Archive for the ‘Iraq’ Category

These refugees lied to escape Iraq a decade ago. Now, the US might send them back. – Washington Post

Eleven years ago, two Iraqi brothers stranded at a refugee camp in Jordan made a fateful choice they thought was really no choice at all.

Determined not to return to a country where they thought they would be killed, they obscured their relationship with a third brother, who was accused of terrorist ties, and ultimately linked to the kidnapping of a U.S. contractor and others in Iraq.

The brothers, with their wives and chidren, were allowed into the United States. And over the past decade, they built a life in Fairfax, Va., finding work and making friends, having picnics and visiting the zoo. Each brother has two children born in the United States.

Now, Yousif al-Mashhadani, 35, his brother, Adil Hasan, 39, and Hasans wife, Enas Ibrahim, 32, have been convicted in federal court in Alexandria on fraud charges. With all three at risk of deportation, friends and supporters say a good family is being torn apart and are pushing for them to be allowed to remain in the country.

Justice cries out for compassion in this case, Marie Monsen, who worked with the refugees as a church volunteer, wrote in a letter to the court.

Federal prosecutors said they pursued the cases in hopes of catching Majid al-Mashhadani, who the government believes was involved in the kidnapping and had been released from prison in Iraq after only a couple of years. But authorities have given no indication that the three refugees have provided useful information about the crime or Majids whereabouts.

Im not sure how it accomplished anything, Ibrahims attorney, Lana Manitta, said. I dont think theyre any closer to getting the answers they need.

[Iraqi refugees in Va. accused of hiding ties to a kidnapper to get into U.S.]

Judge Leonie M. Brinkema last month sentenced the brothers to only the three months they have spent in jail for their crimes, but acknowledged that they would be transferred immediately to immigration custody.

This is a tragic case, she said in court. But the law is what it is.

She questioned why Ibrahim, who has not yet been sentenced, was targeted at all. She was prosecuted in large part to give incentives for her husband and brother-in-law to give information on the kidnapping and torture of an American citizen, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg said in court.

He said she was also complicit in the decision to lie to a United Nations refugee agency.

The brothers and their families fled Iraq in 2006, when sectarian violence in the country was at its height. When the family arrived in Jordan, Ibrahim was pregnant with her first child. She and her sister Rashad, Yousif al-Mashhadanis wife, both had their first children at the refugee camp.

While pleading guilty, Hasan explained his fear of being sent back to Iraq.

I am Sunni, and I will be killed by the Sunnis because I was working in the Green Zone, he said. The Shiites will kill me because I am Sunni.

Both brothers had worked for a U.S.-supported anti-corruption agency in Iraq known at the time as the Commission on Public Integrity. Dozens of their co-workers were assassinated to keep investigations from coming to fruition.

In court, Hasan said he personally knew 56 people who had been killed. According to court filings, 65 members of the watchdog agency have been assassinated. Arthur Brennan, who worked on corruption in Iraq for the State Department in 2007, wrote to the judge that Iraqis connected to law enforcement at the time were in an extremely dangerous situation.

So, knowing their brother had been arrested and accused of involvement in terrorism, Hasan and Mashhadani hid their relationship. For good measure, they exaggerated the intensity of the threats they had faced for working with Americans in Baghdad. And when they filled out their U.S. naturalization forms, they did not correct the errors.

Hasan has pleaded guilty to naturalization fraud, Mashhadani to conspiracy to commit immigration fraud. Both agreed to cooperate with immigration authorities. Ibrahim admitted lying about her income to secure a car loan two years ago, a charge that does not automatically trigger deportation proceedings. The families declined to comment for this story.

While in Virginia, the families lived a spartan existence so they would not rely on charity for too long, Monsen recalled, although they always scrounged to serve volunteers huge home-cooked meals. They went on to help new refugees as they were helped, and neighbors say they were always willing to lend a tool or offer a ride.

Yousif and his family had very little during this trying time, but this never stopped their generosity, said Aaron Weiss, who met the family as a volunteer with the International Rescue Committee.

Ninos Youkhana, whose parents fled Iraq in the 1970s, met Hasan working at the Iraqi Embassy in Washington. Only weeks later, when she was having trouble with her roommate, Hasan and Ibrahim invited her to live with them.

For six months they housed her and cooked her meals, and not once did they ever ask for any financial reimbursement from me, she wrote in a letter to the court.

She said Hasan also helped fight an attempt to block Iraqi Christians abroad from voting in 2014 parliamentary elections.

When interviewed by FBI agents this year, Hasan described a life of fear in Iraq, telling them he was once shot at while driving to work and was detained for several hours by members of a Shiite militia.

But while in Jordan applying for refugee status, the brothers fabricated a far more elaborate tale in which Hasan was kidnapped for a month and their parents home was set on fire.

Although they have admitted those lies and expressed regret, both brothers maintain that they know nothing about the actions or whereabouts of Majid al-Mashhadani, who according to prosecutors had admitted his involvement in the 2004 kidnapping of an American contractor and four others.

A paper with Yousif al-Mashhadanis fingerprint on it was found in the farmhouse where the hostages were kept. However, there is no evidence the print was left during the kidnapping and he has not been charged in connection with that crime.

Another brother, according to court filings, listed Majid al-Mashhadani on his immigration papers and is now a U.S. citizen.

Roy Hallums, the contractor who was kidnapped and rescued 10 months later, was unable to see or understand his captors. But he is sure the brothers are lying now.

In the Middle East and in Iraq, everything is based on family, Hallums said. So I dont believe for one second that these guys didnt know what was going on.

Even if they didnt, immigration foes see justice being done.

Their first interaction with the U.S. government was to lie, said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that opposes most new immigration.

Until this March, the family would not have had to worry about being sent back to Iraq. Only in April, after years of refusal, did the Iraqi government agree to start cooperating with American deportation efforts.

But a federal judge in Detroit has temporarily halted those deportations in response to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union arguing that it is too dangerous to deport people to the country .

Although it is unclear what will happen to the three refugees, in court last week Hasan spoke as if he was saying goodbye.

Thank you to the United States for hosting me for nine years, he said.

Before he was taken back to jail and then to immigration custody, he shook the hands of the prosecutors who had put him there.

Im really thankful, he said, and I love this country.

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These refugees lied to escape Iraq a decade ago. Now, the US might send them back. - Washington Post

Here in Iraq, Isis is being defeated but with US policy in disarray, it doesn’t feel any safer – The Independent

President Trump has told a crowd of cheering Polish nationalists in Warsaw that the great threat to the world is from radical Islamic terrorism, which should make it good news for him that Isis is losing Mosul, the heart of its self-proclaimed Caliphate and its de facto capital in Iraq. At the same time, US-backed Syrian-Kurdish forces are closing in on Raqqa, the last big Isis-held city in Syria, which they will capture in the coming weeks or months.

Isis has been the most powerful enemy of peace in the Middle East and beyond over the last three years, so why is its defeat in its two largest strongholds not making the region feel a safer place? Instead, the mood is edgy and fearful, bringing to mind the atmosphere in Europe in 1914 when many different conflicts were escalating and cross-infecting each other. It is not so much that the great powers are itching to fight each other in the Middle East, but, as in the period before the First World War, there are so many wild cards, in the sense of inputs or ingredients of uncertain value in the political mix, that almost anything could happen.

The wild cards are of two different kinds, though both are dangerous. One source of uncertainty revolves around deeply flawed leaders like Donald Trump himself, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. All have a great appetite for power at home and abroad, combined with a reputation for arrogance and poor judgement. Ominously, all are leading players in potentially explosive confrontations and crises that could easily turn into serious wars, where they have not already done so.

The current situation in northern Iraq and eastern Syria, where Isis is on the retreat, is a good example of this. The implosion of Isis creates a vacuum leading to further conflicts over who will fill the gap left by its defeat: as regards Syria, Turkey is deeply alarmed by the rising power of the Kurds, who, backed by US-led air power, have established a de facto state along the southern Turkish frontier.Syrian Kurds, for their part, fear that the Turkish army will invade northern Syria and end their quasi-independence once the US no longer needs their 50,000 fighters to combat Isis.

Iraq PM Haider al-Abadi hails 'big victory' in Mosul

What is US policy in the struggle for eastern Syria which has drawn in their own country, Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the Syrian government, al-Qaeda, Isis, Kurds and many others? The US has already fired missiles at a Syrian government airbase and shot down a Syrian military aircraft, but otherwise nobody knows what Trump intends to do. Will he betray the Kurds once the US has no further use for them against Isis in order to get back on good terms with Turkey? Alternatively, the US could limit its role in Syria and Iraq once Isis is defeated or see both countries as the future arena for a confrontation with Iran.

We dont have a policy in Syria, said one former State Department official. Everybody in the Middle East knows that whatever is said by the Pentagon, State Department or National Security Council lacks authority because whatever assurances they give may be contradicted within the hour by a presidential tweet or by one of the factions in the White House. The ex-official lamented that it was like living in an arbitrary and unpredictable dictatorship.

Donald Trumps genius for spreading chaos was displayed in May during his visit to Saudi Arabia, when his fulsome endorsement of Saudi policies encouraged Riyadh to blockade Qatar and seek to turn it into a Saudi vassal state. The US President gave his support to Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has since taken over as Crown Prince, and has been the effective ruler of the Kingdom since 2015. His record since then is of undiluted failure: he backed a rebel offensive in Syria that precipitated Russian military intervention; he started bombing Yemen in a war that is still going on and is devastating the country; and he is destabilising the Gulf by trying to crush tiny Qatar.

Drone footage shows the devastation in Mosul's old city and the destroyed al-Nuri Mosque

Crises have always been erupting in the Middle East, but today there is a sense of them spinning out of control. US policy is to be redirected to supporting its own interests, comically supposing that it was previously a model of altruism and self-denial.

Under Trump, the US is to focus more on repelling the advance of Iranian influence, something much encouraged by Israel and Saudi Arabia. But the US needs a degree of cooperation with Iran if there is to be a de-escalation of the violence in Iraq and Syria. Confrontation with Iran is a recipe for fighting the Shia community as a whole and is a guarantee of instability.

A more aggressive policy towards Iran is conceived with dangerous frivolity. Media pundits and think tank luminaries have little idea of what they are talking about, any more than they did when invading Iraq in 2003. They speak of the US supporting guerrilla war by ethnic minorities against the central government in Iran, a tactic that is likely to get a lot of people killed but without worrying the authorities in Tehran too much.

US military action in Iraq and Syria is largely continuing so far along the same lines as under President Obama, because nobody in the Trump administration knows what to put in its place. It has become more militarised with officers in the field decidingon what and when to bomb. The US-directed bombardment of Mosul has become noticeably more devastating under Trump than it was under Obama last year.

Children of Mosul describe life under Islamic State

The analogy between the Middle East today and Europe in the years leading up to 1914 is illumination. There are strong parallels between Trump and Kaiser Wilhelm II, or Kaiser Bill as he was known derisively in Britain, in the way in which both men have stumbled into situations they did not understand. Both were the egocentric and ill-informed advocates of a bombastic nationalism in which they portrayed themselves as defending their nations America or Germany against the plots and self-aggrandising policies of foreign states. In 1896, the Kaiser suddenly shot off a notorious telegram offering support to the Boers against a British intrusion, much as Trump was to tweet his support for Saudi Arabia against Qatar over a century later.

Trump and the Kaiser behaved with the same blend of hubris and self-pity, seeingthemselves and their nations as eternal victims, often blaming the media for malign misrepresentation. In 1908, the Daily Telegraph published a notorious interview with the Kaiser in which he made various offensive remarks about the English, whose suspicions of himself are quite unworthy of a great nation. He concludes with a very Trump-like bleat in which he insisted that I am the friend of England, and your press at least a considerable section of it bids the people of England refuse my proffered hand and insists that the other holds a dagger.

The Kaiser did not invent the phrase the Yellow Peril, but he used it to warn of the threat that China and other East Asian states posed to Western civilisation much as today Trump rants on about the dangers of radical Islam.

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Here in Iraq, Isis is being defeated but with US policy in disarray, it doesn't feel any safer - The Independent

BL Harbert lands contract for project in Iraq – Birmingham Business Journal


Birmingham Business Journal
BL Harbert lands contract for project in Iraq
Birmingham Business Journal
BL Harbert International has landed yet another major federal contract for an international project. The Birmingham-based contractor was awarded the contract for construction of the new U.S. Consulate Complex in Erbil, Iraq, by the U.S. Department of ...

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BL Harbert lands contract for project in Iraq - Birmingham Business Journal

Joe Lauzon Visits Troops In Iraq, Recounts ‘Humbling’ Experience – FloCombat

By Elias Cepeda

Looking toward this week's celebration of his nation's independence from Britain UFC lightweight star Joe Lauzon recently recounted to FloCombat a trip visiting members of the United States' armed services as they worked abroad. Lauzon and other elite fighters like Jake Ellenberger and Diego Sanchez recently traveled together to visit a number of U.S. military bases in Iraq.

The trip was not Lauzon's first time visiting troops or even traveling as far as Iraq to try and help boost moral. Back nearly a decade ago Lauzon visited other service men and women in Iraq along with heavyweight Heath Herring and middleweight Jorge Rivera.

Despite traveling with those two big men, back then, Lauzon says he ended up carrying much of the load when it came to training with the troops. The UFC record-holder loved the experience, but it wore on his body a bit.

"That first trip was great, I got to train with so many of the troops," Lauzon recalled.

"Jorge had a hurt hand so he couldn't train and Herring, I think he just didn't want to roll with people (laughs). So, I ended up training with everyone myself, person after person. It was a lot of fun but I'd go with 15-20 people, then go to another two bases in the day and do that again each time. After a while I asked the people organizing the trip if I could take control of the training a little bit more and so I ended up more teaching a class, a seminar, and then afterward rolled, so it wasn't just an hour of rolling, straight."

With the knowledge gained from that experience, Lauzon planned ahead on his most recent trip, organized by Pro Sports MVP.

"This time, off the bat, Pro Sports MVP told the people, 'Hey, just hand it over to this guy, he has a good handle on how to run things,'" Lauzon continued."I asked the other fighters if they were cool with it and then we ran it like a class and then divided up rolling among us all. We were all different sizes and weights as well, so we could give some of the bigger soldiers a different look than some of the smaller ones. It worked out really great."

Lauzon said that the experience and skill level he and his fellow fighters encountered among the servicemen they trained with at the bases they visitedvaried a great deal, but that they all showed an eagerness to learn and had great attitudes. "Some of them had no experience at all grappling but wanted to try it out. That was fun," he said.

"Others had done a littleor had wrestled. Others were combative instructors and were really great."

Lauzon said that he and the other athletes got some decent quality time with military members, who hailed not just from the United States, but also from many other allied nations. "We did a lot of sitting, eating, talking. That was probably the best part," he went on.

During those conversations Lauzon said he just asked about soldiers' lives in Iraq, so far from their loved ones. In just over a week of travel and time spent with them, Lauzon said he was reminded in subtle but powerful ways just how good he had it.

"There's little things about their lives living out there that make you realize how much you take for granted," he began to explain.

"Some of the bases are nice, have bathrooms and all that. Some are more bare-bones, have outhouses. Even things like inconsistent internet and phone service show you how much we have and little bits of what they have to go through. My first night there I'm stressing because the internet signal isn't great and I'm wondering, 'How am I going to FaceTime with my wife? How am I going to say goodnight to my son? How can I let them know I got in alright and am fine?'

"That's something soldiers out there have to live with every day. Their families are far away, for years. Even small things like internet service shine light on the big things they sacrifice to serve in the military."

In the end, that is precisely why Lauzon found it a pleasure to briefly visit with military service people abroad. It wasn't in support of or opposition to any military policy, war or exercise that Lauzon went to Iraq.

Those decisions had been and continue to be made. Lauzon recognized that, regardless of what any of us may think of policy or even what individual soldiers may think of it, military personnel trust all of us and their nation deeply and sacrifice greatly to do as we ask them to.

That phenomenon deserves recognition, and the living embodiment of that sacrificing philosophy deserve some humanity showed back to them. "I just wanted to go there to spend time with them, show them that we think of them, that we care about them, and to show them we appreciate that they gave up a lot when asked," he said.

"A lot of the bases we went to were smaller ones and we were told some of the people there had never really gotten visitors before. A lot of times entertainers get sent to the larger bases. So you could tell they enjoyed just having visitors, being so far from home. For me, it was great and humbling to see how they live and an honor to spend even just a little time with them and try to show them that we're thankful for them."

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Joe Lauzon Visits Troops In Iraq, Recounts 'Humbling' Experience - FloCombat

In 2016, drug overdoses likely killed more Americans than the entire wars in Vietnam and Iraq – Vox

Every year for the past few years, weve gotten even more horrible statistics showing the harrowing impact of the opioid epidemic on America. In 2015, overall drug overdose deaths, largely as a result of the opioid crisis, reached a new historic record topping deaths from guns or cars that year, and even the toll from HIV/AIDS at the height of that epidemics peak in 1995.

In 2016, we got another awful statistic: Drug overdose deaths reached another record and, based on the highest estimate by a New York Times analysis of state data, topped total US casualties from the entire wars in Vietnam and Iraq.

The Timess analysis calculated that 59,000 to 65,000 people died of overdoses in 2016, with a harder, but likely inaccurate, number of 62,497. (Well get the official numbers later in 2017.) In comparison, more than 58,200 US troops died in the Vietnam War between 1955 and 1975, and more than 4,500 have died so far in the Iraq War since 2003 which adds up to more than 62,700.

Although its hard to say for certain, the Times suggested the [opioid] problem has continued to worsen in 2017. In short, the opioid epidemic was already the deadliest drug crisis in American history in 2015. It got much deadlier in 2016, and is likely even worse so far in 2017.

It can be hard to conceptualize the numbers were talking about here. So Bella Lucy from Voxs graphics team put together the following chart. It requires a bit of scrolling.

For more on the opioid epidemic, read Voxs in-depth explainer, the abridged version, or the maps and charts variant.

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In 2016, drug overdoses likely killed more Americans than the entire wars in Vietnam and Iraq - Vox