Here's a story I haven't heard on the MSM yet and it's a doozy!

The Italians have uncovered a arms deal that involves the sale of Russian made arms to the Government of Iraq.

Here's the AP story:

Italy probe unearths huge Iraq arms deal By CHARLES J. HANLEY and ARIEL DAVID, Associated Press Writers
Sun Aug 12, 3:28 PM ET

In a hidden corner of Rome's busy Fiumicino Airport, police dug quietly through a traveler's checked baggage, looking for smuggled drugs. What they found instead was a catalog of weapons, a clue to something bigger.

Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction, as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq.

As the secretive, $40 million deal neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and breaking it up. But key questions remain unanswered.

For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command — a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.

Why these officials resorted to "black" channels and where the weapons were headed is unclear.

The purchase would merely have been the most spectacular example of how Iraq has become a magnet for arms traffickers and a place of vanishing weapons stockpiles and uncontrolled gun markets since the 2003 U.S. invasion and the onset of civil war.

Some guns the U.S. bought for Iraq's police and army are unaccounted for, possibly fallen into the hands of insurgents or sectarian militias. Meanwhile, the planned replacement of the army's AK-47s with U.S.-made M-16s may throw more assault rifles onto the black market. And the weapons free-for-all apparently is spilling over borders: Turkey and Iran complain U.S.-supplied guns are flowing from Iraq to anti-government militants on their soil.

Iraqi middlemen in the Italian deal, in intercepted e-mails, claimed the arrangement had official American approval. A U.S. spokesman in Baghdad denied that.

"Iraqi officials did not make MNSTC-I aware that they were making purchases," Lt. Col. Daniel Williams of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq (MNSTC-I), which oversees arming and training of the Iraqi police and army, told the AP.

Operation Parabellum, the investigation led by Dario Razzi, anti-Mafia prosecutor in this central Italian city, began in 2005 as a routine investigation into drug trafficking by organized-crime figures, branched out into an inquiry into arms dealing with Libya, and then widened to Iraq.

Court documents obtained by the AP show that Razzi's break came early last year when police monitoring one of the drug suspects covertly opened his luggage as he left on a flight to Libya. Instead of the expected drugs, they found helmets, bulletproof vests and the weapons catalog.

Tapping telephones, monitoring e-mails, Razzi's investigators followed the trail to a group of Italian businessmen, otherwise unrelated to the drug probe, who were working to sell arms to Libya and, by late 2006, to Iraq as well, through offshore companies they set up in Malta and Cyprus.

Four Italians have been arrested and are awaiting court indictment for allegedly creating a criminal association and alleged arms trafficking — trading in weapons without a government license. A fifth Italian is being sought in Africa. In addition, 13 other Italians were arrested on drug charges.

In the documents, Razzi describes it as "strange" that the U.S.-supported Iraqi government would seek such weapons via the black market.

Investigators say the prospect of an Iraq deal was raised last November, when an Iraqi-owned trading firm e-mailed Massimo Bettinotti, 39, owner of the Malta-based MIR Ltd., about whether MIR could supply 100,000 AK-47 assault rifles and 10,000 machine guns "to the Iraqi Interior Ministry," adding that "this deal is approved by America and Iraq."

The go-between — the Al-Handal General Trading Co. in Dubai — apparently had communicated with Bettinotti earlier about buying night visors and had been told MIR could also procure weapons.

Al-Handal has figured in questionable dealings before, having been identified by U.S. investigators three years ago as a "front company" in Iraq's Oil-for-Food scandal.

The Interior Ministry's need at that point for such a massive weapons shipment is unclear. The U.S. training command had already reported it would arm all Interior Ministry police by the end of 2006 through its own three-year-old program, which as of July 26 has bought 701,000 weapons for the Iraqi army and police with $237 million in U.S. government funds.

Negotiations on the deal progressed quickly in e-mail exchanges between the Italians and Iraqi middlemen of the al-Handal company and its parent al-Thuraya Group. But at times the discussion turned murky and nervous.

The Iraqis alternately indicated the Interior Ministry or "security ministries" would be the end users. At one point, a worried Bettinotti e-mailed, "We prefer to speak about this deal face to face and not by e-mail."

The Italians sent several offers of various types and quantities of rifles, with photos included. The negotiating focused on the source of the weapons: The Iraqi middlemen said their buyer insisted they be Russian-made, but the Italians wanted to sell AK-47s made in China, where they had better contacts.

"We are in a hurry with this deal," an impatient Waleed Noori al-Handal, Jordan-based general manager of the Iraqi firm, wrote the Italians on Nov. 13 in one of the e-mails seen by AP.

He added, in apparent allusion to the shipment's clandestine nature, "You mustn't worry if it's a problem to import these goods directly into Iraq. We can bring the product to another country and then transfer it to Iraq."

By December, the Italians, having found a Bulgarian broker, were offering Russian-made goods: 50,000 AKM rifles, an improved version of the AK-47; 50,000 AKMS rifles, the same gun with folding stock; and 5,000 PKM machine guns.

The Iraqis quibbled over the asking price, $39.7 million, but seemed satisfied. The Italians were set for a $6.6 million profit, the court documents show, and were already discussing air transport for the weapons. At this point prosecutor Razzi acted, seeking an arrest warrant from a Perugia court.

"The negotiation with Iraq is developing very quickly," he wrote the judge.

Bush's puppet government in Iraq has gone behind his back to purchase wearons and we don't know who they are going to. Don't you think this should be on a National News program?

Virginia Tech and Iraq

The carnage at V-Tech is horrible! The idea that one deranged person was able to buy two guns and all that ammunition means we do need to look at our gun control in this nation. We are all grieving for the lost lives and trying to deal with it. Our news media is filled with coverage of this massacre. Listening to all these young people talk about what has happened and speak of their friends that were injured and were killed just makes you sick. The whole nation is grieving.

Now to Iraq. This just in from AP:

4 bombs kill 127 people in Baghdad
By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated
Press Writer 4 minutes ago

Four large bombs exploded across Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 127 people and wounding scores as violence climbed toward levels seen before the U.S.-Iraqi campaign to pacify the capital began two months ago.

In the deadliest of the attacks, a parked car bomb detonated in a crowd of workers at the Sadriyah market in a mostly Shiite area of central Baghdad, killing at least 82 people and wounding 94, said Raad Muhsin, an official at Al-Kindi Hospital where the victims were taken.

A police official confirmed the toll, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

Several cars were set afire at the market, where a car bombing in February killed 137 people. About an hour earlier, a suicide car bomber crashed into an Iraqi police checkpoint at an entrance to Sadr City, the capital's biggest Shiite Muslim neighborhood and a stronghold for the militia led by radical anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The explosion killed at least 30 people, including five Iraqi security officers, and wounded 45, police said.

Black smoke billowed from a jumble of at least eight incinerated vehicles that were in a jam of cars stopped at the checkpoint. Bystanders scrambled over twisted metal to drag victims from the smoldering wreckage as Iraqi guards staggered around stunned.

Earlier, a parked car exploded near a private hospital in the central neighborhood of Karradah, killing 11 people and wounding 13, police said. The blast damaged the Abdul-Majid hospital and other nearby buildings.

The fourth explosion was from a bomb left on a minibus in the northwestern Risafi area, killing four people and wounding six others, police said.

Also in Baghdad, four policemen were killed Wednesday afternoon when gunmen ambushed their patrol south of the city center, police said. Six pedestrians were wounded in the gunfire.

U.S. officials had cited a slight decrease in sectarian killings in Baghdad since the U.S.-Iraqi crackdown was launched Feb. 14. But the past week has seen several spectacular attacks on the capital, including a suicide bombing inside parliament and a powerful blast that collapsed a landmark bridge across the Tigris River.

"We've seen both inspiring progress and too much evidence that we still face many grave challenges," Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman, told reporters Wednesday. "We've always said securing Baghdad would not be easy."

What some people don't understand, the people that started this war in Iraq and the people that want to continue this war in Iraq, is that the Iraqis live with the carnage we saw at V-Tech every day. As hard as it is for us to accept the deaths of these young people at V-Tech, the Iraqis are having to deal with it and have dealt with it for over four years. There seems to be a hypocracy, here, in the thinking and actions of these people, these chickenhawks, these war mongerers that want this Iraq war to continue.

We have a chance to change this for this war in Iraq, this occupation, must be changed. WE cannot continue in the same direction the Bush admin insists we continue to stay the course. The surge is not working! The surge will not work!

There needs to be unilateral talks with the Arab States, the UN, and everone that is and could be effected by this unrest the Bush admin has created in that area so we can control the carnage that is Iraq today. If that means talking to Iran and Syria, so be it. But not to talk will only exacerbate the problems in the middle east. I've had more than enough of this admin. Have you?

UPDATE: From the Independent, UK:

Virginia Tech, of course, is the worst incident of its kind in US history - and at one level, you would gain the impression from American television that Cho Seung-Hui has literally stopped the world.

He hasn't of course. On Tuesday, in what passes for a relatively quiet news day in Iraq, wire services reported the deaths of 56 people in violence across the country: some of them gunned down, some killed by a suicide bomber, some discovered as decomposed or decapitated corpses. But we heard not a word of that, nor of the trial in absentia in Italy of a US soldier accused of shooting dead an Italian intelligence agent, nor of the report that North Korea may be about to shut down a key nuclear reactor (which would be very big news indeed if true.) And somebody shot dead the Mayor of Nagasaki. But who cares? Instead, nothing but Virginia Tech.

Yet, however exceptional the event, there is something formulaic, even routine, about the coverage. There is no soul searching, no wondering what might be wrong with a society where such things happen so frequently. You hear no new arguments, for deep down there is nothing new to be said.

No detail of the tragedy is too tiny to recount; from where Cho went to high school to the thoughts of the postman who delivered mail, to where the family lived in the Virginia suburb of Centreville (and never met him). Yet America is showing scant sign of addressing the far bigger issue - of whether it is finally time to get serious about gun control.

Poll shows Americans want Gonzales to resign

This is an LA Times/Bloomberg poll. In this poll, 53% of those polled think Gonzales should resign. But surprisingly 74% of Americans want Gonzales aides including Karl Rove to testify under oath. And this is surprising, "Even among Republicans, 49% said the aides should testify; 43% said they should not."

Here's more from the LA Times:

Respondents were divided along party lines as to whether Gonzales should resign. Among Democrats, 68% said he should do so; among Republicans, 33% said he should depart.

Independents tip the balance -- 57% said they supported calls for his resignation while 22% said he should stay.

On another issue, the poll found that Americans are also split along partisan lines over pending congressional legislation that would provide new funding for the war in Iraq, but require a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from the country.

Asked whether Bush should accept or veto a bill that included a timetable, 48% said he should sign such a measure while 43% said he should reject it. A significant majority of Democrats -- 74% -- backed signing the bill; an even bigger majority of Republicans, 80%, supported a veto.

The poll found that Americans have grown more pessimistic since the beginning of the year.

About two-thirds, 66%, said the country is "seriously off on the wrong track," up from 61% in a Times/Bloomberg Poll in January.

Well there you go. All down party lines. But it is hartening to see where the majority is.

And here's another surprise:

An overwhelming majority of Americans, 73 percent, said Bush's plan for Iraq has made the situation there worse or has had no effect on the country's stability. Just 27 percent said setting a timetable for withdrawal helps U.S. troops on the ground, and 15 percent said it would have no effect.

President Bush speaks on Fourth Anniversary of Iraq war.

Bush Speaks. He said nothing new. Nothing we haven't heard before. "The new strategy needs time". He asks us to be patient. Patient? I have no patience for this war and his incompetence in waging it. He's asking for another chance to make things right.

But the sad fact is Bush, his admin, and the generals he's chosen, none of them know what to do now. To be honest, he's made such a mess of it that nobody knows how to fix it at this point. So the talking points from the right have been, You, Dems, what would you do? Well first of all, if the Dems were in charge, this war would not have happened in the first place. So what would we do now that your president and his admin screwed up so badly? Well I would not send more troops to die there.

How about diplomacy Mr Bush! How about getting your fading coalition and the nations surrounding Iraq together and put a plan together that doesn't require bombing the hell out of a nation and causing more upheavel! You make speeches all the time, Mr Bush. I see your face on my TV screen daily, Mr. Bush. Why don't you try talking to people other than us that could help make a difference in Iraq?

Are you biding your time til someone else can take over your war, Mr. Bush? If that is the case, Mr. Bush, do us the favor and resign now and take Cheney with you, and let people take over that might be able to fix your mistake. Just like those past endeavors in your life!

US army is lagging behind Iraq's insurgents tactically

This kind of news you wouldn't hear from the media here in the US. This comes from Britain, the Observer. Of course our media is getting a touch better in certain areas helped by the Internet.

Here's the rest of the story from the Observer:

'Smart' rebels outstrip US

Top American generals make shock admission as Iraq leader pleads with neighbouring countries to seal off their borders
Paul Beaver in Fort Lauderdale and Peter Beaumont
Sunday March 11, 2007
The Observer
The US army is lagging behind Iraq's insurgents tactically in a war that senior officers say is the biggest challenge since Korea 50 years ago.
The gloomy assessment at a conference in America last week came as senior US and Iraqi officials sat down yesterday with officials from Iran, Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad to persuade Iraq's neighbours to help seal its borders against fighters, arms and money flowing in. During the conference the US, Iranian and Syrian delegations were reported to have had a 'lively exchange'.

In a bleak analysis, senior officers described the fighters they were facing in Iraq and Afghanistan 'as smart, agile and cunning'.
In Vietnam, the US was eventually defeated by a well-armed, closely directed and highly militarised society that had tanks, armoured vehicles and sources of both military production and outside procurement. What is more devastating now is that the world's only superpower is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft.

By contrast, the US military is said to have been slow to respond to the challenges of fighting an insurgency. The senior officers described the insurgents as being able to adapt rapidly to exploit American rules of engagement and turn them against US forces, and quickly disseminate ways of destroying or disabling armoured vehicles.

The military is also hampered in its attempts to break up insurgent groups because of their 'flat' command structure within collaborative networks of small groups, making it difficult to target any hierarchy within the insurgency.

The remarks were made by senior US generals speaking at the Association of the US Army meeting at Fort Lauderdale in Florida and in conversations with The Observer. The generals view the 'war on terror' as the most important test of America's soldiers in 50 years.

Looks like this war is not winnable against these insurgents. Everyone thought Saddam was a devil, and he was, but he kept an uncontrollable country controlled.

Wolfowitz wants to bring the World Bank to Iraq

You just have to read this to believe it. h/t Jenise

From Electronic Iraq

Wolfowitz May Bring Bank Back to Iraq
Emad Mekay, Electronic Iraq, 23 February 2007

WASHINGTON (IPS) - World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz may appoint a new resident director for Iraq soon, a move that sources inside the Bank say could contradict the institution's policies on engagement in conflict-stricken areas and put his role in the 2003 U.S. invasion back into the limelight.

The move by Wolfowitz, the former number two official at the Pentagon and a main architect of the U.S.-led war, likely means the Bank would release new loans to the occupied Arab nation, despite the deteriorating security situation and recent disclosures of massive corruption in reconstruction efforts.

"This is exactly what he shouldn't be doing and what the [World Bank] board was initially afraid that he would do, which is to use the financial resources of the World Bank to take some of the heat off the U.S. Treasury and U.S. policy," Bea Edwards of the Washington-based watchdog group Government Accountability Project told IPS.

In a previous statement, Edwards argued that "Wolfowitz's apparent determination to use the World Bank to further questionable American military goals in the Middle East is a fundamental distortion of the Bank's mission, a violation of its founding Articles of Agreement, and a reckless waste of donor resources."

The Bank has a policy called Procedure 2.30 ("Development Cooperation and Conflict"), which states that to operate in a country emerging from a conflict, the Bank must first prepare a "watching brief," develop a transitional support strategy, begin transitional reconstruction, then begin post-conflict reconstruction, and finally return to normal lending.

Unlike the Bank's Interim Office for Iraq, which is based in Amman, Jordan, the soon-to-be-named country director would exclusively manage Iraq for the Bank from Baghdad, according to GAP, which first leaked the information, citing inside sources.

This same article is also being posted by the Inter Press News Service here.

This is the reason Bush wanted him in this position.

Cheney Attacks, Pelosi Strikes Back

In the delusional world of VP Cheney, the Democrats are now and have always been the enemy. The past six years, with the Republicans in full power of this country, there was a certain amount of control over the Dems. Whatever the Dems said was turned back at them with the spin of the administration and was helped by the gullible, power seeking media. And for awhile, the people of this country believed and went along with this. Not any more. The majority of people are now really seeing what Cheney and this admin have done to this country.

Cheney has used his time, outside of this country to take swipes at the Dems again. This time Pelosi is speaking up.

From the AP:

Cheney slams Iraq plan advocated by Dems
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent
Thu Feb 22, 4:20 AM ET

Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday harshly criticized Democrats' attempts to thwart President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq, saying their approach would "validate the al-Qaida strategy." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) fired back that Cheney was questioning critics' patriotism.

"I hope the president will repudiate and distance himself from the vice president's remarks," Pelosi said. She said she tried to complain about Cheney to President Bush but could not reach him.

"You cannot say as the president of the United States, 'I welcome disagreement in a time of war,' and then have the vice president of the United States go out of the country and mischaracterize a position of the speaker of the House and in a manner that says that person in that position of authority is acting against the national security of our country," the speaker said.

The quarrel began in Tokyo, where Cheney used an interview to criticize Pelosi and Rep. John Murtha (news, bio, voting record), D-Pa., over their plan to place restrictions on Bush's request for an additional $93 billion for the Iraq war to make it difficult or impossible to send 21,500 extra troops to Iraq.

"I think if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are suggesting, all we will do is validate the al-Qaida strategy," the vice president told ABC News. "The al-Qaida strategy is to break the will of the American people ... try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they win because we quit."

In the interview, Cheney also said Britain's plans to withdraw about 1,600 troops from Iraq — while the United States adds more troops — was a positive step. "I look at it and see it is actually an affirmation that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well," the vice president said.

Pelosi, at a news conference in San Francisco, said Cheney's criticism of Democrats was "beneath the dignity of the debate we're engaged in and a disservice to our men and women in uniform, whom we all support."

This is just the start, but, I don't think Cheney will win this one. Not many people believe him anymore!

First Brits announce withdrawal from Iraq, Now Denmark

Blair announced yesterday that there would be a staged withdrawal from Iraq. Here's the AP on it:

Blair to announce Iraq withdrawal plan
By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Writer
38 minutes ago



Britain will withdraw nearly half its troops from Iraq by the end of the year if local forces can secure the southern part of the country, Prime Minister Tony Blair planned to announce Wednesday.

Around 1,500 of Britain's 7,000-strong force will return home shortly, a British government official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak before Blair's statement. Britain has long been America's biggest coalition partner in Iraq.

Another coalition member, Denmark, was also expected to announce plans to begin withdrawing its troops from Iraq, Danish media reported. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen had earlier said he hoped Denmark would begin scaling back its 460-troop contingent this year, without setting a precise timetable.

Blair's office said the British leader would make a statement on Iraq and the Middle East to Britain's parliament following his weekly House of Commons questions session. It would not disclose the content.

But the official said Blair planned to outline a strategy which would leave about 4,000 British soldiers in southern Iraq by the end of 2007 if the security there is sufficient.

So why can't we do the same thing? Why can't we do what Murtha has been saying for awhile? Pull out and give the Iraqi government a chance to take over.

And the odd thing is, Bush is praising what Blair has announced. Why? Why is he praising what Blair is doing but "stay the course" for America?

What a mess this admin has created. And still they cannot admit a mistake.

UPDATE from Think Progress:
Don’t forget Lithuania. Lithuania is “seriously considering” withdrawing its 53 troops from Iraq, a Defense Ministry spokeswoman said Wednesday. “It was the first time that Lithuania, a staunch U.S. ally, indicated it would reduce its commitment in Iraq.”

Open thread February 17, 07

Ex-envoy says Iraq rebuilding plan won't work

By Sue Pleming
Sat Feb 17, 10:32 AM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kiki Munshi was showcased by the media in September as a seasoned U.S. diplomat who came out of retirement to lead a rebuilding group in Iraq.

Now she is back home, angry, and convinced that President George W. Bush's new strategy of doubling the number of such groups to 20 along with a troop surge of 21,500 will not help stabilize Iraq.

A diplomat for 22 years, she quit her job last month as leader of a Provincial Reconstruction Team -- groups made up of about 50 civilian and military experts that try to help Iraqi communities build their own government while strengthening moderates.

"In spite of the magnificent and often heroic work being done out there by a lot of truly wonderful people, the PRTs themselves aren't succeeding. The obstacles are too great," Munshi said this week in Washington, where she was pressing her view at the State Department and to Congress.

"Once again we are proceeding to lay people's lives on a line drawn with faulty information. Once again the fantasies of the 'policy-makers' drive decisions without much link to the realities on the ground," said Munshi, who retired from the foreign service in 2002 .

Her postings included Romania, India and Sierra Leone before Iraq, where Munshi said he had felt a "moral obligation to sort out the mess we have made there."

LINK

Republicans blocked the vote in the Senate again.

I hope they get a ton of mail and phone calls and emails from their constituents and the rest of the American people that want this war to end! This will come back to bite them.

"The Senate Should Not Fiddle While Iraq Burns"
New York Times | February 17, 2007 06:49 PM

Other Republicans who had helped thwart the earlier debate also said it was time to end the procedural impasse.

"In my view, it is most important that the Senate speak out on Iraq," said Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania. "If we continue to debate whether there should be a debate while the House of Representatives acts, the Senate will become irrelevant. To paraphrase the Roman adage, 'The Senate should not fiddle while Iraq burns.' "

LINK