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Sunday, November 16, 2003 Some Links... People have been asking about the casualties in Iraq. Check out this report: Continuing Collateral Damage: The health and environmental costs of war on Iraq. (http://www.medact.org/tbx/pages/sub.cfm?id=775) As for the deaths of troops in Iraq, the best page that summarizes these is Today in Iraq- (http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/) I know nothing about the page beyond the fact that it gives a daily summary of the main newsworthy events and gives links, brief commentary and occasional rants. It is worth checking daily. I updated the recipes page (http://iraqrecipes.blogspot.com/). Danny Schechter has a new page called "Dissectorville" (http://64.224.42.246/dissectorville/html/index.html). - posted by river @ 5:50 AM Update... These last few days have been tense- gunshots, helicopters, and explosions. A couple of days ago, we counted around 23 explosions. My cousin, his wife and their two daughters were at our house when the commotion began. A few explosions were so loud, the windows began to rattle with each impact and I had flashbacks of March and April. The kids reacted differently- the older one, ran to sit beside her mother, as far away from the living-room window as possible. She once confided to me that the glass terrified her; four of the windows at her grandparents' home cracked during the 'shock and awe' phase of the bombing and she still remembers the incident. The younger one was silent and stoic. You can hardly tell she's scared except that if you sit particularly close, you can hear her grinding her little teeth, which is what she does when she's frightened. It drives my cousin crazy because the kid loses herself in a sort of trance when she does that and it's all we can do to keep her mind off of whatever she's brooding about. At one point she asked, "Is it war again?" No, it isn't war, dear… the helicopters, tanks, missiles, rattling windows and explosions aren't war- they are 'protection': they are Operation Iron Hammer, not to be confused with war. When it got particularly heavy, and the helicopters began hovering above, E. wanted to go out to the roof and see what was happening and what exactly was being bombed. My mother declared NO ONE would go up to the roof- the helicopters were flying low and the troops haven't been too discriminating lately when it came to civilians- especially the ones in helicopters and tanks. At one point, the helicopters got so loud, it felt like they were going to land on the roof. E. was restless, pacing between the house and garden, trying to catch a glimpse of the commotion. We found out later an old Republican Guard facility had been bombed- though no one understands why: who would use *that* as a meeting place?! Other areas were bombed and one of the areas was evacuated- although some people preferred staying in their homes. The 14th of July Bridge was closed again. The 14th of July Bridge is also known as the "Mu'alaq Bridge", or the suspended bridge. It's the bridge I described in one of my earlier posts. The bridge was closed to civilians during the war (after the 9th of April, I think) and was re-opened about two weeks ago. I haven't been on the bridge since late March. I dread having to cross it again because it was the scene of many horrible deaths- many civilian cars were burned on that bridge. A friend of ours lost his wife and dog on that bridge when a tank fired at his SUV in April. It was 5 days before he was allowed to remove her corpse from the burnt vehicle and give her a proper burial. I heard about the new 'acceleration to transfer power' to the GC. I'm not sure how it's going to work. Chalabi gave his speech in English today with Talbani on his right and Pachachi peering over his shoulder on the left. I read Juan Cole's blog and he describes a report given by ABC (http://www.juancole.com/2003_11_01_juancole_archive.html#106888476159854594), which didn't sound like the speech. From the speech, I gathered that by June, the GC would nominate and elect a 'sovereign government'. But, again, who elected the GC? Someone asked Talabani, I think, whether the same GC members would actually be in the 'elected' government, the answer was "Yes, if our parties still want us as their representatives". I'll have to look into it more. I'm still not sure what this means. There's still some confusion here as to how this whole new government will be chosen by June... - posted by river @ 5:21 AM __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk