** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **

February 12, 2006

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

If one watches corporate media or listens to Cheney Administration
propaganda, one is either not getting information about Iraq at all, or
hearing that things are looking up as the U.S. approaches another
“phase” in the occupation.

Just taking a brief look at the “security incidents” reported by Reuters
for today, 12 February, gives a little clue as to how the occupation of
Iraq, aside from being immoral and unjust, is a dismal failure.

*RAMADI - Six insurgents were killed and another wounded on Saturday
when U.S forces conducted an air strike in the city of Ramadi, 110 km
(68 miles) west of Baghdad, the U.S military said on Sunday.
*MUQDADIYA - Clashes between insurgents and Iraqi army soldiers
conducting a raid killed one rebel in Muqdadiya, 90 km (50 miles) north
east of Baghdad. The army arrested 40 suspected insurgents in the same
operation.
*BAGHDAD - A 53-year-old male detainee at Abu Ghraib prison died on
Saturday as a result of complications from an assault by an unknown
number of detainees, the U.S military said in a statement.
*MAHAWEEL - The bodies of three people, bound and shot in the head and
chest, were found in Mahaweel, 75 km (50 miles) south of Baghdad, police
said. The bodies showed signs of torture.
*ISKANDARIYA - The bodies of two people, bound and shot in the head and
chest, were found in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad,
police said. The bodies showed signs of torture.
*BAGHDAD - Three police commandos and a civilian were killed and four
commandos wounded when a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt blew
himself up near a check point in southern Baghdad, police said.
*KIRKUK - Gunmen killed four policemen while they were driving in a
civilian car in the main road between Kirkuk and Tikrit, 175 km (110
miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
*KIFL - Gunmen wearing police uniforms killed a civilian on Saturday in
Kifl, a town about 150 km (100 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.
*NEAR LATIFIYA - Police retrieved the body of a dead person from the
river on Saturday near Latifiya, south of Baghdad.
*BAQUBA - A director of sport education of Diyala province was killed by
gunmen in the city of Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad, police
said.
*YATHRIB - Gunmen kidnapped three truck drivers who were carrying
equipment to a U.S military base on Saturday in Yathrib, a region near
Balad, 90 km (55 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.
*BAIJI - Gunmen blew up a gas station on Saturday near the oil refinery
city of Baiji, 180 km (112 miles) north of Baghdad.
BAGHDAD - Twelve civilians were wounded when two roadside bombs exploded
in quick succession near an Iraqi police patrol in central Baghdad,
police said.
SAMARRA - The Iraqi army found three Iranian Shi'ite pilgrims who were
among a group of 12, including an Iraqi driver, kidnapped by gunmen in
Samarra on Friday, Iraqi army officials said.
HAWIJA - Gunmen shot dead a doctor and wounded an employee working in
the main hospital in Hawija, 70 km south west of the northern city of
Kirkuk, on Saturday, police said.
KIRKUK - Four policemen were wounded when a roadside bomb went off near
their patrol in the northern city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of
Baghdad, police said.
KIRKUK - The corpse of a Kurdish contractor working with the U.S army
was found on Saturday in Kirkuk, police said.
KIRKUK - Two civilians were wounded by a roadside bomb near their patrol
in Kirkuk, police said.
BAGHDAD - Two civilians were killed, including a child, and three were
wounded, when a roadside bomb targeting police commandos exploded in a
northern district of the capital, police said.

A brief glance at recent events in Iraq shows that violence only
continues to escalate and the infrastructure which U.S. taxpayers
supposedly paid billions of dollars to repair is in shambles.

While the Cheney Administration blame Iraqi resistance attacks and
sabotage for the lack of reconstruction, I would like to remind people
that at least $8.8 Billion of the money meant for reconstruction efforts
remains unaccounted for. Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general for
Iraq reconstruction, said this is because “oversight” on the part of the
Coalition Provisional Authority “was relatively nonexistent.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. military is over a quarter of the way towards having
the 3,000th soldier killed in Iraq, as 2,267 have now been killed. 25 of
those deaths have occurred this month.

But as usual, it is the Iraqis who are paying the highest price.

Looking at Arab media outlets, evidence of this abounds.

According to Al-Sharqiyah television:

“The head of the Al-Fallujah Municipal Council was killed by gunshots on
February 7, Iraqi Al Sharqiyah TV reported that day. In its 1100 gmt
newscast, the TV said: "Unidentified armed men this morning assassinated
Shaykh Kamal Shakir Nizal, head of the Municipal Council of Al-Fallujah,
western Iraq.”

The U.S. backed puppet Iraqi government continues its state-sponsored
civil war. Aside from the numerous bodies found in the aforementioned
Reuters report, this past week Sharqiyah also reported:

“Iraqi and US security forces raided the Iraqi Islamic Party’s
headquarters in the Al-Amiriyah area in western Baghdad. The Islamic
Party, which is one of the Iraqi entities operating under the banner of
the Iraqi Al-Tawafuq Front, issued a press statement today saying that
last night, Iraqi forces, backed by US troops, assaulted the
headquarters’ guards and the party members who were there at the time,
destroyed the headquarters’ furniture and contents, seized the licensed
weapons carried by the guards, and confiscated sums of money belonging
to the party.”

Of course atrocities continue at the hands of occupation forces. Video
has been released which shows a group of British soldiers brutally
beating and kicking defenseless Iraqi teenagers inside a military
compound, and Iraqis recently released from prisons like Abu Ghraib are
reporting ongoing torture at the hands of U.S. forces. This, however,
should come as no surprise since Secretary of “Defense” Donald Rumsfeld
issued a memo over two years ago specifying which types of “harsh
interrogation techniques” he wanted used in Iraq.

This is just a brief overview of recent events in Iraq.

When Israeli/U.S. warplanes begin dropping bombs on Iran, will Iraq fade
to the back pages of the news as has Afghanistan? With the corporate
media coverage of Iraq at this sorry state already, it’s difficult to
imagine that not occurring.

** Visit the Dahr Jamail Iraq website http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
______________________________

_________________
(c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail.
All images, photos, photography and text are protected by United States and international copyright law.