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Ever since the invasion in 2003 the US military and later US-supported Iraqi governments have sought to conceal the number of Iraqi civilians being killed. The US Army for long denied that it counted the number of civilians killed by its soldiers. The Iraqi Ministry of Health also refused to reveal to the UN the civilian casualty figures.

Now, for the first time, the health ministry in Baghdad has told the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, which publishes a bimonthly report on human rights, the exact death toll recorded by hospitals around the country. The central morgue in Baghdad provides figures for unidentified bodies, of which there were 1,595 in June. In the first six months of the year the number of Iraqi civilians dying violently rose by 77 per cent.

The UN report paints a picture of Iraqi society dissolving under the stress of cumulative violence. Nobody is safe. A tennis coach and two players were shot dead in Baghdad for wearing shorts. Militias threaten the families of homosexuals "stating they will begin killing family members unless men are handed over or killed by the family". Sectarian differences are behind most killings. Assassinations are often carried out by the security forces themselves. On  June 3, for instance, 50 police cars surrounded the al-Arab mosque in Basra and killed 10 of the 20 people inside. Sunni suicide bombers attack crowded Shia mosques and markets in order to cause maximum casualties.

Kidnapping, often of children, is common and the victims are frequently killed regardless of whether or not they have paid a ransom. "In one case the body of 12-year-old Osama was reportedly found by the Iraqi police in a plastic bag after his family paid a ransom of $30,000 [£16,300]. The boy had been sexually assaulted by the kidnappers, before being hanged by his own clothing. The police captured members of this gang who confessed to raping and killing many boys and girls before Osama."

Many Iraqis have fled the country, mostly to Jordan and Syria, to avoid the violence. Syria now has 351,000 and Jordan 450,000 of these refugees, including 40 per cent of all Iraqi professionals, according to the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. It is increasingly difficult to get into Jordan from Iraq but Syria still issues visas easily.

All of the 18 Iraqi provinces are dangerous, outside the three Kurdish provinces. The health ministry revealed for the first time in June that 50,000 Iraqis have been killed violently since 2003, but added that this was probably an under-estimate. Medical care for the wounded is declining because so many doctors have left the country. The ministry says 106 doctors and 164 nurses have been killed.

Doctors in Baghdad hospitals complain that even the operating theatres are not safe because soldiers or militiamen will order them to stop an operation half way through.

Parents dare not let their children wander the dangerous streets of Baghdad alone, but until a few days ago they could give them a treat by taking them to al-Jillawi’s toyshop, the biggest and best in the city, its windows invitingly filled with Playstations, Barbie dolls and bicycles.

They go there no longer. Today the shop on 14 Ramadan Street in the once-affluent al-Mansur district is closed, with a black mourning flag draped across its front. The three sons and the teenage grandson of the owner, Mehdi al-Jillawi, were shutting down for the evening recently, bringing in bicycles and tricycles on display on the pavement in front of the shop. As they did so, two BMWs stopped close to them, and several gunmen got out armed with assault rifles. They opened fire at point-blank range, killing the young men.

Sectarian slaughter is not the only way to die in Iraq.

Yesterday US troops killed five people, including two women and a child, in the city of Baquba during a raid, claiming they had been shot at. At best it was a tragic error, at worst it spoke to the cavalier attitude of the US towards Iraqi civilian lives. Local police said that a man had fired from a rooftop at the Americans because he thought a hostile militia force was approaching.

While the eyes of the world are elsewhere, Baghdad is still dying and the daily toll is hitting record levels. While the plumes of fire and smoke over Lebanon have dominated headlines for 11 days, with Britain and the US opposing a UN call for an immediate ceasefire, another Bush-Blair foreign policy disaster is unfolding in Iraq.

In a desperate effort to stem the butchery, the government yesterday imposed an all-day curfew on Baghdad, but tens of thousands of its people have already run for their lives. In some parts of the city, dead bodies are left to rot in the baking summer heat because nobody dares to remove them. I drove through empty streets in the heart of the city yesterday, taking a zigzag course to avoid police checkpoints that we thought might be doubling as death squads. Few shops were open. Those still doing business are frantically trying to sell their stock. A sign above one shop read: "Italian furniture: 75 per cent reductions.”

Iraqis are terrified in a way that I have never seen before, since I first visited Baghdad in 1978. Sectarian massacres happen almost daily. The UN says 6,000 civilians were slaughtered in May and June, but this month has been far worse. In many districts it has become difficult to buy bread because Sunni assassins have killed all the bakers who are traditionally Shia.

Baghdad is now breaking up into a dozen different hostile cities, Sunni or Shia, heavily armed and living in terror of the other side. On July 9, Shia gunmen from the black-clad Mehdi Army entered the largely Sunni al-Jihad district in west Baghdad and killed 40 Sunni after dragging them from their cars or stopping them at false checkpoints. Within hours the Sunni militias struck back with car bombs killing more than 60 Shia.

The Iraqi government is a prisoner of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified enclave defended by US troops in the centre of Baghdad. Entering it is like visiting another country. Soldiers at the gates spend longer looking at documents than do officials at most European frontiers. "Some ministers have never visited their ministries outside the Green Zone," said one ex-minister. "They have their officials bring them documents to sign."

It seems unlikely that Baghdad will ever come together again. Sunni are frightened of being caught in a Shia district, and vice versa. Many now carry two sets of identity documents, one Sunni and one Shia. Checkpoints manned by the Mehdi Army know this and sometimes ask people claiming to be Shia questions about Shia theology. One Shia who passed this test was still killed because he was driving a car with number plates from Anbar, a Sunni province.

Where are the Americans in all this? Iraqis who used to say that they were against the US occupation but at least the Americans prevented civil war now think that a civil war has started regardless of their presence.

The Iraqi army and police are themselves divided along sectarian lines. Recognizing this, the Shia-controlled Interior Ministry ludicrously suggested that people challenge the ferocious police commanders and demand their identity cards in order to distinguish real police from death squads. It is hard to think of a surer way of getting oneself killed.

I never expected the occupation of Iraq by the US and Britain to end happily. But I did not foresee the present catastrophe. Baghdad has survived the Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf War, UN sanctions, more bombing and, finally, a savage guerrilla war. Now the city is finally splitting apart, and – most surprising of all – this disaster scarcely gets a mention on the news as the world watches the destruction of Beirut.

First, last week, David Twersky, the Tel Aviv correspondent for the New York Sun, a mouthpiece for the Israeli hardliners, compared the kidnapping of a corporal in Gaza to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the incident that triggered World War I.

The parallel was planted.

Then, just yesterday Sunday June 16, Newt Gingrich, former House Speaker and still a darling of the GOP right, stated as a matter of fact on Meet that Press that a new war is already underway in the Middle East. It is, he insists, already a world war. “THIS IS, IN FACT, WORLD WAR 3,” he said for emphasis, with no regrets and an apparent longing to “bring it on.”

Columnist Dave Postman elaborated on his message in his Seattle Times blog:

"Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says America is in World War III and President Bush should say so. In an interview in Bellevue this morning Gingrich said Bush should call a joint session of Congress the first week of September and talk about global military conflicts in much starker terms than have been heard from the president.

"We need to have the militancy that says ‘We’re not going to lose a city,’" Gingrich said. He talks about the need to recognize World War III as important for military strategy and political strategy.

“Gingrich said he is "very worried" about Republicans facing fall elections and says the party must have the "nerve" to nationalize the elections and make the 2006 campaigns about a liberal Democratic agenda rather than about President Bush’s record.”

Hmmm…, a world war to save the Bush Administration? How convenient.

But there is more. The always aggressive and often obnoxious Prince of Darkness, Richard Perle, a leading booster of war on Iraq, is now lobbying the Administration to finish off the “axis of evil.” In print pieces and TV appearances, he is calling for a wider war now.

Hold on. Also on Meet The Press, Martin Fletcher, the NBC veteran Israel correspondent revealed that the Israeli war plan that is now being carried out is not simply a response to current risks or attacks, and that it has been FIVE years in the making. It was a plan just looking for a pretext.

“I think they will never say that publicly,” he added, explaining that this war plan was not made by the current Israeli government but Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima Party mate Ariel Sharon & Sharon’s generals. Fletcher says Tel Aviv calls it a “work plan.” He says it is being implemented “step by step.”

He added, “It will go on until someone steps in and stops them.”

The United States is not currently that “someone”­not now. President Bush is backing Israel although with an unheard PR appeal asking that they be gentler in their attacks. He, like, Israel, is blaming Hezbollah which insists it is acting defensively and reactively, not offensively.

Retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner, who appears in my film WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception) has been running war games Vis a Vis Iran. He wrote to me on the weekend after talking to Pentagon insiders. His conclusion: “It would be hard to overestimate the danger of a major war,” he says. They say the Israeli soldiers they captured were fighting illegally in Lebanon.

He says be believes the US and Israel are coordinating their strategies. While he believes that Iran is orchestrating Hamas and Hezbollah through Syria, he also says: “That does not mean that Israel is not taking advantage of the events. They have decided on regime change in Gaza and on punishing Hezbollah while establishing a buffer zone to prevent rocket attacks. As closely as the US and Israel have been coordinating, one has to assume coordination.”

Former Israeli independence fighter and now peace activist Uri Avnery goes further: ”As in 1982, the present operation, too, was planned and is being carried out in full coordination with the US. As then, there is no doubt that it is coordinated with a part of the Lebanese elite.”

And who wants this war? The Toronto Star’s Linda McQuaig challenges the dominant view in DC that it is only the Iranians.

“Is it really Iran that is pushing for war? Think about it. Why would Iran want to provoke a war with Israel and the U.S. ­ both heavily armed nuclear powers ­ when it has no nuclear weapons itself?”

Summer is often called the silly season. While the Bush Administration is losing one war in Iraq, and another with public opinion here at home, it seems to be opting for more conflicts as its backers bang the drum for a new world war.

Years ago, Che Guevara called for “1, 2, 3” Vietnams. The Busheviks today may be moving toward ‘1, 2, 3’ world wars.

Sound crazy? In our Orwellian political climate, a new generation of Dr Strangelove’s are in command. Only this time, they don’t act like loonies. They have mastered the art of the TV interview and can, with selective facts and ideology packaged as information, make insanity sound oh so sane.

They have convinced themselves, and now want to convince us, to join a new hegemonic adventure to expand their failed “GWOT,” (Global War on Terror), whatever the cost.

And where is the media in all this, to rein them in, to connect the dots, to offer the missing context and background, to make vital distinctions between the aggressor and those agressed upon, and to stand up for international law, human rights, and sanity? NBC is giving the Gingrichs and Pearls of the world a platform to advocate more killing with no one to challenge them effectively.

We need more critics like Cenk Uygur, who challenges William Kristol on Huffington Post in these terms:

“Bill Kristol has never seen a war he didn’t like. No, that’s too soft. A war he didn’t love and lust after. Here’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing pretending to be serious, sober minded analyst on television when in reality he is trying to get us sucked into horrific wars that other people will die fighting.”

Why didn’t Tim Russert have the guts to say something similar to Newt Gingrich?

Has mainstream media devolved so far that a world war is now considered a legitimate subject to advocate? Doesn’t this new “mission” add up to more madness?

Has it come to this? Is the summer heat corroding our senses? Is global warming melting our brains?

Danny Schechter is “blogger in chief” of www.Mediachannel.org   His latest film seeking distribution is In Debt We Trust. ( www.Indebtwetrust.com   ) Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

Blasting Bush’s double standard on the sovereign use of force to combat terrorism, Erdogan has announced troop "contingency plans" to storm over the border. The U.S. has been warning Turkey to restrain itself, but the alliance between the two nations is in shambles. Three years ago, former Defense Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz chided Turkey when its parliament refused to allow the U.S. to use its country as a transit point for the Iraq invasion, and even suggested that the military should have pressured the government into complying with U.S. edicts. Adding double insult to injury, he pledged to root the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) out of northern Iraq, but instead directed the U.S. to bolster the autonomy of the Kurdish region. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld last year, in one of his more risible statements, blamed the Iraqi insurgency on Turkey.

Denied a homeland in the 1923 carve-up of the Ottoman Empire, Kurds are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world to be stateless. Turkey’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk prohibited the outward signs of Kurdish culture from his newly formed democratic state, banning Kurdish schools, music, dress, and language. To this date, overt support for Kurdish causes is criminalized. The two factions reached a fragile truce after the capture of Abdullah Ocalan (head of the PKK) in 1999, but over the past two years Kurdish groups have claimed responsibility for bombings in Istanbul, resort towns, and elsewhere. Turkey’s biggest nightmare is a growing separatist movement for an autonomous Kurdish state.

Complicating this matter is Iranian activity against the Kurds. Iran has supposedly shelled some Kurdish enclaves in Iraq making it a complicit partner with Turkey in Kurdish eradication.

The ramifications of Turkey waging war against the PKK in Iraq amid the chaos of so many armed soldiers could certainly lead to confrontation and skirmishes between U.S. and Turkish forces, similar to what happened in Sulaymaniyah in 2003. The Turkish army is no ragtag outfit, having forcibly ousted four governments in the last 45 years. The scenario of pitting two supposed democratic allies, both members of NATO, against each other was already laid out in the Anatolian best-selling book Metal Storm, in which Turkey, allied with its former nemesis Russia, ended up detonating a nuclear suitcase bomb in Washington, D.C.

When Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul visited Washington earlier this month, he met with Condoleezza Rice in a canned TV appearance to announce a " shared vision document." The president was too busy to meet with him. Apparently, a country that’s 98 percent Muslim but officially a secular democratic republic since 1923 and shares borders with Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia, and Georgia doesn’t merit his attention. And let’s not forget that it hosts oil pipelines that skirt beyond Russian territories and terminate at the Mediterranean – one pumping from the Caspian port of Baku, the other from Kirkuk.

On Saturday, the White House announced Bush had phoned Erdogan and promised more concrete help in some sort of tripartite alliance of U.S., Iraqi, and Turkish forces in dealing with the PKK. How Kurdish civilians get spared in this venture is anybody’s guess. Unfortunately, the Bush administration may be unaware that Turkey views the whole Kurdish population as a terrorist nest.

Thirty thousand dead have seemingly failed to satisfy the blood lust between Turks and Kurds. The Turks proved their ferocity in World War I when they repelled the Allies at Gallipoli, a battle that resulted in 250,000 dead. Armed with the Bush doctrine of taking the fight to the enemy, Turkey, by adding a new staging area to the conflict, could be pouring an inextinguishable accelerant upon the region.

Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/berga.php?articleid=9393

Israel’s Interests
 
It goes without saying that Israel would benefit from the destruction of Hezbollah. Yet it is hard to see how the indiscriminate attack against Lebanon that is taking place will achieve anything other than strengthening the already strong support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and elsewhere in the Arab world. Shmuel Rosner argues in a Haaretz OpEd that Israel is "America’s deadly messenger" , being used to promote Bush’s "democracy agenda" . It certainly appears that Israel’s current actions are irrational and self-destructive. Unless their real aim is to draw Syria and Iran into the conflict , following directions from Washington . At the very least it is clear that Israel would not be doing this in the absence of a guarantee from the US that it will intervene if the conflict widens, which in any event Bush has already publicly announced .

If Iran enters the conflict and shoots a single missile against Israel, the US will step in and destroy the military infrastructure of Iran by aerial bombardment. As suggested by Seymour Hersh and others [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , this is likely to involve the US use of nuclear "bunker busters" .
 
It has been predicted that if the US or Israel attack Iran, Iran will unleash Hezbollah who will carry out devastating attacks against Israel. "Hizbollah was also seen as a means of tying our hands on the Iranian nuclear threat," says an Israeli official. Well, we are in the dress rehersal, and we are seeing that despite all the hype, Hezbollah is a paper tiger . Green light for the Iran attack .
 
Iran’s Interests
 
What is really unusual about the current flare-up in the Middle East is the barrage of strident denunciations against Iran, from the Bush administration , politicians from across the political spectrum [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] , and the mainstream media [1] , [2] , [3] , [4] , that uniformly accuse Iran (without presenting evidence) of being behind the Hezbollah actions. This has never happened before when there was conflict in Lebanon where Hezbollah was involved , why now?

One argument is Ahmadinejad’s stated animosity against Israel. However, that has been Iran’s stated position since 1979 .

The other argument is that Iran is trying to "divert attention" from the nuclear issue . That defies the most elementary logic. If Iran was really intent in getting nuclear weapons and destroying Israel, it would try to keep things as quiet as possible until it gets those nuclear weapons, several years into the future .
 
The reality is that, whether one ascribes to Iran evil or benign intentions, Iran draws no benefit whatsoever from the current turmoil in Lebanon. Neither does Syria. Consequently the rhetoric from the US and Israel suggests a deliberate attempt to draw Syria and Iran into the conflict .
 
US Interests
 
A US attack on Iran has been predicted by analysts for several years. The US policy vis-a-vis Iran is clearly directed towards confrontation rather than accommodation. There are many reasons for the US to attack Iran, including the control of energy resources, suppression of a regional power opposite to US and Israeli interests, etc. However I have argued for many months that the key reason for the US to seek a military confrontation with Iran is that it will "force" the US to cross the nuclear threshold and use low yield nuclear weapons against Iranian installations. And this is seen as essential to further US geopolitical goals .

The United States used nuclear weapons against Japan not because it had to. It did so to demonstrate to the world that it was in possession of a new weapon that packed the destructive power of thousands of bombing missions into a single one. To tell the rest of the world, beware .

Since then, it has spent over 5 trillion dollars in building up its nuclear arsenal, but nuclear weapons have become "unusable" after 60 years of non-use. America has achieved nuclear primacy but it is useless, until it shows that nuclear weapons are usable again.
 
Low yield B61-11 nuclear bunker busters have already been deployed, just in case "surprising military developments" give rise to "military necessity" . Once Iran is drawn into a conflict and shoots a single missile against Israel or US forces in the region, the US administration will argue that the next Iranian missile could carry chemical or biological warheads and cause untold casualties among Americans, Iraqis or Israelis. A low yield nuclear bunker buster will be touted as the most "humane" way to prevent further loss of life.
 
What could happen
 
In 1941, a vast military effort was started by the United States to create nuclear weapons, culminating in the Trinity test and subsequent bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The effort was shrouded in secrecy and any moral qualms were set aside. When it succeeded , it was argued that many American and Japanese lives had been saved by nuking Japan into surrender.
 
Any speculation during the period 1941-1945 that the United States had 100,000 people devoted to create a secret weapon million-fold more powerful than any known weapon would have been dismissed as the ultimate "conspiracy theory".
 
Similarly, much evidence indicates that a deliberate project, shrouded in secrecy, exists today that will culminate in the nuking of Iran, to "save lives" . Many are privy to parts of the plan, as Seymour Hersh revealed, only a few know the plan in its entirety. Low-yield nuclear bunker busters would  be used, untested but as reliable as the untested "Little Boy" that leveled Hiroshima. Americans will buy the "military necessity" argument because it will be true: American troops in Iraq will be sitting ducks facing Iranian missiles, with or without WMD warheads.
 
After the US uses nuclear weapons again, it will have established the usability of its nuclear arsenal against non-nuclear countries. It will be possible to wage war "on the cheap" , saving many American lives in future conflicts. "Support the troops" is the one thing all Americans, no matter how diverse their views are, agree on.
 
It should not be allowed to happen. The President has sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons against Iran. We know from previous actions of this administration what B u sh , Ch en ey and Rum sf eld are capable of. There have been radical changes in US nuclear weapons policies and in preemption "doctrine" , and the Bush announcement that the nuclear option is "on the table" . In response, there needs to be a strong groundswell call to restrict the absolute presidential authority of this President to order the use of nuclear weapons against Iran . By the general public, by "antinuclear" organizations, by scientific, political and professional organizations. To push Congress into action before it is too late. Without a "nuclear option", the US will be more interested in negotiation than in confrontation with Iran.

Cui Bono?
 
In the short term, Israel certainly will benefit from the destruction of Iran’s military capabilities.
 
But Israel will not enjoy peace as a result, because the nuking of Iran will create enormous animosity against Israel in the Muslim world and beyond. To the extent that the world buys the US fable that the nuking of Iran was required by "military necessity" and not premeditated, Israel (and Jews worldwide) will bear a heavier than deserved brunt for having contributed to "precipitate" these events.

The US will reap enormous benefits. Flexing its nuclear muscle, it will establish its absolute hegemony in the Middle East and Central Asia and beyond, and gradually squeeze China and Russia into nuclear disarmament and complete submission.

In the end of course we will all lose. Because the nuclear genie, unleashed from its bottle in the war against Iran, will never retreat. And just like the US could develop nuclear weapons in only 4 years with completely new technology 60 years ago, many more countries and groups will be highly motivated to do it in the coming years.

Think about the current disproportionate response of Israel, applied in a conflict where the contenders have nuclear weapons. 10 to 1 retaliation , starting with a mere 600 casualties, wipes out the entire Earth’s population in eight easy steps. Who will be willing to stop the escalation? The country that lost 60,000 citizens in the last hit? The one that lost 600,000? 6 million?
 
As the nuclear holocaust unfolds, some will remember the Lebanon conflict and subsequent Iran war and blame it  on Israel. Others will properly blame Americans, for having allowed their Executive to erase the 60-year old taboo against the use of nuclear weapons , first in doctrine and then in practice , despite having the most powerful conventional military force in the world. Others of course will blame "Muslim extremism".
 
And then the blaming will wither away as a three-billion-year old experiment, life on planet Earth, comes to an end.