DOD "wet" work money in action, most likely connected to the money earmarked for rigging the Iraqi national elections.
A civil war in Iraq is exactly what the U.S. wants.
Furthermore:
"She'll stay in the house for four months and 10 days in mourning, as Islamic law dictates. Then, like many Sunnis, she'll probably leave her hometown of Basra.
The enforcement of relocation through cultural and religious mechanisms.
Over the next few generations, the indigenious Iraqis in any econo-strategic areas of Iraq will be replaced with westernized Iraqis.
Just like the indigenous jews were forced out of Israel.
NeoCons... Why is everyone afraid to say they're JEWISH.
Wed, Aug. 03, 2005
Unofficial de-Baathification process targets Sunnis in Basra
By Leila Fadel Knight Ridder Newspapers http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/12294890.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
BASRA, Iraq - Scores of assassinations have marred the relative peace and prosperity of Iraq's southern port of Basra, a city near the Iranian border that's dominated by Shiite Muslims and has been spared the extreme violence of Baghdad.
The assassins have targeted mostly men who are thought to have been connected to Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, which was dominated by Sunni Muslims. About 950 people have been killed since Saddam's regime was toppled in April 2003, according to Majid al Sari, the Defense Ministry adviser for the southern region. About half of the dead, al Sari said, are Sunnis, who make up about 30 percent of the city's population.
As a result, many Sunni families are selling their homes and migrating to other provinces and countries.
They aren't the only victims.
"Even among those Baathists who have been killed there were Shiites," al Sari said. "Daily we find bodies, and 90 percent of them are political crimes."
Many of the killings are attributed to men in police patrol cars who kidnap and kill or commit drive-by shootings.
On Wednesday, American freelance journalist Steven Vincent joined the list of those murdered in the city. He was abducted after leaving a money exchange shop and later was found shot to death at the side of a highway.
Vincent had published an opinion article in Sunday's New York Times charging that Shiite militiamen had infiltrated Basra's police. He quoted a police lieutenant who said a small number of police officers were behind Basra's murders.
Brigadier Chris Hughes, the British commander of the 12th Mechanized Brigade in Basra, confirmed the charges in an interview with Knight Ridder, saying there were "murderers" among the police. There have been some 80 killings since May, he said.
"The chief of police is not directing that type of activity. Neither is he able to stop it," Hughes said. "Quite a lot of them come under the umbrella of unofficial de-Baathification."
The chief of police, Gen. Hassan al Swade, confirmed to Knight Ridder that police patrol cars have been involved in the killings but denied that police carried out the murders.
Many people said they were afraid to discuss which group might be responsible.
Two militia groups have a strong presence in the city. One is the Badr Brigade, the former military wing of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Shiite political group that plays a leading role in Iraq's governing coalition. The Badr Brigade has denied accusations from Sunni groups that it's killing Sunnis in the Baghdad area. The other militia group is the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al Swade said the Badr Brigade and Mahdi Army shared intelligence with the police, confirming the close links between his force and Shiite religious groups. Some former Badr Brigade members have been absorbed into the police force.
There are also suspicions of Iranian involvement in the killings.
"It is clear that there are international groups seeking to provoke sectarian war here," said Dr. Jamal Khazaal, a leading member of the Basra branch of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the largest Sunni political party in the country.
Basra was ruled with brutal force under Saddam, a secular Sunni dictator. It was the front line of the eight-year war between Iran and Iraq and the city of rebellion against Saddam in the 1990s. The dictator dealt with the city severely after uprisings against him in 1991 and 1999; it was starved of revenue even though it exports about 85 percent of Iraq's oil and is home to the country's only port. Many Shiites were slaughtered for their defiance.
Now the city is free to display its Shiite identity. Pictures of Imam Ali and Imam Hussein, two of the most prominent religious figures in Shiite Islam, are plastered on walls and hang in almost every home.
Instead of Saddam's face on large billboards, paintings of the Shiite imams, the Shiite cleric al-Sadr and the late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual and political leader of that country's 1979 revolution, stare from the billboards with piercing dark eyes.
Many fear that Basra may become a virtual Iranian colony. Sunnis especially feel targeted and excluded from its politics.
Gov. Muhammed Musbih al Waely is unapologetic about that.
"Basra is 70 to 75 percent Shiite. These are the facts," al Waely said. "The Sunnis refused to participate in the elections."
The atmosphere has taken a toll on Sunni residents.
Dr. Hamed al Azzawi retreats behind the concrete walls of his home after work at Basra University. He hasn't gone to the city center in months. Instead, he tends to his lush garden of palm trees, flowers and greenery. Before he leaves his home, he peeks out from behind the steel gate and scopes the street for gunmen and kidnappers.
As an academic and a Sunni, he's become vigilant and paranoid.
Now he's tired. Eight of his friends at the university have been killed, five Sunnis and three Shiites. Shiites, too, had to join the Baath Party to get ahead in Saddam's Iraq.
Earlier this year al Azzawi walked into his office and found another man sitting in his chair, using his computer and illuminating the office with his lamp.
The man was a member of the Fadhela Party, a powerful Islamist Shiite party to which al Waely belongs. The dean asked al Azzawi to leave for a few weeks "because the atmosphere was tense." He went back to work, but the incident sealed his decision to leave. He'll sell the home where he raised his three sons and relocate to a foreign Arab country.
"Saddam killed the Shiite; now we bear the consequences," he said. "I want to save my life. If I were a Shiite, I would have more chances to survive."
Others haven't survived. Alaa Dawood, a Sunni, was a 32-year-old assistant professor of history and religion at Basra University.
He took his last breath July 17 in his brother's lap, his body riddled with at least 10 bullets as he sat in the back of a car carrying three other Sunni men, including his brother, who survived.
"There are so few Sunnis in Basra, and we are being oppressed both by these killings and threats," said his widow, Safa Abdul Wahab, 22. "We thought he was safe. He wasn't a Baathist."
"They don't want religious and academic Sunnis in important posts," said Maha Hussein, Dawood's mother-in-law. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she looked up from a picture of Dawood with his 10-month-old daughter, Jana.
After Dawood's death, his wounded brother got a call from the dead man's cell phone. "You aren't dead yet?" the man on the other end asked.
For now, Dawood's widow is holed up in the bedroom they shared in his family's home.
She'll stay in the house for four months and 10 days in mourning, as Islamic law dictates. Then, like many Sunnis, she'll probably leave her hometown of Basra.