=By= Felicity Arbuthnot

Featured Image: Peshmerga deploys around Mosul al Jazeera

“The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.” (Albert Camus 1913-1960.)

On 1^st May 2003, George W. Bush stood in a dinky little flying suit on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and in a super stage managed appearance told the lie of the century: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.” (1)

The illegal occupation and decimation of Iraq continued until December 2011. In June 2014 they returned to bomb again in the guise of combating ISIS. As the thirteenth anniversary of Bush’s ridiculous appearance with a vast “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him, Iraq is largely in ruins, Iraqis have fled the murderous “liberation” and it’s aftermath in millions and there are over three million internally displaced.

The nation is pinned between a tyrannical, corrupt US puppet government, a homicidal, head chopping, raping, organ eating, history erasing, US-spawned ISIS – and a renewed, relentless US bombardment. So much for the 2008 US-Iraq State of Forces agreement, which stated that by 31^st December 2011: “all United States forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory.”

On the USS Abraham Lincoln Bush stated: “In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world … Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.”

In what has transpired to be monumental irony, he continued: “The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of al-Qaida, and cut off a source of terrorist funding.” There was of course, no al-Qaida in Iraq, no funding of fundamentalist terrorism under Saddam Hussein, it is the invasion’s conception, birth, now reached maturity from Baghdad to Brussels, Mosul to the Maghreb, Latakia to London.

In Iraq, US terrorism from the air is back in all its genocidal force.

Incredibly on 23^rd April, the Independent (2) reported another staggering piece of either disinformation or childish naivety, in a predictably familiar script : “A spokesperson for the US military said all possible precautions were taken to avoid ‘collateral damage’ “, but in approaching 7,000 airstrikes the number of confirmed civilian deaths had risen on Planet Pentagon to just – forty one.

In another past it’s sell by date mantra: ‘Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesperson for Central Command, said the casualties were “deeply regretted” but maintained that the campaign was the “the most precise air campaign in the history of warfare.” ’

And here’s another familiar one: “In this type of armed conflict, particularly with an enemy who hides among the civilian population, there are going to be, unfortunately, civilian casualties at times.” The Geneva Convention, amongst other Treaties, Principles and Conventions, is specific on the protections of populations in conflict, Colonel Ryder should familiarize himself with the texts.

So another onslaught in a quarter of a century of bombing Iraq is underway – another mass murder with a silly name: “Operation Inherent Resolve.”

Here is reality from Dr Souad Al-Azzawi, Award winning environmental scientist who gained her Ph.D from the Colorado School of Mines.

She states of just the onslaught on Mosul, her home, the ancient university city of 1.5 million, that the stated figures from US spokespersons are: “ either misinformed about the real situation on the ground, since they are using drones and guided missiles, or airstrikes blindly, intentionally not saying the truth.

“I would like to list SOME of what the American’s airstrikes have been targeting and killing in Mosul:

* Destroyed are all state services buildings, including Municipalities in right and left sides of Mosul. When they bomb at night, all security personnel get killed or injured, also residents of close by areas, and adjacent properties are destroyed.

* Bombed and destroyed all communication centers.

• Destruction of Dairy Production Factories in both left and right sides of Mosul. Casualties of these two are one hundred deaths and two hundred injuries among civilians who gathered to receive milk and dairy products from the factories.

Dr Al-Azzawi reminds that this is reminiscent of the bombing of the baby milk factor outside Baghdad in 1991 with the claim it was a chemical weapons factory. This writer visited the factory ruins just months later, there were still charred containers of milk power – the machinery was provided and maintained by a company in Birmingham, England which specialized in infant food prodiction.

* Bombing of Mosul Pharmaceutical Industries.

* Mosul University was bombed with ninety two deaths and one hundred and thirty five injuries. Earlier estimates were higher, but many were pulled from the rubble alive. “They were students, faculty members, staff members, families of faculties, and restaurants workers.”

*Al Hadbaa and Al Khadraa Residential Apartments compounds. Fifty people killed (families) and one hundred injured.

* Hay al Dhubat residential area in the right side of Mosul, two days ago, five women women and four children killed and the whole house. The father is a respected pharmacist who has nothing to do with ISIL.

* Destruction of houses in front of the Medical College, killed twenty two civilians – eleven in one family.

* Bombing Sunni Waqif Building, twenty deaths and seventy injuries   which included those in nearby commercial and residential buildings.

* Car maintenance industrial areas in both left and right sides of Mosul destroyed with civilian’s casualties.

* Bombing of flour factories in both sides of Mosul.

* Rafidain and Rasheed banks and all their branches in both sides of Mosul. Destruction of all commercial and residential areas in the vicinity of these places, with as yet unknown civilian casualties. (My emphasis.)

* Central Bank of Mosul in Ghazi Street, with nearby residential and commercial properties.

* Pepsi factory, currently producing ice cubes only. Three deaths and twelve injuries among the workers.

* The Governor’s house and close by guest house.

* Mosul’s old industrial compound destroyed, with parking area for fuel Tankers and cars. Three days ago, huge explosion of fuel tankers, one hundred and fifty deaths and injuries.

* Urban Planning Directory in Hay al Maliyah bombed.

* Engineering Planning Directory in Hay al Maliyah bombed.

* Food Storages in left side of Mosul bombed.

* Drinking water treatment plants bombed.

* All electrical generation and transformer stations in the left side of Mosul bombed.

* Domez land communications center in left side of Mosul destroyed.

*Al Hurairah Bridge – and many more.

There is a sickening familiarity to some of the targets – food, pharmaceuticals, water treatment plants, electricity generation, communications and educational facilities, bridges (the country, towns and cities are divided by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers) have been favoured targets since 1991. Every time painstakingly and imaginatively restored they have been re-bombed for a quarter of a century.

During the 1990’s a Canadian film crew captured footage of US ‘planes dropping flares on harvested wheat and barley, incinerating entire harvests in a country, which due to the strangulating embargo there were near famine conditions in parts of society.

“When Iraqi civilians looked into the faces of our servicemen and women, they saw strength, and kindness, and good will”, said George W Bush in his “Mission Accomplished” speech. No, they saw invaders destroying their lives, their families, their history, raping, pillaging. They saw Falluja’s destruction, Abu Ghraib’s horrors and the eleven other secret prisons and nightmares ever ongoing.

On 25^th April Dr Al-Azzawi added: “More war crimes have been committed by American Coalition, yesterday April 24, 2016. The coalition airplanes bombed Rashidiya water treatment plant left side of Mosul city and Yermouk electricity generation station in the right side of Mosul. Through targeting these populations’ life sustaining necessities, the coalition is committing genocidal action towards Mosul residents in the pretext of fighting ISIS.”

Also on 25^th April, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Kate Gilmore, on returning from a week in Iraq wrote starkly of the government: “Iraqis are crying out for fairness, recognition, justice, appreciation and meaningful participation in shaping their future – a process that goes forward and not backwards … We all have responsibilities towards the people of Iraq. While there is an international military coalition in place, a comparably resourced international coalition of practical compassion is also needed to help with the building blocks towards a sustained peace in Iraq.” (3)

In the US military lexicon it seems “compassion” has been replaced by their missiles of choice.

Ms Gilmore also stated that Iraq was being run by a failed government and warned foreign powers not to be “complicit” in its neglect of the plight of normal Iraqis. (4)

Further: “The international community must not allow itself to be made complicit with the failed leadership of Iraq … There is political paralysis in Iraq. There is no government in Iraq”, she stated blisteringly of America and Britain’s illegal, abortive, parliamentary project.

“Our commitment to Liberty is America’s tradition … We stand for human liberty”, concluded Bush on the USS Abraham Lincoln. Were mistruths ever bleaker? And when will George W. Bush, Charles Anthony Lynton Blair and their cohorts answer for their crimes in a Court of Law?

1. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/text-of-bush-speech-01-05-2003/
2. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/official-civilian-death-toll-from-us-air-strikes-against-isis-in-syria-and-iraq-doubles-to-41-a6997341.html
3. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=19871&LangID=E
4. http://jordantimes.com/news/region/un-envoy-says-war-goals-iraq-obscuring-humanitarian-crisis

Felicity Arbuthnot

Felicity Arbuthnot

Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist specialising in social and environmental issues with special knowledge of Iraq, a country which she has visited thirty times since the 1991 Gulf war. Iraq, she describes as: ‘sliding from the impossible, to the apocalyptic.’

With former UN Assistant Secretary General and UN Co-ordinator in Iraq, Denis Halliday, she was senior Iraq researcher for John Pilger’s Award winning documentary: “Paying the Price – Killing the Children of Iraq” (Carlton/ITV March 2000), which has been aired worldwide and sent shockwaves through Washington and Whitehall.  Arbuthnot has been nominated for a number of Awards for her coverage of Iraq, including the (EC) Lorenzo Natali Award for Human Rights Journalism, the Millenium Prize for Women; the Courage of Conscience Award and an Amnesty International Media Award. Arbuthnot is quoted by MP’s and academics as having unique insight into Iraq under sanctions. Her articles and broadcasts are used by MP’s in Parliamentary questions. In addition, Felicity was a moderator at the World Uranium Weapons conference in october 2003 in Hamburg with a lot of internationally renowned speakers.  (http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/speakers.htm).
She also was a speaker on the small World Social Forum in Canada november 2002. (http://www.islandnet.com/~bbcf/new_page_2.htm)

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=By= Patrick Cockburn

Mossack Fonseca. Screen capture from Carta TV

Who shall doubt ‘the secret hid

Under Cheops‘ pyramid‘

Was that the contractor did

Cheops out of several millions?

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he message of Rudyard Kipling’s poem is that corruption is always with us and has not changed much down the ages. There is some truth in this, but degrees of corruption greatly matter, as the Cheops would have found to his cost if he tried to build his pyramid in modern Iraq instead of ancient Egypt. The project would cost him billions rather than millions – and he would be more likely to end up with a hole in the ground than anything resembling a pyramid.

Three years ago I was in Baghdad after it had rained heavily, driving for miles through streets that had disappeared under grey-coloured flood water combined with raw sewage. Later I asked Shirouk Abayachi, an advisor to the Ministry of Water Resources, why this was happening and she said that “since 2003, $7bn has been spent to build a new sewage system for Baghdad, but either the sewers weren’t built or they were built very badly”. She concluded that “corruption is the key to all this”.

Anybody discussing the Panama Papers and the practices of the law firm Mossack Fonseca should think about the ultimate destination of the $7bn not spent on the Baghdad drainage system. There will be many go-betweens and middle men protecting anyone who profited from this huge sum, but the suspicion must be that a proportion of it will have ended up in offshore financial centres where money is hidden and can be turned into legally held assets.

There is no obvious link between the revelations in the Panama Papers, the rise of Islamic State and the wars tearing apart at least nine countries in the Middle East and North Africa. But these three developments are intimately connected as ruling elites, who syphon off wealth into tax havens and foreign property, lose political credibility. No ordinary Afghans, Iraqis and Syrians will fight and die for rulers they detest as swindlers. Crucial to the rise of Isis, al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan is not their own strength and popularity, but the weakness and unpopularity of the governments to which they are opposed.

Kipling was right in believing that there has always been corruption, but since the early 1990s corrupt states have often mutated into kleptocracies. Ruling families and the narrow coteries around them have taken a larger and larger share of the economic cake.

In Syria since the turn of the century, for instance, the rural population and the urban poor no longer enjoyed the limited benefits they had previously received under an equally harsh but more egalitarian regime. By 2011, President Bashar al-Assad’s first cousin Rami Makhlouf was reported to be a dominant player in 60 per cent of the Syrian economy and to have a personal worth of $5 billion.

In Iraq earlier this year, a financial specialist, who wished to remain anonymous, said that the government of prime minister Haider al-Abadi held files on corrupt individuals, including “one politician who has amassed a fortune of $6 billion through corrupt dealings.”

The danger of citing extreme examples of corruption from exotic and war-ravaged countries like Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria is that these may sound like events happening on another planet. But the political and economic systems in Iraq and Afghanistan were devised under the tutelage of the US and allies like Britain. They were proponents of free market economics which in the West may increase inequality and benefit the wealthy, but in Kabul and Baghdad were a license to steal by anybody with power.

Neo-liberal economists have a lot to answer for. A few days after Isis had captured Mosul in June 2014, I was in Baghdad and asked a recently retired four-star Iraqi general why the much larger and better-equipped Iraqi army had been defeated so swiftly and humiliatingly. He replied that the explanation was: “Corruption! Corruption! Corruption!”

He added that this was pervasive and had begun when the US was building a new Iraqi military after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, when the American commanders had insisted on out-sourcing food and other supplies to private contractors. These businessmen and the army officers soon determined that, if the Iraqi government was paying money to feed and equip a battalion of 600 men, but its real strength was only 150, they could pocket the difference. So profitable was this arrangement that by 2014 all officers’ jobs were for sale and it cost $200,000 to become a colonel and up to $2m a general in charge of a division.

Blatant corruption at the top in Kabul and Baghdad has been frequently reported over the years, though nothing much seems to change. But it is a mistake to imagine that this was simply the outcome of a culture of corruption specific to Afghanistan and Iraq. The most corrupt ministers were appointed and the most crooked contracts signed at a time when US officials were the real decision-makers in Baghdad.

For example, the entire military procurement budget of $1.2 billion was effectively stolen in 2004/5 when the Defence Ministry was substantially under US control, raising questions of the competence, or even collusion, of the US authorities.

The situation has got worse, not better. “I feared seven or eight years ago that Iraq would become like Nigeria,” said one former minister in 2013, “but in fact it is far worse.”

He cited as evidence a $1.3bn contract signed by a minister with one foreign company that had only a nominal existence – and a second company that was bankrupt. This took place in a country in which one third of the labour force is unemployed, and, if the underemployed are taken into account, the figure rises to over half.

The use of offshore financial centres by the moneyed elite in the oil states and much of the rest of the world is not always to avoid taxes which they would not pay if they kept the money at home, but in some cases to conceal what they have stolen and later to legally launder it.

Some of this can be done by buying property in places like Baghdad, which explains why property prices in that dangerous city are as high as London. But it is safer and better to buy property in London itself, something that will ultimately require the services of a company like Mossack Fonseca – though these services will be far removed from the original toxic source of the investment.

The Panama Papers give insight into the names and mechanisms through which globalised elites hide their wealth and avoid paying tax on it. Commentators now predict that popular disgust with political establishments will benefit radical leaders like Bernie Sanders in the US and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK.

What they do not see is that the way in which the detachment of interests of elites from the countries they rule has already produced states that have failed or are failing, or are wracked by conflict and war.

Patrick Cockburn is the author of  The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution.

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Dispatches from
STEPHEN LENDMAN
THE WORLD AS IT REALLY IS

Pre-war, it was Syria’s largest city and commercial hub. Hundreds of thousands fled the fighting.  US backed terrorists committed massacres, gruesome atrocities and vast destruction. Syrians vow to rebuild the city after liberating it, including restoring damaged archeological sites. 

Aleppo, widespread destruction at the hands of US-spawned and supported lunatics.

A joint Syrian military/Russian aerial forces offensive is being prepared similar to Palmyra’s liberation. More on this below.

According to Russia’s Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov, “(o)ver the past six months, government troops and patriotic forces backed by the Russian air group have liberated about 500 settlements, tens of thousands of square kilometers.” 

“A considerable part of the territory is under control of the pro-government force.” Thirty km of territory around liberated Al-Qaryatayn are controlled by government forces.

“(H)undreds of times more such territories” were liberated since 2015. Things are “gaining momentum.” Syrians hope for liberating the entire country from terrorists.

Latakia province and most parts of Hama and Homs were retaken. Vast areas are back in government hands, advancing Syrian military forces greatly aided by Russian air power and intelligence continue routing ISIS and other terrorists.

According to Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halaki, “(w)e, together with our Russian partners, are preparing for an operation to liberate Aleppo and block all illegal armed groups which have not joined the ceasefire deal or violated it” – retaking Deir Ezzor to follow.

Russian intelligence reported over 1,000 heavily armed Jabhat al-Nusra fighters concentrated north of Aleppo in Muheimhandrat, Jandul, Hraitan and Qafr-Hamra. A major joint Syrian/Russian operation intends liberating them from its scourge.

About the author

STEPHEN LENDMAN lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."  ( http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html ) Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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by
Felicity Arbuthnot

Seventy percent of houses and shops were reported destroyed, with those still standing damaged. Iraqi doctor, Ali Fadhil, described a city: “ … completely devastated, destruction everywhere. It looked like a city of ghosts. Fallujah used to be a modern city, now there was nothing. We spent the day going through the rubble that had been the centre of the city; I didn’t see a single building that was functioning.”(City of Ghosts, The Guardian, January 11, 2005.)

Nicholas J. Davies, author of  “Blood on our Hands – the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq”, has written: “The Fallujah Compensation Committee reported in March 2005 that the assault destroyed 36,000 homes, 9,000 shops, 65 mosques, 60 schools, both train stations, one of the two bridges, two power stations, three water treatment plants and the city’s entire sanitation and telephone systems.”

Now, Human Rights Watch has written a Report (2) indicating that near unbelievably, twelve years on, all has deteriorated to the extent that: “Residents of the besieged city of Fallujah are starving. Iraqi government forces should urgently allow aid to enter the city, and the extremist group Islamic State, also known as ISIS, which captured the city in early 2014, should allow civilians to leave.”

Marine battery blasting Fallujah targets with M-198 155mm Howitzer gun . The US used many types of DU (depleted Uranium) projectiles.

Fallujah is now under siege by the US imposed Iraqi puppet government and ISIS – as people demonstrate in thousands in protest at yet another American backed administration which has brought nothing but misery to the population. Incredibly US Vice President Joe Biden and Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani have come together: “to make clear … that no attempt should be made to unseat” the current Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi. (“US, Iran Keep Iraqi PM in Place”, Reuters, 6^th April 2016.)

“The people of Fallujah are besieged by the government, trapped by ISIS, and are starving”, states HRW Deputy Middle East Director, Joe Stork.

“Since government forces recaptured nearby Ramadi, the capital of Anbar governorate, in late December 2015, and the al-Jazira desert area north of Fallujah in March 2016, they have cut off supply routes into the city, three Iraqi officials said. Tens of thousands of civilians from an original population of more than 300,000 remain inside the city.”

“The Anglo-American assault destroyed 36,000 homes, 9,000 shops, 65 mosques, 60 schools, both train stations, one of the two bridges, two power stations, three water treatment plants and the city’s entire sanitation and telephone systems…”

HRW obtained a list of one hundred and forty people, including young children, said to have died in the last few months “from lack of food and medicine.” The names have been withheld for fear that ISIS, which forbids the population making contact outside the city “would punish the relatives of the dead.”

Residents are reported to be eating bread made from flour from ground date stones and soup made from grass. Food still available is sold at staggering prices. “A 50-kilogram sack of flour goes for US$750, and a bag of sugar for $500.” In Baghdad, just seventy kilometres away: “ the same amount of flour costs $15 and of sugar $40 … each day starving children arrive at the local hospital … most foodstuffs are no longer available at any price … the hospital has run out of baby food.”

The World Food Programme has stated weakly that it is “concerned” about the food situation. In the annals of shamefully pathetic UN responses to tragedies of enormity this may be this 2016’s winner.

Sources told HRW that both Iraqi government troops and the Popular Mobilization Force, one of about forty militia forces under the Ministry of the Interior are preventing food and essential goods from reaching the city.

Those trying to leave the city are in danger of being murdered by ISIS. On 22^nd March, one man who went to one of their checkpoints saying he had to leave, he could not take the situation any longer, was taken back into the city and executed.

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SIDEBAR

The curse of Fallujah: Women warned not to have babies because of rise in birth defects since U.S. assault
DESPITE THEIR COMPLICITY, THE BRITISH MEDIA HAS PAID MUCH MORE ATTENTION TO THESE TRAGEDIES THAN THEIR COUNTERPARTS IN AMERICA. 

MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE | The Daily Mail (UK)
UPDATED: 10:21 EST, 5 March 2010

The US assault has created a rising wave of horrible birth defects in the city. Click here to read more.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] high number of children are being born with birth defects in an Iraqi city where U.S. forces may have used chemical weapons during a fierce battle in 2004. Children in Fallujah are being born with limb, head, heart and nervous system defects. There is even a claim that a baby was born with three heads. The number of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than the rate in Europe.

Birth defects: A Fallujah mother holds her little girl, who was born without a left forearm and hand

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The city, 40 miles west of Baghdad, was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the Iraq war in late 2004. U.S. Marines led Operation Phantom Fury to recapture it from  insurgents. British troops were involved in manning checkpoints on the outskirts of the city as the Americans went in. The U.S. has admitted that it used white phosphorus in the attack, but only as an illumination device. Under international law it is illegal if used as an offensive weapon. America has never given a clear response to claims it also used depleted uranium weapons against the insurgents, such as ‘bunkerbuster’ bombs. Both types of weapons can contaminate crops and water supplies. The BBC’s John Simpson reported on Thursday from Fallujah that, while there had been no authoritative medical investigation, there was growing evidence of an alarming incidence of birth defects.

---

BELOW: NEXT: Another Fallujah youngster born with six fingers on one hand.

Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.
Daily Mail picture desk, MUST CREDIT BBC

‘We went to a clinic for the disabled, and were given details of dozens upon dozens of cases of children with serious birth defects,’ he said. ‘One photograph I saw showed a newborn baby with three heads.’ He said that while he was at a U.S.-funded hospital in the city, a stream of parents arrived with children who had limb defects, spinal conditions and other problems.

BELOW. Mystery: An infant born with just one eye battling to stay alive in the Fallujah clinic.

SHELLS WITH A RADIOACTIVE PUNCH

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[dropcap]R[/dropcap]adiation experts claim the birth defects have been caused by uranium. Depleted uranium, or spent nuclear fuel, is twice as dense as lead, making it an effective material for armour-piercing shells and bullets. On hitting a tank or bunker, they disintegrate, with up to 40 per cent of the uranium, which is still radioactive, turning into fine powder. Roger Coghill, a Government adviser on the health risks of radiation who has research labs in Gwent, said: ‘The particles are so small that they don’t fall back to earth, they  hang around in the atmosphere and are still very deadly years after the conflict.’

---

The dust particles are not only poisonous, they can enter the bloodstream and become lodged in the lymph glands from where they emit radiation that could cause cancer. Chris Busby, an Ulster University expert in the effects of radiation, said the uranium particles can also wreck the DNA of sperm and eggs produced by contaminated adults – causing a multitude of birth defects in any baby they conceive. Professor Busby, who is also co-founder of environmental consultancy Green Audit, said: ‘White phosphorus is not something that specifically damages the DNA. ‘But depleted uranium, normal uranium and enriched uranium are all mutagens and cause birth defects at quite small concentrations.

---

A British-based Iraq researcher, Malik Hamdan, told the BBC that Fallujah doctors were swamped by a ‘massive, unprecedented’ number of heart defects and other problems. Figures from a city doctor from 2003, before the war, showed she was dealing with one birth defect every two months at that time, but was now seeing at least one case a day. Miss Hamdan said data from this January showed the rate of heart defects among newborns was 95 per 1,000 births – 13 times that of Europe Simpson said that the worst problems appeared to be in a part of the city which was at the heart of the resistance to the Allies.

---

The Americans said they took public health concerns ‘very seriously’. A U.S. military spokesman added: ‘No studies to date have indicated environmental issues resulting in specific health issues.’ Fallujah became infamous after the burned corpses of four U.S. contractors were dragged through the streets in March 2004. Rebel leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had gathered up to 5,000 rebels there. It was encircled by U.S. forces, along with the Black Watch Regiment, to ensure no rebels escaped. However, civilians were encouraged to leave and up to 90 per cent of the 300,000 population did so. The attack began late on November 7 and by November 16, U.S. officials announced that Fallujah had been cleared. The battle cost America 51 dead but up to 1,400 gunmen were killed.   Enlarge   A soldier from the U.S. Army 1st Infantry Division leaps through an opening in a broken wall while clearing abandoned buildings of insurgent fighters in Fallujah in 2004

SIDEBAR SOURCE: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255312/Birth-defects-Fallujah-rise-U-S-operation.html#ixzz45GzHMYgG 
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

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REGULAR ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE

Rebels putting up some resistance to the US assault. Many would later move on to join ISIS and other extremist groups. (November 8, 2004)

In late February a family trying to leave were also killed. On 30^th March it was reported that thirty five people trying to leave had also been executed.

Moreover: “Government aircraft and artillery have carried out numerous attacks, which Fallujah residents say have killed many civilians.”

Aircraft and artillery supplied by the US.

“Neighbors reported to one former resident that on November 27, 2015, bombings killed 12 people in his neighborhood, including nine children.

“On August 13 (2015) aerial bombs struck Fallujah’s children’s hospital, killing several people … A medical source in the city, whose information Human Rights Watch could not confirm, said that since January 2014, 5,769 combatants and civilians have been injured and 3,455 killed, roughly one-fourth of them women and children.”

It seems it is Iraq’s plight to be starved and bombed as a result of US-UK policies. Thirteen years of the most draconian embargo ever administered by the UN, driven by the US and UK, with the UK heading the Sanctions Committee, the 1991 bombing, twelve subsequent years also of illegal US-UK bombing. Under Saddam there was a rationing system, ironically, commended by the UN for its efficiency – although hugely restricted by the UN for lack of imports. Since “liberation” Fallujah is another symbol of the sheer Western driven wickedness and iniquity that has befallen Iraq since 2003.

Perhaps it is time Tony Blair – whose officials authored the dodgy dossiers that gave the excuse for the illegal invasion – lived up to the farcical Global Legacy Award presented to him by Save the Children in November 2014 and pitched up in Fallujah with desperately needed aid from his £multi-million charity and from his own £multi million pocket. It would be trivial amends, but it would be a start.

Perhaps Save the Children could also atone for awarding a man who many eminent legal minds argue should be accounting for himself at the International Criminal Court in The Hague by doing the same.

I feel a petition coming on.

1. http://www.globalresearch.ca/fallujah-us-marines-further-allegations-of-war-crimes-surface/5366163
2. https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/07/iraq-fallujah-siege-starving-population

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About the author

Senior Contributing Editor FELICITY ARBUTHNOT is an internationally respected expert in Middle East affairs. She has visited Iraq dozens of times.

Note to Commenters
Due to severe hacking attacks in the recent past that brought our site down for up to 11 days with considerable loss of circulation, we exercise extreme caution in the comments we publish, as the comment box has been one of the main arteries to inject malicious code. Because of that comments may not appear immediately, but rest assured that if you are a legitimate commenter your opinion will be published within 24 hours. If your comment fails to appear, and you wish to reach us directly, send us a mail at: editor@greanvillepost.com

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=By= Nancy A. Youseff

Gen. George Casey, center, the commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq, hands the flag of Multi-National Corps-Iraq to Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of the U.S. Army’s III Corps, during a transfer of authority ceremony Thursday at Camp Victory in Baghdad. At right is Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the outgoing commander of MNC.
Matt Millham / S&S

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n the war against the self-proclaimed Islamic State, the U.S. military is notably short on soldiers, but apparently not on generals.

There are at least 12 U.S. generals in Iraq, a stunningly high number for a war that, if you believe the White House talking points, doesn’t involve American troops in combat. And that number is, if anything, a conservative estimate, not taking into account the flag officers running the U.S. air war, the admirals helping wage the war from the sea, or their superiors back at the Pentagon.

At U.S. headquarters inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, even majors and colonels frequently find themselves saluting superiors at a pace that outranks the Pentagon and certainly any normal military installation. With about 5,000 troops deployed to Iraq and Syria ISIS war, that means there’s a general for every 416 troops, give or take. To compare, there are some captains in the U.S. Army in charge of that many people.

Moreover, many of those generals come with staffs and bureaucracy that some argue slows decision-making against an agile terror group.

The Obama administration has frequently argued that the U.S. maintains a so-called light footprint in Iraq to reassure the American public that its military is not back in Iraq. Indeed, at times, the United States has not acknowledged where it has deployed troops until one of them died.

But if the U.S. footprint is so small, why does the war demand so many generals?

There is the three-star general in charge of the war, Army Gen. Sean MacFarland, and his two deputies, one of whom is in Iraq at any given time. There is the two-star Army general in charge of the ground war, Army Maj. Gen. Gary Volesky, and his two deputies, who also travel between Iraq and Kuwait. There is the two-star general in charge of security cooperation—things like military sales—and his deputy.

Then there are the one-star generals in charge of intelligence, operations, future operations, targeting, and theater support.

There also are an untold number of Special Forces commanders in the battlefield whom the military does not speak publicly about; the dozen figure presumes at least one one-star Special Forces general.

And that is just the beginning of the top-heavy war fight. That figure doesn’t include the bevy of generals stationed in places like Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar to support the mission. Nor does it count the three-star Air Force general and his two-star deputy in charge of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, which is headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. Then there is a three-star Marine in charge of Marine Corps Forces Central Command, based out of MacDill Air Force, Florida, and his deputy and their Navy counterparts. All three commands are responsible for the Middle East.

Finally, there are a number of generals from the other roughly 60 coalition countries. The Daily Beast knows of three who support the U.S. generals—from Australia and the United Kingdom.

Once all those additional generals are included, there are at least 21 flag officers in Iraq, a number even military officials concede is conservative, as there likely are other coalition generals and possibly other Special Forces commanders.

Officially, there are only 3,870 U.S. troops, or the equivalent of a heavy brigade, which is usually led by a colonel. One colonel.

As The Daily Beast first reported, however, there are actually more than 5,000 troops, still far short of a footprint that would usually demand a score of generals.

Defense officials defended the deployment of so many generals to The Daily Beast. In a war where there are so many different types of fighters, these officials said, you need generals to coordinate. Today’s warfighter is more lethal, thanks to improved technology, and therefore needs a commander with the appropriate authority to sign off authority on the use of that power. The intelligence reaching the front lines is so complex, it demands the talents of a one-star general, defense officials argued to The Daily Beast.

(Of course, it’s odd to brag about such lethality when the Defense Department has said repeatedly that American troops were “not in an active combat mission” in Iraq.)

These officials also say it is only fitting that Iraqi military leaders engage with a U.S. counterpart of the same rank.

“When you look at what they do and what they are in command of and how they provide support, I think it is justifiable,” one defense official explained to The Daily Beast.

Some defenders offer a more simplistic answer—the U.S. military has always used this structure to deploy generals to places like Iraq.

There are as a rule two types of generals in the U.S. military—those who command troops and those who support the fight. The military argues that in Iraq, the U.S. needs far more of the latter than the former. The Iraqi troops, led by Iraqi generals, should shape the front lines, they said.

But critics argue that such dependency on U.S. generals in areas outside the battlefield not only suggests a lack of Iraqi skills but also obfuscates the U.S. effort.

“Having this many generals and flag officers gives the appearance of commitment without the substance of commitment,” Christopher Harmer, a naval analyst at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, explained to The Daily Beast.

After World War II, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War, the U.S. military downsized its rank and file troops but did not shrink the size of its general and flag officer corps proportionally. The result is a long-standing criticism of a top-heavy military that some argue is costly and not as effective.

A May 2013 U.S. Government Accountability Office report, for example, concluded that “mission and headquarters support-costs at the combatant commands more than doubled from fiscal years 2007 through 2012, to about $1.1 billion.”

Several past defense secretaries have tried to cut the number of generals. Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel tried to reduce the number of general officers and civilians by 20 percent but wasn’t on the job long enough to make it happen. Robert Gates, the defense secretary during the peak of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, proposed eliminating 50 generals and admirals.

If Gates’s efforts succeeded, it is not obvious in today’s military. In addition to all those generals in the Middle East, there are dozens of others at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, which is in charge of the Middle East, and at the Pentagon who also support the U.S. effort in Iraq and Syria—so many that it is impossible to say just how many generals are part of the U.S. war effort.

On Wednesday, two of the leading four-star generals of the war stateside took new command positions. Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the outgoing special operations commander, became the new head of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East. Army Gen. Raymond “Tony” Thomas is Votel’s special operations replacement.

Soon, they’ll be visiting the front lines in Iraq—and adding to the number of American generals on the ground in the ISIS war.

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