The Security Situation in Iraq

No body can believe what is going on in Iraq those days.

100 workers kidnapped together during their way home after they finished their work, next day at the same place and the same time and from the same company 150 workers kidnapped !!!

I wonder, who have such capability of kidnapping more than 200 persons?, where they put them? And how they hide them? What they feed them? And how?
I can't think of who did it, unless he is as powerful as a government or work for the government. But why the government kidnapped it's own workers!?

Other strange thing that a General Director in the Ministry of Health kidnapped inside the Ministry building!!, isn't that suspicious?

A prof. from the University of Mosul went for some business to the Ministry of Intern. He shot dead at the front door of the ministry when he is in his way out!!

I will not mentions the number of bodies discovered every day at the streets of the main cities. Or the organized killing of the Doctors, the Scientists and the University lecturers.

I don't want to mention the explosions and the bombs targeted the Mosques and the shopping markets of both Sunnis and Sheeis.

All these and more happened at the hearing and the sight of the American troops which should be responsible for security in this occupied country.

YOU American if you can't control the security situation, leave now and let us solve our problems in our own way.

It will never be worse than the current situation.

Three years of occupation and despite the daily statements of the US official about the progress in the security, the condition progress from bad to worse.
Every day is worse than the previous.

Can any body imagine how the US super power together with the Iraqi Army and the Iraqi police and the allied forces from so many sources are all failed to control the chaos in this country.

This country was controlled in peace and security by the power of single Dictator.
Don't believe that this dictator killed people in his 35 years of control more than what was killed in 3 years of freedom and democracy under the US controls.

Back to Iraq

Amidst all the events in Iraq now, I feel it is complete irresponsible to write about the beauty of France and neglect the hill Of Iraq.

For those who want to see the picture of France and read my impression about it. They can find it here

Chateau De Versailles

In Versailles, we started our training program at the site of the GE company, 20 min. from our hotel by car.
Every day we left hotel about 7:30 am to reach the place before 8:00 am. The workstation started at 8:00 am till 5:30 pm with a break for the lunch at about 12:00 am. when we left the company we have to call for the taxi company to take us to the hotel, usually we reached the hotel about 6:00 pm or later. Surprisingly all the shops in the city closed at 7:00 pm except the restaurants.
After 7:00 pm we have only the park of the Chateau to go and enjoy the beautiful gardens and the fresh air. Even the park closed at 9:00 pm. when we go to our hotel for the diner which last at least two hours, and then went to sleep.
At the first weekend we visited the Chateau from inside, It is unbelievably wonderful.
I will show you some pictures of it.

More pictures.

Versailles ... a beautiful city

When we reached Versailles, we were tired and disappointed from what we faced in the airport.
But this feeling gradually disappeared when we see the beauty of this city. It is small city with narrow streets and old buildings, but it's spirit was so wonderful that make any body feel as he is in another world.
Our hotel was few minutes from the famous palace of Versailles, they called it chateau De Versailles.

This is a picture of the Chateau De Versailles showing the left wing only, my camera is so small and I cant put it all in one picture and show the details at the same time.















The Chateau have a fantastic garden, with plenty of statues scattered here and there, they definitely represent some historical tales, but we don't know those tales, we just enjoy our selves with the calm and beauty of the park.

This is a view of very small part of that magnificent park















A statue in the middle of a lake















I have a lot of pictures at the park and inside the palace.
I will try to show them to you in the next posts.

More pictures.

A visit to France .... cont.

The plane take off at its scheduled time, we reached the Amman international airport, in Jordan. the company correspondent, Ahmad, (is his name) was with us, he took us to the Hyatt grand hotel. We reached the hotel at 7:00 pm we were very tired, as we were on our feet from 9:00 am, and without lunch except the food served in the plane.

After we took a rest we gathered in the lobby of the hotel, Ahmad invite us for a dinner in one of the restaurant in the hotel, it was Thailand restaurant, serve special Asian food, mainly sea food. For the first time in my life I ate Shrimp and other Sea food, for the truth some of it was very delicious. we went to sleep at 12:00 pm to be ready for the next trip to Paris at 5:00 am.
We were ready at time, Ahmad took us to the airport, but unfortunately, he couldn't get the Visa to accompany us to Paris.

He gave us the tickets, the reservation in the Hotel in France and the phone number of the responsible person in Paris who suppose to meet us at the airport.
The direction of the plane was toward the west, so we gain two hour, the time difference between Iraq and France. The trip last 4.5 hours.
We reached Paris, there were a heavy rain in Paris at that time, the airport was over crowded. but we didn't found any body in the airport from the company, we keep looking for any sign or any thing to know if there is any one to take us to our hotel. All of us were in Paris for the first time, no one of us speak french, which was a big problem their.

After an hour or so of fruit less waiting, we called the number Ahmad gave us, when we informed that no body came to meet us because it was Sunday and it is weekend, but we get confirmation that the hotel reservation is OK, and we have to take taxis to the hotel by ourselves, and cars will be waiting for us next morning to take us to the company.

We took 3 taxis, gave the address to the drivers, they took us to our hotel which was in the city of Versailles. it take about an hour to reach the hotel in that rainy day.

We are now in France, Versailles is one of the most beautiful city I have ever seen.

to be continue

A visit to France

The Iraqi Ministry of Health bought a Gamma Cameras for the Nuclear Medicine centers in Iraq.
One of these Cameras was for Mosul Nuclear Medicine.
The Cameras we bought are up to date and need special skills and knowledges to operate it, and to interprete the results.

They chose two doctors from Mosul to train on the usage of this Camera in the country where it has been build (France), I was one of those two doctors.

April 30/2006 was the date in which we suppose to take the plane to Paris. the company correspondence in Iraq supposed to take care of the visa and the plane reservation. He took our passport for this purposes.

He sent me an e mail to be in Baghdad in a well known place where other doctors from Baghdad are gathered, to take special cars to take us to the airport. our date was at 9:00 am on 4/30/2006. our plane take of at 3:30 pm.
The extra time was to overcome any difficulties or problems in the road to the airport.

As you may know, the road from Mosul to Baghdad is not save, and not always easy to reach Baghdad. so we decided to go to Baghdad one day in advance just in case there is any problem in the road.

We arrange a taxi with a professional driver to pick us at 6:00 am just after the end of the curfew.
At 6:30 we were in the taxi ready to go, but all the bridges of the city were closed for no clear reason.
We stayed in the car waiting for the bridge to open till 11:00 am where they allow the cars to cross the bridge, but one at a time, we cross the bridge and so we pass the first obstacle, as we knew later the bridges closed again few minutes later for the rest of the day.

At the city of Baiji, mid way to Baghdad there was an explosion and the main street was closed, we forced to take a detour in an unpaved side way, after we left Baiji by few tens of kilometers there was a three American vehicle closing the high-way and all the car are forced to drive in the farms where there is no distinct way, just find a way to drive your car through and go on. It take about 45 minute in such a miserable sandy way.

After that the road to Baghdad was open with no problem except when we met an American high-way patrol, they move very slowly and don't allow any car to pass them, cars wait till they took an exit or change their way to move in their ordinary speed. We reached Baghdad about 6:00 PM. It was a 12 hours trip,usually take only 4 hours.

The next day we were all ready at the specified place , but a little problem arise, our passports are still in the French embassy for the Visas, the company correspondence suppose to pick the visa in the morning and meet us at 9:00 am. but he didn't show up. at 11:00 am we get him at his mobile phone, he told us that there were fire-shoot at the vicinity of the embassy and the road to the embassy is closed and he couldn't reach it, at 1:00 pm he call us saying he reached the embassy and waiting there for the passports and Visas. at 2:00 pm he arrived with the Taxis to take us to the airport.

We reached the Airport safely and completed the necessary arrangement and took our seats in the plane just at time.

Thanks God we are now in our way to Paris.

To be continued

I am back

Hi every body

I am back. I am writing from mosul now after a 33 day out,in France.
It was a an afficial bussiness visit, but there were a lot of fun and social activities.
I am preparing my self for a new posts describing my impression about what I saw there.
It is difficult to describe all the beuty and charm of France in few words, but I will try.

One month break

Hi every body.

I will be out of Iraq for official bussiness for one month (May).
During this month I don't know if I could find time for further posting or for moderation of comments.

Don't be worry about me, I will be back at the beginning of June. Till then, good bye, and have a good time

The new Iraq

On Saturday,April 21, 2006. The Iraqi parliament meet to announce the new head of the parliament, the new president and the new prime minister.

There were voting for these positions!, although they announce in advance the names!.
The end result end with a clear sectarian partitioning of the posts!

The head of the parliament is Sunni Arab with two deputies, one Kurd and the other Sheii Arab!.

The president, a Kurd with two deputies, one Sunni Arab and the other Sheii Arab!

The prime minister is A Sheii Arab, he is; Nory Kamil Al-Ali, "AKA Jawad Al-Maliky"
He is from the same party and the same list as the previous PM Al-Jaafari.
He promised the parliament and the Iraqis that he will form the new government depend on qualification not on sectarian factors, that sound very good for me, and for all the Iraqis also, but we look foreward to see it on the ground in the form of acts not just a nonsense promises that stay as "ink on paper" as the well known Arabic proverb said.

All what we can do today is just wait and see, it is only 30 days till the new government will announce and every thing will be as clear as the Sun.

The U.S. Military is in DU Denial

The U.S. Military is in DU Denial
by Susu Jeffrey

"My name is John Marshall. I was exposed to DU (depleted uranium). I am 100 percent disabled and I am pissed-off. In fact, I was advised by a couple of my counselors not to do this [interview] because I'm so angry with the government -at the VA system, at the way I'm treated and other veterans are treated. It's very impersonal. They don't give you any time. They ask us to go fight their wars, do the dirty work and then they can't take care of you."


Most people don't believe the U.S. has been poisoning its own troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, or they've heard about uranium "tipped" bombs-like fingernail polish painted on the outside of a shell casing. On the contrary, these are solid uranium core projectiles.

"I got a thank you (letter) from some lieutenant colonel. 'Thank you for serving our country. We express our deepest gratitude but we believe you were one of these men who were exposed to depleted uranium either through shrapnel or inhalation of dust.'

"I'm 35, I take 17 medications, I've had cancer-lymphatic cancer, Hodgkin's disease-Lennert's lymphoma was the initial diagnosis-immune system."

Read more

Mission Accomplished

I recieved the following article by e-mail from a friend.
It deserve reading.

Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools
THE MISSION WAS INDEED ACCCOMPLISHED
by Greg Palast
for The Guardian

20 March 2006

Get off it. All the carping, belly-aching and complaining about George Bush's incompetence in Iraq, from both the Left and now the Right, is just dead wrong.

On the third anniversary of the tanks rolling over Iraq's border, most of the 59 million Homer Simpsons who voted for Bush are beginning to doubt if his mission was accomplished.

But don't kid yourself -- Bush and his co-conspirator, Dick Cheney, accomplished exactly what they set out to do. In case you've forgotten what their real mission was, let me remind you of White House spokesman Ari Fleisher's original announcement, three years ago, launching of what he called, "Operation Iraqi Liberation." O.I.L.
How droll of them, how cute. Then, Karl Rove made the giggling boys in the White House change it to "OIF" -- Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the 101st Airborne wasn't sent to Basra to get its hands on Iraq's OIF.

"It's about oil," Robert Ebel told me. Who is Ebel? Formerly the CIA's top oil analyst, he was sent by the Pentagon, about a month before the invasion, to a secret confab in London with Saddam's former oil minister to finalize the plans for "liberating" Iraq's oil industry. In London, Bush's emissary Ebel also instructed Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, the man the Pentagon would choose as post-OIF oil minister for Iraq, on the correct method of disposing
Iraq's crude.

And what did the USA want Iraq to do with Iraq's oil? The answer will surprise many of you: and it is uglier, more twisted, devilish and devious than anything imagined by the most conspiracy-addicted blogger. The answer can be found in a 323-page plan for Iraq's oil secretly drafted by the State Department. Our team got a hold of a copy; how, doesn't matter. The key thing is what's inside this thick Bush diktat: a directive to Iraqis to maintain a state oil company that will "enhance its relationship with OPEC."


Enhance its relationship with OPEC??? How strange: the government of the United States rdering Iraq to support the very OPEC oil cartel which is strangling our nation with outrageously high prices for crude.

Specifically, the system ordered up by the Bush cabal would keep a lid on Iraq's oil production -- limiting Iraq's oil pumping to the tight quota set by Saudi Arabia and the OPEC cartel.

There you have it. Yes, Bush went in for the oil -- not to get MORE of Iraq's oil, but to prevent Iraq producing TOO MUCH of it.

You must keep in mind who paid for George's ranch and Dick's bunker: Big Oil. And Big Oil -- and their buck-buddies, the Saudis -- don't make money from pumping more oil, but from pumping LESS of it. The lower the supply, the higher the price.

It's Economics 101. The oil industry is run by a cartel, OPEC, and what economists call an "oligopoly" -- a tiny handful of operators who make more money when there's less oil, not more of it. So, every time the "insurgents" blow up a pipeline in Basra, every time Mad Mahmoud in Tehran threatens to cut supply, the price of oil leaps. And Dick and George just LOVE it.

Dick and George didn't want more oil from Iraq, they wanted less. I know some of you, no matter what I write, insist that our President and his Veep are on the hunt for more crude so you can cheaply fill your family Hummer; that somehow, these two oil-patch babies are concerned that the price of gas in the USA is bumping up to $3 a gallon.

No so, gentle souls. Three bucks a gallon in the States (and a quid a litre in Britain) means colossal profits for Big Oil, and that makes Dick's ticker go pitty-pat with joy. The top oily-gopolists, the five largest oil companies, pulled in $113 billion in profit in 2005 -- compared to a piddly $34 billion in 2002 before Operation Iraqi Liberation. In other
words, it's been a good war for Big Oil.

As per Plan Bush, Bahr Al-Ulum became Iraq's occupation oil minister; the conquered nation "enhanced its relationship with OPEC;" and the price of oil, from Clinton peace-time to Bush war-time, shot up 317%.

In other words, on the third anniversary of invasion, we can say the attack and occupation is, indeed, a Mission Accomplished. However, it wasn't America's mission, nor the Iraqis'. It was an Mission Accomplished for OPEC and Big Oil.

**********

It makes me laugh

There is a proverb in Arabic means "The worse catastrophe is which makes you laugh"
You should read this and laugh.

Someone Should Tell Bush Why We Went to War

By Scott Galindez
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Wednesday 22 March 2006

After yesterday's presidential news conference, I am beginning to wonder if George W. Bush knows why we went to war with Iraq. He should just come clean and admit that we went to war because Dick, Wolfie, and Rummy told him to.

Three years into the war and the President still can't answer the question of why we went to war in the first place. It is perfectly clear now why he can't meet with Cindy Sheehan. Imagine him saying to Cindy, "after September 11th, we realized killers could destroy innocent life." Hmmmm, we have a president who didn't know that prior to 9/11?

Imagine him telling Cindy that we invaded Iraq because "the Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where al Qaeda trained...." Someone also needs to tell George that the Taliban probably wanted Saddam out of power too; bin Laden did. Of course he knows the Taliban were in Afghanistan, doesn't he?

When he finally got to Iraq, he rewrote history again. "We worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it" said Bush.

The world didn't agree, that's why there was no vote at the UN authorizing the war. I seem to remember inspectors in Iraq until we warned them that it wouldn't be safe for them to remain. I also want to know what Iraq was supposed to disclose if they had no WMD?

Please, one of you neo-cons, brief the President on the real reason for the war in Iraq, so the next time a reporter asks him a real question he doesn't embarrass us again.

Excerpted from the transcript of yesterday's press conference:

Helen Thomas: I'd like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet - your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth - what was your real reason? You have said it wasn't oil - quest for oil, it hasn't been Israel, or anything else. What was it?

The President: I think your premise - in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist - is that - I didn't want war. To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect -

Helen Thomas: Everything -

The President: Hold on for a second, please.

Helen Thomas: - everything I've heard -

The President: Excuse me, excuse me. No President wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it's just simply not true. My attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. We - when we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people. Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen. You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life. And I'm never going to forget it. And I'm never going to forget the vow I made to the American people that we will do everything in our power to protect our people.

Part of that meant to make sure that we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy. And that's why I went into Iraq - hold on for a second -

Helen Thomas: They didn't do anything to you, or to our country.

The President: Look - excuse me for a second, please. Excuse me for a second. They did. The Taliban provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where al Qaeda trained -

Helen Thomas: I'm talking about Iraq -

The President: Helen, excuse me. That's where - Afghanistan provided safe haven for al Qaeda. That's where they trained. That's where they plotted. That's where they planned the attacks that killed thousands of innocent Americans.

I also saw a threat in Iraq. I was hoping to solve this problem diplomatically. That's why I went to the Security Council; that's why it was important to pass 1441, which was unanimously passed. And the world said, disarm, disclose, or face serious consequences -

Helen Thomas: - go to war -

The President: - and therefore, we worked with the world, we worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did, and the world is safer for it.

Scott Galindez is the Managing Editor of truthout.org.

Another Collateral Killing. More pictures

I am sorry to publish those pictures.
But I think all American citizens should see how their brave soldiers defeated the terrorists Iraqi children.