Israelis target Palestinians with weapons causing 'burns ... by heat so intense that many cases have required amputation'

Gaza as Israel's testing ground

Mel Frykberg, Al-Ahram Weekly, Apr 27, 2007

This article was originally published by Al-Ahram Weekly and is republished with permission.

Palestinians inspect a destroyed building after an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, last summer. (Maan Images)

Doctors in Gaza have been reporting strange wounds on the bodies of innocent bystanders and those targeted by drones. These wounds consist of many small holes, often invisible to X-rays, and burns caused by heat so intense that many cases have required amputation because of the extensive burning.

Habas Al-Wahid, head of the emergency centre at the Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza city told the journalists that the legs of the injured were sliced from their bodies "as if a saw was used to cut through the bone." But there was no evidence of ordinary metal shrapnel in or near the wounds.

At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Juma Saka said that on examination of the wounds, the doctors had found a powder on the victim's bodies and in their internal organs. Afterwards they removed the microscopic particles which turned out to be carbon and tungsten.

"The powder was like microscopic shrapnel, and this is likely what caused the injuries," Saka said. Complicating the issue was the death of many patients several days afterwards, although they appeared to recover initially. Accusations that Israel is using Gaza and its inhabitants as a laboratory to test new military weapons, have been made from several quarters.

"We don't know what it means -- new weapons or something added to a previous weapon," said Saied Joudda, deputy director at the Kamal Odwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip.

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To back up their personal experiences, a group of doctors compiled extensive documentary evidence of the extent of the wounds, which occurred specifically in the legs. In other parts of the body, metallic fragments, bigger than the size of the small wounds, were found.

"In our opinion, Israel has also used chemical weapons, such as numerous cases demonstrate, documented cases, with persons having extremely serious burns to their internal organs in the absence of external wounds," said Mouawia, a cardio-vascular surgeon and director-general of emergency services in Gaza.

An investigating team of Italian journalists produced a documentary on Italian state television's satellite channel, RAI News 24, alleging that Israel used dense inert metal explosives (DIME) against Palestinian targets in July and August of last year. This followed journalists taking samples of the microscopic explosives from Gaza and having them tested in a laboratory in Italy.

Carmela Vaccaio, a doctor at the University of Parma, examined samples sent by the Italian reporters from the Gaza Strip and found a high concentration of carbon, as well as copper, aluminium and tungsten, which she considered to be unusual materials. In her report she concluded, "these findings could be in line with the hypothesis that the weapon in question is DIME. The same investigating team also exposed the US military's use of white phosphorus against civilians during attacks on Falluja in Iraq.

Similar accusations were made against Israel during the Lebanon war, when the Jewish state originally denied using phosphorous against Lebanese civilians. But several days later, following the explosive allegations of the Italian journalists and with overwhelming evidence, Israeli cabinet minister, Jacob Edery confirmed that the Israeli military had in fact made use of phosphorous shells.

Israel is accused of dropping more than a million cluster bombs in the south of Lebanon just a few days before the ceasefire. Since then there have been several Lebanese deaths on a daily basis after people accidentally trod on unexploded shells.

According to military experts, DIME is a carbon-encased missile that shatters on impact into minuscule splinters, at the same time setting off an explosive that shoots blades of energy-charged, heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA) powder, such as cobalt and nickel or iron, with a carbon fibre casing. It turns to dust on impact, as it loses inertia very quickly due to air resistance, burning and destroying through a very precise angulation everything within a four-metre range, as opposed to the shrapnel which results from the fragmentation of a metal casing. The designation of the metal as "inert" is due to the metal's non-involvement in the blast, rather than the metal being chemically or biologically inert.

This technology is one of a new range of "low collateral damage" or LCD weapons designed to minimise the damage to nearby property, by confining its increased lethal effects to a restricted space. So it is "ideal for densely populated areas" and "helping the warfighter to prevent the loss of public support," according to its enthusiastic proponents.

Israeli military spokesmen have refused to acknowledge or deny the use of DIME in Gaza, but simply stated that Israel only uses weapons that are legal under international law. The catch is that as DIME is a new weapon, the jury is still out as it still has to be assessed.

However, Yitzhak Ben-Israel, a major-general in the Israel Air Force, and former head of the army's weapons- development programme didn't deny that the Israelis had used DIME in Gaza but went on to explain its credentials.

"The idea behind DIME is to allow the accurate pin- pointing of targets without causing collateral damage to innocent bystanders. This is a technology that allows the striking of very small targets."

This would conveniently fit in with Israel's policy of targeted assassinations, however as the Gaza Strip is so densely populated with nearly 1.5 million people crammed into an area 10 by six miles, the chances of innocent bystanders being hit is very high.

In addition to being seriously maimed, injured and killed, due to the carcinogenic effects of DIME, the number of Palestinians becoming afflicted with cancer will multiply in the long term, in addition to their environment being extensively damaged should the Israelis continue to use this new weapon with impunity.

One third of US casualties have brain injuries

Related
IEDs cause ‘Divers Bends’ damage in brain
Doctors battle the new shell shock
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FEATURE-Iraq war brain trauma victims turn to private care
23 Apr 2007 13:03:29 GMT

By Kim Dixon

CHICAGO, April 23 (Reuters) - Sgt. Eric Edmundson arrived at the U.S. Army's Walter Reed hospital in October 2005 with a severe head concussion, a victim of one of the many roadside bombs that are a part of daily life for soldiers in Iraq.

Six months later, after intense physical rehab and an infection that made control of his limbs futile, his morale hit bottom. The Department of Veterans Affairs gave him the choice of a nursing home or returning home from a Richmond, Virginia facility, his family said.

"We felt the VA had a 'wait and see' attitude, and our belief was that time was our enemy," said Eric's father Edward, who left his job at Conagra Foods in North Carolina to be his son's full-time health advocate. "So we took him home."

Unsatisfied with the outcome, Eric and his family eventually found treatment at a private hospital, and began a slow path to recovery. But his story is unusual. Wounded vets are seldom treated at private hospitals, which say they offer expertise for severe brain injuries like Eric's. The VA is resisting using their services, setting up a clash over care for some the war's most seriously wounded veterans.

Of the nearly 24,000 wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, about a third suffer from some degree of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, according to the General Accounting Office.

The government has been on the defensive about veterans' medical care after a probe found shoddy living conditions of recovering wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, considered the jewel in the military's health care system.

A newly-appointed Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors was formed by U.S. President George Bush in response. A major topic is whether the civilian sector could be used more in treating traumatic brain injury, one of the fastest growing injuries of the war.

"That is a $64,000 question, and one that the Commission will be studying," as it holds hearings in advance of drawing up recommendations for Bush, said Edward Eckenhoff, president of the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington and a member of the commission.

CASE BY CASE

The VA has four hospitals to treat severe brain injuries, in Minneapolis, California, Florida and Virginia. Critics say the total of 48 hospital beds in the entire VA system devoted to the brain injuries is inadequate to meet demand.

Barbara Sigford, the VA's National Director for Physical Medicine and Rehab, said the agency's expertise in spinal cord injuries and amputations, often intertwined with brain trauma, has been growing for the past 20 years.

"This isn't new for us by any means," she said. "I would say that seldom is it in someone's best interest to transfer them to another (civilian) program."

Sigford said there is no issue of overcrowding since the four VA trauma centers are running at about 80 percent capacity.

For their part, private hospitals said they have been building expertise by treating tough brain injuries for decades, whether for construction accidents or car crash victims. The VA by contrast has been caring for mostly chronic illness in Vietnam and World War II veterans, they say.

Jeremy Chwat, executive vice president of the advocacy group, the Wounded Warrior project, said the VA does a good job of caring for critical patients once they arrive, but that it could use assistance in the long road of rehabilitation.

"We've been urging them to collaborate with the private sector. It's about choice; we want veterans to choose the VA but not be captive by it," he said.

NOVEL INJURY

Traumatic brain injury, caused by a blow or jolt to the head, often results in severe disability, at times permanent brain damage. It is being called the signature injury of this war, as improved armor and medical advances save many more lives than in prior conflicts.

"In Vietnam, if you got your leg blown off, you bled to death. Now if they can get you to a hospital, you are not going to die," said Ronald Glasser, a Minneapolis specialist in nephrology and rheumatology, who has written several books on veteran care and was a physician during the Vietnam war.

Symptoms include blurred vision, slurred speech, and physical paralysis, among many others, and it is often coupled with amputation and spinal cord problems.

The VA estimates about 400 cases over four years were severe enough to require significant rehab, while some critics say the numbers are several times that.

Often-times lack of physical symptoms may cause slow reporting of the injury, experts said.

"The presence or absence of particularly a closed-head injury where there is not an obvious breach of the skull" is hard to diagnose, said Col. Joyce Grissom, medical director for the Defense Department's Tricare health program.

STANDING UP

Private rehab hospitals are dealing with financial pressures, including a need to fill beds because of more stringent Medicare requirements, Chwat noted.

"Obviously dollars and sense do come into play. To say there is not a financial motive involved would be naive, but unless the family can choose to go somewhere else, you can't say they are choosing the VA."

The private sector officials say there have been encouraging signs recently. One of the private institutions, the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, is where Eric Edmundson wound up two months ago after his father discovered he could use a civilian facility and have it paid by GI benefits.

It was worth it, he says. About a month ago, Eric stood up by himself for the first time since 2005.

"When we first got to Walter Reed. They took us together in a room and said he'd be a vegetable his whole life," his father said.

Five U.S. Soldiers Dead in Iraq Attacks

By Bill Brubaker

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 16, 2007; 3:38 PM

Five American soldiers were killed and six others were wounded in four attacks in Iraq, the U.S. military announced today.

One soldier from the Multi-National Division-Baghdad unit died and another was wounded today when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in southern Baghdad, a U.S. military statement said.

A second Multi-National Division-Baghdad soldier died and another was wounded today when their combat security patrol was attacked with small arms fire in a southwestern neighborhood of the Iraqi capital, a military statement said.

Also in Baghdad today, a soldier was killed and two others were wounded when a projectile targeted their Multi-National Division-Baghdad unit. An Iraqi interpreter -- working for the U.S. military -- also was wounded in the attack.

In Fallujah, west of Baghdad, two 13th Sustainment Command soldiers were killed and two others wounded in an improvised explosive device attack on Saturday, the U.S. military said.

The names of the deceased soldiers will be released after relatives are notified, the military statements said.

About 3,300 U.S. service members have died since the start of the war in March 2003.

Misery of Palestinian children

Children throughout the West Bank and Gaza have observed Palestinian Children's Day, which aims to highlight the plight of children living under Israeli occupation.

To mark the day, the Palestinian Network for Children's Rights issued new figures on Thursday showing how the Israeli occupation has damaged the lives of thousands of children.

"In 2007, the Israeli army continues to deploy the same violent policy towards Palestinian children with eight children being killed so far this year," a press release from the group said on Thursday.

"This brings the total number of children killed since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, by the Israeli army and illegal Israeli settlers, to 860."

Additionally, 5,200 Palestinian children have been arrested by the Israeli army and about 400 are still being held in Israeli prisons and interrogation centres, the statement said.

Palestinian children also suffer unusually levels of stress and mental problems - largely as a result of living in a state of near-constant insecurity.

A child's story

Typical of many Palestinian children is Amna Ghaben. Ten years old, her name in Arabic means to be safe and secure but she has enjoyed little of either.

A year ago an Israeli rocket landed on her family's house in Gaza. Her eight-year-old sister, Hadeil, was killed and 11 other family members were injured in the attack.


Ismail Ahmad, Amna's psychiatrist, says drawings can illustrate children's personalities

Amna suffered shrapnel wounds all over her body. But although the physical injuries have now healed, she remains mentally traumatised.

"During shelling, I'm with them and their father hugs them too, but they keep telling us this house could be destroyed on our heads," her mother said.

Dr Ismail Ahmad, a psychiatrist, has been working with Amna since the attack, analysing her drawings.

He says her drawings are a window into how Amna has dealt with the tragedy.

"The smile is gone from Amna's face, her academic level went down, and she feels insecure in her house," Ahmad said.

Gift of sight for Gaza girl

Bomb victim to get transplant

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

BY JEFF TRENTLY

Ahlam Abuowda was 6 years old when the bombs went off.

The bombs were nothing new -- she had lived her life among Israeli bombs in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. The bombs were everywhere, every day.

But this day, the bomb blast was too close. It burnt her corneas, scarring the tissue in both eyes.

Six-year-old Ahlam was going blind.

Ahlam is 16 years old now. Her vision has deteriorated. She can't see anything farther than one foot in front of her face.

But Ahlam has traveled close to 6,000 miles for a chance to see again.

Dr. Michael Wong, a Princeton- based ophthalmologist, will perform a surgery today on Ahlam that is expected to restore vision in her right eye.

For Ahlam, the world is dark and fuzzy. She gets headaches and struggles with simple tasks.

In Gaza, the bombing that took her vision is part of her daily life.

"You don't know if you're going to be alive the next day," she says through a translator. "You don't know if tomorrow will come."

Ahlam lives in her grandfather's two-bedroom house with her parents and 13 younger siblings. The roof has been blasted off part of the house and there is no heat.

Ahlam has friends who were killed in the bombings, she says.

Life is desperate for the Palestinians who live there. Medical care is primitive.

In Gaza, Wong says, they don't have cornea transplant tissue.

There is no sterile hospital.

"It's been bombed," he says.

Life for Ahlam was mostly spent indoors, away from the violence.

"If she was to remain blind, she'd have no hope to go on," he says. "There is bombing all around her. That's all she knows."

Wong will transplant a cornea -- the clear tissue in front of the eye, "like the crystal of a watch" -- into Ahlam's right eye this morning at the Surgical Center of Central New Jersey in North Brunswick.

Wills Eye Hospital provided the cornea from a 15-year-old girl who died in a motorcycle accident Monday.

Without the surgery, Ahlam's condition would deteriorate, Wong says. The damage could become painful and she would eventually be totally blind.

If the surgery is successful, Ahlam could have the other eye done at a later date, Wong says.

For Wong, the surgery is a routine outpatient procedure.

"This is what I do every day," he says.

But Wong knows Ahlam's situation is unique.

"Humanity has no borders. In a doctor's eyes there are no borders," he says.

Borders were the most difficult thing in getting Ahlam out of Gaza, says Nora Whisnant of the Palestine Children's Relief Fund, which worked to bring Ahlam to the United States for the surgery.

Ahlam's village is bombed routinely, Whisnant says. Check points are closed. To get from one place to another you must wait hours in line.

"It's hard to get out," she says.

It took months to arrange Ah lam's visit.

Ahlam arrived in the United States last week. She told Whis nant she couldn't believe how quiet it is here. No bombing. No blasts.

"She is so excited and so inno cent and so naive," Whisnant says.

Ahlam is staying in Bridgewater with an Arabic-speaking host family. When she arrived at JFK airport, the sound of airplanes taking off scared Ahlam, says Suheir Hanna, her American host mother.

"She thought they were going to drop bombs," Hanna says.

For Ahlam, life in the United States is refreshing. She can go outside and not be afraid.

Ahlam wants to learn English and one day be an elementary school teacher in her native land.

"She has lots of hopes and dreams," Hanna says.

And when she gets her vision back?

The first thing she wants to see is the Statue of Liberty.

"Where I live, we are denied our freedom," Ahlam says. "I want to see what freedom is all about."

Contact Jeff Trently at jtrent ly@njtimes.com.

© 2007 The Times of Trenton

© 2007 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

Five U.S. troops, four Britons die in attacks across Iraq

4 Britons dead in Iraq; U.S. copter down

By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 57 minutes ago

A U.S. Army helicopter went down south of Baghdad Thursday, injuring four of the nine soldiers aboard, while five U.S. troops died in separate attacks in Baghdad. Also, in the deadliest blow to Britain since November, four British soldiers and a Kuwaiti interpreter were killed in an ambush in southern Iraq, the British military said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair raised the possibility that elements linked to Iran might have been behind the ambush, which he called "a terrorist act," but he added that it was too early to make a specific allegation against Tehran.

The U.S. military said the five U.S. soldiers were killed in three separate attacks in the Baghdad area, where thousands of American forces have taken to the streets with their Iraqi counterparts as part of the operation to quell sectarian violence in the city of 6 million people.

A roadside bomb Wednesday killed two soldiers and wounded three others in southern Baghdad, while another blast north of the capital killed two soldiers and wounded one, the military said. The fifth soldier was killed Tuesday by small-arms fire while on patrol in eastern Baghdad, a predominantly Shiite part of the city, the military said.

The four British deaths — the biggest loss of life for British forces in more than four months — came a day after Iran released 15 British sailors seized two weeks ago off the Iraqi coast.

The British patrol struck a roadside bomb and was hit by small-arms fire about 2 a.m. in the Hayaniyah district in western Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, British military spokeswoman Capt. Katie Brown said.

In addition to the deaths of the British soldiers and the Kuwaiti civilian interpreter, another British soldier was seriously wounded in the attack, Brown said.

"Now it is far too early to say that the particular terrorist act that killed our forces was an act committed by terrorists that were backed by any elements of the Iranian regime, so I make no allegation in respect of that particular incident," Blair said.

The four deaths came as Britain celebrated the return home of 15 sailors and marines who had been held for 13 days by Iran in an incident that raised tensions between London and Tehran, as well as throughout the Middle East.

"Just as we rejoice at the return of our 15 service personnel so today we are also grieving and mourning for the loss of our soldiers in Basra, who were killed as the result of a terrorist act," Blair said.

The Basra explosion created a 3-foot-deep crater. Hours after the attack, the helmet of a British soldier was still in the streets as well as dozens of spent bullets.

Police in Basra said the British patrol had earlier detained 1st Lt. Haidar al-Jazaeri of the Interior Ministry's Major Crimes unit, and were on their way back when they were attacked.

Four British forces were killed on Nov. 12 in an attack on a Multinational Forces boat patrol on the Shatt Al-Arab waterway in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. Ten Britons also died in the Jan. 30, 2006, crash of a Hercules transport plane north of Baghdad.

Overall, the deaths raised to 140 the number of British forces to die in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion and to 109 the number killed in combat.

Blair has announced that Britain will withdraw about 1,600 troops from Iraq over the next few months and hopes to make other cuts to its 7,100-strong contingent by late summer.

The U.S. military issued only a brief statement saying the helicopter went down and that the incident was under investigation.

An Iraqi army official said earlier that a Black Hawk helicopter had gone down after it came under fire at about 7:30 a.m. near the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad.

It was the ninth U.S. helicopter to go down in Iraq this year, raising concern among the military that insurgents are using more sophisticated weapons or have figured out how to use the old arms in new and effective ways.

The Iraqi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of security concerns, said the helicopter had gone down in a rural area and U.S. forces had cordoned off the site. He said the militants apparently were using anti-aircraft heavy machine gun.

Latifiyah is part of the area dubbed the "Triangle of Death" because of frequent insurgent attacks.

The last helicopter incident occurred on March 1, when an OH-58 Kiowa made a "hard landing" in northern Iraq leaving the two crew members wounded. A week earlier, ground fire forced the downing of a Black Hawk north of Baghdad.

Black Hawks, which can carry 11 fully equipped troops, are commonly used by the military for transportation in Iraq to avoid the dangers of roadside bombs and ambushes.

U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell has expressed disappointment at the high level of violence in Iraq despite a drop in the overall death toll in Baghdad during a U.S.-Iraqi security sweep that has entered its eighth week. The Iraqi government said it was extending the operation to confront spreading violence elsewhere in the country.

Also Thursday, a car bomb also struck a Sunni Muslim television station, killing its assistant director and wounding 12 others, according to the Iraqi Islamic Party, which owns the station.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but members of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party have been targeted in the past by suspected insurgents because they have joined the U.S.-backed political process.

Shortly after the explosion, the station went off the air, although a photo of a mosque with readings from the Quran, the Muslim holy book, appeared after a while.

Police said the car used in the attack was a small truck used to collect garbage and U.S. and Iraqi troops had cordoned off the area.

Army deployed seriously injured troops

Soldiers on crutches and canes were sent to a main desert camp used for Iraq training. Military experts say the Army was pumping up manpower statistics to show a brigade was battle ready.

By Mark Benjamin

Mar. 26, 2007 | Last November, Army Spc. Edgar Hernandez, a communications specialist with a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, had surgery on an ankle he had injured during physical training. After the surgery, doctors put his leg in a cast, and he was supposed to start physical therapy when that cast came off six weeks later.

But two days after his cast was removed, Army commanders decided it was more important to send him to a training site in a remote desert rather than let him stay at Fort Benning, Ga., to rehabilitate. In January, Hernandez was shipped to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., where his unit, the 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, was conducting a month of training in anticipation of leaving for Iraq in March.

Hernandez says he was in no shape to train for war so soon after his injury. "I could not walk," he told Salon in an interview. He said he was amazed when he learned he was being sent to California. "Did they not realize that I'm hurt and I needed this physical therapy?" he remembered thinking. "I was told by my doctor and my physical therapist that this was crazy."

Hernandez had served two tours in Iraq, where he helped maintain communications gear in the unit's armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles. But he could not participate in war maneuvers conducted on a 1,000-square-mile mock battlefield located in the harsh Mojave Desert. Instead, when he got to California, he was led to a large tent where he would be housed. He was shocked by what he saw inside: There were dozens of other hurt soldiers. Some were on crutches, and others had arms in slings. Some had debilitating back injuries. And nearby was another tent, housing female soldiers with health issues ranging from injuries to pregnancy.

Hernandez is one of a dozen soldiers who stayed for weeks in those tents who were interviewed for this report, some of whose medical records were also reviewed by Salon. All of the soldiers said they had no business being sent to Fort Irwin given their physical condition. In some cases, soldiers were sent there even though their injuries were so severe that doctors had previously recommended they should be considered for medical retirement from the Army.

Military experts say they suspect that the deployment to Fort Irwin of injured soldiers was an effort to pump up manpower statistics used to show the readiness of Army units. With the military increasingly strained after four years of war, Army readiness has become a critical part of the debate over Iraq. Some congressional Democrats have considered plans to limit the White House's ability to deploy more troops unless the Pentagon can certify that units headed into the fray are fully equipped and fully manned.

Salon recently uncovered another troubling development in the Army's efforts to shore up troop levels, reporting earlier this month that soldiers from the 3rd Brigade had serious health problems that the soldiers claimed were summarily downgraded by military doctors at Fort Benning in February, apparently so that the Army could send them to Iraq. Some of those soldiers were among the group sent to Fort Irwin to train in January.

After arriving at Fort Irwin, many of the injured soldiers did not train. "They had all of us living in a big tent," confirmed Spc. Lincoln Smith, who spent the month there along with Hernandez and others. Smith is an Army truck driver, but because of his health issues, which include sleep apnea (a breathing ailment) and narcolepsy, Smith is currently barred from driving military vehicles. "I couldn't go out and do the training," Smith said about his time in California. His records list his problems as "permanent" and recommend that he be considered for retirement from the Army because of his health.

Another soldier with nearly 20 years in the Army was sent to Fort Irwin, ostensibly to prepare for deployment to Iraq, even though she suffers from back problems and has psychiatric issues. Doctors wrote "unable to deploy overseas" on her medical records.

It is unclear exactly how many soldiers with health issues were sent to the California desert. None of the soldiers interviewed by Salon had done a head count, but all agreed that "dozens" would be a conservative estimate. An Army spokesman and public affairs officials for the 3rd Infantry Division did not return repeated calls and e-mails seeking further detail and an explanation of why injured troops were sent to Fort Irwin and housed in tents there during January.

The soldiers who were at Fort Irwin described a pitiful scene. "You had people out there with crutches and canes," said an Army captain who was being considered for medical retirement himself because of serious back injuries sustained in a Humvee accident during a previous combat tour in Iraq. "Soldiers that apparently had no business being there were there," another soldier wrote to Salon in an e-mail. "Pregnant females were sent to the National Training Center rotation" with the knowledge of Army leaders, she said.

One infantry sergeant with nearly 20 years in the Army who had already fought in Iraq broke his foot badly in a noncombat incident just before being sent to Fort Irwin. "I didn't even get to put the cast on," before going, he said with exasperation. He said doctors put something like an "open-toed soft shoe" on his foot and put him on a plane to California. "I've got the cast on now. I never even got a chance to see the [medical] specialist," he claimed. The infantry sergeant said life in the desert was tough in his condition. "I was on Percocet. I couldn't even concentrate. I hopped on a plane and hobbled around NTC on crutches," he said. He added, "I saw people who were worse off than I am. I saw people with hurt backs and so on. I started to think, 'Hey, I'm not so bad.'"

Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins was one of those soldiers at NTC with a hurt back, even though late last year, doctors recommended he be considered for medical retirement. Jenkins, 42, has a degenerative spine problem and a long scar down the back of his neck where doctors fused three of his vertebrae during surgery. He takes morphine for the pain in his neck and back.

"I slept on a damn metal cot for 26 days with serious back problems," Jenkins told Salon. "It was an unpleasant experience," he said, adding that his condition worsened while he was there. Hernandez, the communications specialist, said he reinjured his ankle at Fort Irwin, leaving him hobbling around in the sand and gravel for a month. When he returned to Fort Benning, Hernandez had to be put into another cast. (He is still in that cast now and hopes to start physical therapy when it comes off on March 26.)

"We could not train," Jenkins said. "Why were we even there?"

Military experts point to the brigade's readiness statistics, including "unit status reports" that carefully track personnel numbers and are sent up through the Army's chain of command. "There are a number of factors used to establish whether a unit is mission-capable," explained John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, an independent organization that studies military and security issues. "One of them is the extent to which it is fully manned," he said. Pike says he suspects the injured soldiers were camped out at Fort Irwin so that on paper, at least, "the unit would have a sufficient head count to be mission-capable."

Lawrence Korb, who was an assistant secretary of defense for manpower during the Reagan administration and is now with the liberal Center for American Progress, says that the 3rd Brigade can show statistically that more troops trained in California simply because they were there. "Basically, they could say 90 percent went through Fort Irwin," Korb said about the brigade.

But injured soldiers from the brigade were not just shuttled to California; some were sent on to Iraq. Earlier this month Salon reported that on Feb. 15, shortly after returning from Fort Irwin to Fort Benning, 75 injured soldiers from the 3rd Brigade lined up for screenings at the troop medical clinic. Some of the soldiers there that day described cursory meetings with a division surgeon -- meetings designed to downgrade their health problems, the soldiers said, so that they could be deployed to the war zone. Records for some of those soldiers show doctors had previously concluded that those soldiers could not wear body armor because of serious skeletal and other injuries.

A military official knowledgeable about the training in California in January and the medical processing of the injured soldiers at Fort Benning in February told Salon that commanders were taking desperate actions to meet an accelerated deployment schedule dictated by President Bush's so-called surge plan for securing Baghdad. "None of this would have happened if we had just slowed down a little bit," the military official said. "A lot of people were under a lot of pressure at that time."

In an interview for the Salon report earlier this month, Col. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., the commander of the 3rd Brigade, did not dispute that injured troops were being deployed, but insisted they would be put in safe noncombat jobs once they were in Iraq.

Some of those soldiers have since been deployed, while others fought orders to go to Iraq. Jenkins, with the bad back, even appealed his case to the Army surgeon general. Three days after he was quoted in the Salon report, Jenkins received official word through his chain of command that he would not be going to Iraq. Smith, the soldier with sleep apnea and narcolepsy, who was also quoted in the Salon report, also had his deployment orders dropped by the Army in mid-March.

Jenkins said the disregard for soldiers' health motivated him to speak out, despite his fears that as an active-duty soldier he could suffer reprisal from superiors. "I am a guy who has been in the Army for 21 years," he said. "For me to speak about this -- and risk everything -- then there has got to be a problem. There has got to be an issue here."

Pete Geren, the acting Army secretary, told a Senate panel on March 14 that the Army would investigate the injured soldiers' claims that their medical records were modified at Fort Benning in February in order for them to be sent to Iraq. House Armed Services Committee chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate. The Army inspector general has also launched a probe. It remains unclear if any of those probes will also look into injured soldiers' being sent to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in January.

Experts say there is little doubt that military readiness has diminished with the strain of the Iraq war. But the Army says the problem is limited to units recuperating in the United States, and that by shifting around troops and equipment, brigades going to Iraq are in tip-top shape. "Today's deployed soldiers are the best-trained, best-equipped and best-led we have ever sent into combat," Army vice chief of staff Gen. Richard Cody told a House Armed Services Committee panel March 13. "However, we've done this -- after five years of combat -- we've done this at the expense of our non-deployed forces," he admitted. "We do have shortages with the non-deployed forces." The New York Times reported on March 20 that of the 20 Army brigades not currently deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, only one has enough equipment or soldiers to be sent quickly into combat.

Indeed, there are indications that the problems go beyond Fort Benning. When Skelton, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, wrote to the GAO asking for an investigation into the deployment of injured troops to Iraq, he added in that letter that "the committee has received a number of phone calls and letters from concerned service members and their families, including similar allegations that injured and wounded service members are being deployed into combat despite their injuries."

"My back was broken while I was in the military, I now have a ruptured/bulging discs in my lumbar spine," one distressed soldier wrote to Salon in an e-mail earlier this month. She said she had been in the process of a medical review that would end her service in the Army. But upon her return from the National Training Center in California, she claimed, doctors at Fort Benning "changed my profile and made me deployable." She pleaded for help in bringing attention to her case, after frantically seeking help through military and congressional channels.

"If anyone has the ability to help ... PLEASE do so," she wrote. "I am heading to Kuwait tomorrow where I will then go to Baghdad with my unit."

What's red, white and blue with black eye?

Tamara Dietrich

March 21 2007

Patriots can suffer all manner of indignities for their country. Nathan Eckstrand is no exception.

The 23-year-old philosophy student is one of about 90 people from Hampton Roads who joined 30,000 others from around the country to march in the nation's capital Saturday against the Iraq war. It wasn't his first demonstration.

Somewhere between 21st and 22nd streets along the march route, Eckstrand says, counter-demonstrators awash in black leather, camouflage, Marine insignias and the American flag lined both sides of a sidewalk.

It was a gantlet of abuse.

"They were literally shouting in our ears," recalls Eckstrand, who is volunteering at a Mediation Center in Norfolk before starting grad school this fall. Eckstrand's mother marched a couple of paces ahead.

"One of them I guess was carried along with momentum and the feeling of hatred on their side," he says. "He spat on me. And as I was walking away I heard him call me a traitor."

He called Eckstrand another name as well. Expletive deleted.

Nice.

Clair Langford of Poquoson marched the gantlet, too. She's 26-year-old student government vice president at Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton.

She's also an Army veteran. So she was placed with other veterans near the head of the march.

Langford had never demonstrated before and had high hopes. When she first got off the bus, she was so overwhelmed, so grateful to see so many people of like mind that she wept.

Later, at the gantlet, tears streamed down her face again. But they were tears of another sort.

"There was so much anger and so much hate," Langford says. "They were cursing us. They were flipping us off, spitting. That was very difficult for me to go through because there was so much hate in the air."

So much hate, heading into the fifth year of a quagmire.

So many towns and cities feeling the hurt.

While Eckstrand and Langford marched for peace, Smithfield was mourning a young man killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq just days before he planned to marry. Army Sgt. Michael Peek is the latest of 28 men with connections to Hampton Roads to die in this war.

And on Monday, the fourth anniversary of U.S. bombs dropping on Iraq, reporter Stephanie Heinatz profiled just a few of countless local impacts.

A local military mother and retired Navy captain who had to face her own son's deployment. A war widow who is learning to love again. An employer buckling down to cover for a worker called up for his third tour. High-school students struggling to grasp the ethics versus realpolitik of war.

After four years, communities here and all over this country know the reality down to their bones. They've buried their share, too.

They've also taken in thousands of men and women so badly broken from combat that they will never be the same. Lost limbs, scarred souls. Brain trauma, post-traumatic stress.

Everyone hopes that the spilled blood and torn flesh, the body bags and the grieving at gravesides won't be in vain.

A sizable portion of the population fears that it will.

It's fear that put protesters and counter-protesters in Washington on Saturday. One side afraid that good men and women are dying for no good reason. The other side afraid that that will be the verdict of history - and furious at the prospect.

So, with no clear enemy to engage, they bully the peacemakers.

With a tragically flawed grasp of the individual rights their own country stands for, they try to choke off protest and dissent.

As if the loudest voice wins. As if pinning a flag to your chest makes you a patriot.

As if American-style democracy is forcing everyone to goose-step to the same tune.

Or else.

The ones who spit on their own countrymen for the sin of marching for peace, for calling for our servicemen and women to be brought home safe and soon, and for indicting the president and his cabal for instigating chaos need a more robust appreciation of democracy.

Eckstrand, for instance, didn't want to lash out at the man who spat upon him, but talk with him.

"On one hand, I'm actually glad they showed because I think it's always healthy for democracy to see disagreement," Eckstrand says.

"But obviously the way he expressed it was way over the line. His side was trying to shut down disagreement. Disagreement is a good thing. It's out there and they need to respect it, appreciate it.

"The American flag doesn't mean anything if you don't put any faith in it."

Tamara Dietrich can be reached at tdietrich@dailypress.com or 247-7892.

Copyright © 2007, Daily Press

7 U.S. troops die in Iraq violence

By LAUREN FRAYER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 12 minutes ago

The U.S. military on Sunday announced the deaths of seven more troops in Iraq, including four killed by a roadside bomb while patrolling western Baghdad — the latest American casualties in a monthlong security crackdown in the capital.

Though violence has receded slightly in the capital, a car bomb killed seven Iraqis in a predominantly Shiite district on Sunday, police said. The attack targeted people cooking food at open-air grills in the street, to offer as charity on a Shiite Muslim holiday. Police said 26 people were wounded.

A U.S. official, meanwhile, blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for chlorine bomb attacks that struck villagers in Anbar province earlier this week but said tight Iraqi security measures prevented a higher number of casualties.

Three suicide bombers driving trucks rigged with tanks of toxic chlorine gas struck targets in the insurgent stronghold including the office of a Sunni tribal leader opposed to al-Qaida. The attacks killed at least two people and sickened 350 Iraqi civilians and six U.S. troops, the U.S. military said Saturday.

U.S. military spokesman Adm. Mark Fox said at least one of the attackers detonated his explosives after he was unable to get past an Iraqi police checkpoint in Amiriyah, just south of Fallujah, killing only himself. Fox conceded that many Iraqis were exposed to the chemical fumes but insisted that steps Iraqi security forces were increasingly effective

"Insurgent attempts to create high-profile carnage are being stopped at checkpoints across the country," he said at a news conference in Baghdad.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh appealed to Iraqis to help stop the violence.

"Opportunity is still available to all honest Iraqis to rescue this country from the criminals," he said at a joint news conference with Fox. "The chlorine attack was a kind of punishment against the people who stood against terrorist organizations."

There is a growing power struggle between insurgents and the growing number of Sunnis who oppose them in Anbar, the center of the Sunni insurgency, which stretches from Baghdad to the borders with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The Anbar assaults came three days after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, traveled there, hoping to reach out to Sunni clan chiefs and to undermine tribal support for the insurgency.

After the explosion that killed four U.S. soldiers on Saturday, the unit came under fire and another soldier was wounded. During this month's crackdown in the capital, the battalion had found eight weapons caches and two roadside bombs and helped rescue a kidnap victim, the military said.

An explosion in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad killed another soldier Saturday and injured five. A sixth soldier died Saturday in a non-combat related incident, the military said. A U.S. Marine also was killed Saturday in fighting in Anbar, according to a separate statement.

Saturday's deaths brought to at least 3,217 members of the U.S. military who have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

A Web video surfaced Sunday showing an alleged insurgent crawling under a U.S. military vehicle in Iraq and purportedly planting explosives in full daylight. Seconds later, the video cuts to an explosion ripping the vehicle apart.

The footage was stamped with the emblem of the Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qaida-linked militant group that disavows Iraq's elected government and seeks to establish Muslim law.

The video was posted on an Islamic Web site that frequently airs insurgent messages, but its contents and authenticity could not be independently verified.

The footage shows a man in beige pants and a dark sweatshirt, crawling through mud puddles underneath a Bradley fighting vehicle and hauling an object about two feet long. Then the video switches to a wider view of the vehicle exploding in a ball of flames and smoke.

A caption says the incident happened in western Anbar province, an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.

In violence Sunday, gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying civilians northeast of Baghdad, killing seven men and wounding four others, police said. The attack occurred in Hibhib, just east of Baqouba, in the area where al-Qaida in Iraqi leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike on June 7.

A roadside bomb also hit an Iraqi police convoy in eastern Baghdad, killing two policemen and wounding five, authorities said. Later, police said a mortar round landed near a house in central Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding another.

In Shorja market, Baghdad's most popular central shopping district, a man tossed a grenade into a group of workers, police said. One worker was killed and another was wounded. The suspect escaped through an alley, they said.

The Shorja market, which has been attacked several times, was turned into a pedestrian zone after a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown began in Baghdad on Feb. 14.

An abandoned hotel exploded Sunday in an industrial area of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad. Police said insurgents had planted bombs in the three-story building and then detonated it at dawn. Half of the building was destroyed.

Iraqi troops had taken over part of the building's roof as a base, police said. There were no reports of casualties.

In Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad, fierce fighting erupted between U.S. troops and elements of the Shiite Mahdi Army, police said. There were no reports of casualties, and the U.S. military had no immediate comment.

Eleven bodies were found — six in Baqouba, in Diwaniyah and four in Mosul — many with signs of torture and all apparently victims of sectarian killings.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military said American troops captured 12 suspected militants Sunday in raids across Iraq, all accused of plotting attacks on U.S. troops.

Fox, the U.S. military spokesman, also said Iraqi forces acting on a tip found a huge weapons cache Friday on the outskirts of the northern city of Mosul, including 1,800 pounds of bulk explosives.

He said the military was seeing "glimmers of good signs" in the security sweep that began in mid-February to quell sectarian violence in Baghdad.

One-quarter of Iraq, Afghanistan veterans filing injury claims

McClatchy Newspapers
Publication Date: 03/13/07

WASHINGTON -- More than a quarter of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have filed injury claims with the government, according to an internal Department of Veterans Affairs report.

Of the nearly 690,000 veterans who served in those combat zones, more than 180,000 had filed claims by the end of last year, the report showed.

That's more than a 50 percent increase over where claims stood near the end of 2005, when the number of claims from the war was 115,000, according to the VA.

Veterans advocates said that the numbers likely would continue to climb, and not just because the number of troops has been escalating. Some soldiers wait years to file injury claims, they said, while some injuries, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, can take years to surface.

Steve Smithson, deputy director for claims at the American Legion, said the numbers "seem like a lot, but there may be a lot more. It's a cost of war that we don't always figure into the budget and we don't always realize. This is also a cost, taking care of the wounded, and we're going to be seeing more of this as the war continues."

VA spokesman Jim Benson said that every injury claim by an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran might not be a result of their deployment. The injury could have occurred either before or after they served overseas, he said.

The VA awards compensation for health problems when veterans can prove their injuries were related to their military service. Like the military's health care system for active-duty troops, the VA is under intense scrutiny in light of the treatment scandal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Several blue-ribbon panels are looking into how to ensure that both veterans and troops face fewer bureaucratic obstacles to treatment and benefits.

"I think Walter Reed is the tip of the iceberg," said Democratic Rep. Bob Filner of California, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. "What we saw is they were deliberately trying to keep the claims down."

The VA has granted 132,000 of the 180,000 benefit claims, which have been filed since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, according to the report. The balance includes claims that have either been denied or are pending.

In 2006, the department signed off on nearly 57,000 claims -- an average of more than 150 per day.

"This is good news that VA is processing so many more claims," said Paul Sullivan, veterans advocate and former VA project manager. "However, it's ominous that the claims activity continues to surge."

© The St. Augustine Record

Index on US Troops

Monday, March 12, 2007

by Sarah Meyer

Photo AFP / David Hurst
US Army soldiers from the 1-68 BCT receive instructions

1. According to Rumsfeld
2. Warning Signs
3. The ‘Surge’
4. Blowback
5. Walter Reed Disaster
6. Scrambling
7. One Day in Iraq
8. Surge II
9. Nero Fiddles
10. What, Exactly, Are We Here For?
11. Future Deaths
12. References

These selected articles focus on the plight of the US troops. The troops are sandwiched between the President Bush’s imperial fantasies and crocodile tears,control by the US Vice President, a rampantly ambitious Pentagon, corporate greed and a Congress that fails to understand the terrifying disaster in Iraq. And lies. The overall picture is of contempt by the US government towards the US troops, towards the American people - and, by extension, to the world.

1. According to Rumsfeld

US to reduce troop numbers in Iraq
23.12.05. ABC. Mr Rumsfeld said the reduction would take place by spring next year, taking the numbers of soldiers to the below the 138,000 that were in Iraq prior to the country's elections last week.

US in quiet U -turn on Iraq troop numbers
28.07.06. Luce / Daniel, FT.com. "The US administration has quietly reversed its goal from whittling down troop numbers in Iraq before the mid-term congressional elections in November. A Pentagon spokesman on Friday confirmed that US troop levels in Iraq rose to 132,000 during the past week – the highest since late May – from 127,000 at the start of the week. ... The rise will prompt fears that the US is becoming increasingly bogged down in an unwinnable conflict."

2. Warning Signs

Military Personnel Wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan
20.12.04. Memory Hole.

A Soldier Speaks
04.08.05. C. De Leon, Alternet. Iraq combat veteran talks about his motivations for joining the army, the horrors of war and the anguish of returning home.

War Without End
04.06. J. Ryan, San Francisco Gate. More than 16,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded. Each injury ripples through lives with its own pattern and force. And as two soldiers and their families are discovering, the war will be with them forever.

CNN Reports Progress in Iraq: 100 attacks per day on US troops, Double 2004, Triple 2003
06.11.05. Save the USA.

Pentagon: U.S. death toll in Iraq reaches 2,500
15.06.06. NBC.

A Broken, De-Humanized Military in Iraq
30.09.06. Dahr Jamail. “Another report released last weekend from the Veterans Health Administration found that over one third of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking medical treatment are reporting symptoms of stress or other metal disorders. This is a tenfold increase in the last 18 months alone.”

The US Occupation of Iraq: Casualties Not Counted
05.10.06. Dahr Jamail, Truth Out. “Civilian contractors in Iraq, though they are paid handsomely for their time there, are easily lost in a legal no-man's-land if tragedy strikes.” The story of Tim Eysselinck’s suicide.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Depression in Battle-Injured Soldiers
10.06. Report, American Journal of Psychiatry.
and see accompanying story: PTSD Can Take Months to Strike Wounded Iraq and Afghanistan Vets (06.10.06. Forbes)

VA Takes Nine Months to Locate Data on Disability Claims by Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
10.10.06. National Security Archive. “Report Indicates that 1 in 4 Veterans of the Global War on Terrorism Claim Disabilities. … newly released data suggests official estimates dramatically understate the future cost of the current Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. If the current trend continues, then VA could receive as many as 400,000 disability claims from the 1.6 million deployed active duty and reserve service members in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).”

• Compensation and Pension Benefit Activity Among Veterans Deployed to the Global War on Terrorism (PDF document)
See VBA Report 20.07.06.

Montana Guardsmen bring home hidden wounds
16.10.06. E. Newhouse, Great Falls Tribune. "Every one of my guys (patients) except one from the 163rd witnessed IEDs (improvised explosive devices)," said Keli Remus of Chinook Winds Counseling in Great Falls. "All were shot at or have shot others," he said. "All had at least heard of rapes." Meanwhile, “Television images of Americans fighting — and dying — in Iraq are traumatizing Vietnam veterans all over again. See other stories from Montana Great Falls Tribune Newspaper.

Vet Centers see escalating demand for help as troops return
18.10.06. D. Goldstein, McClatchey.

Troops With Stress Disorders Being Redeployed
19.10.06. CBS. The cases of Bryce Syverson and Jason Gunn. Video.

Mind games, part 1: The things they carry
24.10.06. N. Goldstein, Raw Story. PART I, The things they carry: Mental health disorders among returning troops

(And in the UK ... )
One dead, four lives ruined: the true cost of war in Iraq (05.11.06. A. MacMillan, Scotsman) ‘In a tragic and moving illustration of the deep crisis facing Britain's armed services, a Scotland on Sunday investigation has found that four of the six soldiers who bore the coffin of a colleague shot dead in Iraq are either quitting in disgust or are on long-term sick leave and likely to quit.’

Iraq Study Group Report: the Way Forward – A New Approach To 06.12.06.

About Face: Soldiers Call for Iraq Withdrawal
18.12.06. M. Cooper, Nation / ICH. For the first time since Vietnam, an organized, robust movement of active-duty US military personnel has publicly surfaced to oppose a war in which they are serving. Those involved plan to petition Congress to withdraw American troops from Iraq.

US soldiers' suicide rate in Iraq doubles in 2005
19.12.06. Reuters/NBC. Twenty-two U.S. soldiers in Iraq took their own lives in 2005, a rate of 19.9 per 100,000 soldiers. In 2004, the rate was 10.5 per 100,000 and in 2003, the year of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the figure was 18.8 per 100,000. The figures cover U.S. Army soldiers only. They do not include members of other U.S. military services in Iraq such as the Marine Corps.

Repeat Iraq Tours Raise Risk of PTSD, Army Finds
20.12.06. Washington Post. U.S. soldiers serving repeated Iraq deployments are 50 percent more likely than those with one tour to suffer from acute combat stress, raising their risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, according to the Army's first survey exploring how today's multiple war-zone rotations affect soldiers' mental health.

Iraq Vets Falling Through Health-Care Cracks
20.12.06. Forbes

Experts: Iraq vets wrongly diagnosed
24.12.06. Austin American Statesman.fairuse. Soldiers suffering from the stress of combat in Iraq are being misdiagnosed by military doctors as having a personality disorder, lawyers and psychologists say, which allows them to be quickly and honorably discharged but stigmatizes them with a label that is hard to dislodge and can hurt them financially.

US soldiers exiting UH 60 Black Hawk

Soldiers and Imperial Presidents
03.01.06. Charles Sullivan, ICH. The vast majority of those who serve in the United States military probably do so with the best of intentions and with honor. The belief that they are defending their country from foreign attackers and doing their patriotic duty as citizens is persistently reinforced. Military service is one of America’s sacred cows; it is something that is rarely questioned and is surrounded by an invisible aura of nobility. No one, especially those who serve, wants to think of their time in the military as anything less than honorable and worthy of glorification.

But the trouble with sacred cows is that they tend to preclude critical examination and often escape the scrutiny of rational thinking and moral judgments. … Anyone considering military service should deliberate upon the promises proffered by recruiters with extreme skepticism. Recruiters are trained to exalt war as the highest expression of patriotism and love of country; when, in fact, it is often the most debasing expression of our humanity that makes a shallow mockery of real service to god and country. The war resister and the conscientious objector may be the true patriot. … Marketing militarism and war to society at large is no different than selling potato chips laced with trans-fats or carcinogenic chemicals

Iraq Vets Come Home Physically, Mentally Butchered
04.01.07. Aaron Glantz, anti-war. According to documents obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, 25 percent of veterans of the "global war on terror" have filed disability compensation and pension benefit claims with the Veterans Benefits Administration. … According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, service members with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder as a "treatable" problem.

Terrified Soldiers Terrifying People
09.01.07. D. Jamail, anti-war.com. "Dr. Dyni said disturbed soldiers were behind the worst atrocities. "Most murders committed by US soldiers resulted from the soldiers' fears."

About Face: Soldiers Call for Iraq Withdrawal
18.12.06. M. Cooper, The nation / ICH.

Iraq Vets Falling Through Health-Care Cracks
20.12.06. Forbes.

Poll: US Troops lose confidence in Bush
02.01.07. Washington Times.

3. The ‘Surge’

"Surge: (OED) A high rolling swell of water, esp. on the sea; a large, heavy or violent wave … “

Rattled America will find it can't spin itself out of this one
05.01.07. Bob Ellis, The Age. GEORGE Bush will be hard put persuading three, four or five thousand American soldiers, marines and reservists who have already been there to go back to Iraq this year, to face 4 million Sunnis displeased by the Saddam hanging. Hard put too to persuade Nuri al-Maliki to stay in office, and stay alive, till they get there.

Presidents Address to the Nation
10.01.07. The New Way Forward in Iraq. Speech given on Troop Surge on national television. “America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence and bring security to the people of Baghdad. This will require increasing American force levels. So I've committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq.”

Pentagon Abandonning Its Limit on Total Active-Duty Time Required of Guard and Reserve
12.01.07. AP / ABC.

US Forces Order of Battle
Global Security (no date) Initial war plans for Iraq had an initial American invasion force of about 130,000 soldiers and Marines, which would drop quickly to as few as 30,000 to 50,000 by the end of 2003. … As of 01 March 2006 there were 133,000 US troops in Iraq, down from about 160,000 in December 2005. … By June 2006 the US had 14 combat brigades in Iraq, and a total of 127,000 troops. … According to a 25 June 2006 report in the New York Times, a draft plan calls for significant reductions in the American military presence in Iraq by the end of 2007. … There were about 152,000 US troops in Iraq as of early October 2005. As of mid-November 2006, there were approximately 152,000 US troops deployed to Iraq. … On January 11, 2007, the Department of Defense announced, as part of President Bush's new strategy for Iraq, the following force adjustments which would result building the capacity available to commanders to 20 brigade or regimental combat teams.

Steve Bell, Guardian (11.01.07)

At Fort Benning, a Quiet Response to a Presidential Visit
11.01.07. AP/Washington Post. 'To ensure that there would be no discordant notes here, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, the base commander, prohibited the 300 soldiers who had lunch with the president from talking with reporters.’

What the surge means
12.01.07. Boston Globe. Interview with (retired) Brig Gen. K. Ryan

Video.
Sacrifice. Keith Oberman. The “new” Bush policy of ‘sacrifice,’ is the work of neo-conservatives Jack Keane and Frederic W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute – another Israeli lobby. An American senator called the plan “Alice in Wonderland,” according to an article by Paul Craig Roberts in Counterpunch.


Symbolically, Baghdad plunges into darkness (10.01.07. Ali al-Mawsawi, Azzaman, uruk) “There is no electricity in Baghdad and the city of nearly 6 million people spends its nights in total darkness. … Nearly four years after the U.S. invasion, the country still has less electricity than under the former leader Saddam Hussein who was executed last month. It is not only Baghdad that is plunged into darkness. The national grid is so rickety that no province in the country now enjoys non-interrupted supplies.”

4. Blowback

Iraq war vets take their opposition to escalation to the airwaves
Wavy.com.

AN APPEAL FOR REDRESS
1341 Active Duty, Reserve, and Guard personnel have now signed the appeal! Many active duty, reserve, and guard service members are concerned about the war in Iraq and support the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The Appeal for Redress provides a way in which individual service members can appeal to their Congressional Representative and US Senators to urge an end to the U.S. military occupation. The first Appeal signatures messages will be were delivered to members of Congress on January 16, to coincide with at the time of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January 2007. The wording of the Appeal for Redress is short and simple. It is patriotic and respectful in tone. As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq . Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.

Iraq vets' suicide rate soars. Video and Report. (15.01.07. Channel 4 news report)

Johnny Got His Gun
15.01.07. William Blum, Counterpunch. A report on how US govn. uses soldiers as Death Fodder.

The True Face Of This Administration Fully Revealed
16.01.07. Daily Kos. in the middle of the NYT article headed "Pressure Builds Over Plan for Troop Increase" is the following report … The article quoted a comment by a senior administration official that was outrageous. So appalling was it, and so revealing about the mindset behind the White House political tactics, that I cannot imagine in any other democracy that the person who made this statement would not immediately be told to resign from his non-elected high office of influence.

Bush Vs. War Powers Act
17.01.07. C. Nelson, Oh My News. ‘War Powers Act .. is very precise in the conditions it sets out for military deployments. Section 5 (b) puts a time limit of no longer than 90 days for the use of United States Armed Forces in a foreign nation without a declaration of war or a joint resolution of Congress otherwise authorizing the use of force.

"On the question as to who has ultimate say so, Section 5(c) of the War Power Resolution makes this crystal clear, stating, "Notwithstanding subsection (b), at any time that United States Armed Forces are engaged in hostilities outside the territory of the United States, its possessions and territories without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization, such forces shall be removed by the President if the Congress so directs by concurrent resolution." In other words, Congress can mandate the removal of troops at anytime, if there has not been a formal declaration of war. The required formal resolution to allow the use of Armed Forces to into Iraq was Public Law 107-243, passed by the 107th Congress on Oct. 16, 2002. The resolution accused Iraq of harboring people responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Congress also concluded that "Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security," and declared Iraq to be in "material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations" and urged the President “to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations."

In short, the authorization of force was based on the Weapons of Mass destruction theory, which was proven to be a lie based on old intelligence and Iraqi defectors. …

Once the justification for the Iraq resolution was found to be inaccurate and unsubstantiated, a new resolution for the immediate removal of our troops should have been issued by Congress, and a congressional hearing and investigation for gross misconduct and even possible criminal charges against Rumsfeld, Powell, Cheney and Bush himself should have been started.

The framers of the Constitution made clear that the United States Congress has the ultimate say so, and the War Powers Act merely reinforces that authority."

June 2006 Photo : Time
Double amputee Sgt. Christian Bagge prepares to jog with President Bush

A Grim Milestone: 500 Amputees
18.01.07. Time.com. The giant transport planes unload their sad cargo at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, the first stop home for the most seriously injured Americans of the Iraq war. Arriving virtually every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday nights for the past four years, the parade of wounded warriors may be one of the most predictable events in an otherwise unruly conflict.

Sick, Literally, of Fighting in Iraq
Aaron Glanz. ‘I don't know what happened to him in Iraq, but he came home very distressed," Tileston told Inter Press Service (IPS) from her home in Stanford, Kentucky. Tileston said her son had scars on the back of his head that he refused to talk about. When he was supposed to return to nearby Fort Campbell on Jan. 31 for a second tour in Iraq, he disappeared.’

Iraq Vets Come Home Physically, Mentally Butchered
Aaron Glanz. “New guidelines released by the Pentagon released last month allow commanders to redeploy soldiers suffering from traumatic stress disorders. According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, servicemembers with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder as a "treatable" problem.

Tomgram: Adam Hochschild, Over the Top in Iraq
21.01.07. Hochschild, Tomgram. The longer the war in Iraq goes on, and the more American troops are planted by Big Pushes in a highly combustible part of the world, the more we will continue to stoke a widespread humiliation and anger whose consequences are already guaranteed to haunt us for decades to come.

The first batch of US troops to Baghdad arrives
22.01.07. KBC

Soldiers Against Iraq Desert To Canada
25.01.07. CBS News

Head of Iraqi army: U.S. troops will be able to withdraw by 2008
26.01.07. IHT. ‘MOST” Troops, he said.

Warrior's Walk

‘Warriors Walk’ out of room
26.01.07. ASP / Army Times.

Unstable Gulf war veteran killed family
30.01.07. M. Wainwright, Guardian. UK horror.

Young Marine Dies of PTSD – and neglect
31.01.07. Bob Geiger, Alternet. ‘He died of wounds received during his seven-month tour of duty in Iraq, wounds different from the ones that earned Schulze two purple hearts. This young man died of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, of wounds to the soul and not the flesh. He died because the government that was there to send him far away to fight in 2004 wasn't there for him when he got home.’ Sere also comments.

Judge: Doctor Can't Treat Terrorists
31.01.07. AP / Guardian. Dr. Rafiq Abdus Sabir, an Ivy League-educated doctor, had argued it was unconstitutional to prosecute a doctor for providing medical services.

He was arrested in May 2005 at his home in Boca Raton, Fla., accused in a plot to assist terrorist organizations along with a New York jazz musician, a Brooklyn bookstore owner and a former Washington, D.C., cabdriver.

SENATOR ASKS VA TO EXPLAIN MARINE SUICIDE
01.02.07. Air Force Times.

Care for U.S. veterans could cost $662 bln: study
02.02.07. Reuters / Boston.com. Medical costs for U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could range from $350 billion to $662 billion over the next 40 years, as soldiers survive injuries that would have killed them in past conflicts, according to a Harvard University study.

Cost of troop surge already higher
01.02.07. McClatctchy. President Bush's dispatch of 21,500 more troops to Iraq will cost as much as $10 billion this year, triple the administration's price tag, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday. A CBO report requested by three House committee chairmen said the Bush administration's estimated cost of $3.2 billion doesn't take into account a complement of 15,000 to 28,000 support troops and other personnel, which it said will boost the cost significantly. … The troop increase will cost an extra $7 billion to $10 billion this year alone, with the price tag reaching $49 billion if the added forces remain in Iraq for two years, according to the CBO analysis.

Army division orders departing soldiers to stay put
01.02.07. Savannah now.

US troops will stay in Iraq, and the war will get worse
01.02.07. Harriman, Guardian. Bush and Baker agree that the country is much too important to American interests (oil?) to be left to its own devices

Surge could actually total 50,000
02.02.07. Army Times.

More IRR marines face involuntary call up
02.02.07. Marine Corps Times.

US Reconfigures the way casualty totals are given
02.02.07. DENISE GRADY, NY Times.

Soldiers in Iraq view troop surge as a lost cause
03.02.07. T. LASSSETER, MCCLATCHY/Common Dreams.

Bush: Military Commitment In Iraq Not Open-Ended
03.02.07. CBS.

Troops return to painful wait for needed help
05.02.07. Weaver / McGovern, ICH Blog. The California Nurses Association reported that in the first quarter of 2006, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs "treated 20,638 Iraq veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder, and they have a backlog of 400,000 cases." A returning soldier has to wait an average of 165 days for a VA decision on initial disability benefits, and an appeal can take up to three years.

Cost of troop buildup not in budget
06.02.07. Peter Spiegel, LA Times.

Why I fled George Bush's war
07.02.07. J. Key, Macleans. What happened to make a patriotic, gung-ho soldier desert the U.S. army, and turn against the war in Iraq. EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT

Boston Globe

Told to wait, a Marine dies
11.02.07. Boston.Globe. VA care in spotlight

VA comes up short for Iraq vets
11.02.07. McClatchy / Seattle Times. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is facing a wave of returning veterans such as Bowman who are struggling with memories of a war where it's hard to distinguish innocent civilians from enemy fighters and where the threat of suicide attacks and roadside bombs haunts the most routine mission. Since 2001, about 1.4 million Americans have served in Iraq, Afghanistan or other locations in the war on terror.
The VA counts post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, as the most prevalent mental-health malady to emerge from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The story itemises the failures of the Dept of Vet Affairs in helping returning soldiers

Waivers to Army recruits with criminal backgrounds double from 2003 to 2006
13.02.07. Raw Story / Global Research. ‘In Wednesday's New York Times, Lizette Alvarez notes that "the number of waivers the military granted to Army recruits with criminal backgrounds has nearly doubled in the past three years, jumping to more than 8,000 in 2006 from about 4,900 in 2003, Department of Defense records show."

U.S. to pay long-term price of war wounds Estimate pegs costs at $350 billion
14.02.07. Dogen Hannah, MEDIANEWS STAFF.

41% Percent of Your (US) 2006 Taxes Go to War
15.02.07. Friends Committee on National Legislation

US Ill-Equipped to Deal With Wave of Troubled Vets
15.02.07. Aaron Glantz.

The Forgotten Families
16.02.07. D. St. George, Washington Post. Grandparents Raising Slain Soldiers' Children Are Denied A Government Benefit Intended to Sustain the Bereaved.

Pentagon Red Tape Keeps Medical Records From Doctors of the Wounded
16.02.07. Washington Post. Department of Veterans Affairs doctors are furious over a recent decision by the Pentagon to block their access to medical information needed to treat severely injured troops arriving at VA hospitals from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The VA physicians handle troops with serious brain injuries and other major health problems. They, rely on digital medical records that track the care given wounded troops from the moment of their arrival at a field hospital through their evacuation to the United States.

US Army to send unit to Iraq 3 months early
16.02.07. alertnet. Iraq Troop Boost Erodes Readiness, General Says.

Iraq Troop Boost Erodes Readiness, General Says
16.02.07. A. Scott Tyson, Washington Post. 'Outgoing Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker said yesterday that the increase of 17,500 Army combat troops in Iraq represents only the "tip of the iceberg" and will potentially require thousands of additional support troops and trainers, as well as equipment - further eroding the Army's readiness to respond to other world contingencies.

Wounded and Waiting
17.02.07. K. Kennedy, Marine Times. A slow medical evaluation leaves many injured troops in limbo.

Long Iraq Tours Can Make Home a Trying Front
23.02.07. L. Alvarez, New York Times.

Battle Worn
25.02.07. P. Span, Washington Post. After he was injured in Iraq, Richard Twohig found himself fighting an unexpected foe: the U.S. Army.

IG Report
IG finds 87 problems with medical retirement
26.02.07. Army Times.

Critics: Army holding down disability ratings
27.02.07. Army Times.

Report: Mental health system overwhelmed
27.02.07. Army Times. 40% of Army, Navy psych jobs vacant.

In Iraq, a head wound isn't always a trip home
27.02.07. MSNBC. Military personnel with brain injuries pressured to return quickly to duty

How the war on terror made the world a more terrifying place
28.02.07. Sengupta / Cockburn, Independent / ICH. 'An authoritative US study of terrorist attacks after the invasion in 2003 contradicts the repeated denials of George Bush and Tony Blair that the war is not to blame for an upsurge in fundamentalist violence worldwide. The research is said to be the first to attempt to measure the "Iraq effect" on global terrorism. It found that the number killed in jihadist attacks around the world has risen dramatically since the Iraq war began in March 2003.'

5. Walter Reed Disaster

Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army's Top Medical Facility
18.02.07. D. Priest / A. Hull, Washington Post.

This Is No Way to Treat a Wounded Warrior
24.02.07. A. McFeeters, Boston Herald / Truth Out. Walter Reed Hospital's flaws are indefensible. A day at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is an eye-opener - about our soldiers, our government generally and the Bush administration. . I visited the renowned hospital after The , ashington Post exposed serious problems at the center, where as many as one-fourth of our injured soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan are treated.

Administrative Issues Cited at Walter Reed
25.02.07. S. Vogel, Washington Post. Report From Long-Running Army Probe Notes Problems; Official Orders Fixes.

A Firsthand Report on the Wounds of War
27.02.07. H. Kurtz, Washington Post. Bob Woodruff Indicts Military For Its Response to Veteran.

Walter Reed patients told to keep quiet
28.02.07. Army Times/democratic underground

Military press Crackdown Extends Further Than Walter Reed
28.02.07. Editor and Publisher.


Supporting the Troops: "Shut Up and Suffer"
28.02.07. Chris Floyd, uruknet. 'Because some soldiers were ballsy enough to tell the press about the callous way the Bush gang treats the cannon fodder it sends off to die, kill, maim and be maimed in a useless, pointless, illegal, corrupt, immoral, murderous, mismanaged war, now all the soldiers in Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s Medical Hold Unit are being subjected to a punishment regimen – and banished to an area where they will be inaccessible to the press.'

Troops Defy Orders To Shut Up
28.02.07. Thomas Barton, GI Special 5B28.

Top officials knew of neglect at Walter Reed
01.03.07. MSNBC. Complaints about medical center were voiced for years.

Army denies patients face daily inspections
01.03.07. Army Times/Democratic Underground

US army hospital chief removed from post
02.03.07. New Zealand Herald. r General George Weightman, head of the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, was informed that Army leaders had lost confidence "in his abilities to address needed solutions for soldier outpatient care," an Army statement said.

Notes on our 'family and friends' wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
01.03.07. Kentucky Courier Journal. Hundreds of soldiers maimed in Iraq and Afghanistan are experiencing average stays of 10 months at Walter Reed, but some have been there for as long as two years. They're all struggling to recover from brain

ARMY CASUALTY PROGRAM
02.03.07. Secrecy News. The somber duties associated with official reporting of U.S. Army casualties, including notification of survivors, are spelled out in exhaustive detail in a new Army regulation. See Army Casualty Program,"Army Regulation AR 600-8-1 (February 28, 2007)

Switch to private maintenance company may have left Walter Reed Army Medical Center understaffed
11.03.07. Washington Post /amny. The scandal over dilapidated housing for outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has focused attention on the decision to replace Army employees who maintained the hospital with a contractor connected to the Bush administration and to a Halliburton subsidiary. ... Some Democratic lawmakers have questioned hiring IAP Worldwide Services, which won a $120-million contract last year to maintain and operate Walter Reed facilities.

VA ordering review of 1,400 clinics after Walter Reed controversy
12.03.07. H. Yen, AP . boston com. 'Meanwhile, a new Army inspector general's report released Monday blamed poor training and conflicting policies among the Army and the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments for problems in how injured soldiers are evaluated for their return to military service or retirement.'

Photo Eric Gray
Seargant F. Fields and Staff Sgt. B. Alexander at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas (01.03.07)

And in the UK?
Scandal of treatment for wounded Iraq veterans
11.03.07. N. Temko / M. Townsend, 11.03.07. Observer. · Soldiers 'denied proper hospital care' · Letters reveal anguish of families See also: The fresh agonies of our returning soldiers (Observer 11.03.07). Following, there was anger of the maimed Iraq heroes forced to pay for medical care

UPDATE:
3rd Official Out in Walter Reed Scandal
13.03.07. NBC. Army surgeon general Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is under fire in the controversy over care of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, will resign.

UPDATE
Where Walter Reed Looks Pretty Good
13.03.07. Tom Paine. But I’d like to point out that there are thousands of casualties of the Iraq War who would be grateful to be in Building 18 and receiving even second-rate medical care. Those are Iraqi civilians—the collateral damage of a vengeful, brainless military venture. These are people who didn’t volunteer to invade another country, and who have had no way to avoid the consequences of war. . While 90 percent of American battlefield casualties are being saved by a combination of organization and the very best trauma equipment and training, local Iraqis have no such advantage. Iraqi civilians are not in constant contact with helicopter-borne medical teams, field hospitals and a chain of treatment, airlifts and follow-up care.

6. Scrambling The Surge

Mercenaries to fill Iraq troop gap
24.02.07. B. Brady, Scotsman.

Rice Says Bush Won't Abide By Legislation To Limit Iraq War
25.02.07. kotv.

Two Army Units Will Forgo Desert Training
27.02.07. R. Burns, AP / Truth Out. 'Rushed by President Bush's decision to reinforce Baghdad with thousands more U.S. troops, two Army combat brigades are skipping their usual session at the Army's premier training range in California and instead are making final preparations at their home bases.

Military chiefs give US six months to win Iraq war
28.02.07. S. Tisdall, The Guardian. Violence expected to rise after UK withdrawal · Troop numbers too low · Coalition is 'disintegrating'

Snow: Troops 'rushed' to Iraq due to Bush 'surge' can get their desert training 'in theater'
28.02.07. Ron Brynaert, Raw Story. Earlier today, AP military writer Robert Burns reported that "[r]ushed by President Bush's decision to reinforce Baghdad with thousands more U.S. troops, two Army combat brigades are skipping their usual session at the Army's premier training range in California and instead are making final preparations at their home bases."

U.S. builds Baghdad garrisons to fight violence
05.03.07. Reuters / Sign On San Diego. Petraeus brainstorm. Troops are being moved from ‘sprawling bases’ (sic) to small outposts. More than a dozen have opened. ( Brill. And all that money given to Halliburton, KBR, Parsons ad nauseum for ZILCH?). Barry Lando picks up on this irony in his article, Total Withdrawal, Who Are You Kidding?

7. One Day in Iraq: March 6 2007

Attacks kill 112 Shi'ite pilgrims in Iraq 06.03.07. Habib al Zubaidi, Reuters Factbox: Security developments in Iraq, March 6 06.03.07. Another 73 killed as U.S. occupation grinds on: total of 25 bodies were found shot dead on Monday in different districts of Baghdad, police said. Mosul: Car bombs killing 5, wounding 18. … the story goes mercilessly on … Fear for Iraq crackdown as 12 U.S. soldiers die 06.03.07. Daily Mail. Afghan children die as US drops one-tonne bombs 06.03.07. J. Huggler, Independent. Nine civilians, including four children, were killed in Afghanistan when US planes dropped two 2,000lb bombs on their mud home. Their deaths came after at least eight civilians were killed by US Marines a day earlier. It has been a disastrous two days for the Americans in Afghanistan. Marines trying to get to safety after being ambushed by a suicide bomber sprayed gunfire wildly across one of the busiest roads in the country, killing passers-by. 9 GIs Killed By Roadside Bombs In Iraq 06.03.07. CBS. Elsewhere: 30 Bodies Found Around Baghdad; 38 Dead In Book Market Blast; Dozens Of Shiite Pilgrims Bush says gradual progress in Iraq despite violence 06.03.07. R. Cowen, Reuters/Washington Post.

8. ‘Surge’ II?

'Surge' needs up to 7,000 more troops
02.03.07. USA Today/ICH.

Shortages Threaten Guard's Capability
02.03.07. A.S. Tyson, Washington Post. 88 Percent of Units Rated 'Not Ready'

The Last Hot-Button Issue for the Bush Administration
06.03.07. Tom Engelhardt. Hostages to Policy.Tom Engelhardt writes: ‘According to a congressional staffer quoted in human-rights lawyer Scott Horton's No Comment newsletter, "This is Hurricane Katrina all over again. Grossly incompetent management and sweetheart contracts given to contractors with tight GOP connections. There will be enough blame to go around, but the core of the problem is increasingly clear: it's political appointees near the center of power in the Pentagon who have spun the system for partisan and personal benefit. But they'll make a brigade of soldiers and officers walk the plank to try to throw us off the scent."

Vermont: 36 towns call for impeachment probe of president
06.03.07. Vermont Guardian.

Pentagon will likely shift funds to pay for more troops
06.03.07. McClatchy / antiwar.com

When a Leader Missteps, a World Can Go Astray
06.03.07. Michiko Kakytani, NY Times / ICH. Mr. Brzezinski’s verdict on the current president’s record — “catastrophic,” he calls it — is nothing short of devastating. And his overall assessment of America’s current plight is worrying as well: - Fifteen years after its coronation as global leader, America is becoming a fearful and lonely democracy in a politically antagonistic world.”

Pentagon raises estimate of troops for Iraq
07.03.07. Reuters/smh.

At least 110 pilgrims die in suicide attacks as US admits extra 7,000 troops may go to Iraq
07.03.07. I. Black, Guardian. · Army says more soldiers needed for Baghdad surge · Latest assault echoes attack on Samarra shrine

Paul Craig Roberts asks: How Much More Harm Can Bush Do? (07.03.07, anti-war.com)

Buildup in Iraq Needed Into ’08, U.S. General Says
08.03.07. D. Cloud, NY Times / antiwar.com

Beyond Quagmire
09.03.07. T. Dickenson, Rolling Stone / ICH. A panel of experts convened by Rolling Stone agree that the war in Iraq is lost. The only question now is: How bad will the coming explosion be? "The war in Iraq isn't over yet, but -- surge or no surge -- the United States has already lost. That's the grim consensus of a panel of experts assembled by Rolling Stone to assess the future of Iraq. "Even if we had a million men to go in, it's too late now," says retired four-star Gen. Tony McPeak, who served on the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War. "Humpty Dumpty can't be put back together again."

Bush sends new Iraq budget request to US Congress
10.03.07. Reuters / Washington Post. It will cost about $3 billion to send extra U.S. troops to Iraq in support of the 21,500 already being deployed under President George W. Bush's reworked war strategy, the White House said on Saturday.

Pentagon Struggles to Find Fresh Troops
10.03.07. L. Baldor, AP . Huffington Post.

Bush: 8,200 More Troops Needed for Wars
11.03.07. D. Riechmann, AP /Guardian. President Bush asked Congress on Saturday for $3.2 billion to pay for 8,200 more U.S. troops needed in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of the 21,500-troop buildup he announced in January

Video
09.02.07. Channel 4 - News - On patrol with the 'surge'

The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq
11.03.07. M. Benjamin, Salon.com. At Fort Benning, soldiers who were classified as medically unfit to fight are now being sent to war. Is this an isolated event or ia trend?

Bush asks Congress for even more Iraq troops
12.03.07. E. MacAskill, Guardian. President George Bush has asked Congress for an extra 8,000 troops for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, on top of the 21,500 reinforcements announced two months ago.

Netanyahu: Attack on Iran 'last resort'
12.03.07. Jerusalem Post. At an AIPAC speech, Cheney said that failure in Iraq would endanger Israel. .. Cheney warned of "chaos and mounting danger," as well as a strengthened Iran and emboldened terrorists - in the case of an early American withdrawal from Iraq.

Fallback strategy for Iraq: Train locals, draw down forces
12.03.07. Barnes / Spiegal, LA Times. From legitgov newsletter : 'If the current 'surge' fails, planners suggest relying on 'advisors' [death squads] as the U.S. did in El Salvador in the 1980s. By Julian E. Barnes and Peter Spiegel 12 Mar 2007 American military planners have begun plotting a fallback strategy for Iraq in case the current troop buildup fails or is derailed by Congress. Such a strategy is based in part on the U.S. experience in El Salvador in the 1980s [...], according to military officials and Pentagon consultants who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing future plans. Years after, the U.S. role in El Salvador remains controversial. Some academics have argued that the U.S. military turned a blind eye to government-backed death squads, or even aided them.' Now see Time magazine story, The Pentagon may put Special-Forces-led assassination or kidnapping teams in Iraq and researched articles on such 'teams' at The BRussels Tribunal

A Quarter of US War Vets Diagnosed With Mental Disorder: Study
12.03.07. Agence France / Truth Out. Has Anyone Done a Study on the Mental Disorder in the White House and US government - and perhaps On The Hill as well?

9. Nero Fiddles

Bush Suffers First Iraq Defeat in Congress
17.02.07. J. Lobe, anti-war. 'In a significant defeat for President George W. Bush, the House of Representatives Friday voted 246 to 182 to "disapprove" his plan to add an estimated 30,000 U.S. troops to the 140,000 marines and soldiers already deployed in Iraq. Seventeen Republicans voted with the majority Democrats to approve the nonbinding resolution.

Baghdad on the Potomac?
20.02.07. Townhall. 'Both houses of Congress have now gone on record opposing Bush's dispatch of 21,500 more troops to Iraq. Yet neither house is willing to end U.S. involvement by cutting off funding for the war.'

Contempt (Oxford English Dictionary): ‘The action of despising; the mential action in which a thing is of little account, or as vile and worthless; dishonour, disgrace. Object of contempt: disobedience or open disrespect to the authority or lawful commands of the sovereign, the priviledges of (the) legislative body; and especially action of any kind that interferes with the proper administration of justice by the various courts of law.

V.P Dick Cheney

Does Cheney ‘Validate’ al-Qaeda?
01.03.07. Consortium. Vice President Dick Cheney says he stands by his accusation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plan for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq would “validate the al-Qaeda strategy.” And he apparently thinks he got the better of this latest war of words. Cheney has another undemocratic rant whilst speaking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Here is an example of US/Cheney 'take' on patriotism: "Anyone can say they support the troops and we should take them at their word, but the proof will come when it's time to provide the money."

Waxman to Force Walter Reed Ex-Chief to Talk About problems
02.03.07. Rood / Schechter, ABC/LEGITGOV. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Henry Waxman, D-Calif., wants to ask Maj. Gen. George W. Weightman about a contract to manage the medical center awarded to a company that had documented troubles fulfilling a government contract to deliver ice to victims of Hurricane Katrina. According to a letter from Waxman to Weightman posted today on the committee's Web site, the chairman believes the Walter Reed contract may have pushed dozens of health care workers to leave jobs at the troubled medical center, which he says in turn threatened the quality of care for hundreds of military personnel receiving treatment there. In the letter, Waxman charged that the Army used an unusual process to award a five-year, $120 million contract to manage the center to a company owned by a former executive of Halliburton.

Democrats Alter Plan To Restrict Iraq War
06.03.07. J. Weisman, Washington Post / ICH. Senior House Democrats, seeking to placate members of their party from Republican-leaning districts, are pushing a plan that would place restrictions on President Bush's ability to wage the war in Iraq but would allow him to waive them if he publicly justifies his position.

Democrats demand troops out of Iraq by 2008
08.03.07. MacAskill / Borger, Guardian. · Bold new strategy would veto war funding · Bush faces dilemma over withdrawal timetable

Iraq: Pulled Out Or Pushed Out
09.03.07. R. Dreyfuss, Tome Paine. Two parliaments, half a world away from each other, struggled with calls to end the war in Iraq yesterday. In Washington, Democrats in the U.S. Congress ended weeks of squabbling to settle on the outlines of a legislative plan to end the war no later than August, 2008, and perhaps sooner. Meanwhile, in Baghdad, a new constellation of political parties is beginning to take shape in the Iraqi parliament, united around the idea of asking U.S. forces to leave Iraq as soon as possible. Tremendous obstacles stand in the way of pro-peace forces both in Congress and in Iraq’s parliament, but if I had to guess, I’d bet that the Iraqis will ask the United States to get out of Iraq long before Congress can force the issue.

Pelosi Cautions Bush Not to Veto an Iraq Bill
11.03.07. C. Hulse, NY Times.

10. What, Exactly, Are We Dying For?

Further Contempt?

Life Distilled
"The Defense Department made the photos public with few dates or locations and little context, making it unclear whether the individuals in any of the hundreds of pictures died in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere. The faces of soldiers accompanying the coffins were blacked out."

Return of the Fallen
28.04.05. National Security Archive. PENTAGON RELEASES HUNDREDS MORE WAR CASUALTY HOMECOMING IMAGES. FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT FORCES OPENING OF 360 NEW PHOTOS

What, Exactly, Are We Dying For?
26.10.06. Ronn Cantu, IVAW. ‘I think it was after my first firefight in Iraq, I've forgotten the exact time and date but it was after midnight one day in April 2004, that I first asked myself, “What, exactly, did we almost die for?” It seemed to me at the time that there was never a plan. What was our mission exactly? What was our goal? What, exactly, were we there to accomplish? Why were soldiers dying?’

Pentagon alters how wounded are calculated
02.02.07. D. Grady, NY Times/ICH. Statistics on a Pentagon Web site have been reorganized in a way that lowers the published totals of American nonfatal casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An Open Letter to America's Soldiers from the Ranks The Looming Shadow of Nuremberg
07.02.07. TONY SWINDELL, Counterpunch. Crimes Listed by the Nuremberg Standard of 1947: a war of aggression, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for its accomplishment; murder or ill-treatment of civilian populations in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war; plunder of public or private property; wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity; c! rimes against humanity such as murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war. Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Fallujah, the rape of Lebanon, the concentration camps in the West Bank and Gaza, clandestine prisons, the Iraq embargo of the 1990s, Halliburton, and Black Water. There are more, but these will suffice to compare against the Nuremberg Standard. It will not be a difficult task. For example, start with Halliburton and the plunder of public (American taxpayers') property.

Pentagon Lies with Stats
10.02.07. Boston Herald, Editorial. Archive. 'The Pentagon is playing a shameful numbers game and this week in Washington Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) blew the whistle on it. . One set of “official” numbers for troops wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq lists the figure at about 23,000. But the actual number of those injured in those two theaters of operation is more than double that - around 53,000.' For NY Times Abstract, see here

Number of US troops killed in Iraq breaks record
11.02.07. The Int. News. ‘More US troops were killed in combat in Iraq over the past four months, at least 334 through Jan 31, than in any comparable stretch since the war began, according to an Associated Press analysis of casualty records. Not since the bloody battle for Fallujah in 2004 has the death toll spiked so high. It is not possible to fully track the trend in bomb-caused deaths by month. The US military considers such information secret because it is considered potentially useful to the insurgents and their backers.… Now, under a new approach announced by Bush on Jan 10, US troops will be paired up with Iraqi brigades in each of nine districts across Baghdad, rather than operating mainly from large US bases.’ some further interesting details given.

U.S. deaths in Afghanistan, region
21.02.07. AP / Boston. As of Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007, at least 305 members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. TheDefense Department last updated its figures Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007. . Of those, the military reports 193 were killed by hostile action.

Unacceptable death toll in Iraq, say Americans
28.02.07. Angus Reid. 77% of respondents believe the number of U.S. military casualties and Iraqi civilian casualties has been unacceptable.

US commanders admit: we face a Vietnam-style collapse
01.03.07. Simon Tisdall, Guardian/uruk.net. Elite officers in Iraq fear low morale, lack of troops and loss of political will.

The Mother of an Iraq War Vet Responds
01.03.07. T. Richards, Counterpunch. Demoralizing the troops.
Those were the words that inspired me to challenge Orin Hatch (R-UT) in the Senate hearing a few weeks ago. Those were the words that echoed so loudly in my mind I couldn't, no, I wouldn't stay silent.

Operation Iraq Freedom US Casualty Status (02.03.07)

Malaise from Iraq spreads
03.03.07. FT.

From Serving in Iraq To Living on the Streets
05.03.07. C. Davenport, Washington Post. Homeless Vet Numbers Expected to Grow.

How Many More Americans Must Die?
06.03.07. D. Thompson, Capitol Hill Blue/ VAIW. Nine more U.S. soldiers died in Iraq today: Nine too many in a war that should never have been launched by a President who lied with the approval of a Congress that failed to do its due diligence because both Democrats and Republicans abandoned their oath to the Constitution of the United States.

REPORT: 72 Percent Of Army Brigades Have Served Multiple Tours of Duty
07.03.07. Think Progress.

Not Found
"The requested URL /4 n/US Military Deaths in Iraq at 3,168 Soldiers Killed Directly, But 3,968 When Adding Pentagon Contractors.htm was not found on this server."

Number of US troops killed in Iraq breaks record
09.03.07. The Int. News. ‘More US troops were killed in combat in Iraq over the past four months, at least 334 through Jan 31, than in any comparable stretch since the war began, according to an Associated Press analysis of casualty records. Not since the bloody battle for Fallujah in 2004 has the death toll spiked so high. It is not possible to fully track the trend in bomb-caused deaths by month. The US military considers such information secret because it is considered potentially useful to the insurgents and their backers.… Now, under a new approach announced by Bush on Jan 10, US troops will be paired up with Iraqi brigades in each of nine districts across Baghdad, rather than operating mainly from large US bases.’ some further interesting details given.

Iraq: The Hidden Cost of The War
09.03.07. New Statesman / ICHblog. America won't simply be paying with its dead. The Pentagon is trying to silence economists who predict that several decades of care for the wounded will amount to an unbelievable $2.5 trillion.

Lift the Curtain
10.03.07. B. Herbert, NYTimes / ICH. Neglect, incompetence, indifference, lies. Why in the world is anyone surprised that the Bush administration has not been taking good care of wounded and disabled American troops?

Volunteer Soldiers Devastated by iraq Weren't 'Asking For It'
10.03.07. S. Bannerman, Alternet. "They volunteered, didn't they?" is a common sneering response to the stories about National Guardsmen whose lives were destroyed by Iraq -- the truth is that going to war is not what they signed up for.

How the US is Courting Disaster in Iraq
10.03.07. P. Bidwai, Khalee Taimes. THE United States’ political-military failure in Iraq will have terrible consequences for the entire world. And the US seems to be failing-badly. . While its occupation forces continue their anti-insurgent offensive, Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki’s government appears shaky. Its collapse will signify the US’s greatest political failure in Iraq. This could happen if Al Maliki yields to US pressure to end his dependence on Shia cleric Moqtada Al Sadr. . The recent raid by coalition troops on the interior Ministry’s intelligence headquarters has further embarrassed the embattled Prime Minister. Their "security sweep" in Baghdad and Anbar province has had extremely limited success.

41% Percent of Your 2006 Taxes Go to War

11. Future Deaths: Radiation & DU

Iraqi children born deformed

DU Death Toll Tops 11,000
29.10.06. James Tucker, American Free Press. Nationwide Media Blackout Keeps U.S. Public Ignorant About This Important Story. The death toll from the highly toxic weapons component known as depleted uranium (DU) has reached 11,000 soldiers.

Depleted Uranium Haunts Kosovo and Iraq
05.11.06. Scott Peterson, Global Research.

Is Depleted Uranium the suspect behind Military Suicides?
19.11.06. G. Mitchell, uruknet. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has become an epidemic amongst soldiers/sailors serving and veterans who have returned from the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reasons are being depicted as purely psychological, but this seems to be very misleading.

Army made video warning about dangers of depleted uranium but never showed it to troops
06.02.07. David Edwards, Raw Story.

IRAQ WAR LIES AND MENDACIOUS JOURNALISTS
(UNSIGNED, 14.02.07. Free Market News. Here is an ignorant and irresponsible article by the 'right-wing' press.

Depleted Uranium: Pernicious Killer Keeps on Killing
19.02.07. Craig Etchison, Truth Out. Discusses The Questions; What is DU and why is it a problem; Assessing the effects of DU; International Condemnation; Why Ignore the Evidence?. Following are 2 paragraphs from The Conclusions: 'I suspect the military-industrial complex will stonewall admitting the effects of DU for as long as possible to avoid accepting responsibility, not to mention liability, for their reckless actions. When John Hanchette, a founding editor of USA Today tried to publish stories about DU, he received a phone call from the Pentagon asking him to desist. He was later replaced at USA Today. The World Health Organization's chief expert on radiation and health had his report on DU suppressed. Dr. Asaf Durakovic, then a colonel in the U.S. Army, was asked to lie about the risks of DU to humans. So the stonewalling will continue, even as cancers rage among our soldiers and Iraqi civilians, even as our soldiers die, or commit suicide to escape the horrific pain, even as birth defects proliferate across Iraq and among our veterans.

But what of that? DU is a moneymaker for corporations like ATK. And turning DU into munitions helps the government solve a big problem-what to do with mountains of DU it must store and, by law, keep out of the environment. What better solution than giving it free to the munitions makers, who then sell the munitions back to Uncle Sam at a handsome profit? Everyone wins.

Nuclear Test Facility Avoids Penalties for Radiation Exposure
28.02.07. Daily Nexus.

See letter by Dai Williams in Camp Falcon: What Really Happened?

VIDEO POISON DUST. Poison DUst tells the story of young soldiers who thought they came home safely from the war, but didn't. Of a veteran's young daughter whose birth defect is strikingly similar to birth defects suffered by many Iraqi children. … Is there a cover-up?

Photo 1952

Livermore may lead labs in building new H-bomb
02.03.07. Inside Bay Area. First new 'replacement warhead' in 20 years to be announced today. See also article by Ralph Vartabebian

Feds Tried to Cut Aid
10.03.07. Rocky Mountain News / ICH. Federal officials secretly schemed to limit payouts for sick and dying nuclear weapons workers, including thousands from the Rocky Flats plant outside Denver, newly released documents show.

MEANWHILE

VIDEO. We Have Been Abandoned by Our Own Country. "Bureaucracy has committed murder here in the greater New Orleans area, and bureaucracy has to stand trial before Congress now. " ICH: ‘ You have to watch this video to understand, how little regard our government has for the welfare of its own citizens.’

Pack and pray. That's what they told us.'
Katrina victims evacuate FEMA park
05 Mar 2007. Time. legitgov writes: Dozens of families evacuated from a FEMA trailer park that had been plagued by sewage leaks and power outages [as in Iraq] were in temporary homes Monday, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it had requested work permits to dismantle the site this week. Allsee Tobias lost his New Orleans home in Katrina's flooding and then was told to leave his Hammond trailer over the weekend. He and about 20 relatives, including 10 children, lived in four trailers, and were anxious about being split up. "Pack and pray. That's what they told us," he said. [ Lori writes: Katrina victims can 'pack and pray' while Bush's private contractors at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq can enjoy, at a budget of $923M per year, 'an ornate former Saddam Hussein palace with soaring ceilings and its own espresso bar.'

Ark. gov. 'frustrated' with tornado response
06.03.07. USA Today / legitgov. Beebe told reporters he did not understand why a federal declaration had not been made for Dumas, where a tornado wiped out dozens of homes and businesses last month.

World in Crisis; Candidates in Denial
06.03.07. S. Landau. Monkey Politics. Bush (is) spending $600 billion to prosecute his Iraq War, exceeding the amount spent on the Vietnam War. Bush says it (the prosecution of the Iraq War) is for security. He excludes national health from security, however. His proposed budget would slash almost $80 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over five years. Obviously, the long-range value of Middle East adventures outweighs health care for America's grandparents and its 50 million poor.

12. References

Aaron Glanz, How America Lost Iraq, Tarcher (Reprint), March 2006

The Deserter's Tale
Audio, ICH. US Soldier Joshua Key has told Tony Jones about his new book, which concludes that American soldiers were behaving like terrorists in the Iraq war, as a result of their training.

IRAQ WAR LIES AND MENDACIOUS JOURNALISTS
UNSIGNED, Free Market News, 14.02.07. An irresponsible and uneducated article by a person who should have had the courage to print their name.

Iraq veteran groups in the US
See left column.


PHOTOS AND ARTICLES

Armed Forces and Hadji Girl

UNSPEAKABLE GRIEF AND HORROR


VIDEOS / FILMS

How GI Resistance Altered the Course of History
03.04.06. P. Rockwell, In Motion Magazine. "Sir, No Sir," A timely film, premiers week of 4/3/2006.

Video Sir No Sir!

Video.
No Bravery. (4 min.)

Video Service members rally against the war in Iraq
15.01.07. McMicchale, Navy Times / Truth out. . Appeal for Redress.

Videos show Iraq war through troops' eyes.
20.02.06. L. Pulkkinen. Videos / urls for: may God have mercy on our soul; Kauder's video that he made for his fallen squad mate; G. Algozzini videos; iron pony express; Others. Good story.!!!

Video.
US_Soldiers_Run_an_Iraqi_Off_the_Road. It would probably be nice to check on the guy that you just caused to roll his truck. To see if he's, you know, dead or something.

Video. Support our Troops? Michael Parenti.

Video. On patrol with the ‘surge’ in Baghdad. Channel 4 News (09.02.07)

Video Women soldiers have died of dehydration to avoid late night trips to toilet. (10.03.05, Amy Goodman.

Video. The Deserter's Tale US Soldier Joshua Key has told Tony Jones about his new book, which concludes that American soldiers were behaving like terrorists in the Iraq war, as a result of their training.

Video.The Century of the Self. Part II, The Engineering of Consent


Video. Can you spell Impeachment?

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This article will also be seen at http://www.brusselstribunal.org/Meyer/UStroops.htm.

The url to Index on US Troops is: http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2007/03/index-on-us-troops.html or you can use http://tinyurl.com/23j8ea

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Other Iraq articles on Index Research:

US Bases in Iraq. Part I: Baghdad

US/UK Bases in Iraq. Part II. The South: Falcon-al-Sarq, Tallil, Shaibah

Iraqs US/UK Permanent Bases: Intentional Obfuscation

Iraq: The Occupation is the Disease

Iraq: Assassination of Academics: The Jalili Report

Prisons and Torture in Iraq

Victims of Violence

Iraq: Security Companies and Training Camps

See also:

Totalitarianism and Obedience
13.02.07. Sarah Meyer, Index Research. Updated.

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Sarah Meyer is a researcher living in the UK

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Tags: Index Research, US Troops, trauma, Walter Reed, Congress, Iraq, DU, news and politics,