Iraq

b>From 28 April to 6 May, the LaUnf (nonviolence) network of Iraqi peace activists organised a second “Week of Nonviolence”, this time at 13 locations, reaching 7300 people all over Iraq. Sites included, in the north, Irbil, Kirkuk, and Mosul; in the south, Basra and Fao; and Baghdad in the centre.
PNspoke to Ismaeel Dawood, a key support person for the LaUnf network, in his capacity as Iraq worker for the Italian activist NGO Un Ponte Per... Baghdad (A Bridge to... Baghdad…

The Bush Administration was dealt another blow over Iraq in April after three of its top generals turned down a new high-profile post tasked with overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The retired generals were approached by the White House but rejected the job, with one citing the chaotic way the war was being run as the reason for his decision.
Climate activists have once again been busy in the East Midlands area -- this time disrupting work at the Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal-…

The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) is a 26,000 member-strong trade union based in the south of Iraq, which is also organising in the centre and north of Iraq. The Federation recently held a conference in Wasit province in the centre of Iraq on the oil law .
Activists have been meeting workers, management, tribal leaders, religious authorities, political party representatives, academics and oil policy experts to organise cross-constituency unified opposition to the oil law.…

In public, the government scorned the Lancet estimate that 655,000 Iraqis had died directly and indirectly as a consequence of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
At the end of March, the BBC World Service used the Freedom of Information Act to discover that the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, had described the study's design as “robust”, using “methods that are regarded as close to 'best practice' in this area”.
Another official commented…

While in Amman, Jordan, in January, I received a joyful phone call from friends in Baghdad announcing that one of their daughters was engaged. Broken Arabic and broken English crossed the lines-”We love you! We miss you!”

“What an amazing family,” said a colleague, upon hearing the happy news. “Imagine all that they've survived.” A few hours later, the family sent us a text message: “Now bombs destroy all the glasses in our home- no one hurt.”

No one was home when a car-bomb…

“Salam”, the Arabic word for peace, is both a friendly greeting and the goal of the Muslim Peacemaker Teams (MPT) in Iraq. “Salaam is not just a greeting... it is the goal.” The heart of Islam is nonviolent, and the “God (Peace) within” gives MPT the courage to work in Iraq without fear so MPT can continue the important work.

The idea for a Muslim Peace- maker Team developed in January of 2005. It was inspired by the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) that have been active in Iraq…

A number of polls have been conducted in Iraq to mark the fourth anniversary of the invasion, demonstrating enormous and growing hostility to the occupation.

An ORB poll found 53% of Iraqis think things would improve immediately after US/UK withdrawal, and only 26% fear conditions would get worse.

The BBC found that 76% think the occupation forces are doing a “bad job” (up from 59% just last year); and 78% oppose the US-led forces (up from 65% in 2005). The proportion of…

To mark the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, groups worldwide engaged in anti-war actions between 17 and 20 March - from mass marches and vigils naming the dead, to protests outside military recruitment centres. According to US network United for Peace and Justice, up to 1,000 local events were planned across the States. In Spain an estimated 400,000 took to the streets of Madrid, and protests also took place in Australia, New Zealand, Hungary and Canada.

In Britain,…

It is a pity that books such as Blood Money have to be written. However, as long as such national hubris exists to prompt the current level of almost unimaginable mismanagement that is prevalent in Iraq today, then it as well that such misdeeds are put under the harshest, most thorough possible, public scrutiny. Any reader of this book should also be grateful that it is written by as competent and thorough an investigative journalist as Christian Miller, a Los Angeles Times staffer…

One of the outcomes from last month's anti-occupation strategy gathering in London, hosted by Iraq Occupation Focus, was the need for an Early Day Motion to enable MPs to demonstrate their support for withdrawal. Since then, Labour MPs John McDonnell and Jeremy Corbyn have tabled EDM 335, calling for the immediate withdrawal of UK troops.

Given the reluctance of all the major parties to come out unequivocally against the occupation, however, it is unlikely that the majority of even…

With the Lancet report suggesting more than 600,000 invasion related Iraqi deaths since 2003, and with the British military publicly wavering, there's no time like the present for refocusing on the occupation. Helpfully, Iraq Occupation Focus is hosting a one-day gathering for anti-occupation campaigners on Saturday 18 November.

Activists from across the UK will be meeting in London to discuss ideas and strategies for taking the campaign forward in 2007. Venue details: 11am-5pm,…

On 8 November 2004, the US -- with British assistance -- launched a massive assault against the Iraqi city of Fallujah. Hundreds of civilians were killed, tens of thousands of people forced to flee their homes, and white phosphorus -- a substance that burns down to the bone -- used as a weapon.

“I cannot forgive the American crimes when they bombed my town. An entire family made up of 18 members, which used to live nearby, was killed.” Fallujah teacher Ishraq Shakir…

In solidarity with Iraqi women's organisations - who were meeting in Irbil, Northern Iraq - vigillers gathered on the steps of St Martin in-the-Fields in central London on 21 September - the UN International Day of Peace. Iraqi women were expressing their commitment to peace and national unity, and to demand an end to the violence and bloodshed in the country.

A veteran of the anti-roads movement, Jo Wilding first travelled to Iraq in August 2001 as part of the UK anti-sanctions movement, returning in February 2003 to witness the (re)invasion and then again in November 2003 to tour the country with the circus of the title. In April 2004 she was one of a tiny handful of internationals to witness the US siege of Fallujah first-hand, riding an ambulance in the city (over 300 women and children were killed during the siege as fighter bombers attacked…

Once it was very clear that weapons of mass destruction did not exist in the country we had bombed, invaded and allowed to be systematically looted, and whose infrastructure we wrecked and whose social fabric we had drastically weakened over the previous decade of sanctions - the British government's excuse then was “to bring freedom and democracy”.

Women in Iraq, especially urban and working women, have become less “free” than at any time since the 1930s, and their role in this new…