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/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
April 29
Patrick Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
April
28, 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
Meet Congressman Know-Nothing:
Tom Tancredo
Wendy
Brinker
The Politics of the Numb
Faisal
Kutty
The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence
John
Chuckman
Seeking the Evil One
Mike
Whitney
Flag-Draped Coffins and the Seattle Times
Tom
Mountain
Rwanda and the F***** Word
Graeme
Greenback
The Iraqi Alamo: a CNN/CIA Production
Tracy
McLellan
The War Comes Home
M.
Junaid Alam
We are the Barbarians
William
Loren Katz
Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson
April 27, 2004
James
Davis
The Colombia 3 Acquitted
Dave
Lindorff
Chalabi as Prosecutor
Bruce
Schneier
Terrorist Threats and Political
Gain
Cockburn
/ Sengupta
British Generals Resist Calls for
More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq
Walt
Brasch
Presidential Letters: The Day I
Was Asked to Feed an Elephant
Saul
Landau
The Empire in Denial and the Denial
of Empire
April 26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Wayne
Madsen
Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR?
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
Mickey
Z.
Inspired by Pat Tillman?
Greg
Moses
Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit
Gila
Svirsky
Anarchy in Our Souls
Uri
Avnery
Vanunu and the Terrible Secret
April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
April 23, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal
Dave
Lindorff
Imagination Deficit Disorder
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster
Norman
Solomon
Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?"
Cynthia
McKinney
All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization
CounterPunch
Wire
A Bitch Called Wanda
Karyn
Strickler
Sierra Club, Inc.
Hammond
Guthrie
Yellow Caked in the Face
Paul
de Rooij
Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary
of the Iraqi Occupation
April 22, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
When Terror Came to Basra: "I
Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire"
Tanya
Reinhart
The Wall Behind Disengagement
Lance
Selfa
Why is Kucinich Still in the Race?
Josh
Frank
Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq
William
S. Lind
Why We Get It Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Undoing the Latches
Robert
Jensen
Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank
John
L. Hess
The New York Times from 30,000 Feet
April
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Yeats on Iraq
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's Taliban Drug Deal
William
A. Cook
George 1 to George 2
Jack
Random
Iraq and Vietnam
Jean-Guy
Allard
Alarcon Meets the Editors
Mike
Whitney
Charade in the Desert
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes Can
Help Washington Now
| April
29, 2004
Iraqi Units Refuse to Other Iraqis
The
Fallujah Mutinies
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Baghdad
A
second unit of the Iraqi armed forces has mutinied at Fallujah after
being involved in heavy fighting with insurgents Ali Allawi, the Iraqi
Defence Minister, said yesterday.
Part
of the 36th battalion of the paramilitary Iraqi Civil Defence Corps
revolted last week after the unit had been fighting in the besieged
city for 11 days, the minister said. Mr Allawi blamed the mutiny on
"a failure of command. The commanding officer was absent, his deputy
... was seriously wounded and the number three faltered".
At
the start of the siege of Fallujah three weeks ago, one of the five
battalions of the newly formed Iraqi army refused to go to the city
because many of its soldiers were not prepared to fight fellow Iraqis.
But
news of the mutiny of a second Iraqi unit had not been released. Mr
Allawi said US Marines "had to separate those who did want to fight
from those who would not".
The
battalion may have split along ethnic lines. Its soldiers were recruited
from the militiamen of the Iraqi political parties which belong to the
US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, and about half were Kurdish soldiers,
known as peshmerga. The Kurds were prepared to fight but Iraqi Arab
soldiers said they had had enough. Those who refused to fight were withdrawn
from the battlefield for retraining.
Some
members of the governing council have said that the performance of the
36th battalion showed a new Iraqi army should be recruited from politically
committed militiamen and party members.
At
the start of the uprisings, after the US moved against the Shia cleric
Muqtada Sadr, 40 per cent of the US-trained Iraqi security forces went
home and 10 per cent changed sides, the US military said.
Mr
Allawi, long exiled in London, won a reputation for efficiency while
Iraqi minister of trade, a job he still holds. He is trying to raise
an 80,000-strong Iraqi army, of whom 35,000 will be regulars and 40,000
to 45,000 will be in the paramilitary defence corps.
He
says the poor performance of the Iraqi security forces stems from poor
leadership and lack of training. Asked who will command the new Iraqi
army, Mr Allawi said firmly: "I will give the orders." He
added with a laugh: "I do not mean that in any Napoleonic sense."
He said the battalion which refused orders to move from Taji north of
Baghdad to Fallujah was not told what it would be doing, and its men
thought, wrongly, they would be thrown into the thick of the fighting.
Priority
is being given to creating a 10,000-strong emergency task force in the
army which will deal with sudden crises such as that which has engulfed
Iraq this month. The Interior Ministry is also developing Swat teams
for emergencies. One problem for the Iraqi army is that the men are
being paid only $60 a month, less than garbage collectors in Baghdad,
for a dangerous job. "Somebody wanted an army on the cheap,"
Mr Allawi said.
He
believed re-employing officers who used to be Baathists was "something
of a red herring. There are only 30 slots for generals in the new army
and there are 11,000 generals in Iraq [Saddam Hussein promoted men to
the rank for a better pension]".
Mr
Allawi said the real problem was that people who were in the Baath party,
and Republican and Special Republican Guard around Baghdad "have
begun to re-coalesce. In a place like Baquba maybe there is a hard core
of 100 or 200 people though they may not have been senior before."
He believes Islamic militants play a stiffening rather than a central
role.
Fighting
continued in the outskirts of Fallujah yesterday. US Marines used helicopter
gunships and aircraft to attack lorries carrying ammunition.
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