VOICES NEWSLETTER # 46 (May / June 2006)

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"Civil War"
US bombing escalates
The looming battle for Baghdad
No more Fallujahs
Iran: No basis for aggression, no bases for aggression
Massacres
"Moderates", "extremists" and the flow of oil
Tal Afar: the "free city"
"No blood, no foul"
Zahara and Abbas
Food ration cut
7/7 reports
Take action!
Resistance round-up
Resources

"Civil War"
“No matter where you look – at their military, their police, their society – things are much better [in Iraq] this year than they were last”– Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace on NBC’s “Meet the Press” (AP, 5 Mar)

“A cruel and bloody civil war has started in Iraq … I have been visiting Iraq since 1978, but for the first time, I am becoming convinced that the country will not survive” – Patrick Cockburn, Independent Middle East correspondent (Independent, 8 Apr).

Three years after George W Bush declared an end to “major combat operations”, Iraq ‘has effectively broken up’ with most of the country now ‘dominated by a single ethnic or religious group’ (Independent, 4 Apr) and a continuous wave of horrific sectarian violence is claiming dozens of lives on a daily basis. However, like the ongoing horrors of the occupation itself, the occupation’s role in helping to create the current situation – by fostering sectarian institutions, using Shia and Kurdish forces to fight a predominantly Sunni insurgency, helping to create many of the paramilitary groups now terrorising parts of the country, and acting as a de facto recruiting agent for suicide bombers, many of which have targeted Shia civilians – usually goes unmentioned in “respectable” commentary.

By the end of April more than 100,000 people – including substantial numbers of both Sunni and Shia - had fled their homes since the 22 Feb bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra (FT, 4 May) and ‘[i]n March the Baghdad morgue received 1,294 bodies, more than double the 596 received in March 2005’ (New York Times, 10 May). Nearly 90% of these were violent deaths, most the result of gunfire, while in Basra the number of such deaths ‘is now at a level close to that of Baghdad’ (Independent, 17 May).

Much of this violence is apparently being perpetrated by elements of the Iraqi Government, which has been ‘actively pursu[ing] a policy of rounding up and torturing innocent men and women’ (Amnesty International USA, 5 Mar) and which the US is simultaneously allied with and struggling to control. Moreover, whilst there appears to be little or no evidence that the US is orchestrating the current wave of death-squad killings that have been linked to the Iraqi Interior Ministry, many of the groups that are believed to be involved ‘were set up with the help of the American military’ (Independent, 27 Mar) and have been used by the US in its own counterinsurgency operations.

Not “age old hatreds”
There seems to be little or no evidence that the current killings are a manifestation of deep primordial hatreds or desire for separation. Indeed, in a poll conducted in late Mar, 96% of Iraqis condemned the bombing of the al-Askari shrine, 59% were opposed to the extreme forms of federalism.enshrined in the new Iraqi constitution, and 80% wanted to see armed militias abolished (http://tinyurl.com/nw6r2).

As the US steps up its aerial bombing campaign and plans to launch a “second liberation” of Baghdad this summer the anti-war movement must continue to resist the horrors of the occupation as it pushes for withdrawal. But it also needs to vigorously contest the dominant narrative that the US and British governments are innocent bystanders in Iraq’s current sectarian strife and that their presence can help to stop the country sliding into full-blown civil war. In reality, the opposite is true.

US bombing escalates
In ‘a change of tactics that may foreshadow how the [US] plans to battle a still-strong insurgency while reducing the number of US ground troops’ US warplanes under the control of US Central Command attacked at least 22 Iraqi cities between 1 Oct 05 – 28 Feb 06 - twice the number struck during the same five-month period one year earlier (Knight Ridder, 14 Mar).

Daily bombing runs and jet-missile launches also increased by more than 50% between the two periods. Indeed, ‘U.S. and coalition planes dropped bombs or missiles on Iraqi cities on at least 76 days from [1 Oct 05 - 28 Feb 06] - or one out of every two days. During the same period a year earlier, bombs or missiles struck on only 49 days.’ ‘Bombs were [also] dropped on more days in each of the [five months Oct 05 through Feb 06] than they were for the same months the previous year.’

Hussein Ali Jaafar, who owns a stationery shop in the town of Balad, north of Baghdad – which was targeted by bombs or missiles at least 27 times between Oct 05 and Feb 06 - told KR: “Residents worry that their homes will be bombed at any time. Most of the bombing is unjustified and random. It does not differentiate between militants and innocent people.’

‘Knight Ridder compiled the statistics from about 300 daily press releases provided by the U.S. Central Command’s air forces unit, which describes itself as the “predominant owner of air assets in the region”’ – but these releases don’t include attacks by Marine Corps units, so the total number of bombings is probably higher. eg. During the massive Nov 04 US assault on Fallujah ‘aircraft, comprised mostly of jets and helicopters from 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, dropped or launched more than 500 precision-guided munitions against … targets in the city’ (Marine Corps News, 3 Jan 05, emphasis added).

Since Feb the bombing has continued: on 4 May U.S. planes bombed a house in Ramadi, killing at least 11 people – including two girls and a boy aged eight – according to Muhannad al-Fahadawi, a doctor at the main hospital (Reuters, 5 May). In an all too familiar pattern the US military denied that any civilians had been killed, but ‘ local television footage showed the body of a boy lying in the rubble of a house.’

The looming battle for Baghdad
The US military is planning a “second liberation of Baghdad” to be carried out by the Iraqi army ‘supported by American air power, special operations, intelligence, embedded officers and back-up troops’(Sunday Times, 16 Apr).

The operation – strategic and tactical plans for which are being laid by US commanders in Iraq and at the US army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas - is ‘likely to take place towards the end of the summer.’

No More Fallujahs
A Weekend of Nonviolent Resistance to the Occupation of Iraq.
28-29 Oct 2006, London.
Organised by the Mass Action Group and supported by Voices UK, Iraq Occupation Focus, JNV and others.

In Nov 2004, the US - with British assistance - launched a massive assault against the Iraqi city of Fallujah, almost totally destroying it, killing hundreds of civilians, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes, and using white phosphorus - a substance that burns down to the bone - as a weapon.
Since then at least 22 Iraqi towns and cities have been attacked by US led forces and Fallujah itself has been turned into a virtual police state.
Please join us on the 28/29 October for a weekend of nonviolent resistance to the ongoing occupation of Iraq:

Sat 28 Oct: Peace walk from the UK’s military nerve centre in Northwood into central London.

Sun 29 Oct: “Unauthorised” 24-hour peace camp in Parliament Square to demand an end to the occupation. Assemble 12 noon, Parliament Square. The camp will begin with Maya Evans and Milan Rai reading the names of 100 Iraqis who have died as a result of US/UK military action - one year after their arrest for doing this in Oct 2005. (NB: Under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act participation in such an “unauthorised” demonstration is a criminal offence punishable by a fine of up to £1000.) Accommodation will be available on request on the evenings of 27 and 28 Oct (contact Voices)

Help wanted!

*Sponsor a tent
In addition to the tents that participants will be bringing themselves, the organisers are hoping to provide several dozen tents decorated with powerful anti-war art and texts. To help pay for these a call is being made for people and groups to sponsor tents (minimum donation £15).

Any tents not in police custody at 12 noon on 30 Oct will be collected and distributed among the sponsors! Please contact Voices if you or your local group would like to sponsor a tent.

Volunteers to take responsibility for these tents on the day are also needed.
Local group support - contact voices if your local peace/anti-war/church/union etc… group would like to be listed as a supporter of the weekend.

*Anti-war art needed
If you can help with anti-war art to decorate the tents in the camp on 29 Oct, please contact voices!

Help spread the word
A publicity leaflet for the weekend is available. Copies for stalls, mailings and other events can be ordered FREE from voices. If you can help distribute these at festivals and similar events over the summer please get in touch.

Iran: No basis for aggression, no bases for aggression
‘Teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and … [to] establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups,’ according to a recent article by Pultizer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh (New Yorker, 17 Apr). Meanwhile the B2 bombers that would play a key role in any airstrikes have been sighted this March at one of two essential UK-controlled operating locations for such an attack: RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire (see http://tinyurl.com/omy9s).

On 3 Apr the MoD held a high-level meeting to ‘consider the consequences of an attack on Iran’ (Sunday Telegraph, 2 Apr). A ‘senior Foreign Office source’ told the ST that ‘[t]he belief in some areas of Whitehall is that an attack [on Iran] is all but inevitable … the nuclear sites will be destroyed. This is not something that will happen imminently, maybe this year, maybe next year.’

The nuclear option
Meanwhile, American Naval tactical aircraft ‘have been flying simulated nuclear weapons delivery missions … within range of Iranian coastal radars’ and the White House has been resisting efforts by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to ‘remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans for Iran.’ ‘Asked [at an 18 Apr press conference] if [the] options [in dealing with Iran] included planning for a nuclear strike, Bush replied: “All options are on the table”’ (Reuters, 18 Apr).

Fairford and Diego Garcia
As we reported in our last newsletter an attack on Iran would likely kill thousands of Iranians – including hundreds of civilians – and would not stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. If it takes place ‘direct British involvement … would be limited to the use of the RAF’s highly secret airborne early warning craft’ (Sunday Telegraph, 2 Apr).
However, Britain’s indirect involvement - by allowing the use of its bases in Gloucestershire and on the British-controlled atoll Diego Garcia - would be huge.

Indeed, Fairford and Diego Garcia are two of only four bases world-wide which possess the specialised servicing equipment needed by the B2s (see Paul Rogers, The Countdown to War, OpenDemocracy.net, 6 Apr). In a similar vein, the infamous July 2002 ‘Downing Street memo’ concerning US war plans for Iraq noted that the US ‘saw … basing in Diego Garcia’ as ‘critical’ (Sunday Times, 1 May 2005).

The B2 bombers that recently visited Fairford were likely an exercise ‘to familiarise air and ground crews with the details of combat operations from a new base’ (OpenDemocracy.net, 6 Apr).

Thus far the role potential role of Fairford and Diego Garcia has received little media coverage. The first job of the anti-war movement must surely be to change this and to force a firm public commitment from the British Government that it will permit neither base to be used in an attack.

ACTION
* Order copies of voices free postcard to Defence Secretary Des Browne: Don’t Attack Iran: No Bases for Aggression: voices@voicesuk.org.
* Order copies of JNV’s new Iran briefing Don’t Attack Iran: voices@voicesuk.org
* Invite Emily Johns – recently returned from a Fellowship of Reconciliation trip to Iran – to come and speak to your group (0845 458 9571). Emily will also be speaking at an event in London on 30 May.
* Moves are afoot to mark the 53rd anniversary of the CIA/MI6 coup in Iran with a march to/from the MI6 building with a giant B2 stealth bomber. Come to the organising meeting on 7 June: 7pm, ‘The Square,’ 21 Russell Square, central London.

Massacres
Two recent massacres by US forces in Iraq serve to illustrate the dark heart of the occupation.

Haditha, 19 nov 05
On 19 Nov 2005 a group of US Marines went on a five-hour rampage in Haditha killing at least 23 civilians – including 7 women and 3 children - after a roadside bomb hit their humvee, killing the driver (Time, 19 Mar; Independent on Sunday, 26 Mar).
The Marines raided two houses, killing 15 unarmed civilians – including seven women and three children – killed four men in a third house raid, and dragged four young college students from a car and shot them dead. A man named Rashid - who had tried to escape one of the houses with his wife and child - was shot in the chest and was left ‘bleeding for hours, pleading for help’ (IoS, 26 Mar). The Marines refused to allow anyone access to him and he died.

Eman Waleed (9), who lived 150 yards from the site of the blast, told Time magazine that when the Marines entered her family’s house they were shouting in English. “First they went into my father’s room, where he was reading the Koran and we heard shots … I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny.”

Originally the US military claimed that the 15 people killed in the first two house raids had actually been killed by the roadside bomb. However an investigation by Time magazine forced them to change this story.

Though they now admit that these 15 were killed by the Marines they still maintain that the four in the car, and the four killed in the other house raid, were insurgents. However ‘numerous witnesses say that the only shooting was by the Marines, and that the only difference between these victims and the rest were that they were young men who could be depicted as insurgents’ (IoS, 26 Mar).

Ishaqi, 15 mar
‘Iraqi police have accused American troops of executing 11 people, including a 75-year-old woman and a 6-month-old infant, in the aftermath of a raid’ in the Abu Sifa area of Ishaqi on 15 Mar (Knight Ridder, 19 Mar). The raid was supported by US helicopter gunships which also fired on the house.

According to a police report obtained by KR – ‘unusual because it originated with Iraqi police and because Iraqi police were willing to attach their names to it’ - ‘[t]he villagers were killed after [US] troops herded them into a single room of the house.’

A neighbour, Hassan Kurdi Mahassen ‘saw soldiers entering [the house] after spraying it with such heavy fire that walls crumbled’ (Sunday Times, 26 Mar). ‘[O]nce the soldiers had left – after apparently dropping several grenades that caused part of the house to collapse – villagers searched under the rubble “and found [the eleven bodies] all buried in the same room. Women and even children were blindfolded and their hands bound,” she claimed.

To help raise awareness about the role of US forces in killing civilians in Iraq voices has produced a new leaflet ‘Iraq – the forgotten massacres’, featuring powerful photos from Haditha and Mukaradeeb (the site of another US massacre in May 2004). Copies can be ordered free from the Voices office (see p.8)

" Moderates", "extremists" and the flow of oil
The Army general overseeing US military operations in Iraq, Gen John Abizaid, recently explained that the US ‘m[ight] want to keep a long-term military presence in Iraq to bolster moderates against extremists in the region and protect the flow of oil’ (Reuters, 14 Mar). In fact, the construction of the infrastructure for just such a long-term presence is already well under way.

More than $280m has already been spent on building up Al Asad air base, Balad air base, Camp Taji and Talil air base – bases which currently house more than 55,000 troops and have their own bus routes, pizza restaurants and supermarkets - and the Bush administration has this year requested another $175m to enlarge them (Independent on Sunday, 2 Apr). According to the BBC the US has spent $1.3bn for military construction in the Middle East over the last five years, primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan (30 Mar).

Meanwhile in Baghdad, the US continues to build the largest US embassy in the world in: ‘the size of Vatican city, with the population of a small town, its own defense force [and] self-contained power and water, scheduled for completion in Jun 07 at the cost of at least $590m (AP, 14 Apr).

Oil … and Iran
Together with al-Qayyarah base in northern Iraq, the al-Asad and Talil bases are ‘very usefully located to secure [Iraq’s] main oil reserves’ and Balad, Tallil and al-Qayyarah are ‘eminently suited for air operations against Iran … especially if an initial attack on Iranian nuclear facilities resulted in [an] Iranian response that required long-term bombing campaigns against a range of targets in Iran’ (Paul Rogers, OpenDemocracy.net, 11 May).

“Moderates”
Of course, Abizaid’s use of the terms “moderates” and “extremists” needs to understood in its operative – rather than its propaganda – senses. Thus, democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq was an “extemist” when he moved to nationalise his country’s oil operations in May 1951 (Web of Deceit by Mark Curtis) but, after he was overthrown in a CIA/MI6 coup, his successor the Shah was a “moderate” despite his widespread use of torture and repression. Likewise, Saddam Hussein, a “moderate” during the height of his atrocities in the 1980s, only became an “extremist” when he invaded Kuwait.

The criterion is service to US power, not respect for democracy or human rights.

Tal Afar: the "free city"
In a 20 Mar speech in Cleveland George W. Bush spoke at length about Tal Afar, describing it as ‘a free city that gives reason for hope for a free Iraq’ (http://tinyurl.com/lfvu3).

The reality in Tal Afar – which was subjected to massive US-led assaults in Sept 04 and Sept 05 and walled-in last August (see Voices #s 37 and 43) – appears to be very different. Indeed, more than a dozen local people who spoke to Reuters on 24 Mar ‘said they had little faith in the future of their town, where the offensive fuelled sensitivities in an ethnically and religiously mixed neighbourhood.’

“The situation in Tal Afar is deteriorating and the smell of death is everywhere,” Hussein Mahmoud, a Shi’ite Turkmen university professor, told Reuters. “People never know why they are killed. They only know that the Americans are the cause of their agonies.”

" No blood, no foul"
An elite US Special Operations forces unit known as Task Force 6-26 tortured and abused Iraqi detainees at a top secret detention centre in Baghdad International Airport and in field outposts in Baghdad, Fallujah, Balad, Ramadi and Kirkuk, ‘mistreat[ing] prisoners months before and after the photographs of abuse from Abu Ghraib were made public in April 2004’ (New York Times, 19 Mar). The unit’s current operations ‘are now shrouded in even tighter secrecy.’

Members of the unit ‘beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and … used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball.’ ‘At the outposts some detainees were stripped naked and had cold water thrown on them to cause the sensation of drowning’ according to Defence Department personnel who served with the unit. One former detainee claimed that in Jan 04 he had been ‘forced to strip and that he was punched in the spine until he fainted, put in front of an air-conditioner while cold water was poured on him and kicked in the stomach until he vomited.’

Placards posted by soldiers at the Baghdad Airport facility advised “NO BLOOD, NO FOUL.’ ‘The slogan, as one Defence Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: “If you don’t make them bleed, they can’t prosecute you for it.”’

According to a May 06 report by Amnesty International USA ‘[e]vidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees held in US custody in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Iraq and other locations’ (http://tinyurl.com/zv5aa). The US is currently detaining over 14,000 people in Iraq (BBC, 21 Apr).

Zahara and Abbas
Corruption, cronyism, incompetence and a lack of security have had a devastating impact on the US-led “reconstruction” of Iraq with deadly results for ordinary Iraqis.

A ‘great deal’ of the approximately $23bn of Iraqi monies transferred to the trusteeship of the US-led “coalition” have been ‘wasted, stolen or frittered away’ and ‘[m]any Iraqis still have no access to clean water ... [while] electricity supplies in Baghdad are still below pre-invasion levels’ (Guardian, 20 Mar & 1 May).

Empty shells
One $243m project to build 150 health care clinics ‘in some cases produced little more than empty shells of concrete and shattered bricks cemented together in uneven walls’ (NYT, 30 Apr). Even by an extended Dec 05 deadline ‘only four had been completed’ and ‘no more than 20 clinics [are] now expected to be completed’ (WP, 3 Apr).

The human costs of these multiple failures are all too apparent. Three years after the invasion one doctor estimated that child mortality had increased by 30% since the invasion (BBC, 11 Apr). According to UNICEF acute malnutrition among Iraqi children has more than doubled since the invasion (Washington Post, 15 May).

“Worse than primitive”
Last year, in the dilapidated maternity and paediatric hospital in Diwaniyah, 100 miles south of Baghdad - one of the hospitals supposedly “refurbished” under the contract mentioned above - a Guardian Films investigation found doctors desperately trying to save the lives of two premature twins, Zahara and Abbas, ‘with neither the equipment nor the drugs that could save their lives’ (Guardian, 20 Mar). “This treatment is worse than primitive. It’s not even medicine,” one explained, as he held a tube pumping unregulated oxygen against Zahara’s nostrils.

‘With the right treatment and the right drugs, [both children] could have survived.’ Instead both died.

Food ration cut
In Dec 04 the Finance Minister in the US-appointed Iraqi Interim Government, Adel Abd al-Mahdi, announced that the current leadership were ‘looking at privatising the Iraqi National Oil Company’ and rolling back the food ration system (Inter Press Service, 23 Dec 04) – two initiatives close to the heart of the Bush administration. Eighteen months later – and despite widespread public opposition in Iraq – both projects appear to be nearing completion.

Thus, on 28 Apr, Dow Jones Newswires reported that the US Agency for International Development was ‘providing an adviser to the Iraqi government, through consultancy BearingPoint Inc … to help draft a critical petroleum law’ – ‘a critical piece of legislation for foreign investment’ with potentially long-term consequences for Iraq’s oil industry.

Meanwhile, ‘[t]he price of some food staples has increased in Iraq after the Ministry of Trade announced … that several items provided by [the] monthly food ration programme’ – a crucial life-line for millions of Iraqis since the imposition of UN sanctions in Aug 1990 – ‘would be cancelled’ (IRIN, 2 Apr). ‘Some products have seen their prices increase by as much as 300 per cent or more.’

According to officials at the trade ministry the cut in rations was ‘a direct result of a 25 per-cent, government-imposed reduction of the annual budget’ - in line with the desires of the International Monetary Fund (see Voices #45).

7/7 reports
‘Official: Iraq war led to July bombings’. That was the front page of the Observer on 2 April  <http://tinyurl.com/o2dkv> describing the most significant finding of the first draft of the British Government’s official ‘narrative’ of the 7/7 bombings. Iraq was a key ‘contributory factor’ in the ‘radicalisation’ of the four suicide bombers, said the narrative.

These phrases did not survive editing by Downing Street. They were censored. The final version of the ‘narrative’, and the report of the Intelligence and Security Committee which was published on the same day, barely gave a hint that British foreign policy had contributed to the July attacks.

Unsurprisingly, the mainstream media co-operated with the Government in suppressing this key aspect of the story, not even raising the question of whether British foreign policy might have been one of the causes of the hatred and despair that fuelled the attacks.

This was despite the fact that opinion polls show that the majority of British people believed this to be the case in the weeks immediately after the bombings. And despite the fact that leaks from the Joint Intelligence Committee, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, and the Home Office itself have all demonstrated a similar realism at the heart of the ‘counter-terrorist’ effort.

Also unsurprisingly, media servility extended even to silence over the censorship of the official ‘narrative’. Everyone knows that the Observer ran that front page story on 2 April. It ought to be the latest new ‘angle’ on the 7/7 story. It hasn’t even been mentioned, even in the Observer itself. That’s a propaganda system, that’s ‘brainwashing under freedom’. Critical information needed to have a rational debate, to begin to have an understanding of the crisis we’re in, is being erased from the record.
Milan Rai

Milan Rai’s 7/7: The London Bombings, Islam and the Iraq War can be ordered from Voices for £11.99 incl p&p.

Take action!
Seeds of hope
Following revelations that some of the prisoners at Guantanmo have begun to grow a garden, but have not been allowed to have any seeds Reprieve – which represents several of the prisoners – has launched a campaign to support the Guantánamo gardeners. They are asking people to send unopened packets of pre-packaged seeds and messages (including any advice for gardening in arid conditions) so that they can petition the US courts to allow the seeds into Guantanamo. Please send your packets to Reprieve, PO Box 52742, London, EC4P 4WS. See www.reprieve.org.uk

Brian Haw latest
On 8 May the Home Office won an appeal against Brian Haw’s exemption from the ban on unauthorised protest around Parliament. Last Year, Brian’s legal team had successfully argued that the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 could not be applied retrospectively, and Brian and his peace display in Parliament Square were therfore exempt from the Act.

Brian will be petitioning to be allowed to appeal to the House of Lords but in the meantime has been granted permission to continue his protest under the SOCPA legislation. The law says that permission must be granted but it then allows for conditions to be placed on a demonstration. The conditions that Brian has been given include reducing his display to 3 metres in any direction and ensuring that all items are permanently on view and not concealed by any other item.

As Brian has not complied with the conditions he has been reported to the CPS and issued with a summons to appear on 30 May at Bow St Magistrates Court.

Since the Court of Appeal judgement, a community of resistance has been growing with supporters staying in Parliament Square and larger gatherings in support - all without intervention from the police.

See www.parliament-square.org.uk and www.indymedia.org.uk.

Free Malcolm Kendall-Smith
On 13 April Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith was sentenced to eight months imprisonment for disobeying orders to return to Iraq, claiming that by returning to help maintain an occupation stemming from an illegal war he would have placed himself “in breach of domestic and international law.” He was also ordered to pay £20,000 towards his defence costs.

Meanwhile, a former SAS soldier who quit in the Army in disgust over US tactics in Iraq ‘has been threatened with legal action by government lawyers’ for speaking out (Sunday Telegraph, 9 Apr). Ben Griffin had previously told the Sunday Telegraph that he had witnessed “dozens of illegal acts” by US soldiers during his time in Iraq (12 Mar) . “As far as the Americans are concerned the Iraqi people were subhuman untermen-schen,” he explained. “I think the war in Iraq is a war of aggression and morally wrong”

Action
* Voices has produced a new postcard to Defence Secretary Des Browne supporting the right of soldiers to refuse to serve in Iraq and demanding that Kendall-Smith be freed and his conviction quashed. Ideal for stalls, mailing etc… the cards can be obtained FREE from the Voices office.
* Please send a postcard of support to Malcolm Kendall-Smith, HMP Chelmsford, 200 Springfield Rd, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 6LQ.
* A fund has been set up to help pay Malcolm Kendall-Smith’s court costs. See www.mfaw.org.uk.

Resistance round-up
18 March: Some 200 anti-war protests take place in cities around the world to mark the 3rd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and to demand an end to the occupation (Observer, 19 Mar).

29 March: The House of Lords rules that “the crime of aggression [i]s not a crime under English domestic law” and therefore that “protestors against the Iraq war could not justify their conduct on the ground that they were preventing a crime or an offence by the government” (Times, 30 Mar). The ruling will affect the upcoming trials of the so-called Fairford 5 – who took action at Fairford in Mar 03 with the intention of preventing or delaying the take off of B-52 bombers used to bomb Iraq. See www.b52two.org.

31 Mar / 1 Apr: US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s visit to Blackburn is ‘dominated by protests over the Iraq war’ (Sunday Times, 2 Apr): poet Roger McGough and actress Cathy Tyson refuse to compère an event at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall; a local mosque withdraws its invitation to her (Independent, 18 Mar); and at Pleckgate High School in Blackburn Rice is met by 200 noisy anti-war protestors, including many local students (FT, 1 Apr). One placard simply reads “Bullies not allowed in Pleckgate.” Meanwhile, during a visit to the Liverpool Institute for Peforming Arts “a group of more than 20 [students] st[ands] in silent protest against torture” (Guardian, 1 Apr).

12 April: Anti-war activist and author Milan Rai becomes the first person to be convicted of organising an “unauthorised” demonstration within 1km of Parliament. Milan was arrested with Maya Evans in Whitehall last Oct for reading the names of Iraqis and British soldiers who had died as a result of the war. The pair will recreate their “crime” during this October’s No More Fallujahs events (see here).

20 April: George W Bush is forced to change location for a meeting with fellows from the Hoover Institute on Stanford’s campus, after over 1,000 protestors block the the main road to the institute (www.worldcantwait.net)

28 April: Eighteen elderly women calling themselves “Grandmothers Against the War” are acquitted of causing a disturbance at a military recruitment centre in Oct 05 when they blocked the entrance and demanded to enlist in place of young men. “Our goal was to put the war on trial, and I think we did that,” Joan Wiles (74) explains (Guardian, 29 April).

Resources
New books
Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal by Anthony Arnove (The News Press, 2006). £14.99.

“ [A]n urgent book, a complete manual for those who wish to resist the occupation” – Arundhati Roy.

Prefaced with accolades from a galaxy of anti-war and progressive luminaries ranging from John Berger to Eve Ensler, this is a short (105 pages plus afterword and notes) but powerful polemic, containing much useful information and analysis. The title, though, is slightly misleading: only one of the seven chapters is explicitly devoted to making the case for immediate withdrawal (and rebutting the counter-arguments). Instead other chapters address the underlying motivations for the 2003 invasion, the United States’ long history of imperial intervention (and its erasure from historical memory) and a potted history of Britain’s earlier occupation of Iraq.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the brevity of the book itself, several issues are dealt with in much too cursory a fashion eg. insurgent atrocities (p. 61) and the question of a possible UN force to replace the existing occupation (p.82). Some crucial information eg. the Saudi study on the motives of “foreign fighters” travelling to Iraq (which found that ‘the vast majority of these foreign fighters are not former terrorists [but] became radicalised by the war itself’) is missing. This reader could also have done with much more on the realities of occupied Iraq (which are only briefly touched on in Chapter 2) and felt that the claim - cited with apparent approval - that ‘the fundamental division in Iraq today … [is] between “the pro-occupation camp and the anti-occupation camp”’ is too simple a gloss on the complex and fragmented reality.

Nonetheless the book’s length hopefully means that it will be picked up and read by open-minded readers who want to get an “anti-occupation” perspective as well as by anti-war activists – who will definitely want to read it even if it isn’t exactly the “complete manual for those who wish to resist the occupation” that Roy claims.

Anthony Arnove will be on a UK speaking tour 14-19 Jun. See here details.

Postcards
Copies of voices two new campaign postcards: “Free Malcolm Kendall-Smith” and “Don’t Attack Iran: No Bases for Aggression” are available FREE from the Voices office. Ideal for stalls, mailings etc…

New briefing
Iraqi Women Under Siege, Code Pink, 2006 (http://tinyurl.com/ofckv)
‘ When a woman leaves her house in today’s Iraq, she embraces her loved ones as if she might never return. And many won’t … fac[ing] missiles and random shootings by the US and British forces, terrorist suicide bombs, and criminal mafia-style gangs. … The women of Code Pink have provided activists all over the world with a nuanced yet powerful tool to educate ourselves, a wide public and, hopefully, to influence policy-makers in the US government’ – Nadje al-Ali.

New badge: "Don't Attack Iran"
10 for £4 incl. p+p.

Web-sites
Electronic Iraq – www.electroniciraq.net
Regularly updated news portal drawing on a wide-range of high-quality sources (mainstream and other).

International Crisis Group - www.crisisgroup.org
Though very much the establishment NGO - it’s board of directors contains such war criminals as George Robertson and Wesley Clark – the ICG’s briefings on Iraq are well worth reading. Recent highlights include an analysis of the insurgency based on a comprehensive survey of its own materials (web-sites, videos etc…) and a valuable account of the dynamics of sectarian conflict over the past 3 years.

News and info digests
Watching the Warmakers – www.watchingthewarmakers.org.uk
Excellent, free “war on terror” news digest e-mailed out on a weekly basis by the Brighton Hands Off Forum. Formatted for printing on double-sided A4.

Iraq Occupation Focus – www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk
Useful e-newsletter produced by the lively London-based anti-war group of the same name, containing a mix of news and anti-war events. See listings for details of IOF’s monthly meetings.