Two women walk past the main building housing the National Iraqi Olympic Committee in Baghdad
The IOC in a letter dated July 23 confirmed the prohibition of seven Iraqi Olympic athletes after first imposing the ban on the war-ravaged country's sporting officials for political interference last month.
"In spite of all the joint efforts of IOC and OCA (Olympic Council of Asia), over the last months to find a positive solution with the Iraqi government authorities, we regretfully inform you that the decision of the IOC executive board dated 4 June 2008 to suspend the National Olympic Committee of Iraq is confirmed," said the letter.
In a separate statement issued Thursday the IOC said it was "disappointed they have been so ill-served by their own government's actions," and that the deadline to register athletes had expired.
You know, you gotta love it when the USA newspapers declare there is a stabilization in Baghdad for the sake of an election strategy. Today, 'the happy talk' about Iraq is that the Mahdi Army is waning and there is greater security in Baghdad.
Right.
There are finite people in Iraq available for security of any kind. I would think that journalists would be able to discern the fact that although the numbers of Mahdi Army members are waning the number of Iraqi soldiers are increasing. Hm?
Iraqi Forces Continue to Grow in Number. (click here)
In September 2004, there were only 96,000 trained and equipped Iraqi Security Forces. By November 2005, there were more than 212,000. As of May 30th, there were nearly 350,000 trained and equipped Iraqi Security Forces.
That doesn't necessarily lend itself to the 'idea' that Iraq is secured by people that are approved of by Bush. The fact is that more militia members are accepting 'salaried' employment in the Iraqi military. It's called a 'transition' of authority. The added comfort zone for Iraqis is there providing one is affiliated strongly with the 'correct' Shi'ite group.
Iraq bomber kills 8 U.S.-allied Sunni fighters (click here)
From the Associated Press
July 25, 2008
BAGHDAD -- A woman blew herself up Thursday near U.S.-allied Sunni Arab fighters walking in a crowded area of Baqubah, killing at least eight members of the Awakening movement and wounding 24 people, police said.The attack comes as the U.S.-backed Iraqi military is promising to launch a major offensive in Diyala province aimed at taming the last major insurgent belt north of Baghdad. Baqubah is the provincial capital....
Iraq pledges $100 million to rebuild Sadr City slum (click here)
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq will spend $100 million to rebuild the east Baghdad slum of Sadr City and create jobs for many of its two million residents after years of violence and neglect, a government official said on Sunday.
The Shi'ite slum is a stronghold of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, whose fighters clashed with U.S. and government troops there in March and April until a ceasefire halted hostilities.
Sadr City was largely outside the government's control until the truce allowed Iraqi soldiers to deploy.
"The government has ordered an allocation of $100 million to reconstruct and develop Sadr City," Tahseen al-Sheikhli, civilian spokesman for security operations in Baghdad, told a news conference.
He did not give a timeframe for spending the money....
All that death of Iraqi civilians does actually 'add up' to less of one group and more of the other. Then the actions of the USA military and it's 'fumbling around' doesn't help a darn thing. It only 'adds' to the anxiety of who dies next in Baghdad.
Military says US troops killed Iraqi editor's son (click here)
By KIM GAMEL – 1 day ago
BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S. military said Friday that bullets fired by American soldiers killed the 14-year-old son of the chief editor of a U.S.-sponsored newspaper during a gunbattle a day earlier in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.
The military said Arkan Ali Taha was hit Thursday when soldiers came under heavy gunfire from a passing taxi and shot back. The boy was riding in the cab and the driver was later taken into custody, the statement said.
The father said his son was not involved with extremist groups and didn't know how to use weapons. He said the boy had hired the cab to bring a set of keys to the newspaper.
American and Iraqi security forces have been cracking down on insurgents in the northern cities of Kirkuk and Mosul and in the restive Diyala province north of Baghdad, where violence has been slower to decline than elsewhere in Iraq....
Some of the violence has actually waned into political furvor. That is a good thing, so long as there is no oppression of freedom of expression or the freedom to deny expression in the name of peace.
Baghdad muralists resist push for sectarian themes (click here)
Young Iraqi artists continue attempts to boost spirits, kindle optimism at Baghdad ‘blast walls’.
By Brian Murphy – BAGHDAD
It's art ornamenting life: murals of soothing landscapes and historical heroes covering the blast walls that are now as much a part of Baghdad's cityscape as date palms and desert dust.
The idea took off last year when Iraqi aid groups sought to provide work for young artists — and offer a bit of hope and a splash of color to a city whose signature hue is oatmeal brown.
But fully rising above Iraq's sectarian suspicions has proved a challenge.
Many members in the founding group of artists are putting down their brushes to protest requests from neighborhood councils to depict politically charged sectarian themes such as Sunni shrines in Sunni districts or Shiite saints in Shiite areas....
Iraq says election ads can‘t show non-candidates Staff and agencies (click here)
03 July, 2008
By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer 29 minutes ago
BAGHDAD - The Iraqi government on Thursday ordered that campaign materials in upcoming provincial elections can only feature pictures of candidates, in an apparent attempt to keep followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr from using his image to court voters.
Shiite politicians flooded the country with posters of the country‘s main Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and others during elections in 2005, capitalizing on their prestige to win power.
Pictures of al-Sadr, who comes from one of Iraq‘s most esteemed Shiite families, line the streets of places like Baghdad‘s Sadr City. The powerful cleric has built a large following among disgruntled Shiites in Baghdad and southern Iraq who haven‘t benefited from the rise of a Shiite-led government in the country.
Al-Sadr‘s followers hope to use the elections to loosen the grip on power that their Shiite rivals have enjoyed since the 2005 elections, which the Sadrists boycotted....
The 'peace' that is desired for Iraq is far from achieved. The fact of the matter is that Iraq will 'settle down' but it will with a Shi'ite majority and bias against all others. That is why the provinces and their minority 'rule' are important. I think Baghdad truly belongs to Shi'ites and leave it at that.
Iraq is not ready for anything else.
The Middle East is not a 'melting pot' as Bush would like to see it. There are differences that are profound and they stem from interpretations of Islamic doctrine. That is allowed in life. The Christians have innumberable denomiations and benefit from it. There is no 'stronghold' of religious authority in the USA. It's called a democracy and benefits from peaceful coexistence of all belief systems.
Baghdad's walls keep peace but feel like prison (click here)
By HAMZA HENDAWI – Jun 27, 2008
BAGHDAD (AP) — Baghdad hasn't been this quiet in years. But the respite from bloodshed comes at a high price.
Up to 20 feet high in some sections.
Rows after rows of barrier walls divide the city into smaller and smaller areas that protect people from bombings, sniper fire and kidnappings. They also lead to gridlock, rising prices for food and homes, and complaints about living in what feels like a prison.
Baghdad's walls are everywhere. They have turned a riverside capital of leafy neighborhoods and palm-lined boulevards into a city of shadows that separate Sunnis from Shiites.
The walls block access to schools, mosques, churches, hotels, homes, markets and even entire neighborhoods — almost anything that could be attacked. For many Iraqis, they have become the iconic symbol of the war.
"Maybe one day they will remove it," said Kareem Mustapha, a 26-year-old Sadr City resident who lives a five-minute walk from a wall built this spring in the large Shiite district.
"I don't know when, but it is not soon."
Indeed, new walls are still going up, the latest one around the northwestern Shiite neighborhood of Hurriyah, where thousands of Sunnis were slaughtered or expelled in 2006. They could well be around for years to come, enforcing the capital's fragile peace and enshrining its sectarian divisions....
Iraq will find stronger ties to each other as tourism grows and Baghdad finds itself with an identity of an 'International' city. There isn't that foucs because there is too much insecurity for the Shi'ites of the region. They have existed under very oppressive government in Iraq for a long time by sheer numbers. When 50,000 were killed in Southern Iraq in 2002 in a conflict with Saddam that didn't even begin to decry the end to the Shi'ites there.
A lot has to be settled in the way of security for these people and right now separating the provinces into ethnic and religious preferences is an adequate answer. As a side note, Turkey needs to prudent regarding its incursions into Northern Iraq. The Kurds have a right to their culture.
Baghdad boosts security for religious festival (click here)
1 day ago
BAGHDAD (AFP) — Baghdad has ramped up security ahead of one of Shiite Islam's most important religious festivals amid heightened concerns of attacks on a holy pilgrimage site, the Iraqi military said on Friday.
An extra 5,000 soldiers fanned out in the Kadhimiyah district of Baghdad ahead of the arrival of thousands of pilgrims expected to attend a ceremony on Tuesday to mourn a revered imam who died 12 centuries ago.
"There is more than a full brigade deployed in the vicinity, entrances and exits of the city, and in the surrounding areas of Kadhimiyah city, for fear of attacks," defence ministry officials told AFP.....
Nouri Maliki asks pope to urge Christians to return to Iraq (click here)
Osservatore Romano / EPA
Pope Benedict XVI receives a gift from Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Maliki.
The prime ministers, on a European trip, also invites Benedict XVI to visit Iraq.
By Ned Parker and Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers July 26, 2008
BAGHDAD -- Prime Minister Nouri Maliki asked Pope Benedict XVI in a meeting Friday in Italy to encourage Iraqi Christians who have fled their country to return, citing the improved security situation. He also invited the pontiff to visit Iraq."I . . . appealed to his holiness to encourage Christians who left the country to go back and be part of the social structure of Iraq again," Maliki told reporters after his session with the pope at the pontiff's summer residence in Castel Gandolfo.
