US Makes sure Iran in China's Pocket. Iran to buy from China 24 fighter jets based on Israeli technology

[...]
During the 1980s, Israel Aircraft Industries, along with U.S. firms, developed a multi-role aircraft that was considered the most advanced of its type at the time.

Following the development of a prototype, the Reagan administration stopped funding for the project, bringing about the cancellation of the joint project.

Israel then began selling some of the systems it had developed to various countries, including China.

Experts point out that even with these aircraft, Iran's air force is no match for Israel's or even Saudi Arabia's.

Some analysts expressed criticism at what they called Israel's "short sighted" and lax export policies.

This is not the first time Israeli components were part of weapons systems aimed at Israel. Some reports claimed that China sold Saudi Arabia long-range missiles containing Israeli know-how.
[...]

Turkey Attacks Kurdish PKK Militants Inside Iraq, Masses more troops to Continue

U.S. military murders more iraqi children in the name of Bush Crime Family's illegal and unjust war of aggression

[...]

The bodies of the toddlers, one in a nappy, lay on blankets in the morgue of Imam Ali hospital in Sadr City where doctors tended to wounded men, some elderly, and boys.

In a house where one of the children lived, a man pointed to bloodstained mattresses and blood-splattered pillows, choking back tears as he held up a photo of one of the dead.

Hundreds of local residents, wailing and chanting "There is no God but Allah," carried wooden coffins through the streets.

[...]

Iraqis want Mercenaries Out

U.S. Builds Air Base in Iraq for Permanent Occupation

The U.S. military base in Balad, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, is rapidly becoming one of the largest American military installations on foreign soil.

About 30,000 troops are stationed there, along with thousands of other contractors and Defense Department civilian employees.

The base is one giant construction project, with new roads, sidewalks, and structures going up across this 16-square-mile fortress in the center of Iraq, all with an eye toward the next few decades.

[...]

WHO asks Iraq to probe reports of Rift Valley Fever

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday it had asked Iraqi authorities to probe media reports of several cases of Rift Valley Fever in animals.

The viral disease primarily affects animals but can infect humans through handling of blood or organs of infected animals, leading to high rates of disease and death, according to the United Nations health agency.

Herders, farmers, slaughterhouse workers and veterinarians are deemed at higher risk through handling of animal tissue during slaughtering, assisting with animal births, conducting veterinary procedures or disposing of carcasses.

Inquiry after US air strikes kill 15 women and children

[...]
Bombings struck a police patrol in the capital and children playing in a park in northern Iraq, while the country's Sunni Arab minority began celebrating the Eid al-Fitr holiday that ends the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Fearing more violence, Baghdad authorities imposed a ban on streetside parking after a series of car bombings in recent days.
[...]

PKK rebels say heading into Turkey from Iraq

Kurdish separatist rebels said on Friday they were crossing back into Turkey to target politicians and police after Ankara said it was preparing to attack them in the mountains of northern Iraq.

Has the US Ceded Southern Iraq?

Operation Iraqi Liberation (O.I.L) - David Rovics

Cholera Outbreak in Iraq Spreads or Bush Brings Democracy to the Middle east

The toll of people in Iraq infected with cholera has risen to 3,315, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

The number of confirmed infections compares with 2,758 cases reported Sunday by the U.N. health agency. The death toll of 14 has been unchanged in recent days, WHO said.

The outbreak first detected Aug. 14 in Kirkuk in northern Iraq has now spread to half of the country's 18 provinces.

[...]

US plans $2.3bn arms sale to Iraq

Bush threatened nations that did not back Iraq war

MADRID (AFP) - US President George W. Bush threatened nations with retaliation if they did not vote for a UN resolution backing the Iraq war, according to a transcript published Wednesday of a conversation he had with former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar.

Iraqi Government Ban on Blackwater almost as much of a Joke as George Bush as president

American diplomats today resumed travel in Iraq in convoys escorted by Blackwater USA, the private American security contractor, less than a week after the Iraqi government banned the company following a shooting in which at least eight Iraqis were killed.

It was unclear, however, whether the Iraqi authorities had approved the decision to allow Blackwater to resume operations and what this resumption of convoy traffic means in the developing dispute between Iraqi and American officials over the use of private security contractors in Iraq. Mirembe Nantongo, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy, said a limited number of diplomats had traveled outside the heavily fortified Green Zone and were likely accompanied by Blackwater guards. “As a general rule, in a limited manner, Blackwater is operating,” she said.
[...]

Bush Administration Flooding Iraqi Black Market With Billions Of Dollars In Weapons

[...]

U.S. officials also acknowledged in June that they were arming Sunni groups who promised to fight Al-Qaeda. But as Center for American Progress Senior Fellows Lawrence Korb and Brian Katulis note, the Bush administration’s short-sighted strategy is actually contributing to the deterioration of the security situation:

First, the United States is arming up different sides in multiple civil wars that could turn even more vicious in the coming years. Second (and more important to America’s strategic interests) billions of dollars of U.S. military assistance is going to some of the closest allies of America’s greatest rival in the Middle East — Iran. The Shi’a-dominated Iraqi national army and security forces could quite quickly turn their weapons against American troops and allies in the region.

[...]

Civilian toll in Iraq may top 1Million

Bush Lied

Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction

Salon exclusive: Two former CIA officers say the president squelched top-secret intelligence, and a briefing by George Tenet, months before invading Iraq.

[...]

examples of previously right wing inability to think complexly

The Pentagon is preparing to build a military base near the Iraq-Iran border to try to curtail the flow of advanced Iranian weaponry to Shiite militants across Iraq, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday in its online edition.
[...]
U.S. officials accuse Iran of fomenting violence to destabilize Iraq and of seeking to build nuclear weapons under cover of civilian nuclear program, charges Iran denies.
[...]

Bush Wants $50 Billion More for Iraq War

President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.

The request -- which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.

Iraq corruption whistleblowers face penalties

One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.

Or worse.

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.