Reuters – Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had a narrow lead over rival Shi’ites, partial results in Iraq’s tight election race showed on Friday, but a secularist challenger remained far ahead in minority Sunni areas. The race may remain too close to call until initial results are posted for all of Iraq’s 18 provinces, including pivotal areas like Baghdad, the ethnically and religiously diverse capital city, suggesting it may be even harder than expected to form a government if no single bloc emerges as a clear victor. Read article
Associated Press – As the U.S. military prepares to leave Iraq, the State Department is blaming the Iraqi government for arbitrary killings of civilians and other human rights abuses. The department’s annual human rights report, released Thursday, also highlighted abuses in Afghanistan, another country where American troops are battling an insurgency. Civilians suffered the most when violence in Afghanistan spiked last year, the report said. Blaming the insurgents, the report said that almost one-third of Afghanistan was plunged into armed conflict, reducing the government’s ability to protect its citizens and extend its influence. Read Article
Telegraph – Thousands of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq are likely to develop mental health problems, General Sir Richard Dannatt said. The news came as the Prince of Wales launched an appeal by the charity Combat Stress to raise £30million to pay for better mental health services for veterans across the UK. So far 180,000 British troops have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003. General Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, said that as many as 8,500 former servicemen of these will develop mental health problems. Read article
Times Online – The threat of violent protests loomed over Iraq yesterday as the country’s leading opposition politician said that there was widespread fraud in last week’s elections. Ayad Allawi told Western officials that aides to Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, had hidden ballot papers and falsified computer records in an effort to retain power. “They are stealing the votes of the Iraqi people,” his spokesman told a press conference called to set out the main claims. Read article
Reuters – Turnout in Iraq’s parliamentary election was 62 percent, higher than in last year’s provincial ballot, despite attempts by Sunni Islamist insurgents to disrupt the vote with attacks that killed 39, officials said on Monday. Preliminary results were not expected for another day or two in a poll that Iraqis sickened by violence hope will help bring better governance and stability after years of sectarian slaughter, and as U.S. troops prepare to withdraw. Read article
CBS News – Doctors and parents in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are blaming a sharp increase in the number of birth defects on the highly sophisticated weapons U.S. troops have used in the city during the war. The BBC reported Thursday the staggering statistic from doctors in the city that the number of heart defects found in newborn babies is 13 times the number of similar birth defects in Europe. U.S. troops carried out a major offensive in the city in 2004. Military spokesman Michael Kilpatrick told the news organization it takes public health concerns “very seriously.” Read article
Reuters – Bomb blasts and rocket and mortar fire killed 38 people as Iraqis voted on Sunday in an election they hoped would distance their nascent democracy from years of sectarian slaughter as U.S. troops pack up to leave. The explosions rumbled across Baghdad and other cities after Sunni Islamist insurgents vowed to wreck voting for Iraq’s second full-term parliament since the 2003 U.S. invasion, a vote watched closely by global oil companies planning to invest billions to develop the country’s dilapidated oilfields. Read Article
Bloomberg — BP Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. took the best deal they could get in Iraq last year when they won the largest oil contracts since addam Hussein was toppled in 2003. Oil companies may wait a long time to get a better one. Parliamentary elections may produce a weak or unstable government incapable of tendering new oil contracts, said Samuel Ciszuk, a London-based analyst at IHS Global Insight. He said he does expect the 10 technical-services contracts won by Exxon, BP and 20 other companies to be honored. Read Article
BBC – US Defence Secretary Robert Gates is to review allegations of misconduct in Afghanistan by the security company formerly known as Blackwater. The review comes a day after a leading Democrat said the Pentagon should consider barring it from applying for a contract to train Afghan police. The Pentagon said it could not bar the company from applying for the billion-dollar police training contract. A spokesman for company, now called Xe, said it welcomed the review. Read article
The Independent – A car bomb exploded in Iraq’s holy city of Najaf on today, killing four Iranian pilgrims a day before a parliamentary election that Islamist insurgents have vowed to wreck with violence, officials said. The blast gutted two tour buses parked near the Imam Ali shrine, which draws millions of Shi’ite faithful from Iraq and Iran each year. Salim Nema, a Najaf health official, said the attack wounded 54 people, including 17 Iraqis and 37 Iranians. Read article
The Independent – Gordon Brown today expressed his sorrow for the loss of life in the conflict in Iraq while insisting it had been the “right decision” to overthrow Saddam Hussein. In his long-awaited appearance before the Chilcot Inquiry, the Prime Minister said the Iraqi dictator had to be confronted as a “serial violator” of international law. Read article
Twelve people were killed in Baghdad on Thursday, including seven soldiers and police blown up by suicide bombers, days before a poll that will test Iraq’s prospects for stability as U.S. troops prepare to leave. Thirty-five soldiers and police were also wounded when two attackers with explosive belts struck at centers where security forces were voting early, an Interior Ministry source said. Read article
BBC – Doctors in the Iraqi city of Fallujah are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion.The city witnessed fierce fighting in 2004 as US forces carried out a major offensive against insurgents. Now, the level of heart defects among newborn babies is said to be 13 times higher than in Europe. The US military says it is not aware of any official reports showing an increase in birth defects in the area. Read Article
Ed – To read more about the most commonly used weapon of mass detruction, depleted uranium, CLICK HERE
BBC – Hundreds of Iraqi Christians have taken part in protests calling for government action after a spate of killings. At least eight Christians have been killed in the past two weeks in the volatile northern city of Mosul. The killings prompted an appeal by Pope Benedict on Sunday for Iraqi authorities to protect vulnerable religious minorities. Read article
Guardian – A senior Iraqi spy has accused the prime minister, Nour al-Maliki, of handing out thousands of guns to tribal leaders in a bid to win votes. The claim was made by Iraqi National Intelligence Service former spokesman, Saad al-Alusi, a week before Iraq’s general election, in which allegations of vote buying and exorbitant handouts have become widespread. Read article
Times Online – THE slaughter of the al-Kaabi family last week horrified Iraqis who had prayed that the parliamentary elections next Sunday would be free from political violence. Eight-year-old Ahmed was found hanging from a ceiling fan, blood dripping from slashed wrists tied behind his back. Little Rafel, her throat cut, was still in the purple and pink T-shirt she had worn to bed. Read article
Associated Press – The top U.S. general in Iraq said Monday he could slow the exit of U.S. combat forces this year if Iraq’s politics are chaotic following elections this spring. Gen. Ray Odierno said there are no signs that will be necessary, but he says he has a Plan B and told his superiors about it during Washington meetings over the past week. The U.S. has about 96,000 troops in Iraq nearly seven years after the American-led invasion that overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein. That’s the lowest number of American forces in the country since the invasion. Read article
Guardian – Head of National Dialogue Front withdraws from election, raising concerns of repeat of 2005. One of Iraq’s two most prominent Sunni politicians has withdrawn his party from next month’s general election and called on Sunni voters to boycott the polls – a move that has raised fears of a repeat of the country’s disastrous 2005 ballot. Read article
AP – The U.S. military mission in Iraq will soon be getting a new name. As of Sept. 1, Operation Iraqi Freedom becomes Operation New Dawn. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in a memo Wednesday that the name change – which is to immediately follow the scheduled withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq – will send a strong signal that American forces have a new mission. He also said it reinforces the U.S. commitment to honor its security agreement with Iraq and recognizes “our evolving relationship” with the government there. Read article
Ed – and a new name changes what, exactly?
The Times – Rates of leukaemia in children around the Basra area of Southern Iraq have almost tripled in the last 15 years according to calculations by public health experts. Research published in the American Journal of Public Health documents 698 cases of leukaemia among children under the age of 15 in the period to 2007. There was a peak of 211 cases in 2006. Rates increased from three to almost 8.5 cases of the disease per 100,000 children over the time period. This is more than double the rate of leukaemia in the European Union. Read Article
BBC – At least 11 people have been killed and 20 hurt in a suicide attack in the Iraqi city of Ramadi, officials say. The explosion in the capital of Iraq’s western Anbar province occurred at a checkpoint near government offices and courts, police said. Read article
Reuters – A string of bombings targeted groups taking part in Iraq’s March election late on Saturday, wounding seven people, an Interior Ministry official said. The attacks stoked fears that violence may mar what is expected to be a fiercely contested March 7 parliamentary vote. Read article
Press TV – US forces have shot eight Iraqi people, most of them ‘innocent bystanders,’ in a raid in a village southeast of Baghdad, Iraqi provincial officials say. Iraqi provincial council officials described the US raid as slaughter and demanded financial compensation for the relatives of the victims. Read article
BBC – Preparations for the Iraqi parliamentary elections have been thrown into chaos by a row over whether or not to uphold a ban on hundreds of candidates, because of alleged links to Saddam Hussein’s outlawed Baath Party. Read article
Telegraph – Jack Straw has hit back at claims that he ignored legal advice that the Iraq war would be unlawful without further United Nations backing. He insisted he gave serious attention to a warning from his former senior legal adviser, Sir Michael Wood, that the conflict would be a ”crime of aggression” unless Britain achieved another UN Security Council resolution. Read article
