Once again, the Pentagon initially lied about the murder of a journalist in Iraq.
"An early report said Salihee was shot by a passing U.S. convoy when he failed to heed hand signals or shouts from soldiers. That later turned out to be untrue."
But there are conflicting accounts.
"Most of the witnesses told another Knight Ridder Iraqi special correspondent that no warning shots were fired. But the front right tire of Salihee's car, a white Daewoo Espero, was pierced by a bullet, presumably meant to stop him from advancing."
FYI, Ron's now with Raw Story. Yesterday's violence included assaults on Sahwa with four members of one family kidnapped in a home invasion and later found dead. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro (NPR's All Things Considered) reported yesterday that the month of June has seen a minimum of 19 Sahwa killed. Sahwa, also known as "Awakenings" and "Sons Of Iraq" are largely Sunni fighters that the US put on the payroll to stop them from attacking US military equipment and US service members, numbered over 91,000 and Nouri al-Maliki agreed to take them and fold them into government jobs, putting them on the Iraqi payroll. That really didn't happen. Targeting has happened, repeatedly. These are Iraqi citizens. Nouri has an obligation to protect them. His refusal to do so goes to the fact that he's not a leader. He can't protect the people and he has refused to call out the killings. Doing so wouldn't violate his attempts to continue sectarian tensions. Nouri's caught in the past and Iraq will never be able to move forward with him as prime minister. Back to Lourdes Garcia-Navarro who reports:
Now, the exit of American troops is under way. In 2009, the fate of the Sons of Iraq was left in the hands of Iraq's Shiite-dominated coalition government, which agreed to pay the men and eventually either integrate them into the armed forces or give them civilian jobs.
But scores have been arrested over the past year by the government, says Hussam, while others have fled the country, leaving a sense of bitterness among the remaining Sons of Iraq.
Timothy Williams and Duraid Adnan (New York Times) note some of the violence yesterday including the Sahwa attack (they say 2 corpses were discovered and 2 are missing -- we're going with Xinhua which has better sources in the province and reported yesterday four corpses were discovered according to a police source). The reporters note:
Since Iraq's March 7 elections, which failed to provide a clear winner, unrest has increased during a hot spring and summer in which temperatures have reached 120 degrees, and the tense atmosphere has been punctuated by political assassinations, riots over electricity shortages, bombings of banks and a campaign of killing members of the counterinsurgent Awakening Councils and their families.
Many of the recent attacks have occurred in Mosul, the capital of Nineveh Province.
Blame for much of the violence -- including the electricity riots -- has been placed on groups seeking to exploit the country's political deadlock by sowing greater discord.
Really? Electricity riots? That's what we're calling them? Riots?
That's a curious characterization. One that, no doubt, pleases Nouri, but one that seems to be have exceeded its grasp. The demonstrations, the protests, were peaceful until police and military showed up. That was true of Basra on Saturday (no police officers died -- they did shoot protestors and kill two however). And true Monday of Monday's Nasiriyah protest. (There were at least two minor protests on Sunday. They were not riots.) I don't see a riot in the Nasiriyah photos such as below.
Again, when the police and military showed up things shifted a bit but the crowd can be seen as responding to intimidation and, even if you don't see that, it's still difficult to call what happened in Basra Saturday or Nasiriyah Monday a "riot." (And Monday saw one reported arrest -- of a police officer.)
The characterization isn't a minor issue. What took place, the protests, would not be characterized as "riots" if they took place in the US. And the only one who benefits from that terminology is Nouri al-Maliki. So it's a very strange characterization. This is probably a good time to again quote from Joel Brinkley's "Iraq reverting to its former freedom-less ways" (Sacramento Bee):
A large part of the problem is corruption. Under American stewardship, Iraq has grown to be one of the half-dozen most corrupt nations on earth. "Significant widespread corruption" afflicts "all levels of government," the State Department says. Nothing can so quickly cripple a democracy as the need by the nation's leaders to protect their cash flow and hide all evidence of their thefts. That leads, at least, to electoral fraud and press censorship. How can corrupt officials survive if the press is free to report on their misdeeds?
"We are controlled and censored," Faris Fadhil Sultan told me. He's a reporter for Al-Arabiya television in Iraq. "The government can exert its will on reporters through criminal charges or suspension from work - even kidnapping and killing."
Iraqi reporters are intimidated into compliance - even when Western journalists found that government officials had embezzled $13 billion in American reconstruction funds. That is a tactical problem for Iraqi democracy. A larger, strategic, problem lies in the certainty of history.
In that climate, do we really want to characterize peaceful protests as "riots"? Do we really want to characterize the suffering -- suffering in 100-degree-plus heat with no reliable electricity -- as rioters? The National Turk reports:
Iraqi's have been outraged by the electricity shortage which has left many areas in the country without electricity for much of the day amid temperatures reaching close to 50 degrees (120 Fahrenheit).
Hussain al-Shahristani, the current electricity minister spoke of the shortages and said that there was no 'magic wand' to stop the outages on Friday as Iraqi protesters massed in the capital Baghdad over the government’s inability to provide essential services in the war ridden country.
al-Shahristani is the acting minister and he goes on to state Iraqis should "limit" their use of AC. Maybe he can work on "limiting" the number of 100-degree-plus days. The average Iraqis may get a little more electricity. AFP reports that al-Shahristani has just "revoked electricity privileges enjoyed by government officials as he took temporary control of the power portfolio amid public fury over rationing" -- something you would assume would have been dealt with long ago. Something that never really should have happened to begin with -- directing additional energy to the Green Zone.
TV notes. On PBS' Washington Week, James Barnes (National Journal), Michael Duffy (Time magazine), Eamon Javers (CNBC) and Martha Raddatz (ABC News) join Gwen around the table. Gwen now has a weekly column at Washington Week and the current one is "General McChrystal and the Gift of 20/20 Hindsight." This week, Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Debra Carnahan, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Anne Manetas and Genevieve Wood on the latest broadcast of PBS' To The Contrary to discuss the week's events. And at the website each week, there's an extra just for the web from the previous week's show and this week's online bonus is a discussion about a new birth control pill which would prevent pregnancy for up to 5 days after intercourse. this week's online bonus is a discussion on the press' latest attempt to start Mommy Wars. Need To Know is PBS' new program covering current events. This week's hour long broadcast (Fridays on most PBS stations -- but check local listings) features Andrew Bacevich on the topic of the Afghanistan War and Hooman Majd on Iran. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:
Blackwater 61
"Blackwater 61" is the call sign of a plane flown by the embattled government contractor Blackwater that crashed into a mountain in Afghanistan killing all onboard. The widow of one of the soldiers killed - a pilot herself - says the firm was negligent in the way it operated the flight. Steve Kroft reports. | Watch Video
Fighting For A Cure
More Americans are suffering from epilepsy than Parkinson's, cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis combined. Katie Couric reports on a disease that may not be getting the attention it deserves. | Watch Video
Cameron's Avatar
Morley Safer gets the first look at how "Titanic" Director James Cameron created his $400 million 3-D fantasy "Avatar." | Watch Video
60 Minutes, Sunday, June 27, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Radio. Today on The Diane Rehm Show (airs on most NPR stations and streams live online beginning at 10:00 am EST), Diane is joined the first hour (domestic news roundup) by Ron Elving (NPR), John King (CNN) and Susan Page (USA Today) Naftali Bendavid (Wall St. Journal), Doyle McManus (Los Angeles Times) and Karen Tumulty (Washington Post). For the second hour (international), she's joined by Elise Labot (CNN), Moises Naim (El Pais) and Kevin Whitelaw (Congressional Quarterly).
The Senate Democratic Policy Committee continues addressing a number of issues, check out the DPC's video page, and we'll note Senator Patty Murray speaking on the Senate floor.
