Activists note that most of the candidates for top security posts voted for the 2002 resolution authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq or otherwise supported launching the war.

State Department adviser David Satterfield is quoted in the Iraqi press as saying the United States not only isn’t exploring an extension, they would reject the extension of the UN mandate and would withdraw all troops from Iraq if the Iraqis don’t approve the SOFA.

The Iraqi Parliament’s debate on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) was expected to be contentious, but it would have been difficult to envision just how contentious things ended up today. Influential Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s parliamentary bloc had firmly opposed the SOFA from the beginning, and loudly forced an adjournment as the SOFA was being read to parliament.

The US media distinguishes itself by obeying the guiding hand of
neglect when it comes to ignoring issues detrimental to corporate
interests. Here is an overview from the Real News Network.

Iran's parliament speaker urged Iraqi lawmakers to keep resisting a security pact with the United States, official media said Tuesday, a day after Baghdad signed an accord on U.S. troop presence in Iraq.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker signed Monday the long-awaited deal requiring Washington to withdraw its forces by the end of 2011, eight years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

It must still be passed by the Iraqi parliament.

The American media is by and large swallowing the propaganda line that the Iraqi cabinet's acquiescence to a "Status of Forces Agreement" (SOFA) with the U.S. occupation force means that the Iraq War will be over in 2011.

But as usual, there is a wide, yawning abyss between the packaged, freeze-dried pabulum for public consumption and the gritty, blood-flecked truth on the ground. As Jason Ditz reports at Antiwar.com, the so-called "deadline" in 2011 for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces remains, as ever, an "aspiration," not an iron-clad guarantee.

The text of the United States-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed by US ambassador Ryan Crocker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on Monday closes the door to a further US military presence beyond 2011 even more tightly than the previous draft and locks in a swift end to Iraqi dependence on the US military that appears to be irreversible.

In a daring guerrilla raid earlier this fall, members of the Los Angeles chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) infiltrated a local gas station to deploy a battalion of 4171 toy soldiers, together with a sign reading, "Price of Gas: 4171 U.S. Soldiers."

The Iraq War? Illegal. Who says so? The former top law lord of America's main ally in the invasion and occupation. What does it mean? It means that the whole mass-murdering operation was, has been, and remains a damnable crime against humanity by any and all legal standards, even those of the invading countries themselves. (To say nothing of the moral abomination involved).

Legal advice given to Tony Blair by the attorney general prior to the Iraq war was fundamentally "flawed," a former law lord has claimed.

Lord Bingham said Lord Goldsmith had given Mr Blair "no hard evidence" that Iraq had defied UN resolutions "in a manner justifying resort to force".

The struggle for influencing Barack Obama's foreign policy agenda has begun in right earnest. The maneuvering by influential establishment figures - including Congressional voices, Obama advisors and even military officials - who are projecting incumbent Robert Gates as secretary of defense in the incoming administration highlights the pressures working on the president-elect.

The big bang is not that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's majority Shi'ite/Kurdish 37-member cabinet in Baghdad has approved the draft of a security pact with the George W Bush (and Barack Obama) administrations allowing the US military to stay in Iraq for three more years; it's that the 30-strong Sadrist bloc will move heaven and Earth - including massive nationwide protests - to bloc the pact in the Iraqi National Assembly.

Iraqi lawmakers Monday began debate over a pact with the United States that will allow U.S. forces to remain for three more years, while an Iranian official close to that country's leadership praised the Iraqi Cabinet for approving the deal.

Thousands of Sunni and Shiite Arabs took to the streets across Iraq Saturday to defend Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki against criticism from leaders of the country's Kurdish minority.

They came out to protest remarks made earlier this week by Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani, who accused Maliki of illegally allying with tribes in areas with large Kurdish populations to expand the power of the state.

MP Ahmed al-Masoudi, a spokesman for the bloc said on Sunday that the government's endorsement of the US-Iraq security pact "did not mean anything" as long as it required the approval of a parliament which would reject it, the Voices of Iraq news agency reported.

He added that a majority of the Iraqi nation was against the pact and it would be rejected by Parliament because "a large number of lawmakers from different blocs" are opposed to it.

Iraq's cabinet defied fiery opposition from Shiite hardliners on Sunday and approved a wide-ranging military pact that includes a timetable for the withdrawal of all US troops by the end of 2011.

The cabinet approved the agreement after a two and a half hour meeting, with 28 ministers out of 38 voting for it, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a government official said.

The Sadrist parliamentary bloc says the Iraqi National Assembly will reject a security pact between Baghdad and Washington, despite the government's endorsement.

Why does the US occupation and the Iraqi government cover up such incidents? How many such incidents have the governments cover up? Why did they decrease the number of victims in their reports?

After months of tough negotiations and multiple revisions, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has decided to back the controversial U.S.-Iraq security agreement that calls for the complete withdrawal of American troops by the end of 2011, Iraqi and U.S. officials said Friday.

Massoud Barzani, the President of Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government, also continued to express doubt that the SOFA would be signed, but warned that “if the pact is not signed, the situation in the country may deteriorate to the point of a civil war.” President Barzani has been an outspoken supporter of the SOFA and the continued US military presence, even suggesting that the 150,000-plus US troops could all be hosted in Kurdistan if the SOFA fell through.

For all the effort the peace movement has put in, and for all the influence the antiwar message has had on pubic opinion (without which Barack Obama would not have been elected), the peace movement has almost no ability to influence Congress or the president elect. Take a look at Obama's short list for possible appointees to the Pentagon, or his vice presidential pick, or his chief of staff: there's nobody within a mile of the new administration who opposed the war.

Here we see how civilian casulaities are not an accident but are a
result of military policy. You can see why PTSD appears and why the
military tries to hide it causes. Why do we never see this in the
press? Real Iraqi veterans spoke out on camera.

North Oil, an Iraqi-owned company, has signed a contract with a Chinese state-owned oil corporation, CNPC, that was first negotiated during Saddam Hussein’s government, an official in Iraq’s Oil Ministry said Tuesday.

World leaders have already drawn up demands to put to US president-elect Barack Obama and quickly expressed a desire to see his promise of change applied to key conflicts and dragging the global economy out of crisis.

In the Old Testament, Babylon is destroyed by God as a punishment for the decadence and cruelty of its inhabitants. But a new disaster has befallen the ancient metropolis - coalition troops serving in Iraq are accused of causing irreversible damage to what is one of the world’s most important archaeological sites.

An exhibition of film and photographs opening at the British Museum in London on Thursday exposes the extent of the destruction to the public for the first time.

Why was Saddam hanged BEFORE the conclusion of the trial,. . . because he had issued orders NOT to use gas? These are the translations made by the US Military, and which the UN had access to only AFTER 29 December 2006 after Saddam had been hanged. Tony Blair knew and George Bush knew about this, as these translations were made by the RCLO Office US Military.

Royal Dutch Shell oil company and the Iraqi Oil Ministry have struck a secret, as-of-yet non-binding agreement that gives a monopoly over southern Iraq's natural gas to the energy giant. It marks the first time in over 35 years a Western oil company has played a major role in the country's most lucrative industry.

Signed Sept. 22 and obtained by United Press International, the "Heads of Agreement" document -- basically a legal framework for a contract -- delegates Shell sole access to the reserves for the next 25 years, with an option to extend that term.

Now that a Democrat has been elected president, the Democrats in Congress have no excuse. They can no longer pretend that they have to “hold back” to win the election.

They have no excuse to delay war crimes charges against Bush, Cheney and company for Iraq.

They have no excuse to delay war crimes charges for torture.

They have no excuse to delay criminal charges for spying on Americans.

They have no excuse to delay criminal charges for 9/11.

The United States delivered Thursday what it said was the final text of the controversial accord on the stationing of U.S. forces in Iraq, but Iraq said more talks are needed before the government can accept it.

"We have gotten back to the Iraqi government with a final text. Through this step, we have concluded the process on the U.S. side," said Susan Ziadeh, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Baghdad. "Iraq will now need to take it forward through their own process."

IN ORDER TO CONTRADICT THE NIGHTLY NEWS REPORTS THAT MILITARY MEN ONLY VOTED FOR MCCAIN, THE FOLLOWING LATRINE SNAPSHOTS REVEAL THE TRUTH ABOUT "GRUNT" OPINION.

50% of the cholera cases and 50% of the deaths from it have been of Iraqi children 5 years old or younger.

The outbreak has spread because of a mix of incompetence and deteriorating infrastructure. Cholera is a disease contracted from drinking contaminated water.

"What soldier's going to say they don't want to go home? I have a wife and four kids. I want to go home. But one thing we all want is to make sure the friends we lost over here weren't for nothing," said Captain Ryan Morrison, from Colorado Springs.

Sgt. James Fowler, 27, of Fresno, Calif., praised the Army for encouraging soldiers to vote and helping them with absentee ballots. He said he voted for Obama but "I am outnumbered 10-to-one, especially among officers" and senior noncommissioned officers who said they wanted John McCain to win.

One of the key issues facing the next US president will be the detention policies of the US military that form part of its so-called war on terror.

We all know about Guantanamo Bay, but since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been arrested and detained. At present, there are some seventeen thousand in US custody. They are what the military call "security detainees" held for an undetermined amount of time, and not charged with any crime. However, the authority cited by the military for the way the US holds prisoners is about to expire.

The question I ask myself is what will protect our country from collapsing under the burden of this enormous guilt of having systemically wrecked and destroyed another nation with such impunity? What will protect us from the awareness of being complicit in such unlawful and willful destruction? As the truth becomes impossible to ignore, are we to be transformed from a nation of sleepwalkers in to a nation of insomniacs?

“We don’t call it a security pact but an agreement to withdraw the troops and organize their activities during the period of their presence in Iraq,” al-Maliki was quoted as saying.

In a blunt assessment, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. Raymond Odierno, said Thursday that there is a 20 percent to 30 percent chance that the United States and Iraq won't reach a deal to allow U.S. troops to operate in Iraq past Dec. 31.

The distortions about the violence in Iraq persist even as the mayhem increases. Here are ten of the worst myths being spread in the media.

Iraq's relative calm is threatened by a festering Kurdish-Arab conflict over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and other disputed territories, that could explode into the worst sectarian war the country has suffered since the 2003 invasion, a new report says today.

Millions of people in Iraq are at risk of disease because of inadequate health care, water and sanitation services, the international Red Cross warned Wednesday.

"Far too many Iraqis still have no choice but to drink dirty water and live in insalubrious conditions," said Juan-Pedro Schaerer, the head of delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Iraq.

"This leads to more sick people seeking treatment in a health-care system already stretched to the limit," he said in a statement.

A recent report has revealed that the US has paid more than $6 billion to private security companies that have been operating in Iraq.

The money amounts to about 12 percent of the $50 billion of the Iraq reconstruction funds, said Bowen.

The government is massing troops in the restive Mosul in preparation for a large-scale offensive to subdue the northern city.

It will be the third massive military offensive on the city in one year. The previous two, in which large numbers of U.S. occupation troops took part, failed to bring peace to the city.

Iraq has demanded a clear commitment from the US that its forces will have left its soil by the end of 2011.

The stance was revealed in a newly toughened-up version of a draft military pact that could eventually see the US presence forced to make their exit much sooner.

A declaration published mid-September outlines a plan to relieve Iraq of foreign occupation and leave a stable, peaceful nation. It has drawn wide support and endorsement, including from Nobel Prize winners and nominees as well as other well-known figures working for peace from many parts of the world.

The military has attacked anyone who has brought up the question
of DU. In this clip, we have produced proof of the radioactive
levels of contamination in Iraq. Why is this ignored' Why does
the press not care about of veterans'

As the United States struggles to get Iraqi officials to change their position on the all-but-dead Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) top US commander General Ray Odierno has issued a three-page letter to high ranking Iraqi officials. The letter includes a list of major services which the United States would halt if the Iraqi government does not approve the SOFA by the end of the year.

The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn't agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq.

A huge American-financed wastewater treatment plant in the desert city of Falluja, which United States troops assaulted twice to root out insurgents in 2004, was supposed to be the centerpiece of an effort to rebuild Iraq, a country smashed by war and neglect, and bring Western standards of sanitation.

The project was so poorly conceived that there is no reliable electricity to run pumps and purification tanks, and no money left to connect homes to the main sewer lines, which now run uselessly beneath Falluja’s streets, according to a report by federal investigators to be released Monday.

In 1992, Mark Higson, the Foreign Office official responsible for Iraq, appeared before the Scott inquiry into the scandal of arms sold illegally to Saddam Hussein. He described a "culture of lying" at the heart of British foreign policymaking. I asked him how frequently ministers and officials lied to parliament.

"It's systemic," he said. "The draft letters I wrote for various ministers were saying that nothing had changed, the embargo on the sale of arms to Iraq was the same."

"Was that true?" I asked.

"No, it wasn't true."

"And your superiors knew it wasn't true?"

"Yes."

While the Cholera is spreading and horrifying people, the government does not move a finger to do anything, apart from giving false statement that the epidemic is under control. The black irony is as much as the government declares that the cholera is under control, new cases appear in different regions, especially in the south.