Blue Herald » Meanwhile Back in Iraq

Sep

by QuestionGirl • 10:18 am

18 U.S. deaths in Iraq this week, three yesterday.

Blackwater security is back on the streets of Baghdad in limited missions, protecting U.S. embassy employees and other officials. Lawyer Hassan Jabir, who was stuck in traffic during the Blackwater shoot out, recalls the horrific incident.

The Kurdistan Regional Goverment calls the kidnapping and arrest of an Iranian man from his hotel by U.S. forces “illegitimate.” Aghai Farhadi, a member of an economic and commercial delegation from the Iranian governorate of Karmanshah had been in Iraq for a week for discussions on opening a border crossing near Panjween,68 miles east of Sulaimaniyah, and other trade-related issues. Juan Cole has more on this, as reported in the Arabic newspapers:

The US kidnapped another Iranian from Iraqi Kurdistan, alleging that he is an officer in the Quds Force section of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and an arms smuggler. The Kurdistan Regional Authority says that he is Aghai Farhadi, a trade representative of Kirmanshah Province in Iran. Juan Cole has more on this:

Either the US suspicions about Farhadi are baseless, or the Kurds are the major conduit for Iranian arms into Iraq. Five other Iranians were kidnapped from Irbil by the US military. Farhadi would not be doing what he was doing in Sulaimaniya unless he was the guest of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. If he was smuggling in arms, he was smuggling them to the Peshmerga, the Kurdish paramilitary, which is allied with the United States. Presumably this means that the Peshmerga is either treansfering the weapons to the Badr Corpsselling the arms off on the Iraqi black market. If this scenario is correct, then it is pure propaganda for the USG to complain so loudly and bitterly about Iranian meddling in Iraq, when it is being facilitated by some Kurds, who are in turn putative US allies.

The World Health Organization reports a confirmed case of cholera in Baghdad. Some 100,000 tons of chlorine were being held up at Iraq’s border with Jordan apparently because of fears the chemical could be used in explosives. Juan Cole points out that without chlorine, water purification plants won’t work, which means Iraqis downstream of a big city are drinking sewage.

The Iraq Embassy builder has been tied to kickbacks. The scheme, outlined in a now’sealed court document obtained by The Associated Press, allegedly involved First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting and a manager for Kellogg Brown & Root Inc. or KBR, a firm hired to handle logistics for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Marines have deployed the first Osprey combat squadron to Iraq, after decades in development due in part to a series of mechanical failures and fatal crashes.

Robert Raggio, who quit his job as a financial manager for the Iraq reconstruction effort in September 2005 to “pursue other activities.” That same day, Raggio’s newly formed company, Reviewer Management International (RMI), received a U.S. contract to audit $7.3 billion in Iraqi reconstruction spending, according to Army documents obtained by USA TODAY under the Freedom of Information Act. He is now under investigation.

The Pentagon reports that security handover to Iraqis will be delayed AGAIN……because things are going so well!

Iraq’s Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said Sunni Arabs cannot “wait forever” for the Shi’ite-led government to press ahead with a reconciliation agenda and said it could eventually face a no-confidence vote.

Security developments in Iraq 9/21/07

Vanity Fair has a good article regarding the missing billions of dollars sent to Iraq from the Federal Reserve.

And last but not least, President Shit For Brains thinks Nelson Mandela is dead.