Before leaving the wreckage of his imperial mission, (outgoing US "Proconsul" Paul) Bremer had issued a string of edicts to tie the hands of Iraqi governments for years to come, including legal immunity for foreign soldiers and contractors. Perhaps the 2% of Iraqis who, according to the Bush administration's own polling, regard the US and Britain as liberators, are impressed. For most of the rest, a handover to a government protected by 140,000 US troops with a good deal less functional independence than the state of Alabama is a transparent sham.

by Damien McElroy * Sunday June 27, 2004 at 11:08 PM

First Lt Omar is sworn to uphold the law and fight the insurgency that threatens Iraq's evolution into a free and democratic state. Instead, he is exploiting his knowledge of US tactics to help the rebel cause in Fallujah.

Good news out of Baghdad: the Program Management Office, which oversees the $18.4bn in US reconstruction funds, has finally set a goal it can meet. Sure, electricity is below pre-war levels, the streets are rivers of sewage and more Iraqis have been fired than hired. But now the PMO has contracted the British mercenary firm Aegis to protect its employees from "assassination, kidnapping, injury and" - get this - "embarrassment". I don't know if Aegis will succeed in protecting PMO employees from violent attack, but embarrassment? I'd say mission already accomplished. The people in charge of rebuilding Iraq can't be embarrassed, because, clearly, they have no shame.

Posted by-Mohammad Basirul Haq Sinha

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bremer27jun27.story

By Alissa J. Rubin, Times Staff Writer

BAGHDAD -- After 13 months in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III looks tired, his manner sober. Although always pragmatic, his tone upon taking charge of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority was marked by optimism. Now, as he prepares to hand over sovereignty Wednesday, it is matter-of-fact.

Posted-Mohammad Basirul Haq Sinha

Published on Wednesday, June 23, 2004 by TomDispatch.com

by Dilip Hiro

There is no turning back from the Abu Ghraib photo scandal. No matter how hard President Bush and his senior aides try, they won't be able to restore the last bit of the fig leaf that once covered their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. This is especially true, since the recent leaking of a legal brief prepared for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in March 2003 arguing that, since the President safeguards national security, any ban on torture, even under American law, could not be applied to "interrogation undertaken pursuant to the President's commander-in-chief authority."

Posted by-Mohammad Basirul Haq Sinha

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/062604A.shtml

By Jackie Spinner

    Washington Post

    Friday 25 June 2004

    Baghdad - The company commander of the U.S. soldiers charged with abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison testified Thursday that the top military intelligence commander at the prison was present the night a detainee died during an interrogation and that efforts were made to conceal the details of the detainee's death.

  &nbsp

Posted by-Mohammad Basirul Haq Sihha

As part of a coordinated offensive launched by Iraqi fighters today, clashes in Baqouba raged all morning. Dahr Jamail went there to cover the aftermath, and found sporadic firefights were still underway, but US troops had abandoned the city.

Posted by-Mohammad Basirul Haq Sinha

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1245055,00.html

We know about Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib but until now Bagram and America's secret network of Afghan jails have come under little scrutiny. In a major investigation, Duncan Campbell and Suzanne Goldenberg discovered a familiar pattern of violent abuse and sexual humiliation............

Posted by-Mohammad Basirul Haq Sinha

http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=592

by Chris Shumway (bio)

Jun 22 - A last minute spending spree by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and language in the UN Security Council resolution setting the conditions for Iraqi sovereignty appear likely to limit the interim government’s ability to exercise meaningful control over the country’s oil revenues.

According to documents posted on its own web site, the CPA’s little-known Program Review Board (PRB) has quietly committed billions of dollars in Iraq’s oil revenues to new contracts that critics say will enrich US and British corporations while limiting the amount of revenue Iraq’s new interim government will have at its disposal when it assumes authority from the CPA on June 30.

Posted by-Mohammad Basirul Haq Sinha

By Tom Engelhardt, tomdispatch.com. Posted June 23, 2004.

The new "Iraqi government" has indeed been granted sovereignty, but sadly only in the United States and by our media. Someone should tell the Iraqis.

Institute for Policy Studies ; 10 June 2004
;
by Phyllis Bennis

The new U.S.-UK draft resolution endorses Iraq's interim government as
"sovereign" and credentials the U.S.-dominated occupation forces as a
UN-mandated "multinational force." It is designed to provide international
legitimacy for the continuation of the U.S. occupation and control of Iraq,
while stating that "the occupation will end" by June 30, 2004.

'Fears over Gulf War chemicals'

More people may have been exposed to chemical warfare agents during the
1990 Gulf War than previously thought, a report says.

The US government revealed in 1996 that some people may have been
exposed to chemicals when troops destroyed a stockpile of agents in
southern Iraq.

"I killed innocent people for our government. For what? What did I do? Where is the good coming out of it? I feel like I've had a hand in some sort of evil lie at the hands of our government. I just feel embarrassed, ashamed about it."

Sydney Morning Herald ; May 24, 2004

Mobile phones fitted with digital cameras have been banned in US army
installations in Iraq on orders from Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld,
Britain's The Business newspaper reported yeterday.


(updated on Friday May 28)

The Observer
;
Kamal Ahmed ;

Sunday May 23, 2004

British and American troops are to be granted immunity
from prosecution in Iraq after the crucial 30 June handover,
undermining claims that the new Iraqi government will have
'full sovereignty' over the state.