Why sanctions on Iraq could have been ended without any war of invasion or occupation ; no threat from Saddam’s regime to Iraqis or other countries existed by 2000; the genocide against the Marsh Arabs was largely over by the late 90s and could have been ended by air strikes in the Southern No-Fly Zone

The tenth anniversary of the Iraq war has seen the repetition of many excuses for the invasion. One of the commonest is that UN sanctions on Iraq killed millions of Iraqi civilians, with the pretence that sanctions which killed millions of Iraqis through shortages of food and medicines couldn’t be lifted or else Saddam’s regime would become a serious threat. Another is that it was necessary to end Saddam's genocides and massacres. These are lies; the US could have stopped Saddam's genocides and massacres but either kept supporting him (while he committed genocide against the Kurds) or did nothing (while he massacred Shia and Marsh Arabs); and sanctions could have been lifted at any time ; here’s why.

Saddam couldn’t even defeat Iran in the 8 year Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s; and that was with almost the entire world’s governments supporting him with arms, funding, intelligence and political support. This included as Saddam used chemical weapons on Iranians and in his genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds, even after Halabja (see post on this link for sources and more details).

(The Halabja attack used US Apache Bell helicopters, whose sale was approved by the Reagan administration, supposedly for “crop spraying”, even though they already knew Saddam was using chemical weapons (1) – (3). After Halabja the US government issued one statement of condemnation, then continued supporting Saddam and suggested that maybe the Iranians had done it (4).)

Saddam showed during the 1991 war that he didn’t dare to use chemical weapons on other countries or the Iraqi Kurds after 1991. He had chemical warheads for his scud missiles, but only used conventional warheads (5).

He could only massacre Shia rebels and their families in Southern Iraq (including Marsh Arabs) at the end of the 1991 war because Bush senior ordered his troops not to intervene ; a massacre that would never have happened if Bush hadn’t given Iraqis the false impression that his forces would aid them if they rebelled (he actually wanted a military regime to replace Saddam) (for details and sources see this post).

Saddam did carry out one horrific campaign of torture, massacres and genocide against Iraqis after 1991; against the Marsh Arabs and other Shia rebels and their families who fled to the southern marshes in 1991 (6).

However US and British aircraft patrolling the Southern No-Fly Zone could have stopped most of this by bombing Saddam’s artillery, trucks, tanks and bulldozers; but made no attempt to do so, probably for the same reason Bush senior didn’t help the other Shia rebels ; the Marsh Arabs are also mostly Shia and so they were seen as potential allies of Iran (7).

Throughout the 1990s Saddam’s forces shelled Marsh Arab villages and towns with tanks, artillery and mortars, including chemical weapons according to some reports, drained the marshes by diverting rivers, killed many rebels, bulldozed houses, left many civilians to die in deserts; and forcibly relocated most of those who didn’t leave to live elsewhere in Iraq, or weren’t among the unknown number who were killed (one estimate being 120,000), or the estimated 40,000 to 120,000 who fled to Iran (8) – (11).

By comparison dozens of Coalition offensives on Iraqi cities during the occupation killed hundreds of civilians in each assault – e.g  600 in the April 2004 assault on Falluja alone (12). Coalition offensives, Saddam’s earlier campaigns and sectarian fighting had left 2.8 million Iraqis “internally displaced people” (homeless refugees inside Iraq) and 2.2 million refugees in other countries at the highest point (during the occupation in the late 2000s). Today an estimated 1.3 million Iraqis remain “internally displaced” and 1.4 million are refugees in other countries While some have returned home , unfortunately other reasons for the reduced numbers include Iraqi refugees who fled to Syria deciding it’s even more dangerous there (13) – (15).

By the end of the 1990s Saddam’s campaign of genocide against the Marsh Arabs was complete. All but an estimated 20,000 Marsh Arabs were gone from the area they had lived in, compared to an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 in 1991, the last major rebellion being crushed in 1998. Only 1,600 still lived in their traditional reed houses on floating platforms in the marshes (16) – (18).

That’s why Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch concluded in 2004 that the 2003 invasion of Iraq “was not a humanitarian intervention” as no massacres or genocide were being planned or carried out by Saddam’s forces (19).

He could have added that none had been carried out or planned for over a decade. Any war was now bound to kill far, far more Iraqis than Saddam was killing. That’s before we even get into the constant firing on civilians and ambulances in many US offensives on Iraqi cities during the occupation which led western aid workers and Iraqi doctors and civilians to conclude they were being deliberately targeted – e.g Fallujah in April 2004 and in Samarra in October 2004 ; or the US trained Iraqi paramilitary torture and death squads, of which more in my next post  (20) – (21).

(Many Marsh Arabs, who have survived only by becoming bandits or extortionists, also went to war with Coalition forces after the invasion in a rebellion against attempts to disarm them – many joining Al Sadr’s Madhi army or other anti-occupation militias. (22)

Dennis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck, two successive heads of the sanctions programme who resigned in protest over it, said it was not Saddam's regime causing the starvation and shortage of medicines under sanctions, but that the sanctions imposed a limit on oil sales too low to support Iraq’s population ; both opposed the war (23) – (25).

The UN sanctions on Iraq had been demanded by the US and British governments at the end of the 1991 war – a war which began with an invasion of Kuwait which resulted largely from US and Kuwaiti co-operation to put economic pressure on Iraq by slant-drilling across the border into Iraq, by Kuwait exceeding it’s agreed OPEC quotas for oil sales and by it demanding immediate repayment of loans made to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war (see this post for sources and details).

We’ve already shown that their reason for not wanting them lifted was not that this would end Saddam’s “containment” and allow him to conquer the Middle East or massacre Iraqi rebels again.

The real reasons were avoiding loss of face; and ensuring US and British firms got oil contracts on favourable terms. The US had punished Saddam in 1991 and put him on their enemies list. If his regime now survived, the US would look weak and this would encourage other governments to defy it.

Even worse, after the 1991 war Saddam had negotiated oil contracts with Russian, French and Chinese oil companies. If sanctions were lifted and Saddam survived in power they would get the oil contracts, with US and British firms excluded.

As the Washington Post reported on the 15th of September 2002 ‘A U.S.-led ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein could open a bonanza for American oil companies long banished from Iraq, scuttling oil deals between Baghdad and Russia, France and other countries, and reshuffling world petroleum markets, according to industry officials and leaders of the Iraqi opposition...."It's pretty straightforward," said former CIA director R. James Woolsey, who has been one of the leading advocates of forcing Hussein from power. "France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them." But he added: "If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them."’ (26).

The US however failed to get the Oil Law it wanted the Iraqi parliament to pass during the occupation (it’s main reason for it’s war with the Shia Iraqi nationalist Al Sadr, whose Shia Sadrist MPs joined Sunni parties’ MPs in opposing the oil law;) and as a result failed to get contracts on the terms it wanted for most US oil companies (27).

Anglo-American oil giant BP  has managed to get a very lucrative contract for one giant Iraqi oil field on terms extremely favourable to it ; and is seeking others in Iraqi Kurdistan which is in disputes with the central government in Baghdad over the regional government negotiating oil contracts rather than the central government ; and over how favourable the terms of contracts are to oil companies (28) – (31). BP took over the US oil firm Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana and one of the ‘Seven Sisters’ oil giants) in 2001.

Oil and arms company profits and global power were the US aims in Iraq, not protecting Iraqis or promoting democracy – as I’ll show in my next post on how US and Coalition forces and the new Iraqi government still torture and kill Iraqis using all Saddam’s methods short of actual genocide.

 (1) = Mark  Phythian (1997) Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's War Machine, Boston: Northeastern University Press

(2) = Washington Post $1.5 Billion in U.S. Sales to Iraq; Technology Products Approved Up to Day Before Invasion’,

(3) = LA Times 13 Feb 1991 ‘Iraq Arms: Big Help From U.S. : Technology was sold with approval--and encouragement--from the Commerce Department but often over Defense officials' objections.’, http://articles.latimes.com/1991-02-13/news/mn-1097_1_commerce-department-approved-millions/3 , page 3 of online version of article

(4) = Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting 01 Sep 2002 ‘The Washington Post's Gas Attack -Today's outrage was yesterday's no big deal’, http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/the-washington-posts-gas-attack/

(5) = Nye , Joseph S. & Smith , Robert K. (1992), ‘After the Storm' , Madison Books , London , 1992 , - pages 211-216 (Nye is a former member of the Clinton administration)

(6) = Chicago Tribune 05 Aug 1993 ‘Briton: Iraq Is Wiping Out Arabs In Marshes’,
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1993-08-05/news/9308050117_1_marshes-chemical-weapons-arabs ; 3^rd Paragraph ‘She said doctors and other experts aiding the Arabs estimate that 120,000 may die from the terror campaign being waged against them by the regime of Saddam Hussein. There are an estimated 200,000 marsh Arabs, and she said more than 300,000 other people from nearby towns and cities fled to the marshes for refuge when Hussein crushed a Shiite Muslim uprising after the Persian Gulf war.’

(7) = Guardian.co.uk 19 Nov 1998 ‘Rebellion in southern marshes is crushed’ ,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1998/nov/17/2

(8) = See (6) above

(9) = See (7) above

(10) = BBC News 03 Mar 2003 ‘Iraq's 'devastated' Marsh Arabs’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2807821.stm ; 6^th to 7^th paragraphs

(11) = The Oregonian 14 May 2003 ‘IRAQ'S MARSH ARABS, MODERN SUMERIANS’,
http://www.simplysharing.com/sumerians.htm

(12) = Iraq Body Count 26 Oct 2004 ‘No Longer Unknowable: Falluja's April Civilian Toll is 600’, http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/reference/press-releases/9/

(13) = Internal Displacement Monitoring Center ‘Iraq: Response still centred on return despite increasing IDP demands for local integration’,  http://www.internal-displacement.org/countries/iraq

(14) = 2013 UNHCR country operations profile – Iraq,
http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e486426.html

(15) = BBC News 29 Oct 2012 ‘Iraqi refugees flee Syrian conflict to return home’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20131033

(16) = Juan Cole (2008) ‘Marsh Arab Rebellion : Grievance, Mafias and Militias in Iraq’ Fourth Wadie Jwaideh Memorial Lecture, (Bloomington, Indiana : Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana University, 2008),   Page 7,
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/iraq/iraqtribes4.pdf

(17) = BBC News 03 Mar 2003 ‘Iraq's 'devastated' Marsh Arabs’,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2807821.stm ; 7^th to 8^th paragrahs

(18) = Guardian.co.uk 19 Nov 1998 ‘Rebellion in southern marshes is crushed’ , http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1998/nov/17/2

(19) = Human Rights Watch 26 Jan 2004 ‘War in Iraq: Not a Humanitarian Intervention’,
http://www.hrw.org/news/2004/01/25/war-iraq-not-humanitarian-intervention

(20) = BBC News 23 Apr 2004 ‘Picture emerges of Fallujah siege’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3653223.stm

(21) = Independent 04 Oct 2004 ‘Civilians Bear Brunt as Samarra 'Pacified'’,
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1004-02.htm (no longer exists on the Independent newspaper’s website – is this connected to Tony Blair’s biographer and apologist John Rentoul being the paper’s Politics Editor?)

(22) = Juan Cole (2008) ‘Marsh Arab Rebellion : Grievance, Mafias and Militias in Iraq’ Fourth Wadie Jwaideh Memorial Lecture, (Bloomington, Indiana : Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana University, 2008),   Pages 7-17,
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jrcole/iraq/iraqtribes4.pdf

(23) = BBC News 30 Sep 1998 ‘UN official blasts Iraq sanctions’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/183499.stm

(24) = BBC News 14 Feb 2000 ‘UN sanctions rebel resigns’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/642189.stm

(25) = Guardian 29 Nov 2001 ‘The hostage nation - Former UN relief chiefs Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday speak out against an attack on Iraq’,
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/29/iraq.comment

(26) = Washington Post 15 Sep 2002, 'In Iraqi War Scenario, Oil Is Key Issue : U.S. Drillers Eye Huge Petroleum Pool',
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/177755831.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Sep+15%2C+2002&author=Dan+Morgan++and++David+B.+Ottaway&pub=The+Washington+Post&edition=&startpage=A.01&desc=In+Iraqi+War+Scenario%2C+Oil+Is+Key+Issue%3B+U.S.+Drillers+Eye+Huge+Petroleum+Pool ; or read full version at
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0915-03.htm

(27) = Greg Muttitt (2011) ‘Fuel on the Fire – Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq’, Bodley-Head 2011

(28) = Observer 31 Jul 2011 ‘BP 'has gained stranglehold over Iraq' after oilfield deal is rewritten’,  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jul/31/bp-stranglehold-iraq-oilfield-contract

(29) = Wall Street Journal Online 27 Jan 2013 ‘Iraq, BP Considering Kirkuk Field Deal’,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323468604578247013430825632.html

(30) = BBC News 20 Mar 2013 ‘Kurdish oil exports stall in row over revenue-sharing’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21793783

(31) = CNN 12 Dec 2011 ‘Oil power struggle as U.S. leaves Iraq’, http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/12/world/meast/iraq-oil

Hundreds of MPs and Lords with financial interests in private healthcare firms revealed showing conflict of interest on NHS ' reforms'

The excellent Social Investigations blog  has found hundreds of conflicts of interest and financial interests of MPs and Lords who have voted for the Coalition government’s NHS reforms , relating to private healthcare firms (plus there are some among the right of the Labour party who are supporters of PFIs or PPPs ).

This post on Conservative members of the House of Lords’ links to private healthcare firms is particularly eye-opening.

I’d already posted reports from the Guardian on some of the private healthcare firms whose executives donated money to the Conservative party – and on one adviser to the current government moving to the healthcare division of a major accountancy firm, but from Social Investigations’ work, this seems to have been only the tip of the ice-berg.

Things are almost as bad as in America where many of both main parties’ members of congress are in the pockets of private healthcare firms, though some Democrats remain above board in this respect and so do many Labour MPs.

The power struggle in Iraq may be more about Exxon and other oil companies wanting contracts with the Kurdistan regional government than sectarianism

and the US and it’s allies have not tried to prevent sectarian violence, but encouraged it as a means to divide and conquer

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s sacking and arrest warrants for Iraqi Sunni Vice President Tareq Al Hashemi and the bombings happening at the same time are being talked of as sectarian politics resuming due to the withdrawal of US forces.

In fact the divisions in Iraq are about politics and power more than ethnicity or religion and the US government and American oil companies have encouraged them, partly to divide and conquer Iraqis and partly to get the power to negotiate oil contracts devolved to regional governments, which will give oil companies a stronger hand in negotiations than they would have with the central government. The current crisis has probably been triggered by the Maliki government’s decision to declare contracts between Exxon-Mobil and the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan, made in November 2010, illegal (1).

This and the fact that Maliki allied himself with Moqtadr Al Sadr’s party to get a majority after the 2010 elections may have led the Americans to go all out to try to get the opposition Iraqiya coalition, which includes their client Ayad Allawi, into government.

There are major divisions between Maliki’s Dawa party and it’s ISCI allies on the one hand and the third main Shia party in Iraq – Moqtadr Al Sadr’s; and as in the past Sadr is closer on many issues to two of the three Sunni parties in the Iraqiya opposition than to the Shia Dawa and ISCI.

During the build up to the 2004 Coalition offensive on Sunni rebels in Fallujah, Sadrists and other Shia in Najaf declared their support for the rebels and sent aid convoys of food and medicines to Fallujah (2). Sunnis and Shia have often marched together against the occupation over the last eight years (3) – (4).

In 2008 Maliki, a Shia, was leading the Shia ISCI and Dawa government in joint Coalition and Iraqi government offensives on Al Sadr’s Shia Madhi army militia in Baghdad, but not on other militias responsible for as much or more killing, including the ISCI’s Badr Brigades (5) – (6).

One reason was that Maliki was reliant on US support for his position; and Sadr and his party were allied to Sunni parties in opposing the presence of US troops, US influence in Iraq, and the oil law the US government wanted to get favourable contracts for it’s oil companies. Another was that Sadr was Maliki’s rival for Shia votes. (7)

The ISCI and Dawa are both closer to Iran’s government than Sadr and his party are – the Sadrists historically being strong Iraqi nationalists. The US government’s belief that all Shia are pro-Iranian or Iranian backed is also far from the truth. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s Khomeini hoped that Iraqi Shia would defect from Saddam’s forces. A few did and joined armed exile groups in Iran, but the vast majority of Shia conscripts fought loyally for Saddam, not because they supported him, but because they were Iraqi before they were Shia. Most Iraqis, with the exception of the Kurds, remain Iraqi first and whatever religious or ethnic group they are second.

The US and other Coalition governments are mostly net oil importers and their main aim in Iraq is to get their own oil companies contracts in Iraq on favourable terms. They are torn between on the one hand wanting to keep a strong central government in Iraq under their control ; and on the other wanting to weaken the central government so they can make separate contracts with regional governments like that of Iraqi Kurdistan. As long as Maliki remains allied to Sadr to stay in power the US has failed in it’s attempt to control the central government so will prefer strengthening the regional governments by dividing Iraqis.

However Sadr and Maliki are increasingly at odds again and the Sadrists’ call for early elections may be more about trying to gain seats from Dawa and the ISCI than about keeping Sunnis out of it, though the Sadrists will not be comfortable with all of the Iraqiya party as it includes former Baathist and then US client Ayad Allawi (8).

One Iraqi website quoting Sadr says he said that “The issue of Hashimy’s trial should take place under the auspices of the Parliament and the people….even the sacking of politicians from their posts must take place in a legal manner.”

“The issue of confessions against Vice-President, Tareq al-Hashimy and the raising of this issue at the current period may harm the country, its unity and security, including the downfall of the current political process and the security situation, along with harming the political process as well,” Sadr said.

Sadr also stressed that the said case “had boosted the isolation of Iraq nowadays, including the transformation of the government into a single-party government and the imposition of its power on the necks of everybody.” (9)

The quotes seem to be confirmed by a CNN report that repeats part of the above and adds ‘Al-Sadr said the crisis could tarnish the prime minister's [i.e Maliki’s] reputation and result in the consolidation of power with one-man rule.’ (10)

An alliance between the Kurds and the Iraqiya party would suit the US as a potential alternative to the Iranian brokered alliance between Maliki’s Dawa, the ISCI and the Sadrists. If Maliki’s accusation that Hashemi and Mutlak were proposing an autonomous Sunni regional government , that would suit Exxon very nicely too (11).

Former Bush (senior) official Peter Galbraith wrote a book called ‘The End of Iraq’ advocating the break up of Iraq into three states – Kurdish, Sunni and Shia – but his motives were cast into doubt when it was found that he was receiving money from oil companies seeking contracts in Iraqi Kurdistan and had a 5% share of any profits in contracts on some  deals. A complete breakup of Iraq would not be needed to achieve the oil companies’ aims though – only a change to regional governments having the final say on oil contracts (12).

The Iraqiya party is made up of three parties. Two of them – Hashemi’s and Mutlak’s are Sunni parties and  have been as strongly opposed to the presence of US troops and US influence in Iraq as the Sadrists, but the third – Ayad Allawi’s party – are US clients and mostly secular (13) – (14).

Allawi, although a Shia, started off as a Ba’athist under Saddam , assassinating Iraqi dissidents who had fled to Europe. Later he fell out with Saddam, went into exile himself and was carried out car and cinema bombings in Baghdad with CIA support. He was appointed Interim Iraqi Prime Minister by Bush’s ‘Governor of Iraq’ Paul Bremer and oversaw El Salvador style US trained Iraqi death squads, along with the TV programme ‘Terrorism in the Hands of Justice’ in which torture victims confessed live to being terrorists (15) – (16).

In the first post-war elections Allawi was the candidate backed by the US and British governments, but he lost heavily. US support for Allawi has continued though under Bush and Obama. The Iraqiya coalition of parties did far better in the 2010 parliamentary elections and was initially thought to have won, but couldn’t form a working coalition.

The idea that the US government and military have been trying to prevent sectarian violence in Iraq , or that their withdrawal and a fall in US influence has been the cause of it, are also pretty far fetched.

The US government and other Coalition members have encouraged sectarian divisions and violence among Iraqis from the start, because unless Iraqis are divided and fighting one another for power, foreign powers can’t have that much influence in Iraq. In the first few years of the Iraq war they trained mostly Shia extremist units like the Wolf Brigade of the US trained ‘Special Police Commandos’ to target Sunnis, on the faulty logic that all Sunnis were Saddam supporters (17) – (19).

Then in 2007 came what Seymour Hersh called ‘the re-direction’. The US government had decided that Shia dominance of Iraq’s politics had given the Shia Iranian government too much influence in Iraq and began paying the same Sunni tribal militias that had been fighting US forces to fight Al Sadr’s Medhi army militia and the Sunni extremist Al Qa’ida instead (but not the Shia, pro-Iranian ISCI’s Badr Brigades, who didn’t oppose the oil law). This was on the dodgy theory that the Sadrists were proxies of the Iranian government, which became a self-fulfilling prophecy (20) – (22).

(1) = NYT 13 Nov 2011 ‘Iraq Criticizes Exxon Mobil for Its Deal With the Kurds’, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/world/middleeast/iraq-criticizes-exxon-mobil-for-its-deal-with-the-kurds.html?_r=1 ; ‘A deputy prime minister overseeing Iraq’s oil industry criticized Exxon Mobil on Sunday over its effort to expand into the semiautonomous Kurdish region in the country’s north…. The statement from the official, Hussein al-Shahristani, said the central government had cautioned Exxon against pursuing oil deals in Kurdistan. The government considers such agreements to be illegal until long-awaited rules can be worked that would divide revenues among Iraq’s fractious regions.

Mr. Shahristani’s office issued its statement after Exxon, whose headquarters are in Irving, Tex., became the first major international oil company to sign a contract in Kurdistan.’

(2) = http://www.juancole.com/2007/01/muqtada-al-sadr-and-sunnis-mickey-kaus.html

(3)  = Guardian 10 Apr 2004, ‘Sunni and Shia unite against common enemy’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/10/iraq.rorymccarthy1

(4) = Guardian 10 Apr 07, ‘Moqtada rallies Shia to demand withdrawal of foreign troops’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2053247,00.html

(5) = Washington Post 26 Mar 2008 ‘U.S. Armor Forces Join Offensive In Baghdad Against Sadr Militia’, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/27/AR2008032700781.html?hpid=topnews

(6) = HRW 28 Oct 2006 ‘Iraq: End Interior Ministry Death Squads’, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/10/28/iraq-end-interior-ministry-death-squads

(7) = BBC News 3 July 2007, ‘Iraqi cabinet backs draft oil law’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6264184.stm

(8) = NYT 26 Dec 2011 ‘In Blow to Government, Sadr Followers Call for New Elections’, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/world/middleeast/moktada-al-sadr-followers-call-for-new-election-in-iraq.html

(9) = the iraqidinar.com 25 Dec 2011 ‘Shiite Cleric, al-Sadr, calls for trial of Iraq’s Vice-President Hashimy under Parliament’s auspices’, http://theiraqidinar.com/2011/12/25/shiite-cleric-al-sadr-calls-for-trial-of-iraqs-vice-president-hashimy-under-parliaments-auspices/

(10) = CNN 26 Dec 2011 ‘Al-Sadr's bloc calls for dissolution of Iraqi parliament’, http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/26/world/meast/iraq-politics/

(11) = Al Jazeera 25 Dec 2011 ‘Iraqi VP refuses to face court in Baghdad’, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2011/12/20111224191245752178.html ; ‘Maliki convened a meeting of his crisis-response cell on Saturday, his office said. …In separate comments on Saturday, Maliki warned that any efforts to create an autonomous Sunni region within Iraq would cause deep divisions in the country and lead to "rivers of blood".’

(12) = NYT 11 Nov 2009 ‘U.S. Adviser to Kurds Stands to Reap Oil Profits’, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/world/middleeast/12galbraith.html

(13) = Al Jazeera 28 Oct 2008 ‘Iraq Sunni party severs US ties’, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2008/10/2008102644323791621.html  ; ‘But the IIP has been locked in a bitter rivalry with the Sunni tribal leaders who joined forces with the US and that has raised concerns that the political tensions could spark violence and disrupt the Awakening Councils.’

(14) = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_National_Movement

(15) = Times 01 May 2005 ‘West turns blind eye as police put Saddam's torturers back to work’, http://www.infowars.com/articles/iraq/west_turns_blind_eye_saddams_torturers_at_work.htm

(16) = NYT magazine 01 May 2005 ‘The Way of the Commandos’, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html

(17) = BBC News 11 Jun 2005 ‘Profile: Iraq's Wolf Brigade’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4083326.stm

(18) = See (14) above

(19) = Guardian.co.uk 28 Oct 2010 ‘Iraq war logs: 'The US was part of the Wolf Brigade operation against us'’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/28/iraq-war-logs-iraq

(20) = The New Yorker 05 Mar 2007 ‘Annals of National Security - The Redirection’, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh

(21) = NPR 17 July 2008, 'U.S. Trains Ex-Sunni Militias as Iraqi Police', http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11240000

(22) = Sunday Times 25 Nov 2007, ‘American-backed killer militias strut across Iraq’, http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3076670