Antiwar.com Blog

A former foreign fighter in Iraq testifies that the U.S.-backed Iraqi “police force” let Zarqawi slip right through their slippery little finger:

“While he was awaiting his mission, he says, he was told that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of a terrorist network responsible for numerous bombings and beheadings, had been captured by Iraqi police only to be let go after seven hours because they didn’t recognize him. Iraqi officials have declined to comment on previous reports that Zarqawi had been captured and let go.”

Somehow, I don’t think more money for “training” Iraqi security forces is going to solve the problem.

I guess we’re about to find out just how infiltrated the Iraqi police and military are:

The run-up to Sunday’s vote is pressing every available American service member into action in most of Iraq – assisting an Iraqi-ordered nationwide ban on traffic from Saturday to Monday to block car bombs and other attacks on election targets; and preparing to respond to any Iraqi request for help repelling assaults or tending casualties.

The election plan puts the might of the U.S. military in a full-force back-up role. U.S. forces are funneling stepped-up training, hundreds of fixed barricades and miles of razor wire, weapons, body armor, communication systems, generators and the fuel to run them, and even water and meals-ready-to-eat rations to Iraqi police and troops charged with the front-line defense of polling sites.

More from the Guardian:

Politicians are not alone in distributing propaganda leaflets. Yesterday insurgents walked though a district of eastern Baghdad handing out their own election leaflets. They carried a warning: “Those who dare to stand in the lines of death to participate in the elections will be responsible for the consequences that will be heavy.”

With mounting security concerns, the locations of many of the 5,000 polling centres across Iraq have not been announced. When the buildings have been identified – usually schools which are now empty for the holidays – they have promptly been shelled or mortared by insurgents. Three schools in the otherwise quiet city of Basra in the south were destroyed last week in a mortar attack. It is still unclear how and when voters will be told where to vote.

On election day motorists will be banned from the roads and a nationwide curfew will be imposed between 8pm and 6am. Voters must walk to polling centres, where they will find several security cordons ringing each station. They must then pass through the many security checks before they can finally enter the booth, unfold the vast ballot paper in front of them, choose one of the 111 parties contesting the election and tick the correct box.

Among the various improvements we’re making is a bigger, more up-to-date Viewpoints page. The page is updated throughout the day with links to off-site commentary, much of which will not appear on the main page for reasons of space. Commentaries that have already run on the main page (including all original pieces) as well as those that didn’t make it can be found in More Viewpoints.

American Roy Hallums pleads for his life on a video released today.

In the video, hostage Roy Hallums spoke slowly, rubbing his hands as he sat with the barrel of the rifle inches from his head. He said he had been arrested by a "resistance group" because "I have worked with American forces." He appealed to Arab leaders, including Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, to act to save his life.

Hallums, 56, was seized Nov. 1, 2004, along with Filipino Robert Tarongoy during an armed assault on their compound in Baghdad’s Mansour district. The two were working for a Saudi company that does catering for the Iraqi army. The Filipino was not shown.

"I am please asking for help because my life is in danger because it’s been proved I worked for American forces," the bearded Hallums said. "I’m not asking for any help from President Bush because I know of his selfishness and unconcern for those who’ve been pushed into this hellhole."
Hallums said he was asking for help from "Arab rulers especially President Moammar Gadhafi because he’s known for helping those who are suffering."

Ghadafi?  Well, he got the part about Bush right.

The brouhaha sparked by Seymour Hersh’s recent piece exposing Pentagon plans to attack Iran was generated, in part, by his revelation that American agents had crossed the border and were spying on the Iranians on their own territory: Tony Blankley got so bent out of shape by this that he called for prosecuting Hersh, citing the section covering espionage in the U.S. Code:

“18 United States Code section 794, subsection (b) prohibits anyone ‘in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy [from publishing] any information with respect to the movement, numbers, or disposition of any of the Armed Forces … of the United States… or supposed plans or conduct of any … military operations … or any other information relating to the public defense, which might be useful to the enemy … [this crime is punishable] by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life.'”

Oh, chill out, Tony! Because it doesn’t look like we’re talking about exposing the movement of American troops:

“The Guardian has learned the Pentagon was recently contemplating the infiltration of members of the Iranian rebel group, Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) over the Iraq-Iran border, to collect intelligence. The group, based at Camp Ashraf, near Baghdad, was under the protection of Saddam Hussein, and is under US guard while Washington decides on its strategy.

“The MEK has been declared a terrorist group by the State Department, but a former Farsi-speaking CIA officer said he had been asked by neo-conservatives in the Pentagon to travel to Iraq to oversee ‘MEK cross-border operations”. He refused, and does not know if those operations have begun.’ “

But some sort of operation has begun, as Hersh makes all too plain, and I rather doubt that the Pentagon is using American infiltrators if others are readily available.

The commie nutjobs of the MEK — a weirdo cult that has already proclaimed its leader, Maryam Rajavi, the “President” of Iran — don’t quite qualify as American “armed forces.” Even if they are on the payroll….

Bill at thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse has a chock-full-of-information MegaPost where I found out that Riverbend’s posts will be made into a book:

In her riveting weblog, a remarkable young Iraqi woman gives a human face to war and occupation.

In August 2003, the world gained access to a remarkable new voice: a blog written by a 25-year-old Iraqi woman living in Baghdad, whose identity remained concealed for her own protection. Calling herself Riverbend, she offered searing eyewitness accounts of the everyday realities on the ground, punctuated by astute analysis on the politics behind these events.

Riverbend recounts stories of life in an occupied city – of neighbors whose home are raided by U.S. troops, whose relatives disappear into prisons, and whose children are kidnapped by money-hungry militias. The only Iraqi blogger writing from a woman’s perspective, she also describes a once-secular city where women are now afraid to leave their homes without head covering and a male escort.

Interspersedwith these vivid snapshots from daily life are Riverbend’s analyses of everything from the elusive workings of the Iraqi Governing Council to the torture in Abu Gharib, from the coverage provided by American media and by Al-Jazeera to Bush’s State of the Union Speech. Here again, she focuses especially on the fate of women, whose rights and freedoms have fallen victim to rising fundamentalisms in a chaotic post-war society.

With thousands of loyal readers worldwide, the Riverbend blog is recognized around the world as a crucial source of information not available through the mainstream media.

The book is due out in March 2005. You can order it from the Feminist Press at the City University of New York.