uniting Iraq: Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurd all condemn Israel

* rawstory:

"The US State Department has yet to issue a semiannual report outlining all foreign persons known to be engaging in WMD-proliferation related activities in Iran and Syria, according to a letter reviewed by RAW STORY.

Three Democrats in Congress wrote Monday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requesting the Department issue its semi-annual report, as required by the Iran-Syria Nonproliferation Act."

i wonder why they havent produced a report. if i was cynical...

* ron at raw:

"An adviser to President George W. Bush wants the White House Counsel's office to be "beef[ed] up" in case a possibly Democratic controlled House pursues a "tangle of investigations," according to a Time Magazine web exclusive."

* amy:

"Meanwhile Iraq's parliament speaker Mahmud Mashhadani accused U.S. forces in Iraq of butchery. At a UN-sponsored conference on reconciliation, Mashhadani said "Just get your hands off Iraq and the Iraqi people and Muslim countries, and everything will be all right.” He went on to say "What has been done in Iraq is a kind of butchery of the Iraqi people." Mashhadani also criticized US support for the Israeli attacks against Lebanon."

* amy:

"Here in the United States, four U.S. Army soldiers accused of murdering three Iraqis have said they did so under orders to “kill all military age males.” Lawyers for the soldiers say that two senior officers — a colonel and a captain — have acknowledged that they gave that order. The soldiers are accused of detaining three Iraqi men and then allowing them to be released before shooting them. One of the soldiers claims a sergeant was upset that the Iraqi men had been captured. The sergeant reportedly said “Why did you take them prisoner? Why didn’t you kill them?” Legal experts say an order to kill all military-age men would be clearly unlawful, and any officer giving it would be liable for any action taken."

* amy:

"A new report from Amnesty International says security agents in Jordan are torturing suspects on behalf of the United States in hopes of forcing confessions. Amnesty investigators had identified about 10 suspected cases of men subjected to rendition from U.S. custody to interrogation centers in Jordan, a close U.S. ally in the Middle East. Amnesty described Jordan as a central hub in a global complex of secret detention centers operated by the U.S."

* kamen:

"Was the old KGB master at it again? A British television station says it has identified the person responsible for that open microphone catching a little unvarnished President Bush at the closing G-8 summit lunch in St. Petersburg. The culprit? Shockingly enough, they finger Russian President Vladimir Putin ."

* arkin:

"But it dawned on me this morning that Israel is also uniting Iraq: Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurd all condemn Israel. In that, the Lebanon war may provide the spark that will not only result in the United States being thrown out of the country, but also in a new focus for torrents of rage resident in Mesopotamia."