Iraq War

Oil corruption in Iraqi Kurdistan arose from US/UK and Turkish patronage systems and clientalism. This investigative paper examines how IOCs and other businesses began preparing the ground in northern Iraq to benefit themselves long before Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003. The people of the region have not benefited from the wealth generated by their own natural resources. The swindling has created 5000 new millionaires in Erbil and bolstered the pockets of US and UK politicians, ex-military and SAS personnel and corporate criminals.

IPBD (Iraq Projects Business Development) was set up in the UK in September 2002 by Hareth Zahawi and his son, Nadhim along with  Mahmoud Yousuf in preparation for the invasion of Iraq. They had two other companies called Cupola. IPBD was initially set up to launder American and British military personnel uniforms.

IPBD had $30 million paid into it in January 2003, and $300 million in 2005. It was a major US Contractor under George W.Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Zalmay Khalilzad. IPBD was the first UK company to get into Iraq in April 2003, and they had access to DFI funds and stolen Iraqi gold and oil - just like Erik Prince's Blackwater mercenaries for hire... favoured by Washington and the Bush administration for protecting US interests over those of Iraqis.

The few works on the Yezidi Genocide that have appeared thus far have mainly focused on the violence perpetrated against the Yezidis and no work has attempted the construction of a general historical narrative covering the essential political dimensions of the Genocide and its aftermath. This chapter begins to address this need by providing a basic chronology and description of pivotal episodes in the political history of the Yazidi Genocide.

Questo studio si propone di analizzare alcune recenti dinamiche della
geopolitica dell'energia, focalizzando la trattazione degli argomenti sul
contesto e sulle fattispecie che compongono il quadro di costituzione del
partenariato energetico sino-iracheno, venuto in essere in un particolare
momento storico per la regione mediorientale, il ritorno in patria delle
truppe statunitensi alla fine della seconda Guerra del Golfo (2011).

Vladimiro Giacché, La fabbrica del falso. Strategie della menzogna nella politica contemporanea, 3a ed., Reggio Emilia, Imprimatur, 2016, rist. 2018.

I diritti di pubblicazione appartengono esclusivamente all’autore.
È consentita la riproduzione del testo o di sue parti solo a fini non commerciali.

Indice:
7    Premessa

11  Parte prima. Guerra alla verità:
15  1. Fenomenologia della menzogna
71  2. Menzogna, ideologia, informazione: iluoghi comuni della «guerra al terrore»
101 3. La Democrazia in ostaggio
131 4. La Sicurezza al primo posto
153 5. Mercato: i mille volti di un prestanome
175 6. Totalitarismo: triste storia di un non-concetto
199 7. Dialettica del Terrorismo

229  Parte seconda. La verità del falso:
233 8. Uomini e merci. Cronache dal mondo alla rovescia
261 9. Potere e regressione
291 10. La fabbrica del falso

315  Parte terza. Strategie di resistenza:
321 11. Spiragli
343 12. Dire la verità
365 13. Smascheramenti
385 14. La verità ricordata
405 15. Parliamo di noi

מאמר זה מבקש לתאר ולהגדיר את תפיסת התכסית האנושית, שהתפתחה
בצבא האמריקאי לאור ניסיונו באפגניסטן ובעיראק. המאמר יעמוד על הסיבות
שהובילו את הצבא האמריקאי לפתח תפיסה זאת; יתמקד בתשתית התיאורטית
ובזיקות שבין התכסית האנושית לבין מודיעין תרבותי ואינטליגנציה תרבותית.
כל אלה, לאור הניסיון האמריקאי והישראלי בזירות העימות השונות.

Facilitating access to asylum and other forms of refugee protection for the millions displaced by mass atrocities in Syria and Iraq is essential to the implementation of the international norm of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). This responsibility, however, has been disproportionately shouldered by several states in the Middle East and Europe. This article explores the challenges associated with refugee responsibility-sharing in the context of RtoP and draws on work in climate justice and political realism to articulate a framework for integrating culpability as a key criterion in allocating states' responsibilities to protect refugees. An empirical and normative assessment of U.S. responsibilities to protect refugees in the cases of conflict-induced displacement in Syria and Iraq outlines several potential paths of culpability. The article ultimately argues for greater attention to culpability, equity, and legitimacy within the discourse surrounding RtoP and refugee protection. The article also advocates linking the benefits of refugee responsibility-sharing with states' national interests and highlights several such links with regard to U.S. responsibilities in Syria and Iraq.

Under the Bush administration, the US has aggressively promoted democracy in the Middle East and North Africa.  By replacing repressive tyrants with moderate liberals and giving voice to hitherto suppressed social forces, US-backed democratization would drain the swamp of ideological extremism and reduce violent conflict, all while underscoring the role of America as a moral beacon of international enlightenment.  However, as this chapter argues, the project of encouraging Arab democracy faltered under a devastating self-contradiction. Democratization requires that autocratic incumbents surrender their monopolies over executive authority to legal opposition groups ensconced in parliaments and civic institutions. Yet, in the Arab world, this would likely bring into power Islamist groups that evoke fierce hostility toward Washington’s vital strategic interests. An Arab spring of democracy might thus result in a winter of discontent for U.S. policymakers bound by stringent imperatives, such as sponsoring Israeli policies and securing regional oil reserves. Such dissonance has exposed American democracy promotion as an ideological cloak for a darker agenda: paying lip service to gradual reform while quietly sustaining long-standing support for  autocratic allies. The theoretical lesson is stark: observers should expect not the imminent breakdown or even the slow erosion of Arab authoritarianism, but rather its renewed durability in an era of continuing patron-client ties.

Current military personnel are at risk of developing serious mental health problems, including chronic stress disorders and substance use disorders, as a result of military deployment. The most frequently studied effect of combat exposure is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). High-risk behaviors, including alcohol use and aggression, have been associated with PTSD, but the optimal cutoff score on the PTSD Checklist (PCL) for determining the risk for these behaviors has not been clearly delineated. Using postdeployment active duty (AD) and Reserve component military personnel, the relation between various cutoff scores on the PCL and engaging in high-risk behaviors was examined. AD personnel, for every outcome examined, showed significantly greater odds for each problem behavior when PCL scores were 30 or higher compared to those with PCL scores in the 17 to 29 range. A similar pattern was shown for Reserve component personnel with respect to several problem behaviors, although not for alcohol use behaviors. The differences in problem behaviors for these two populations may be an indication that deployment experiences and combat exposure affect them differently and suggest that despite lower critical PCL scores, AD personnel may be at higher risk for developing problems as a function of the deployment cycle.

The system of medical support in the territory of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan is based on four levels of medical treatment. Level 4 is organized outside the war theatre, in the territories of the countries that are a part of the stabilization forces of international organizations (NATO). Both the tasks and the structure of medical support are adjusted to fit the requirements of the U.S. Forces. The same tasks and structure are also recognized by medical services of other NATO countries participating in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each subsequent level of medical support is progressively more highly specialized and capable of providing more advanced medical treatment in comparison to the preceding level. Medical evacuation is executed either by air or overland depending on the type of illness or injury as well as the tactical situation prevailing in the combat zone. The aim of this paper is to present the planning, challenges, and problems of medical ...

While  nation-states  often  claim  that  refugees  threaten  their  political  and  territorial integrity, this chapter shows how the opposite can be true: sometimes states need refugees. In late 2014 and early 2015, when parts of Iraq and Syria were overtaken by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), people seeking refuge in semiautonomous Iraqi Kurdistan became central to the public story told about Kurdish sovereignty. Their ethnic or regional group affiliation determined their integration or rejection by the Kurdish authorities. For example, on the one hand, Anbari people were suspected of being ISIS supporters because of their regional origin. They found themselves the target of suspicion, even as they were provided with refugee status and aid. On the other hand, minorities such as Yazidi and Kurds were brought into camps that looked more like planned cities.Ultimately, refugee presence in Kurdistan reinforced a garrisoned security state. In the name of protecting refugees, Kurdistan received international humanitarian support, but also a major thrust of military expertise and supplies by which to enforce its borders. By 2017, the Pentagon signed an agreement to give the Kurdish army, known as the Peshmerga, US$415 million (Al Jazeera 2016), along with part of the US$13 billion it was spending in the fight against ISIS. Defining and placing refugees became a core alibi to the construction of a security state that held the potential of becoming a U.S.-backed independent Kurdistan.  This  was  ultimately  not  the  case,  and  the  United  States  quickly  withdrew its support for Kurdistan after ISIS was officially defeated. Nevertheless, the centrality of refugees in the story of a weak nation-state reveals insights about the political role of refugees more broadly, even for states whose status is less tenuous or less obviously linked to refugee protection.

Civil wars are often the product of low-level political violence that escalates, rather than emerging ex nihilo from a peaceful society. Therefore, it is important to focus on what causes the initial pattern of violence and why it escalates. This essay integrates structural and strategic theories of political violent to develop an analytical framework of violence escalation. This framework allows us to identify critical junctures where intervention may limit or halt escalation. The framework is applied to Iraq, 2003-2006 to determine how and why violence escalated, culminating in widespread sectarian civil war in 2006.

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Objectives: To describe the visual outlook and quality of life of service members after combat ocular trauma. Methods: In a single-center, prospective observational study of service members sustaining ocular trauma, participants underwent a series of ocular examinations and noninvasive tests, including the National Eye Institute Visual Functioning Questionnaire (VFQ-25). Results: Of the 165 enrolled participants, 137 completed the VFQ-25. The mean VFQ-25 composite score was 74.4 ± 20.7 (range: 1.4-100). Among 118 participants with visual acuity assessment, 92% had best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) of 20/20 or better in at least one eye. Among participants with severe vision loss (BCVA ≤20/200), there was no statistically significant difference in self-reported general health compared to those without severe vision loss (p = 0.17). However, there was a significantly lower visual quality of life reported in the composite score and all of the 11 subscales of the VFQ-25. Conclusions: While this study provides evidence that combat ocular trauma is associated with a lower visual quality of life, limitations include the relatively small sample size and the limited documentation of the use of eye protection at time of injury among participants.

Background Mortality estimates can measure and monitor the impacts of conflict on a population, guide humanitarian efforts, and help to better understand the public health impacts of conflict. Vital statistics registration and surveillance systems are rarely functional in conflict settings, posing a challenge of estimating mortality using retrospective population-based surveys. Results We present a two-stage cluster sampling method for application in population-based mortality surveys. The sampling method utilizes gridded population data and a geographic information system (GIS) to select clusters in the first sampling stage and Google Earth TM imagery and sampling grids to select households in the second sampling stage. The sampling method is implemented in a household mortality study in Iraq in 2011. Factors affecting feasibility and methodological quality are described. Conclusion Sampling is a challenge in retrospective population-based mortality studies and alternatives that im...

The purpose of this Article is to examine the facts associated with the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib and to discuss the applicable legal and policy lessons learned as a result of the scandal. Was the prison abuse a reflection of a systemic policy-either de jure or de facto-on the part of the United States to illegally extract information from detainees or was the abuse simply isolated acts of criminal behavior on the part of a handful of soldiers amplified by an incompetent tactical chain of command at the prison facility?

‘Het overlijden van een oorlogsfotograaf is meer dan
alleen een persoonlijke tragedie voor familie, vrienden,
en collega’s. Het tast ook onze zintuigen aan’, zegt
onderzoeker Wilco Versteeg. Hij werkt aan een
proefschrift over hedendaagse oorlogsfotografie aan de
Université Paris Diderot.

A pressing question in military suicide prevention research is whether deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom relates to suicide risk. Prior smaller studies report differing results and often have not included suicides that occurred after separation from military service. To examine the association between deployment and suicide among all 3.9 million US military personnel who served during Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom, including suicides that occurred after separation. This retrospective cohort design used administrative data to identify dates of deployment for all service members (October 7, 2001, to December 31, 2007) and suicide data (October 7, 2001, to December 31, 2009) to estimate rates of suicide-specific mortality. Hazard ratios were estimated from time-dependent Cox proportional hazards regression models to compare deployed service members with those who did not deploy. Suicide mortality from the Department o...

The editors and contributors to Color of Violence ask: What would it take to end violence against women of color? Presenting the fierce and vital writing of organizers, lawyers, scholars, poets, and policy makers, Color of Violence radically repositions the anti-violence movement by putting women of color at its center. The contributors shift the focus from domestic violence and sexual assault and map innovative strategies of movement building and resistance used by women of color around the world. The volume's thirty pieces—which include poems, short essays, position papers, letters, and personal reflections—cover violence against women of color in its myriad forms, manifestations, and settings, while identifying the links between gender, militarism, reproductive and economic violence, prisons and policing, colonialism, and war. At a time of heightened state surveillance and repression of people of color, Color of Violence is an essential intervention.

Contributors. Dena Al-Adeeb, Patricia Allard, Lina Baroudi, Communities Against Rape and Abuse (CARA), Critical Resistance, Sarah Deer, Eman Desouky, Ana Clarissa Rojas Durazo, Dana Erekat, Nirmala Erevelles, Sylvanna Falcón, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Emi Koyama, Elizabeth "Betita" Martínez, maina minahal, Nadine Naber, Stormy Ogden, Julia Chinyere Oparah, Beth Richie, Andrea J. Ritchie, Dorothy Roberts, Loretta J. Ross, s.r., Puneet Kaur Chawla Sahota, Renee Saucedo, Sista II Sista, Aishah Simmons, Andrea Smith, Neferti Tadiar, TransJustice, Haunani-Kay Trask, Traci C. West, Janelle White


https://www.dukeupress.edu/color-of-violence

This article is the Arabic translation (with minor modifications approved by the author) of an English original ("The KRG's Relationship with the Yazidi Minority and the Future of the Yazidis in Shingal") that was published by NRT, a Kurdish media outlet in Iraqi Kurdistan, on January 31, 2017. This Arabic translation was published by NRT on March 19, 2017. Both versions are available on Academia.edu and also appear on the NRT website.

Using a sample of Canadian Forces personnel (N ϭ 490) returning from deployment in Afghanistan, we tested a model of reintegration experiences, with a focus on affective organizational commitment, support factors, posttraumatic stress symptoms, changes in alcohol use, and turnover intentions. The model provided an excellent fit to the data, although homecoming experiences were not associated with commitment as predicted. No differences emerged between novice (single tour) and experienced (multiple tours) personnel, although the number of tours was associated with increased affective commitment as expected.

Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, many Iraqi academics were assassinated. Countless others received bullets in envelopes and instructions to leave their institutions (and in many cases the country) or get killed. Many heeded the warning and fled into exile. Having played such a pivotal role in shaping post-independence Iraqi society, the exile and internal displacement of its academics has had a profound impact. Tracing the academic, political, and social lives of more than 60 academics, Bullets in Envelopes offers a 'genealogy of loss', and a groundbreaking appraisal of the dismantling and restructuring of Iraqi institutions, culture and society. Through extensive fieldwork in the UK, Jordan and Iraqi Kurdistan, Louis Yako shows the human side of the destructive 2003 occupation, how things are today, and how they came to be.

The Iraq War’s enduring conflict has proven resilient in its on-and-off relationship with the US and international forces occupying.  Streamlining a more sustainable counterinsurgency plan remains a critical link to securing stability designed to promote Iraqi nation-rebuilding efforts.  While the smart power approach to foreign policy has yet to realize its potential full effect, recruitment of younger generations into recurrent violence via Islamist co-optation persists with threat to bleed across the region.  Military, diplomatic and politically weighed strategies struggle to contain the violence by advancing innovative methods to counter and disengage while supporting Iraqi democracy, not altogether unlike US operations in Afghanistan.  COIN directive requires in-depth analysis of the socialization of teenage youth as they undertake transnational violence into adulthood.  Nation building through better concerted and inclusive effort of relief, intelligence, military and policymaking drive is the key to tapping the potential of next generation Iraqis as immediate and future leaders.  Youth at risk raised with a history of violence will otherwise require constant intervention.  Policy transition moving towards internal stability and an exit strategy has the resources to launch effective social programming for political infrastructure and business strategy to guide better negotiation in resource and conflict management.  Media’s role in promoting proactive social networks promises to be a game-changer for ground game where youth are enabled to access it.  International support and inter-alia networking then remain to be fully realized if Iraq and the US are to emerge from the war in two pieces.

Interview with IVAW (Iraq Veterans Against the War) team leader Aaron Hughes about the development of Operation First Casualty - a street performance action where IVAW members would re-enacted what it was like to serve in Iraq. Interview focuses on OFC actions in Washington D.C. and N.Y.C. in 2007.

Final report of  Commission on Wartime Contracting (CWC), an independent, bipartisan legislative commission established to study wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Created in Section 841 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008, this eight-member Commission is mandated by Congress to study federal agency contracting for the reconstruction, logistical support of coalition forces, and the performance of security functions, in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are among the deadliest weapons coalition forces face in Iraq, and defeating their use by insurgents is both essential and extremely challenging. Thus far, U.S. defense science and technology communities have focused on developing technical solutions to the IED threat. However, IEDs are a product of human ingenuity and human social organization. If we understand the social context in which they are invented, built, and used we will have an additional avenue for defeating them. As U.S. Army Brigadier General Joseph Votel, head of the Pentagon's Joint IED Task Force, noted, commanders should focus less on the "bomb than the bomb maker." A shift in focus from IED technology to IED makers requires examining the social environment in which bombs are invented, manufactured, distributed, and used. Focusing on the bomb maker requires understanding the four elements that make IED use possible in Iraq: knowledge, organization, material, and the surrounding population.

Warfare has long been recognised as a stimulus for advancing surgical and medical care. However treatment of maxillofacial injuries sustained in Afghanistan has required the use of both traditional and contemporary techniques to achieve the best possible outcome for wounded British servicemen evacuated to RCDM. As the experience of the maxillofacial team in managing these injuries develops, further refinements will undoubtedly follow but it is likely that there will always be a role for these traditional techniques.

(This is an excerpt from an introduction of a book published in Polish). Założeniem wstępnym niniejszej książki  jest ujęcie interwencji zbrojnych jako pewnego rodzaju katalizatora polityki zagranicznej Stanów Zjednoczonych. Pytanie – jaką funkcję odgrywają interwencje, czy stanowią jeden z elementów konsekwentnie opracowanej doktryny polityki zagranicznej, czy są raczej „chaotyczną” reakcją Waszyngtonu na wydarzenia międzynarodowe – legło u podstaw tej pracy.

Takie ujęcie problematyki badawczej wymaga postawienia i próby odpowiedzi na kilka zasadniczych pytań: czym jest interwencja zbrojna i jakie są jej cechy we współczesnych stosunkach międzynarodowych? Czy w dynamicznie zmieniającym się systemie międzynarodowym można ją wyraźnie odróżnić od wojny i innych rodzajów konfliktów zbrojnych? Czy Stany Zjednoczone, podejmując interwencje po zimnej wojnie, opracowały specjalny model takiego postępowania? Jakie efekty wywołały te interwencje zarówno dla Stanów Zjednoczonych, jak i ich pozycji we współczesnym świecie oraz dla innych aktorów stosunków międzynarodowych?

PDA Briefing Memo #30, 26 September 2003. Examines how air power helped bring about the rapid collapse of the Iraqi Republican Guard and regular army in the 2003 war. The memo focuses specifically on the role of battlefield air interdiction. (The author distinguishes air interdiction and close air support missions by arguing that the latter help decide the immediate battle, while air interdiction shapes the battlefield and helps determine upcoming battles.) An outstanding feature of the analysis is a comparison of the air campaigns of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Desert Storm (1990-1991). The memo also estimates combatant casualties due to air interdiction in the 2003 war.

Since the United States’ military invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, Iran has played a crucial role in defining the future of the Iraqi state through its involvement in the internal political process. Part of Iran’s strategy in Iraq has been to empower Shia political parties, which has involved the mobilisation of Shia militias in Iraq. These militias are now playing an essential role in ejecting the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, from Iraq. There remain stiff challenges associated with the militias’ post-ISIS integration into the regular Iraqi security forces and the potential for other more destabilising Iranian missions.

Sayer NA, Chiros CE, Sigford B, Scott S, Clothier B, Pickett T, Lew HL. Characteristics and rehabilitation outcomes among patients with blast and other injuries sustained during the Global War on Terror. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 2008;89:163-70.

Diyala can be said to be a microcosm of Iraq. It is the home to all three major ethnosectarian groups in the country. It has lush farmlands and mountain ranges. It also remains a battlefield between the security forces, militias and the insurgency today. In 2005 Richard Buchanan worked there as a defense contractor interrogating prisoners where he saw first hand the early stages of the civil war. Here is an interview with Buchanan about how the Iraqi insurgency was organized, what the militias did in response, and how the Americans were caught in the middle.