'Just World News' with Helena Cobban: Moqtada (and Petraeus) repositioning?: "This AP report meanwhile tells us that, back in Najaf today, Obeidi criticized the Sadrists' Shiite rival, IISC head Abdel-Aziz Hakim, for his current visit to the US, calling it an 'act of surrender.' It is hard to gauge and assess these developments from a distance-- except to note that the Sadrists seem to be treading a fine line between cooperating, de-facto and in some delimited spheres, with the Americans and not cooperating with them in others. It is also, certainly, significant that Obeidi-- whom we have no reason to doubt at this point is accurately representing Moqtada's views-- is trying to position the group as a firmly Arab Iraqi movement, in contrast to the Hakim/IISC (formerly known as SCIRI) crowd who have historically had much closer ties to Iran."
Evidence of torture used in Iraq | Special Reports | Guardian Unlimited Politics : "The Foreign Office says the 'government, including its intelligence and security agencies, never use torture for any purpose' ( MI5 and MI6 to be sued for first time over torture, September 12). The evidence in the public domain from the court martial into the death of Baha Mousa and the serious abuse of 10 other Iraqi civilians is clear in establishing this is not true. UK armed forces went into Iraq with a written policy that allowed hooding, and with a policy of training interrogators to use hooding, stressing and sleep deprivation to gain intelligence. Iraqi civilians were routinely hooded in up to three sandbags - and even old plastic cement bags. When Baha Mousa died in September 2003, partly as a result of abuse while hooded, common sense dictates that at least at that point those in positions of responsibility within the civil service and military would have acted to change the poli...
Comments