle, we should remember that our dear leader is not departing at a time of his chosing, or in a manner of his chosing. The desperate and sickening stage managed performance yesterday was the mark of a man who could no longer hang on. Loathed and detested in ways Thatcher could only aspire too, he has failed to serve the full 3rd term he wanted, and leaves with one word ringing in his ears:

With Blair's announcement, Bush faces the final 19 months of his term in office without his closest ally and, as the president described him, "good friend."

David Keogh, 50, a Cabinet Office communications officer, was today jailed for six months. He passed on an "extremely sensitive memo" to Leo O'Connor, 44, a political researcher who worked for an anti-war Labour MP, Anthony Clarke. O'Connor was today sentenced to three months in jail after an Old Bailey jury found them guilty yesterday of breaching Britain's secrecy laws. At the centre of the trial was a four-page Downing Street document which recorded discussions about Iraq between Mr Blair and Mr Bush, held in the Oval Office in April 2004 in the run-up to the handover of power to the Iraqi government.

The ICRC is appealing for an extra 35 million Swiss francs to expand existing activities. Its 2007 Iraq budget will now total just over 91 million Swiss francs. A recent ICRC report described the Iraqi population's worsening humanitarian situation. "Civilians bear the brunt of the relentless violence and things are not getting any better," said Mégevand-Roggo at the public launch of the budget extension appeal at the ICRC's Geneva headquarters.

Britain's military has implemented Mr Blair's policy of "humanitarian intervention" from Kosovo to Afghanistan, Sierra Leone to Iraq. Not only has this crusade embroiled them in what one officer called the most intense fighting since the Korean War, more than half a century ago, it is stretching their depleted resources to the limit. And the cost in lives goes on: in the past week another two soldiers have died in Iraq, bringing the total there to 147, and one more in Afghanistan, where 54 have been killed on operational duty.

In a survey of U.S. troops in combat in Iraq, less than half of Marines and a little more than half of Army soldiers said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian.
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-Only 47 percent of the soldiers and 38 percent of Marines said noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.
-About a third of troops said they had insulted or cursed at civilians in their presence.
-Thirty-nine percent of Marines and 36 percent of soldiers said torture should be allowed to gather important information from insurgents.

A draft law being considered by the Iraqi parliament would enable US companies to take control of Iraq's oil industry, oil experts in the country say. The proposed bill, approved by the Iraqi government in February after months of wrangling, opens the country's oil sector to foreign investors 35 years after it was nationalised.

A catalogue of errors over planning for Iraq after the invasion, and an inability to influence key figures in the US administration, led to anarchy in Iraq from which the country has not recovered, the British defence secretary during the invasion admits today.

On December 28th, the Catholic Feast of the Holy Innocents, seven people mostly from the radical "Catholic Worker movement", had converted the lawn outside the Ministry of Defence (MoD) opposite Downing Street into a war cemetery in memory of the dead of the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq. Fr Newell was writing "Remember the Innocent - Stop the War" and "Remember Iraqi War Dead" on the wall of the MoD as a memorial to the dead, when he was stopped by police. Prayers of remembrance and repentance were also said. He was later found guilty of criminal damage at Horseferry Road Magistrates Court, Westminster and ordered to pay £660 compensation to the MoD.

It wasn't one mistake or one flawed policy that eroded all that initial optimism, it was New Labour's very meaning. In fact, Blair's support for Bush was a result of that adoration for the wealthy and powerful. Iraq wasn't an aberration, it was a consequence of all he stood for. But Iraq is what he'll be remembered for - forever always, no matter how much he tries to orchestrate a "legacy" around social reforms or whatever. He might as well have got Harold Shipman to say: "It's not fair. No one remembers how I helped out Mrs Ambridge at the Post Office with her shingles. Just 'murders murders murders', that's all the bastards go on about. Well, they'll be sorry when I've gone."

On the 10th anniversary of Tony Blair's election as Prime Minister, an exclusive poll reveals 69 per cent of Britons believe that, when he leaves office, his enduring legacy will be the bloody conflict in Iraq

One of the co-authors of a Lancet study which estimated that more than 650,000 civilian deaths had occurred in Iraq following the 2003 invasion has been barred from entering the UK after he was refused a transit visa at Heathrow following a flight from Jordan.

A British soldier was shot dead in southern Iraq yesterday, the twelfth to die this month, providing further evidence of an alarming rise in violent attacks. The soldier, from the 2nd Battalion The Rifles, was hit by small arms fire during a routine patrol in the al-Ashar district of Basra. The Ministry of Defence, which has informed the next of kin, said that the soldier had dismounted from his vehicle and was making routine checks when he was hit.

A British soldier has broken ranks within days of returning from Iraq to speak publicly of the horror of his tour of duty there, painting a picture of troops under siege, "sitting ducks" to an increasingly sophisticated insurgency. "Basra is lost, they are in control now. It's a full-scale riot and the Government are just trying to save face," said Private Paul Barton.

The aim is to produce a report drawing on thinking in the British military and diplomatic establishment which is intended to be of comparable importance to that of the American Iraq Study Group, chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, which called for a fundamental rethink of US policy, including a diplomatic re-engagement with countries such as Syria and Iran. Many of its proposals were rejected by George Bush.

…Which is the wall the current Iraqi government is building (with the support and guidance of the Americans). It's a wall that is intended to separate and isolate what is now considered the largest 'Sunni' area in Baghdad- let no one say the Americans are not building anything. According to plans the Iraqi puppets and Americans cooked up, it will 'protect' A'adhamiya, a residential/mercantile area that the current Iraqi government and their death squads couldn't empty of Sunnis.

The wall, of course, will protect no one. I sometimes wonder if this is how the concentration camps began in Europe. The Nazi government probably said, "Oh look- we're just going to protect the Jews with this little wall here- it will be difficult for people to get into their special area to hurt them!" And yet, it will also be difficult to get out.

The US military’s plan to seal off an entire suburb of Baghdad behind a three-metre high concrete wall has produced widespread opposition among Iraqis of all religious and ethnic backgrounds. Several thousand residents of Sunni-populated Adhamiyah demonstrated against the wall on Monday behind banners declaring “No Shiite. No Sunni. Islamic Unity” and “No to the sectarian barrier”. Shiite leaders in neighbouring suburbs have also condemned the barrier.

I imagine my ultimate low point was, after taking part in the biggest protest march in our history against the war, how easily our views were ignored. Yet this week marked another shattering low point as we witnessed the appalling sale by service personnel of their stories for money.

Activists from the Hands Off Iraqi Oil campaign today delivered a warning to oil company BP that it will face massive public outrage if it continues in its attempts to ‘rip off’ Iraqi oil. They were demonstrating at the company’s Annual General Meeting in London's Docklands against the role BP has played in lobbying for a controversial new oil law in Iraq. The law would transfer control over the majority of the country’s huge oil reserves from the public sector to multinational companies, for the first time in 35 years.

Two-thirds of Scots want troops pulled out of Iraq straight away, a poll for BBC Scotland has suggested.
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The results found 66% backed immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq while 31% were against.

Iraq's health status, four years into the occupation, is nothing short of disastrous. Iraq's health index has deteriorated to a level not seen since the 1950s, says Joseph Chamie, former director of the United Nations Population Division and an Iraq specialist. People's health status is determined by social, economic and environmental factors much more than by the availability of healthcare. Not surprisingly, all these factors have deteriorated in the course of the occupation.

It is an awkward question to ask but did anyone else hear the rest of the world sniggering? I thought I heard it, that’s all. The sequence of events went like this: the unfortunate British soldiers were kidnapped by Iran, Britain announced that Iran had broken international law... and that was when I thought I heard a global giggle, though it could have been a snort of derision.

Immediately after publication, the prime minister's official spokesman said that The Lancet's study "was not one we believe to be anywhere near accurate". The foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, said that the Lancet figures were "extrapolated" and a "leap". President Bush said: "I don't consider it a credible report". Scientists at the UK's Department for International Development thought differently. They concluded that the study's methods were "tried and tested". Indeed, the Hopkins approach would likely lead to an "underestimation of mortality".

The British government was advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war, the BBC has learnt. Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet. But the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser said the survey's methods were "close to best practice" and the study design was "robust".

The BBC World Service has obtained a document. It is an official appraisal by British government scientists across government departments, commissioned by 10 Downing Street, of the study published by the Lancet that estimated 655,000 dead in Iraq. The appraisal says that the methodology is correct and that the study "follows best practice". Astonishingly, the official DFID verdict was that 655,000 dead is "If anything, an underestimate".

The confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers that constitutes the Shatt al-Arab forms the southern border between modern day Iraq and Iran. It is interesting that in the UK we know it exclusively by it's arab name (Coast of Arabs) and not the more widely used Persian name, the Arvandrud (the arvand river). It has been disputed between rival empires for millenia and may just be the most politicised surviving border in history. The key to winning a chess game is arguably controlling or threatening the centre four squares on the board. I doubt any river has washed away so much blood. Treaties have been forced upon rival dominions down that waterway since the Epic of Gilgamesh. It was fought over by, at various stages, by many of the world's greatest and bloodiest empires: the Babylonians, the Persians, the Parthians, the Macedonians, the Mongols, the British, the Russians, the Ottomans; and now the American empire.

Well, it’s half time in the Iraq vs the Rest Of The World football match. For those just joining us you’ve missed some amazing action in the last four years, and although the score remains unclear at this stage both sides still have all to play for.

It shouldn't have escaped anyone's attention that this is the fourth anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq. The media has been full of it with an abundance of special editions of various programs looking back on the last four years and debating the consequences of the invasion, the latest edition of Question Time is a good example (video here for a short time). From all this, one message comes out loud and clear and that is that the general consensus is that the Iraq war is a complete and utter disaster and going from bad to worse. The apologists for and supporters of the war look more ludicrous every day as they desperately search for signs of 'progress' or ways to spin the daily litany of bad news into evidence of a 'turning point'. Even the old line that by removing a brutal dictator some sort of improvement has been made is being exposed as rubbish as more and more Iraqis say they felt better off and safer under Saddam Hussein.

Fifteen activists picketed Liverpool army recruitment on James Street yesterday, in an event organised by Liverpool Social Forum and the Merseyside Anarchist Group. We were marking four years since the invasion of Iraq began, but we were also starting a round of campaigning which we hope will break the Stop The War Coalition's stranglehold on the anti-war movement in the area.

Four years ago today, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in order to punish Saddam for his involvement in the 11th September attacks find and destroy Saddam's WMDs bring about regime change free the Iraqi people from the shackles of tyranny.

It is not difficult to see how this violence is linked to the occupation, for it has spawned a multitude of violence-makers: 150,000 occupation forces; 50,000 and rising contracted foreign "mercenaries"; 150,000 Iraqi Facilities Protection forces, paid by the Iraqi regime, controlled by the occupation and engaged in death-squad activities, according to the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki; 400,000 US-trained army and police forces; six US-controlled secret Iraqi militias; and hundreds of private kidnap gangs. Pitted against some or all of these are tens of thousands of militias and resistance forces of various political hues. In total there are about 2 million actively organised armed men in the country.

Four years on from the “shock and awe” invasion of Iraq, peace campaigners in Swindon, determined that this anniversary should not go unmarked, braved the bitter cold to hold vigils at the Cenotaph at lunch time and in the early evening.

It has emerged that MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, was up-front about its lack of first-class intelligence about Iraq. It told Tony Blair it hadn't known much about Iraq's work on chemical and biological weapons since 1988. But that wasn't the impression Mr Blair gave to Parliament. As we've seen, he called the intelligence "extensive, detailed and authoritative".

RAW memories of the 2003 invasion of Iraq were brought back as anti-war campaigners held a vigil at Swindon's Cenotaph. Around half a dozen Stop the War Coalition members displayed placards in the town centre yesterday lunchtime to mark the fourth anniversary of the war.

in the run-up to the 4th anniversary of the iraq occupation, 'voices in the wilderness' staged an unlawful demonstration in parliament square yesterday afternoon. police were clearly instructed not to intervene, as members of the press were there and it was a sensitive issue.

The moment became symbolic across the world as it signalled the fall of the dictator. Wearing a black vest, Mr al-Jubouri, an Iraqi weightlifting champion, pounded through the concrete in an attempt to smash the statue and all it meant to him. Now, on the fourth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq, he says: "I really regret bringing down the statue. The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day."

Corporal Donald Payne has admitted to inhumanely treating Iraqi civilians. The other soldiers charged have had those charges dropped due to lack of evidence. When acquitting two more soldiers this week, Mr Justice McKinnon said… ‘None of those soldiers has been charged with any offence simply because there is no evidence against them as a result of a more or less obvious closing of ranks.’

The spiralling cost of the Iraq war to the British taxpayer is set to exceed £1bn this year for the first time since the invasion. The figures were released as MPs protested about the plight of Britain's NHS hospitals, ordered to cut costs to wipe out their £512m deficit by the end of this month. Many MPs said the money would be better spent on the service. "This is the politics of Mad Hatter priorities," said Alan Simpson, a Labour opponent of the war.

Much has been made of Iran's alleged supplying of weapons and bombs to Shi'ite factions in Iraq. Far less has been made of Saudi Arabia's apparent role in supplying weapons and funding to Sunni insurgents. And yet, as Saudi Arabia threatened to do, and as has been stated by the Iraq Study Group as well as by journalist, Seymour Hersh, this appears to be the case.

Endgame. The days must be passing very slowly for Tony and it gets lonelier and lonelier at the top and he brought it upon himself. After hubris comes nemesis and the vultures are circling. His closest allies are now openly saying what we all know to be true; Tony's legacy is Iraq. He played with the neo-con fire and got burned, taking his nation with him. Whatever happens in British politics we must change the system that allows one delusional man to drag us all into war.

OUR boys are fighting for their lives in Iraq. Already 132 have lost that battle and 40 in Afghanistan. Now 1,600 combat troops are being pulled out of Iraq and 1,300 are then being sent to Afghanistan. What game of smoke and mirrors is this being played with the best fighting forces on this planet.

A HIGH ranking RAF officer has said he warned military bosses in 2002 that Hercules aircraft not fitted with anti-explosive foam were at risk. Squadron Leader Chris Seal said he requested in 2002 that explosive suppressant foam (ESF) be added to the fleet.

With Iraq tearing itself apart in increasing cycles of sectarian violence, the corporate sharks have scented blood in the water. A controversial Petroleum law which seeks to hand over the rights to Iraq’s oil reserves (estimated to be the world’s third largest) to the multinational oil giants has been passed through the Iraqi cabinet and will soon be placed before the entire Iraqi parliament. Under this law Iraq’s reserves would be allocated under Production Sharing Agreements (PSAs). Revenues which could be used to rebuild Iraq - smashed under a decade long sanctions regime and then bombed and scarred from invasion - will instead be siphoned off into the pockets of Big Oil.

Today should be an important day for those of us who want to know the truth about the September 2002 Iraq dossier - the document that took us to war. The New Statesman is publishing my follow-up piece to Martin Bright's story last November about the secret first draft, written by former Foreign Office spin doctor John Williams. The information commissioner is right now finalising his ruling on whether the draft should be released. To mark all this, my website, which tells the whole story of how the dossier was "sexed up", is launched.

Transcript

On Saturday 24th February many thousands of people gathered in Central London to protest against the ongoing UK/US government sponsored slaughter in Iraq. As ever, there was something of a Carnival atmosphere, with many different groups being present, and the mood was definitely upbeat, despite the miserable weather! There was plenty of creativity on display, with people bringing along their own homemade placards, props and costumes (one of my personal faves has to be "Triplets Against The War"), along with the usual mass produced placards. part 1 / part 2 / part 3

On Sat 24 Feb 07, scores of thousands of people demonstrated against the war drive of British and American imperialism. Calling for all occupying troops to be withdrawn from Iraq, no replacement of Britain’s nuclear weapons system and no attack on Iran, the demonstration took over one and a half hours to exit Hyde Park, while being entertained by the massed ranks of socialist choirs, including Raised Voices [1] and the Strawberry Thieves [2]. However, since this was yet another march from A to B and listen to speeches event, organised by the left of capital in cooperation with the police, don’t expect a change in imperialist policy in Whitehall. Now just imagine what large scale, effective, direct anti-war action could be created with scores of thousands of people... 1 of 3 / 2 of 3 / 3 of 3

MINISTERS are negotiating multi-million-pound contracts with private security firms to cover some of the gaps created by British troop withdrawals. Days after Tony Blair revealed that he wanted to withdraw 1,600 soldiers from war-torn Basra within months, it has emerged that civil servants hope "mercenaries" can help fill the gap left behind.

A personal account of the experience of participation in the STW march against the Iraq war and Trident replacement with a critical view on the event.

Photos, videos and a report from the protest held on 24th February

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

Photos from the demonstration on 24th February 2007

With one thing and another (mainly my missus being in bed with a hangover and me having the childminding job) I didn't get down for 12pm at Hyde Park Corner. However, I've just spoken to Davide Simonetti ( who's met up with Rachel) and he's just, 2 hours after arriving, started moving. This is big, people. Murdoch's minions at Sky News are still reporting 'hundreds' demonstrating, so we'll be hoping to refute that. We'll try and get some pictures sent up here to the orbiting Star Wars Blairwatch mission HQ and I'll put them up as the afternoon goes on.

In September last year I wondered How mad is Tony Blair? It had been pondered before. But it seems to be an opinion that is even more widespread after the PM's frankly fruitbat batshit bonkers woo woo la la delusional interview last week on Radio 4 with John Humphries, in which the not-so-esteemed-these-days PM blamed all the deaths on Iraq on all the pesky terrorists.

Anti-war marchers have taken to the streets in London and Glasgow to call for the return of all troops from Iraq. They also demanded that plans to replace the Trident nuclear missile system be scrapped. Organisers from the Stop the War coalition said 60,000 people turned out in London's Trafalgar Square, but police put the figure at 10,000. In Glasgow, around 2,000 demonstrators gathered in George Square for the Bin the Bomb anti-Trident rally.

CND and the Stop the War called the demo with the slogans, No Trident, Troops out of Iraq. Two coaches of protestors attended from Sheffield (while other went by train and other means).

STWC said over 100,000 but apparently the police were saying just 4,000 at some point. Personally, bassed on how full trafalgar square seemed I'd guess at something between 50,000 and 70,000. But who can tell, it was certainly big, bigger than any nuclear related marches i've ever attended.

Listening again to Blair's Today interview, it is easy to imagine his declarations as simply one melody in a discordant symphony, a series of those beloved soundbites that could be spliced with contrapuntal news of actual events. "We should be immensely proud." Crash! A six-hour firefight in Ramadi leaves 12 dead. "What we had to do was rebuild an Iraqi army and police - we did that." Bang! A US soldier dies and three are injured by a roadside bomb in Diwaniya. "It is better now that [Saddam] has gone." Wallop! A car bomb factory is discovered in Baghdad. Just as it was with his apparent inspiration, Comical Ali, it becomes ever more difficult to avoid the suspicion that the prime minister is living in a parallel universe, where success and failure are merely states of mind.

I'm updating this report as fast as I can upload material. First indications is that was about 100,000-strong, which is probably one of the larger anti-nuclear demonstrations that we've had in recent years. I didn't hear any figures for the Glasgow demo, but I'm told it was enormous: unsurprisingly, since Scotland is where the British ruling class likes to keep its nukes. It goes without saaying that most of the media are blacking out the demo, and the BBC gives it only a few inches in a local section (misquoting the figures too). Bizarrely, they actually devote more space to the demonstration in Glasgow which they say was much smaller.

Ceinwen Hilton will never forget the moment she turned into Shaftesbury Avenue on a cold February morning in 2003 to see a river of people holding banners and chanting slogans in the biggest anti-war march in recent British history. She was one of more than two million people who turned out to join the Stop the War protest in London to march against the Government's decision to invade Iraq. Four years later, Ms Hilton is today set to walk the same route across central London in a Stop the War Coalition march calling on the Government to pull troops out of Iraq.

What staggered everyone who heard the interview was of course his blanket refusal to take a shred of blame for the chaos he now prepares to leave behind. For Bloody Sunday, which happened when he was a teenager, he begged forgiveness. For slavery, abolished in 1833, he sobbed a mea culpa. Even now you wouldn't put it past him to apologise for the Iraq calamity on behalf of Churchill, who so blithely cobbled that country together in 1922. Hinting at regret for his own role in its gruesome unravelling, on the other hand, is beyond him. It's entirely the fault of the insurgents and terrorists. For creating the vacuum they have so predictably filled (and few catastrophes were so widely and authoratitively predicted), he accepts not one iota of responsibility. It is, as I say, a form of madness.

Blair tried to spin his announcement of a reduction of British troop levels in Iraq as some kind of victory by telling us that the situation was now safe enough for a handover to Iraqi control. Obviously this is contrary to the evidence coming out of Basra where troops seem to be largely confined to base and liable to be attacked as soon as they venture out.
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Now we are hearing of another reason for the proposed troop reduction. Yep, they're going straight to Afghanistan.

It is, of course, welcome that a part of the British military contingent in southern Iraq is to come home. Our belief that British troops should never have been in Iraq in the first place does not detract either from our respect for the professional job they have done, or from our relief that up to one quarter of the force could be nearing the end of their mission. But the Prime Minister's announcement that 1,600 men and women are to be withdrawn in coming months, with another 500 likely to follow by late summer, suggests the classic scenario of a defeated leader deciding to declare victory and leave.

It is an admission of defeat. Iraq is turning into one of the world's bloodiest battlefields in which nobody is safe. Blind to this reality, Tony Blair said yesterday that Britain could safely cut its forces in Iraq because the apparatus of the Iraqi government is growing stronger. In fact the civil war is getting worse by the day. Food is short in parts of the country. A quarter of the population would starve without government rations. Many Iraqis are ill because their only drinking water comes from the highly polluted Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

The PM is looking very threadbare. He may have crossed the thin line that separates lunacy from insanity (it's Alan Bennett's joke). Of the terrorists, militias, kidnappers, bombers and murderers that have created a civil war in Iraq he declared: "We will beat them when we realise it's not our fault that they're doing this." We will what when we what? Let me paraphrase: "Victory will come when we realise we are blameless!" You live in a bunker you start talking bunk.

The prime minister is desperately trying to get a last surge from a British public that has long been disillusioned with the war, while not embarrassing an American president who is slumping at home even as he surges in Baghdad. Withdrawing less than a quarter of the British contingent in Iraq is Blair's attempt at balance. It will satisfy nobody, least of all the British military who would like to have wrapped up the entire Basra adventure this year or last. Now it will be up to Gordon Brown to show whether he has the courage or the survival instinct, in a few months' time, to make 2008 the year of the full pull-out. Defeating David Cameron may depend upon it.

Let's play spot the liar. If Beckett was telling the truth about the 45 minute claim, if, as she put it, "people began to quickly think 'I'm not sure about that'", the statement by Blair six months later and one day after the war started is totally indefensible.

Remember, children... there is no right-wing propaganda on Page 3. Today, the lovely Vikki (18, from Essex) expresses her joy at the news that up to 3,000 troops are due to head home from Iraq by Christmas by saying; "Our boys have done a great job out there, but it'll be brilliant to see them back home with their loved ones." By a strange coincidence, this view totally corresponds with today's front page news item and editorial.

As expected, Al Maliki is claiming the rape allegations are all lies. Apparently, his people simply asked the officers if they raped Sabrine Al Janabi and they said no. I'm so glad that's been cleared up.

Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped her. You can only see her eyes, her voice is hoarse and it keeps breaking as she speaks.
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I wonder what excuse they used when they took her. It’s most likely she’s one of the thousands of people they round up under the general headline of ‘terrorist suspect’. She might have been one of those subtitles you read on CNN or BBC or Arabiya, “13 insurgents captured by Iraqi security forces.” The men who raped her are those same security forces Bush and Condi are so proud of- you know- the ones the Americans trained.

The timing is all about the situation on the ground in Iraq; it has absolutely nothing to do with Blair's date of departure. After four years of occupation, it is a coincidence that these two events just happened to, well, coincide. In fact, Basra, Maysan, Muthanna and Dhi Qar, the provinces administered by the British in the south of Iraq, are all jolly peaceful places. Any cynical journalist who doubts this can go see for themselves...

Reports say Iraqi refugees, forcibly deported from Britain, were beaten by Special Police (Asayish) as soon as they stepped off the plane in Erbil. The plane had not landed at the usual passenger terminal but instead taxied to a cargo area where media access was barred. Deportees were then herded into a waiting bus while some were beaten.

During his short time as head of the CPA, Paul Bremer managed to lose several billion dollars of Iraq's money. It is almost certain that that some of this money found its way into the hands of insurgents who had infliltrated many of Iraq's ministries. It is highly likely that some of this money has been used to fund attacks on U.S soldiers. This does not, however, suggest that the U.S. government deliberately aided the insurgents; it suggests that Bremer was an idiot who had no real control or understanding of a very unstable situation.

For the third time in less than two years, a 'charter flight' left the RAF Brize Norton military base in Oxfordshire today, carrying 50+ Iraqi-Kurdish asylum seekers, who had been arrested and detained from across the UK, to Erbil, Kurdistan (Northern Iraq). Some 60 protesters gathered at the gates of Brize Norton this morning, in a protest called by the Campaign to Close Campsfield. It followed other protests over the weekend in London, Leicester and Manchester. But neither these protests nor the repeated warnings from national and international human rights organisations managed to convince the Home Office of halting forced removals to unsafe Iraq.

60 Demonstators assembled on the gates of Brize Norton Royal Air Force (RAF) this morning Monday 12th February, to protest against the base being used to deport refused Kurdish asylum seekers to Kurdistan.

The White House was today challenged to retract accusations by senior US defence officials that the "highest levels" of the Iranian government are supplying sophisticated roadside bombs to Iraqi insurgents. The call comes from a group of academics and Middle East experts who described the latest allegations as “highly implausible and deeply misleading”.

Ahmed and Anan are both from the Kurdish part of Iraq. They fled Kurdistan some years ago and have been resident in Bristol for the last seven years. Their application for asylum was first rejected four years ago and appeals have been in process since. In recent times they have both been obliged to regularly sign on at the Trinity Road police station. This was how things stood up until last week. As usual Ahmed and Anan turned up at the police station to sign on but, to their horror, were detained by the police. They spent the next five days in the cells at Trinity Road before being transferred to detention centres in different parts of the country. They have been told to expect deportation this Monday 12th February.

You have to smile grimly at the incompetence of the American administration in Iraq that has managed to ‘lose’ $12 billion in $100 bills. The cash was flown into Iraq on military transport planes in shrink-wrapped bricks during 2003. After that, nobody’s quite sure where most of it went.

The staggering scale of the biggest transfer of cash in the history of the Federal Reserve has been graphically laid bare by a US congressional committee. In the year after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 nearly 281 million notes, weighing 363 tonnes, were sent from New York to Baghdad for disbursement to Iraqi ministries and US contractors. Using C-130 planes, the deliveries took place once or twice a month with the biggest of $2,401,600,000 on June 22 2004, six days before the handover.

Mr Blair was responding to concerns raised by David Cameron, the Conservative leader, after the leaking of a graphic cockpit video recording showing the attack by American pilots on British tanks near Basra during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Lance Corporal Hull, 25, from Berkshire, died in an attack. The coroner was forced to adjourn the inquest when US authorities initially refused to release a cockpit video recording of the attack - leading to accusations that the Ministry of Defence had conspired with the Americans in a cover-up of his death.

The video-recording of the attack by two American jets on a British column in Iraq in March 2003, which caused the death of Corporal Matty Hull, should be in any museum of war. We hear the pilots clearly hungry for targets and finding them. They question the identity of the column, which seems to have "friendly" markings, but ground control assures them it is not friendly. They attack, and crow as they score. Ground control calmly tells them they have made a mistake and to head for home. They curse, weep and cry: "We're in jail ... I'm going to be sick." They have killed their own.

A coroner who demanded the release of a cockpit video showing a US plane attacking a British convoy in Iraq will not have his contract renewed. Andrew Walker criticised the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for failing to clear the video to be shown at an inquest.

Campaigners said the planned deportations went against advice from those on the ground. 'The Kurdistan regional government has made it clear to the UK that under no circumstances do they want the UK government to forcibly return anyone to Kurdistan,' said John O, a spokesman for the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns. 'This mass deportation to Iraq is inhumane and rather than give John Reid kudos, it will just prove him to be a bully.' The Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq claims the country has been plagued by political kidnappings and arrests 'in an attempt to create an atmosphere of fear and to gag dissenting voices and protesters'.

I WAS disgusted to read that Tony Blair did not attend the day-long debate on the Iraq war in the House of Commons on Wednesday, January 24. How galling it must have been for our brave servicemen and women, who risk their lives daily for this unnecessary and illegal war, to read that he had considered a business meeting to be of more importance.

Bush has denied that he intends to take military action against Iran itself. He said that it was "a presumption that's simply not accurate".

On 10th March 2003 Blair wrote that "no decision has been taken to launch military action against Iraq".
On 12th March 2003, he again wrote that "no decision has been taken to launch military action against Iraq".
On 14th March 2003, he wrote that "no decision to launch military action against Iraq has been taken".
On 18th March 2003, he asked the House of Commons to rubber stamp his decision to go to war.

The war started on 20th March.

Parliament held a rare debate on the Iraq war on Wednesday of this week – though Tony Blair refused to attend and government whips refused to allow a vote on the issue. Here is Respect MP George Galloway's forensic demolition of the government's case for war.

The pre-war vote and the appalling events that followed were the bleak context of yesterday's debate. All those who supported the war then are trapped now. Blair is so constrained that he did not bother to attend the debate let alone speak in it. The symbolism of his absence was darkly damaging. As many speakers noted, Blair was willing to speak in the Commons on Iraq regularly in advance of the war when he was being widely praised by some for his apparent political courage. Now he was nowhere to be seen. It not only seemed weak and cowardly. It was weak and cowardly.

To have any chance at understanding, we need to don our long rubber gloves and waders and see what Joe's been writing. Oh dear. From the first line it appears that we're deep in the ideological territory where an undefined 'win' in Iraq is linked closely, and with no evidence, to the security of the USA. He goes on to portray Iraq in the same glib, unreal language as Tony Blair - moderates versus extremists, without specifying precisely whom he considers to be on each side. The hallmarks of extreme neocon rational detachment are still strongly visible - Iraq and 9/11 are linked, mysterious 'thems' are conjured out of thin air, but never expounded upon. Rhetorical flourish replaces analysis (sound familiar?) and the lack of evidence is overwhelming.

A number of Iraqi-Kurdish asylum seekers have been detained across the UK this month as the Home Office is planning to deport more 'failed' asylum seekers to unsafe Iraqi Kurdistan. The move follows two previous deportations in September 2006 and November 2005, which sparked a lot of anger and protest.

So you didn’t agree with the war, you knew it was wrong and saw Robin Cook and Clare Short show you the correct course of action, yet you stayed in government. You have collected your money while soldiers are dying for your government. You swapped your integrity, self respect and credibility for the perks of high office. When the people you were elected to represent wanted an inquiry you voted against. Why would someone who opposed the decision to go to war and its conduct want to stop a public inquiry? Surely it would have justified your own personal view and your government surely has nothing to hide has it?

Blair - I've no doubt you've been on this website and I hope you're reading this. I sit here typing this in tears of anger, frustration and despair. Having never served, HOW FCUKING DARE YOU make a comment like that. The finest, brightest, strongest, bravest young men and women in this country signed on the dotted line in selfless service of their country and you BETRAYED them by sending them into unsound conflict without adequate support. YOU have made the decision to send young soldiers into a HELL from which some have never returned.

Listening to Tony Blair's recent speech aboard HMS Albion in Plymouth in which he stated his desire for Britain to be involved in even more wars, you'd get the impression that he'd jump at the chance to send more British troops to Iraq, especially if asked to do so by his lord and master in Washington. However, it seems now that our war addicted Prime Minister was given such a request and, strangely, balked at the idea.

This is what confronts the US forces gathering for George W Bush's last throw of the dice in Iraq. He sees the battle to wrest control of Baghdad from the militias as the key to salvaging victory in the Iraqi quagmire, but distinguishing friend from foe will not be easy. The President has already warned that bloodshed will increase, but will there be any gains?

So Iran is "meddling" with Iraq and is a "destabilising" force by engaging in diplomatic activity with the government of Iraq which we are constantly told is sovereign, whereas the USA (which isn't meddling in Iraq) is obviously a stabilising force in the region as we have seen over the last three years, so much so that another 20,000 troops are on their way to stabilise it even more. What amazes me is how these people can deliver these lines with a straight face.

Imagine you went to a party and the most sparkling, witty and popular guest in the room was burly sex-killer Fred West. That should give you a flavour of what an unbelievably monumental, visible-from-space clusterfuck Saddam Hussein’s public execution turned out to be.

President Bush was last night ordering more than 20,000 extra troops to Iraq and new financial aid, as part of a "last-chance" plan to end the sectarian fighting that has brought the country to the brink of disintegration, and allow the US to extract itself from the increasingly unpopular war.

In opting for a troop surge, Mr Bush has ignored the message of the mid-term elections, the Iraq Study Group, Congress, his own top generals and most world opinion. US generals have difficulty enough maintaining current levels of combat-ready troops and are not convinced that more troops will make any difference. Rather than listen to them, Mr Bush has turned to the right, to those who argue that honour and the America's national interests require fighting on.

A powerful response to George Bush's "Surge" speech.

Only this president, only in this time, only with this dangerous, even messianic certitude, could answer a country demanding an exit strategy from Iraq, by offering an entrance strategy for Iran.

Only this president could look out over a vista of 3,008 dead and 22,834 wounded in Iraq, and finally say, “Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me” — only to follow that by proposing to repeat the identical mistake ... in Iran.

Only this president could extol the “thoughtful recommendations of the Iraq Study Group,” and then take its most far-sighted recommendation — “engage Syria and Iran” — and transform it into “threaten Syria and Iran” — when al-Qaida would like nothing better than for us to threaten Syria, and when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would like nothing better than to be threatened by us.

As far the claim that Iran and Syria are "allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq" goes, this is pure misdirection. The U.S. are on the other side of those borders. If it was so easy to stop insurgents moving across them, why don't they do it? It's because it would be enormously difficult. Iraq's borders with these countries are long and extremely difficult to police. You could probably stop a conventional military force from crossing because a conventional military force is large and pretty obvious. Terrorists and insurgents, on the other hand, are not easily spotted. That's sort of the point..

He is a strange figure to be targeted as the number one enemy of the US in Iraq. Four years ago, few had heard of the Shia nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr inside or outside Iraq. Even somebody as suspicious as Saddam Hussein, who murdered his father and two brothers, did not think he would play any role in the coming crisis. Now he holds the future of Iraq in his hands.

President Bush's announcement early this morning tolled every bell. A billion dollars of extra aid for Iraq, a diary of future success as the Shia powers of Iraq ­ still to be referred to as the "democratically elected government" ­ march in lockstep with America's best men and women to restore order and strike fear into the hearts of al-Qa'ida. It will take time ­ oh, yes, it will take years, at least three in the words of Washington's top commander in the field, General Raymond Odierno this week ­ but the mission will be accomplished.

The war in Iraq is just a sideshow. The larger conflict is a regional one and people are taking sides. On one side you have Israel, the US, UK, the GCC and Saudi Arabia; On the other is Iran, Stria and Shia movements in Iraq and Lebanon. These are not monolithic blocks and there are tensions between different factions within nations - and the semi-nations of Iraq and Lebanon. The crunch will come soon, probably in the next few months and Tony Blair will be involved - maybe to the extent of not leaving office for a while yet. The crunch is Iran.

It is already clear that al-Hakim is trying to manipulate the U.S. into destroying all Sunni resistance and therefore removing one barrier to SCIRI/Iranian power in Iraq. Is it such a stretch to imagine that members of the SCIRI might also be attempting to manipulate the U.S. military into crushing their main Shiite rival too? I'm not sure it is. Without the Mahdi Army in Iraq, the SCIRI would be in an even stronger position and that would suit them and their Iranian supporters nicely.

To summarise then, the Iranians, despite being explicitly invited to help the good Iraqi government by the good al-Hakim, are bad. They "meddle" in Iraq and are "up to no good". SCIRI leader Al-Hakim, despite inviting the bad Iranians to meddle in Iraq and having very close associations with them, is good. He is a moderate because he wants to use the U.S. military as a proxy army to crush the Sunnis as desired by his party and the bad Iranians. And al-Sadr, despite being for a unified Iraq and opposed to the bad Iranians becoming influential in the country, is very bad indeed. This is indisputable because he doesn't like George.

The Brown Boys continue their behind the scenes briefing, this time he provides a clue on how he's going to deal with Iraq. He's going to ignore it.

By all accounts, it appears that President Bush is about to send more U.S. troops to Iraq as part of a new surge and sacrifice strategy. Blair's refusal to meaningfully discuss any aspect of the Iraq war makes it impossible to know for sure what our great leader thinks of this extraordinarily stupid idea but given that it is in direct conflict with Blair's stated policy of transferring more control to Iraqi security forces, it does look like Blair's influence on Bush is operating at the level we've all become accustomed too. Any guesses what Blair will say when Bush announces that new strategy? Will he say anything at all?

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene? Would you at least protest? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?