contributions

By ABDUL HUSSEIN AL-OBEIDI
NAJAF, Iraq - Iraq’s top Shiite cleric unexpectedly returned to Iraq from Britain on Wednesday armed with a new peace initiative and a call for Iraqis across the country to march on the holy city to demand an end to weeks of fighting in Najaf.
But a mortar attack on the main mosque in the nearby city of Kufa killed 27 people and wounded 63 others Thursday, hospital officials and witnesses said, a blow to hopes that the crisis could be resolved peacefully. (…)

NAJAF, Iraq - U.S. planes unleashed a fierce attack on rebel targets in Najaf early on Thursday, a Reuters witness said.
The air strikes shook Najaf just after U.S. artillery fire and cannon assaults from an AC-130 gunship rattled the Iraqi city of 500,000.
Militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have endured several nights of U.S. air attacks aimed at forcing them to lay down their weapons and leave a shrine where they are holed up.
After the attack gray smoke was seen (…)

By Hussein Ibish
WASHINGTON: In a case with profound implications regarding the nature and focus of the US "war on terror," on July 27 US authorities arrested the leadership of one of the largest Muslim charities in the United States, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.
Three additional indictments handed down on Aug. 20 were said by US authorities to also be part of efforts to stop the flow of money from the United States to the Palestinian militant group Hamas. A Hamas (…)

Fighting in the southern Iraqi town of Amara over the past 24 hours has killed at least a dozen people and wounded 54 more.
Three children were among the 12 shot dead during a two-hour battle between Iraqi resistance fighters and British occupation forces on Wednesday afternoon.
Doctor Mustafa Ali, speaking at Amara’s main hospital, confirmed the casualty figures and said three mortar rounds that landed on the al-Jadida residential district caused the fatalities.
A British military (…)

UNIDENTIFIED gunmen today killed two people and wounded five others who were taking part in what appeared to be a peaceful demonstration supporting radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Kufa, northeast of Najaf witnesses and hospital officials said.
Soon after the incident three mortars, apparently targeting a police checkpoint, hit a civilian area in Kufa, killing two civilians, including an eight-year-old boy, and wounding four others, witnesses and hospital officials said.
In the (…)

IRAQ VETERANS AGAINST THE WAR JOIN IRAQI-AMERICAN PROTEST SINGER STEPHAN SMITH AT JOE’S PUB SUNDAY, AUGUST 29TH
WHERE: Joe’s Pub, in The Public Theater 425 Lafayette Street New York, NY 10003 www.joespub.com
WHEN: Sunday, August 29th, 9:30pm ADMISSION: Free, open to the public!
Iraqi-American singer Stephan Smith, whose antiwar song "The Bell" became an anthem for the peace movement, will be joined by Members of the newly formed Iraq Veterans against the War. Members of IVAW will (…)

WASHINGTON: US Army investigators pulled no punches in releasing the latest stark report of American abuse against Iraqi detainees at infamous Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
Among details in the 143-page report, which referred five officers and 41 unidentified lower-ranking soldiers, civilian interrogators, military police and medics to commanders for possible administrative or criminal punishment: Soldier No. 01, a medic, failed to report seeing "a human pyramid of naked Iraqi (…)

By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. military intelligence soldiers and civilian contractors working with them were directly involved in the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail to a greater extent than previously acknowledged, an Army report released on Wednesday found.
The report, which focused on the role of military intelligence in the prisoner abuse, found that 23 U.S. military intelligence personnel and four contractors working with them committed acts in 44 instances (…)

by Bob Fitrakis
The new revelations in Bob Woodward’s book, Plan of Attack, provide further evidence to convict President George W. Bush of war crimes.
As one of the 49 original signers of the UN Charter, the United States committed itself to the ideals and practices of the norms of international law. Only two U.S. senators voted against the treaty, which includes Article 2(4) that specifically prohibits "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political (…)

By Robert J. Lifton
ON THE FRINGE of the recent Democratic National Convention in Boston, there was a miniconvention of a group called Veterans for Peace. Most of the 400-plus participants were Vietnam veterans, though there were smaller contingents of veterans of World War II, the Korean War, and the first Gulf War. But the most dramatic presence was that of a group of new kids on the block, veterans of the war in Iraq. These new veterans could come to have a powerful influence on our (…)