Anger against U.S. mounts as Iraq Shiites bury slain MP

Saturday 11th October, 06:43 AM JST

BAGHDAD —

Mourners shouted anti-U.S. slogans and torched American and Israeli flags in Baghdad’s Shiite bastion after a radical MP was buried Friday, as fresh attacks killed at least 19 people across Iraq.

“Down with Americans, down with the occupation,” Shiite youngsters shouted while burning U.S. and Israeli flags at a public square in Sadr City after weekly prayers.

Car bombs, roadside blasts and a shooting near the capital and the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk killed at least 19 people and wounded at least another 66 on Friday, police and security officials said.

The worst single attack was in Baghdad’s mainly Sunni quarter of Dora where a car bomb blast at a crowded market killed 13 people and wounded 27, police and the defense ministry said.

In the northern city of Kirkuk, claimed by Arabs and Kurds, Iraqi journalist Diyar Abbas Ahmed, 28, was gunned down, police Brigadier General Torhan Yusuf said.

Also targeted was an Iraqi military base in Habaniyah, near the city of Fallujah, where a car bomb wounded seven soldiers, two of them seriously.

Earlier in the day, gunfire rattled through the impoverished Shiite stronghold of Sadr City where 41-year-old anti-American Shiite MP Saleh al-Ogayly was killed Thursday in a roadside bomb attack.

Special U.N. representative for Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, denounced the murder in a statement calling it an “outrageous crime aimed at perpetuating instability in Iraq.”

Supporters of the MP from the radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s party called for a nationwide “demonstration” on Oct 18 to protest the assassination, the first of an Iraqi lawmaker in 18 months.

Iraqi troops and the U.S. military stepped up security in Sadr City after Thursday’s high-profile bomb attack.

“Americans get out. Americans get out,” shouted mourners as relatives hugged each other and wept while Ogayly’s wooden coffin was brought out of his home draped in the tri-color Iraqi flag.

Ogayly was later buried in the holy shrine city of Najaf.

His party blamed the killing on the U.S. military and said Ogayly had been a vociferous critic of the proposed military pact between the Shiite-led government of Premier Nuri al-Maliki and the Americans.

“What happened indicates that the occupation was behind the attack,” said Sheikh Salah al Obeidi, a spokesman for Sadr.

“He has criticized severely the weakest points in the U.S. agreement which led to the embarrassment of the Americans,” Obeidi said in Najaf. “So we see that it was in their interest to get rid of Ogayly.”

The U.S. military strongly denied any involvement in Ogayly’s killing. “We are not behind this event,” the U.S. military said in response to allegations by Sadr’s faction. The assassination was also condemned by U.S. ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, and General Raymond Odierno, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.

The Sadrists have rejected the proposed Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which would provide the legal basis for a U.S. troop presence beyond December when a U.N. mandate runs out.

Obeidi said Ogayly was a key figure in negotiations with the government on the SOFA.

Prime Minister Maliki, who has condemned the assassination and vowed to get the killers, traveled to Najaf on Friday to discuss the proposed military deal with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most respected Shiite cleric.

Maliki told reporters that Sistani would support a consensus in parliament. Washington has made “big concessions,” but immunity issues remained a problem, he said.

In Sadr City itself, people returned to the streets and markets were packed with people on Friday, the weekly religious holiday, amid tightened security.

The Shiite district was the site of heavy fighting between U.S. troops and Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia in March and April.

Wire reports

Latest 15 of 25 Total Comments Show All

SezWho2 at 02:41 PM JST - 11th October

rjd jr,

Basically, I agree with you. McCain likes to say that the surge worked and that he called it right. I can't think of anything more misleading.

Violence in Iraq was increasing and we had to do something. Go big or come home. Staying the course was not an option.

The surge fell into the category of doing something to decrease the violence with the hope that political stability would arise. Usually, when you do something, you effect some kind of change. And the surge was no different.

What is true is that the surge has produced a beneficial change. What is false is that "the surge worked". "Working" is calling the pocket where the 8-ball lands, not having it just carom randomly across the table and dropping at random.
SuperLib at 03:30 AM JST - 12th October

Well it's not like they're going to print this article:

http://www.dailynews.com/ci_10693886

"BAGHDAD - Iraq's prime minister said Friday that the country's most influential Shiite cleric will leave the decision about the future of U.S. troops to the government and parliament - a step that could remove a major obstacle to a deal."
reddragonguy at 07:11 AM JST - 12th October

They want Ahmadinhajad!!!
taniwha at 08:02 AM JST - 12th October

The reality is the US led invasion of Iraq was not only immoral but illegal, at least under international law as it stood at the time. No backward re-assessment of morality or legality can change this. But people have been fed an illusion based in large part on complete lies. It was never about bringing democray to the people of Iraq, because improving the lives of Iraqis was never an end goal of the invasion.

Even while the US people are reeling from the shock of realising their dollar is worth next to nothing to them, there are an apparent majority who do not connect their domestic situation with that of the victims in Iraq or Afghanistan. But they are connected. The same bunch in Washington that determined US foreign policy also determined US domestic policy and those reasons underlying both are no different.

The number one aim of America's wealthy elite, the industrialists, the bankers, and essentially the nation's aristocracy making up that thin layer, is to maintain their wealth and power, in short the privilege they have had for so long now.

When Bush, McCain, and the Republicans claimed 'the surge to have worked' what they didn't elaborate on was how drop in violence in Iraq was a direct result of having killed virtually all dissent. They've bled Iraq white, and in the process they have ethnically cleansed virtually the entire nation. Where that was not possible and where conditions meant that they couldn't wait for the proxies they armed to do the job for them, the occupiers erected giant concrete walls dividing up the city of Baghdad.

None of this can last for long. Children grow into youth and want to revenge their families, border wars that are the result of de-stabalization of Iraq mean other countries, Turkey for example enter the picture. Iran is already there, as was always expected because Iraq was supposed to be the staging platform for an invasion of Iran in the first place.

The Shiites then are just one of the main factions of the population that will come back to eject the occupiers. This nationalist struggle has been repeated all over the world. The classic example in American history was Vietnam. History repeats, unfortunately for those who pay no attention to it.
VOR at 08:25 AM JST - 12th October

Immoral? Illegal? Illusions? Complete lies? wealthy elite? industrialists? the bankers? nation's aristocracy? Wealth, power and privilege? Bush/McCain? The Republicans? Bled Iraq white? Ethnically cleansed Iraq? Proxies? Occupiers? Nationalists? Vietnam? History repeats?

taniwha you said a mouthful without saying much of anything at all.
taniwha at 09:17 AM JST - 12th October

The key words, well done.

Your post is a good example of how a lot of voters see the issue - confused. But you know all it really takes is time out to think about what has actually happened just in the time since you graduated from High school, which probably wasn't so long ago. Could be a stretch but give it a go.
VOR at 12:16 PM JST - 12th October

well taniwha help enlighten me and while you show me how smart you are, lets try to stay focused on the topics which are not highly subjective.

You say or repeat the whole Iraq war is illegal mantra. Can you cite which laws; US or International, were broken? Can you explain why no one within the Bush Administration or US Congress has been brought up on charges?
taniwha at 02:04 PM JST - 12th October

well taniwha help enlighten me and while you show me how smart you are, lets try to stay focused on the topics which are not highly subjective.

What are you posing as here, a drill sergeant?

...cite which laws; US or International, were broken? Can you explain why no one within the Bush Administration or US Congress has been brought up on charges?

Condemnation of the initial invasion of Iraq, declaring it illegal under international law has come from he International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva, forty-three Australian experts in international law and human rights legislation, 100 US law professors.

Senior officers in the US military have even accused Bush of war crimes in Iraq. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (now retired) is one. He served as the deputy commanding general for support for the Third Army for ten months in Kuwait during the early days of the Iraq occupation.

Illegal US facilities such as those detention sites within war zones e.g. Iraq, and at Guantanamo Bay, and so-called CIA black sites around the globe, all violate the US Constitution and international human rights standards e.g. the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture. As do the use of chemical weapons and attacks on ambulances and civilians e.g. Fallujah.

As for the reason no charges have been yet laid as yet, the answer is quite simple. The US is the most powerful military in the world, and it has in the last few years behaved as renegade terrorist state. The protection the war criminals currently enjoy will not last. Hitler's didn't, and neither did Saddam's.
WilliB at 05:23 PM JST - 12th October

Taniwha:

" They've bled Iraq white, and in the process they have ethnically cleansed virtually the entire nation. "

Come again? Do you mean the ethnic cleansing of the Christian minority in Iraq, as described in another article today? Or something else? Do enlighten us with your marxist wisdom.
taniwha at 05:47 PM JST - 12th October

An estimated one million people, some of them may have been Christian, who knows now, all of them killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq. And for what?

Three million Iraqi people and counting, some of the are likely to be Christian, refugees since and because of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Enlighten us with your reactionary wit.
coulrophobic at 06:04 PM JST - 12th October

"An estimated one million people, some of them may have been Christian, who knows now, all of them killed as a result of the invasion of Iraq. And for what?"

The "anti-war" Left's concern for Iraqis never seems to include taking their word on the number of dead, a figure which is about 1/10th of what is cynically and absurdly offered as proof that Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein.
SuperLib at 06:51 PM JST - 12th October

As for the reason no charges have been yet laid as yet, the answer is quite simple. The US is the most powerful military in the world

Nice to see you debating form your knees... ;)
taniwha at 07:19 PM JST - 12th October

Nice to see you debating form your knees... ;)

Haaa. Nice, yes, real nice.

And on your knees financially at least, is likely where you and /or your kin and/or your neighbors will soon be. And guess what, you will never even understand why this is happening to you and yours. But that is the nature of allowing yourself to be sold an illusion, and then clinging to it even when the lie is revealed.
coulrophobic at 07:45 PM JST - 12th October

"But that is the nature of allowing yourself to be sold an illusion, and then clinging to it even when the lie is revealed."

It is one of the great curiosities to be found in political rhetoric how often dialectic materialists, at the very point where they need to be as specific as possible about the nature of the economic system they oppose, almost invariably start playing the condescending mystagogue and again fail old Karl Marx.
taniwha at 07:50 PM JST - 12th October

It is one of the great curiosities to be found in political rhetoric how often dialectic materialists...

Mind translating all of that, for the rest of us. Like, what exactly do you think 'dialectic materialists' means? You know, really means?