Iraq Body Count Worldwide update of reported civilian deaths in the Iraq war and occupation.

• Economists Say Cost of War Could Top $2 Trillion
  (January 8, 2006) According to economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, cost estimates for the Iraq War have been vastly understated. While US congressional budget data estimates the war's cost at $500 billion through 2006, Stiglitz and Bilmes put the war's total cost at $2 trillion. Their detailed analysis includes long-term costs like ongoing healthcare for wounded troops and the war's related effects on investment, oil prices, and the growing US budget deficit. (Boston Globe)

• Libby Indictment May Open Door to Broader Iraq War Deceptions By Stephen Zunes,  Foreign Policy In Focus, November 14, 2005 The details revealed thus far from the investigation that led to the five-count indictment against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby seem to indicate that the efforts to expose the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson went far beyond the chief assistant to the assistant chief. Though no other White House officials were formally indicted, the investigation appears to implicate Vice President Richard Cheney and Karl Rove, President George W. Bush's top political adviser, in the conspiracy. More importantly, the probe underscores the extent of administration efforts to silence those who questioned its argument that Iraq constituted a serious threat to the national security of the United States. Even if no other White House officials ever have to face justice as a result of this investigation, it opens one of the best opportunities the American public may have to press the issue of how the Bush administration led us into war.  

• NCC General Assembly declares 'any and all use of torture is unacceptable' Hunt Valley, Md., Nov. 9, 2005 – The General Assembly of the National Council of Churches USA and Church World Service commended the U.S. Senate’s “anti-torture provisions” in the 2006 Defense Appropriations bill. But as the House of Representatives begins debate on the bill, some high ranking U.S. government officials have declined to support the provisions. "As delegates to the General Assembly of the National Council of Churches USA and Church World Service, we find any and all use of torture unacceptable and contrary to U.S. and international legal norms," the delegates said. “We find it particularly abhorrent that our nation's law makers would fail to approve the pending legislation disavowing the use of torture by any entity on behalf of the United States government," the statement said. “Torture, regardless of circumstance, humiliates and debases torturer and tortured alike,” the General Assembly declared by unanimous vote. “Torture turns its face against the biblical truth that all humans are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27). It denies the preciousness of human life and the dignity of every human being by reducing its victims to the status of despised objects, no matter how noble the caused for which it is employed.” Read the full text of the statement on the Torture page: A Statement on the Disavowal of Torture   Contact NCC News: Leslie Tune, 202-544-2350; Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2252

• U.S. general in Iraq: Growing disconnect with Washington By Pamela Hess, UPI Pentagon Correspondent, October 5, 2005) BAGHDAD -- "I don't know if I have the moral authority to send troops into combat anymore," a senior American general recently told United Press International...."Everything that happens in Iraq is viewed in Washington through a prism of whether it is good for George W. Bush or bad," said a civilian U.S. official, who spoke to UPI on the condition he not be named....There is a growing disconnect between Washington and those fighting the Iraq war --

• Bush: Iraq Crucial in Global War on Terror WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush, in a high-profile address on Thursday, said the global fight against terrorism must continue in Iraq because it is where terrorists are centering their war on humanity. If U.S. forces withdraw from Iraq, Bush said, insurgents would "use the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against nonradical Muslim governments."

• War of Attrition Editorial, LA Times THE WORSENING MILITARY SITUATION in Iraq now threatens to be matched by declining political conditions there. In the last week, more than 140 Iraqis have been killed in a series of bombings, and U.S. Army officials downgraded from three to one the number of Iraqi battalions capable of acting on their own. Meanwhile, Shiites and Kurds attempted to rig the Oct. 15 referendum on the new constitution in an effort to further marginalize the Sunnis, backing down only under strong U.S. and United Nations pressure.

• Iraq Slips Away Editorial, The Washington Post IRAQ STANDS less than 10 days away from a momentous vote on a new constitution, the first of a series of events that in the next several months will make or break the U.S.-backed attempt to unite the country under a new political system. A successful exit for U.S. troops, or a deepening military quagmire, hangs in the balance. Yet serious discussion of the Iraqi political process in Washington seems to have faded to a whisper.

• War and Other Media Myths by Norman Solomon, Valley Advocate News History should make us wary of any assumption that the press is apt to be a counterweight to militarism. It's reasonable to estimate that more than a quarter of a million people demonstrated against the Iraq war on September 24th in Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other U.S. cities. The next day, the Washington Post ran a story that described "the largest show of antiwar sentiment in the nation's capital since the conflict in Iraq began." But more perfunctory back-page articles were typical in daily papers across the country. And over the weekend, many TV news watchers saw little or nothing about the protests.

• US should pull out of Iraq now says former CIA chief John Deutch AFX News Limited. Washington. July 15, 2005 The US should cut its losses, pull out of Iraq promptly and never again use its military might to build a nation according to its own values, former CIA chief John Deutch wrote in The New York Times. US military presence in Iraq is harming US interests in the Arab world, detracts attention from other 'important security challenges... North Korea, Iran and international terrorism,' and weakens the US military, said Deutch, who before heading the Central Intelligence Agency (1995-1996) was deputy defence secretary (1994-1995).

• White House nixes Iraq withdrawal schedule By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL. Published by the World Peace Herald. June 13, 2005. The rejection was issued by spokesman Scott McClellan as the U.S. death toll in Iraq topped 1,700 and amid moves in Congress to introduce legislation this week calling for it.

  Former CIA director calls for Iraq withdrawal By Alvin Powell, Harvard News OfficeFormer CIA Director John M. Deutch, institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said that the United States is not making progress toward key objectives in Iraq and called for American troops to pull out "as soon as possible" during a speech Tuesday (June 7) at Harvard's Sanders Theatre. In his 20-minute speech, he challenged the views of both Republicans and Democrats who say that the United States must stay the course to stabilize the country before disengaging.

  At Iraqi Request, the UN Extends Approval for US-Led Forces to Stay By John F. Burns. June 1, 2005. New York Times The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved extending the mandate of US-led forces in Iraq beyond the end of 2005. The approval came in a private, closed-door consultation with no open discussion of the matter.

  Secret way to war: Mark Danner on the British smoking-gun memo By Tom Engelhardt. May 16, 2005. Working AssetsThat the New York Review of Books is the first publication here to print the document is not only an honorable (and important) act, but a measure of the failure of major American papers to offer attention where it is clearly due. After all, whole government investigations have, in the past, gone in search of "smoking guns." In fact, the Bush administration spent much time searching fruitlessly for its own "smoking gun" of WMD in Iraq -- and this process was considered of front-page importance in our major papers and on the TV news.

  A Tentative Strategy for Ending the War By Mike Whitney. May 10, 2005. The Dearlove memo is …. the first piece of incontrovertible evidence that a criminal conspiracy took place at the highest levels of government to lead the nation to war.

  British Intelligence Warned of Iraq War By Walter Pincus. The Washington Post. May 13, 2005. The notes of the Blair meeting, attended by the prime minister's senior national security team, also disclose for the first time that Britain's intelligence boss believed that Bush had decided to go to war in mid-2002, and that he believed U.S. policymakers were trying to use the limited intelligence they had to make the Iraqi leader appear to be a bigger threat than was supported by known facts.

  Rights groups see pattern in prisoner deaths By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, The Associated Press. Mar 17, 2005 At least 108 people have died in U.S. custody in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and roughly a quarter of the cases have been investigated as possible U.S. abuse, according to government data provided to The Associated Press. The figure, far higher than any previously disclosed, includes cases investigated by the Army, Navy, Central Intelligence Agency and Justice Department. . . .

  Same War, Different Day By Randall G. Shelden, Professor in the Dept of Criminal Justice, University of Nevada-Las Vegas (UNLV) The “Project for the New American Century” was formed in 1997, dedicated to the principles that “American leadership is good both for America and for the world; that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle; and that too few political leaders today are making the case for global leadership.” In contrast, the goal of the "Project for the Old American Century" is as follows: “We aim to make use of the internet as if it were Radio Free America, or Resistance Radio. The voices exposing the lies and hypocrisy of the far right as they legislate in favor of their campaign donors to the detriment of citizen health and the environment will be heard. Those who would lie us into believing that a defenseless third world nation posed an immediate threat, kill hundreds of thousands, spread deadly depleted uranium across a country, and make billions in profit for the companies of which they are former CEOs will have their daily actions documented here. We will be the free press.”

  Supplemental Insecurity By Fred Kaplan. Feb 15, 2005. Slate.Deeply buried in the Bush administration's 97-page supplemental budget request for $81.9 billion ($75 billion of it for the Pentagon), mainly to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is one sentence that expresses—more succinctly and shockingly than any official statement to date—just how little progress we've made toward making Iraq a stable nation....89 of Iraq's 90 battalions essentially cannot fight....The $5.7 billion requested, it adds, will allow the Iraqi government to "begin to train, equip, operate and sustain its own security forces." (Italics added.)

  What the rest of the world watched on Inauguration Day by Joan Chittister, OSB. Jan 27, 2005. The picture on the front page of The Irish Times was a large four-color picture of a small Iraqi girl....No promise of "freedom" rings in the cutline on this picture. No joy of liberty underlies the terror on these faces here....BBC news announced that the picture was spreading across Europe like a brushfire that morning, featured from one major newspaper to another, served with coffee and Danish from kitchen table to kitchen table in one country after another....Would anybody in the United States be seeing this picture today? Would the United States ever see it, in fact? And if it is printed in the United States, will it also cross the country like wildfire and would people hear the unwritten story under it? 

  Iraqi women organise economic boycott of US by Peggy Gish. Jan 23, 2005."America is trying to make this a free market for itself and treating Iraq like another state. We should have our own sovereignty. Even before the tanks came in, the media war succeeded in promoting American products. Iraqis have been buying the cheaper American products, and this has undermined our economy. The invasion has brought us poverty." ...She referred to Gandhi's urging the Indian people to spin their own thread and weave their own cloth.

  Would It Make Sense to Just Leave Iraq? By William Raspberry. Washington Post.  Jan 3, 2005It’s not a rhetorical question, but one that goes deeply into our notions of who we are and how we wish to be seen — militarily, diplomatically, politically and morally.

  The Top Ten War Profiteers of 2004 Dec 31, 2004. Center for Corporate Policy

  Free Iraq: The Responsibility of Withdrawal Friends Committee on National Legislation. January 2005When the President sends his next war supplemental to Congress, legislators should condition any further funding on the U.S. taking clear steps toward the withdrawal of all its troops and bases from Iraq and support for Iraqi-led reconstruction. Meeting U.S. moral and legal obligations to restore security and rebuild Iraq requires the removal--not build-up--of U.S. forces. FCNL offers steps to withdrawal.

  Deserters: We Won't Go To Iraq "I was told in basic training that, if I'm given an illegal or immoral order, it is my duty to disobey it, and I feel that invading and occupying Iraq is an illegal and immoral thing to do."....Canadian law has changed since the Vietnam era. Back then, an estimated 55,000 Americans deserted to Canada or dodged the draft. And in those days, Canada simply welcomed them. But today’s American deserters, such as Brandon Hughey, will need to convince a Canadian immigration board that they are refugees.

  The "War on Terrorism" Pentagon Papers During the Vietnam War, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered a study of how the U.S. military got enmeshed in Indochina. That report, popularly called the Pentagon Papers, sparked an uproar when it was published in The New York Times and other newspapers. A recent report to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is equally startling in its blunt analysis of a disastrous military campaign in the Middle East.

  Let Us Know Peace Native American prayer

  Somewhere Else: A Premiere Contemporary Art Exhibition by artists of Arab and Iranian heritage who are living in the United States. This exhibition brings awareness of the impact of stereotypes in general, and vilification of Arabs and Muslims in particular. Misrepresentations are collective definitions imposed by one group of people onto another group of people along religious, cultural or ethnic lines. The stereotyping of Muslims and Arabs has increased significantly after September 11th, yet it is a practice that goes back particularly to the Crusades of the Middle Ages. Click on the small images to see more of the work of the artist.

  Bush & Co.: War Crimes and Cover-Up But evidence of war crimes by the Bush administration - notably Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush - continues to emerge. And in spite of Bush's renunciation of the International Criminal Court, many people around the world are clamoring for Bush and his deputies to be held accountable. In the words of Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman: "It is one thing to protect the armed forces from politicized justice; quite another, to make it a haven for suspected war criminals."

  The Resort to Force By Noam Chomsky. The NSS (National Security Strategy) was effectively revised to lower the bars to aggression. The need to establish ties to terror was quietly dropped. More significant, Bush and colleagues declared the right to resort to force even if a country does not have WMD or even programs to develop them....US analysts estimate that Russian military expenditures have tripled during the Bush-Putin years, in large measure a predicted reaction to the Bush administration's militancy and aggressiveness. Putin and Ivanov cited the Bush doctrine of "preemptive strike"-- the "revolutionary" new doctrine of the National Security Strategy -- but also "added a key detail, saying that military force can be used if there is an attempt to limit Russia's access to regions that are essential to its survival," ....Bush planners know as well as others that the resort to force increases the threat of terror, and that their militaristic and aggressive posture and actions provoke reactions that increase the risk of catastrophe. They do not desire these outcomes, but assign them low priority in comparison to the international and domestic agendas they make little attempt to conceal.

  Mark Twain's War Prayer

REFERENCE GUIDE TO THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS Use the alphabetical index on this site to find out what the Geneva Conventions say about everything from access to grave sites to wounded prisoners of war, fully linked to the original treaties.

Find renewed hope and resolve in this inspiring poem by Ann Weems.