contributions

By Dahr Jamail
Despite promises of over $1 billion in U.S. funding, hospital patients in Iraq continue to suffer ongoing hardship. Problems plaguing Iraqi hospitals fifteen months into what has been a brutal, bloody occupation range from ongoing medicine and equipment shortages to an overall lack of proper medical infrastructure.
"We are getting less medical supplies now than we were during the sanctions," said Dr. Namin Rashid, the Chief Resident Doctor at Yarmouk Hospital. "Paul Bremer (…)

Four mortar rounds have rocked a neighbourhood near the political party headquarters of Iraq’s new interim prime minister wounding three men and a woman.
The attacks on Wednesday which occurred on a stretch of Zaitoun Street in central Baghdad also hit near a home owned by interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, according to police officers.
Allawi was not present at the home at the time, said an Interior Ministry official.
About an hour later, another explosion rocked Baghdad. The US (…)

A resistance attack in the western Iraqi province of al-Anbar has left four US marines dead.
The marines have now lost 14 men in the past nine days on various operations around al-Anbar - home to Falluja, the town which has witnessed some of the most protracted and violent clashes.
Speaking of the latest incident, the US military said in a statement: "Four marines assigned to First Marine Expeditionary Force were killed in action July 6 in the al-Anbar province while conducting security (…)

by Saud Abu Ramadan
Palestinians felt angry and bitter toward the trial of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, whom they considered as their enemy’s enemy.
For Palestinians, Saddam was a staunch supporter for their struggle against Israel, and he was also the only one who dared to fire rockets against Tel Aviv.
"This is a trial against Arabs and Muslims. Saddam is being prosecuted because he always calls for a free Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea," (…)

by William Bowles
July 7, 2004 - Today’s Independent (06/7/04) has a front page story titled “A video nasty: Terror chief shows off his deadly work” and is about yet another “foreign-led” group of “militants” purportedly headed by the one-legged Jordanian and ’right-hand man’ of Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Yet the story presents not a single shred of evidence to support the title nor if the mono-pedal perpetrator even exists, aside that is from ’received opinion’, largely that (…)

Some top Bush officials and military experts say the Pentagon has no coherent strategy. Little change is expected with Iraq’s new sovereignty.
By Mark Mazzetti
Almost a year after acknowledging they were facing a well-armed guerrilla war in Iraq, the Pentagon and commanders in the Middle East are being criticized by some top Bush administration officials, military officers and defense experts who accuse the military of failing to develop a coherent, winning strategy against the (…)

US forces killed an Iraqi motorist at close range in Baghdad, then left the scene without any comment, according to eyewitnesses.
The motorist had overtaken a military convoy on his way to the hotel where he was making final preparations two days ahead of his wedding, police and relatives said.
The unidentified man, who had a passenger in the vehicle, was shunted into a wall by a Humvee as he was about to turn his car around to enter the hotel, one hotel guard said.
"They bumped his (…)

At least 14 people were killed and 70 wounded in a car-bomb attack in Khalis, near the Iraqi town of Baquba, police and medical sources said.
"Fourteen people have been killed and 70 injured, many seriously, in the car bombing," said doctor Ammar Subhi Zidan at Khalis hospital on Tuesday.
He said the attack, "the bloodiest" car bombing since the handover of power, took place around 4:15 pm (12:15 GMT).
The bomb exploded near a house where a memorial service was being held for two (…)

Internal UNICEF report: USA intern children for an indefinite time without legal process
According to inquiries undertaken by the ARD political magazine REPORT MAINZ, indications increase that, within Iraqi prisons, US soldiers even mistreated children and youngsters. Two different sources independently recorded the inhuman treatment of imprisoned minors within the premises of the scandalous prison Abu Ghreib, according to REPORT MAINZ.
Samuel Provance, sergeant of the military secret (…)

By JAMES RISEN
The Central Intelligence Agency was told by relatives of Iraqi scientists before the war that Baghdad’s programs to develop unconventional weapons had been abandoned, but the C.I.A. failed to give that information to President Bush, even as he publicly warned of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s illicit weapons, according to government officials.
The existence of a secret prewar C.I.A. operation to debrief relatives of Iraqi scientists — and the agency’s failure to give (…)