World-News

Paul Richter, The Los Angeles Times: 'After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the George W. Bush administration flooded the conquered country with so much cash to pay for reconstruction and other projects in the first year that a new unit of measurement was born. Pentagon officials determined that one giant C-130 Hercules cargo plane could carry $2.4 billion in shrink-wrapped bricks of $100 bills. They sent an initial full planeload of cash, followed by 20 other flights to Iraq by May 2004 in a $12-billion haul that U.S. officials believe to be the biggest international cash airlift of all time. This month, the Pentagon and the Iraqi government are finally closing the books on the program that handled all those Benjamins. But despite years of audits and investigations, U.S. Defense officials still cannot say what happened to $6.6 billion in cash - enough to run the Los Angeles Unified School District or the Chicago Public Schools for a year, among many other things.'

http://www.truth-out.org/auditors-says-missing-money-meant-iraq-may-have-been-stolen/1307988606

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U.S. Charged With War Crimes

The Evidence File
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3450.htm



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Iraq
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=war+crimes
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Paul+Richter+Los+Angeles
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Ben Armbruster, ThinkProgress: 'Yesterday in Baghdad, while on a congressional delegation visit, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said that Iraq should repay the United States for the war there that President Bush started in 2003 (some estimates have put total war costs at around $3 trillion when all is said and done)... It turns out that the Iraqis didn t appreciate Rohrabacher s comments all that much and in fact, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh has asked Rohrabacher to leave Iraq.'

http://www.truth-out.org/iraqi-spokesman-says-rohrabacher-not-welcome-iraq-tells-us-embassy-ask-congressman-leave/1307896786

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'Yankee go home': Iraq asks US congressman to leave over 'repay' remark

Iraqi authorities asked for a US congressman to leave the country after he called for Baghdad to repay part of the money spent by Washington since the 2003 invasion, a spokesman said on Saturday.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=46636


From Information Clearing House



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Iraq
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Dana+Rohrabacher
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Ben+Armbruster

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Peter Van Buren, TomDispatch: 'From that ancient debris field, recall the almost forgotten run-up to the American invasion, the now-ridiculous threats about Saddam Hussein s weapons of mass destruction, Secretary of State Colin Powell lying away his own and America s prestige at the U.N., those 'Mission-Accomplished' days when the Marines tore down Saddam s statue and conquered Baghdad, the darker times as civil society imploded and Iraq devolved into civil war, the endless rounds of purple fingers for stage-managed elections that meant little, the Surge and the ugly stalemate that followed, fading to gray as President George W. Bush negotiated a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011 and the seeming end of his dreams of a Pax Americana in the Greater Middle East. Now, with less than seven months left until that withdrawal moment, Washington debates whether to honor the agreement, or - if only we can get the Iraqi government to ask us to stay - to leave a decent-sized contingent of soldiers occupying some of the massive bases the Pentagon built hoping for permanent occupancy.'

http://www.truthout.org/occupying-iraq-state-department-style/1307460772

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$3 billion more down the toilet in Iraq

Authority!
by Timothy J Taylor

06/09/11

We have occupied the place for nearly 10 years and our diplomats cant even peek out from the bullet proof windows of their Green Zone fortresses without mortal fear of being blown away by a rocket propelled grenade. Now we learn that, after the $3 1/2 trillion we have already thrown into the s... quagmire of Iraq, the U.S. State Department is going to spend another $3 billion before we leave the H... hole at the end of this year to hire a security force solely for the protection of U.S. diplomats...

http://tinyurl.com/62gprms


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Middle+East
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Iraq
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=occup
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Pax+Americana
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Pax+Americana
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Peter+Van+Buren
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Timothy+J+Taylor
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Wall Street Journal

05/25/11

Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Iraq to host U.S. troops beyond the end of the year to maintain stability and keep Iran at bay, echoing the growing concerns of U.S. military officials that the government in Baghdad isn t moving fast enough to request an extension of the U.S. troop presence. Mr. Gates predicted the U.S. would accede to such a request to send a message to American allies and Iran that the U.S. isn t withdrawing from the region, he said in remarks to a think tank in Washington on Tuesday...

http://tinyurl.com/3drwfm6


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Iraq
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Robert+Gates
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It is becoming almost certain that the U.S. succeed in forcing Iraq to 'invite' thousands of American troops to stay indefinitely in the latest imperial outpost of the United States in the Arab world.

http://tomhayden.com/home/prediction-the-us-stays-in-iraq.html


From Information Clearing House



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Arab+world
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Iraq
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=imperial
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A former British spy chief has written to Sir John Chilcot, the Inquiry chairman, accusing former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and journalist Alastair Campbell of lying about the 'dodgy dossier' on Saddam Hussein'´s weapons of mass destruction.

http://www.newkerala.com/news/world/fullnews-208402.html


From Information Clearing House



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Iraq
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Tony+Blair
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Alastair+Campbell
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=John+Chilcot

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Antiwar.com Antiwar.com
by Justin Raimondo

05/13/11

The reality is that empires never dissolve themselves: they hang on to the bitter end, living on dreams of past glory and stubbornly refusing to see the signs of decline that are obvious to any objective observer. Nothing stops them: not war-weariness on the part of the populace, not military defeat, not even impending bankruptcy. The reason is once you become an empire, there s no turning back ..."

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/05/12/remember-iraq-3/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Iraq
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=bankruptcy
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=raimondo

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/05/10



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Iraq
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=troop+presence
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=David+Elkins

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The March 2003 invasion demonstrated that 'deliberate deception was not limited to small countries ruled by ruthless dictators,' ...

http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.org/gsn/nw_20110425_9334.php



Over 15,000 U.S. servicemen to remain in Iraq beyond 2011 deadline

The Iraqi government is preparing to accept the presence of more than 15,000 U.S. servicemen in Iraq to protect the U.S. interests after the deadline of U.S. troops' pullout by the end of 2011, an Iraqi newspaper reported on Tuesday.

http://english.people.com.cn/90001/90777/90852/7362439.html



Iraqi leaders want U.S. troops to go

Members of large bloc in the Iraqi Parliament plan to back the terms of a bilateral status of forces agreement with the United States, a lawmaker said Tuesday.

http://bit.ly/eAoPSP


From Information Clearing House



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Iraq
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=ElBaradei

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Thousands of Iraqis rallied in the northern city of Mosul Sunday in one of the biggest protests yet against any extension of the U.S. military presence in Iraq.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/24/us-iraq-protests-idUSTRE73N21C20110424


From Information Clearing House



http://www.sharenews-blog.com:8090/helma/twoday/sharenews/search?q=Iraq
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