Posted on 06/12/2004 7:02:05 PM PDT by Destro
Sunday June 13, 6:28 AM
Top Iraqi diplomat assassinated as three hostages butchered
BAGHDAD (AFP) - Violence and bloodshed revisited Iraq with the assassination of a top Iraqi diplomat, an attempt on the life of a security official and the slaughter of three hostages.
The controversy also continued over abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US forces with a newspaper report that a top US general had given the nod for pressure tactics on Iraqi inmates.
Bassam Kubba, Iraqi undersecretary of foreign affairs, was shot dead outside his Baghdad home as he left for work, in an assault condemned by the new government which blamed supporters of ousted president Saddam Hussein.
Kubba, just returned from New York where he was part of an Iraqi mission to the United Nations, was the first national official to be assassinated since the country's new caretaker government was unveiled less than two weeks ago
"Somebody opened fire on him... He was transferred to Al-Numa hospital. He died there. It happened around 7:30 am (0330 GMT) and his driver was injured," foreign ministry official Thamer al-Azami told AFP.
The White House said the killing would not delay the June 30 handover of power to an interim government.
A second high-profile figure, General Hussein Mustapha, Iraqi border guard chief, escaped death when his two-car convoy was ambushed and sprayed with bullets on a highway to the capital's airport. One of three police in another car was killed in the attack.
Insurgents have waged an assassination campaign against police, civil servants and politicians in a bid to discredit the US-led occupation and reconstructing efforts.
Shiite politician Ezzedine Salim, last month's rotating president of the now dissolved Governing Council, was assassinated May 17 in a car bombing.
A Lebanese and two Iraqi employees of a foreign company meanwhile became the latest victims among foreigners working in Iraq and locals employed by foreign firms who have been prime targets.
Insurgents cut the throats of the three employees of a telecommunications firm kidnapped Thursday on a road near Fallujah, a Lebanese diplomat said.
"Hussein Olayyan, from south Lebanon, and two Iraqis working for a telecommunications company disappeared Thursday in the area around Fallujah," said charge d'affaires Hassan Hijazi.
On the other hand, seven Turkish construction workers kidnapped a couple of days ago around the same area were released and were on their way home, the Turkish embassy in Baghdad said.
The Washington Post reported that US Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the top US military commander in Iraq, had approved letting senior officials at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison use high-pressure tactics to extract information from detainees.
They included "military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation and diets of bread and water on detainees whenever they wished," the Post said, citing US government documents.
In September, Sanchez authorized prison officials to use the pressure tactics without having to seek authorization from higher-ranking officials outside the prison, said the paper.
However, military officials at the Florida headquarters of the US Central Command raised objections to 32 measures that Sanchez had approved.
And by October 2003, use of those measures was terminated, and prison officials needed Sanchez's direct assent to use the remaining authorized tactics, the paper reported.
The US-led coalition meanwhile said it was dissatisfied with progress made by Iraqi forces now patrolling Fallujah, and refused to rule out a return of US marines to the city.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, coalition deputy director of military operations, said that while violence had abated in Fallujah, the scene of heavy fighting until coalition troops withdrew April 30, he was disappointed the murderers there of four American contractors were still at large.
Kimmitt said the coalition Monday would release 650 more detainees from Abu Ghraib.
In Italy, the freeing earlier in the week of three Italian hostages held in Iraq proved a key election issue in European and local elections with political parties bickering over who can claim credit for their release.
Iraqi leaders welcomed signs of a softening in the anti-government tone of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who appeared more willing to negotiate with the US-backed incoming authorities.
Sadr mounted a revolt against the coalition in central and southern Iraq after US forces launched an assault on Fallujah in April.
The firebrand cleric hinted at a weekly sermon Friday he may be willing to negotiate with the new interim government on certain conditions.
Speaking through another cleric, Sadr told his followers: "I am for this government if they call for an end to the occupation and propose a date for foreign forces to leave."
Gurgis Sada, a spokesman for the newly-appointed government due to take over June 30, applauded the change in rhetoric.
"We welcome favourably Sadr's demands and we are pleased to hear his support, remembering that prime minister Iyad Allawi's cabinet is fundamentally opposed to the occupation," Sada said.
Better than an industrial shredder. And nowhere does it approve the panty treatment. No smoking gun.
But I bet the late hostages would have been very happy even to be subjected to the dread panties-on-head treatment.
Considering the treatment of the Lebanese and Iraqi hostages in having their throats slit I don't have a problem giving bread and water or depriving sleep. I frankly don't see where this is torture or abuse.
Reversed sleep patterns? Sensory deprivation? This is not torture. There is no semipermanent/permanent physical harm being done here. This is "coercion" not torture.
Torture to libs is watching black and white t.v. instead of color t.v.
Keep it up and we will not give a damned what happens to those terrorists! Actually I don't anyway!
What they might do about Fallujah is build a new road around it, put up a tall fence to block the view like they do around junkyards, and forget it.
Best I can tell, they return to their cells with all appendages still attached.
We've got to do something about Fallujah. The cesspool of hatred and violence. Enough of the ceasefire foolishness. Why do we allow this to continue?
I would hope that enough Iraqi's get upset about their fellow Iraqi's being slaughtered by these pigs that they will start to do something about it. However I am afraid they will just blame us Americans as we seem to take the blame for everything else.
"President" Saddam Hussein. The news media hangs that title on every scumbag tinhorn tyrant in the world and it makes me sick.
Everytime a POS terrorist pulls a stunt like this, the American news media gives them free media coverage beyond their wildest dreams. Pisses me off to no end.
They will start rounding up these guys and hanging them in the public square and suddenly the attacks will stop.
It would be like making a headline about the funeral of President Reagan and contrasting it with the LA Laker/Detroit Piston series.
These effin' "reporters" can't help but try to get back to that story even when it is totally irrelevant to the story they are trying to report.
We'll eventually have to kick a lot more butts in this POS city.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1144926/posts
WASHINGTON, May 30, 2004 – "There have been no cease-fire violations in Fallujah," Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, deputy operations director for Multinational Force Iraq, told reporters at a Baghdad news conference.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1147690/posts
WND June 4, 2004 Fallujah adopts Taliban Theocracy -The United States has deployed the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps in Fallujah. But security officers have not intervened as Al-Qaida-inspired gunmen direct traffic, harass businessmen and look for victims on the streets. The Coalition Provisional Authority has a presence in Fallujah, but hasn't done anything either. Last month, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would not object to an Iraqi theocracy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1148856/posts
Washington Post June 6, 2004 Despite Agreement, Insurgents Rule Fallujah - The unruly gunmen -- many of them insurgents who battled the Marines through most of April -- were supposed to give way to Iraqi police and civil defense units. Instead, the brigade stays outside of town in tents, the police cower in their patrol cars and the civil defense force nominally occupies checkpoints on the city's fringes but exerts no influence over the masked insurgents who operate only a few yards away.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1152393/posts
Houston Chronical June 12, 2004 - Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters that the city had been generally quiet since Marines lifted the siege in early May. Hard-line Islamic leaders have reasserted their power in Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad. Some were active in defending the city against the Marines and have profited by a perception — both here and elsewhere in Iraq — that the Fallujah fighters defeated a superpower.
I'm thinking we're going to have to let our Marines mount a major assault on Fallujah before June 30th.
Because Reagan's not running this war. Remember? ;)
ping!
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