From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), July 6:

Statement of Iraq Freedom Congress on the Assassination of Abdelhussein Saddam
The terrorist US forces kidnapped Abdelhussein Saddam, head of the Safety Force of the Iraq Freedom Congress after opening fire at him and his daughter on the 4th of July in Alattiba neighborhood in Baghdad. Two days after the abduction, his body was found in the Forensic Center in Yarmouk Hospital. The US force that committed this criminal act was a special task force who used special vehicles with the assistance of the Iraqi National Guards.

From the Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC), July 4:

The US Special Forces attack the head of Safety Force, Abd-alhussien Sadam;
opened fire at him and his daughter
A US special unit escorted by Iraqi national guards had attacked the house of the head of the IFC Safety Force on July 4, 2007 at 3:00 AM. The unit began its raid by opening fire and [throwing] grenades on the house causing, severe injuries to Abd-alhussien Sadam and his daughter. The attackers soon kidnapped Sadam but left his girl bleeding on the floor.

Cindy Sheehan announced July 3 that she is asking people to join her in a 10-day walk from Atlanta to Washington DC, starting July 13 for a "people's accountability movement." On her blog, she said "the straw that broke my camel's back of exhausted ennui" was Bush's commuting the prison sentence of former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby. "I tried to remove myself from the political realm of the U.S., what BushCo is turning into an Evil Empire, but the blatant audacity of George commuting Scooter's sentence ... has dragged me kicking and screaming back in," she wrote. The march will began after Sheehan celebrates her 50th birthday at her former protest site in Crawford, TX, where she will turn over the deed of her 5-acre lot there to its new owner, radio talk-show host Bree Walker. (AP via TruthOut, July 3)

From the Nobel Women's Initiative, June 19:

While the Bush administration has repeatedly claimed that the war in Iraq is not about oil, U.S. oil corporations are poised to take control over the 115 billion barrels of known oil reserves - 10 percent of the world total. The Bush administration’s proposed new oil law for Iraq, set to go before Iraq’s Parliament this month, would transform Iraq’s oil industry from a nationalized model to a commercial model that is much more open to U.S. corporate control. Its provisions allow much (if not most) of Iraq’s oil revenues to flow out of Iraq and into the pockets of international oil companies. At NWI's First International Conference Antonia Juhasz from the US and Yanar Mohammed from Iraq educated participants on the perils of this proposed law and the Nobel Peace Prize laureates signed the following statement. For more information and action see below.

The Iraqi Journalists Union said in statement last month that 227 journalists and media staff have been killed since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, with an additional 15 missing. The Union demanded that the Iraqi government and US forces "take necessary measures to protect journalists."

An urgent alert from the Iraq Freedom Congress informs us that at 3:00 AM Baghdad time on July 4, US and Iraqi government forces attacked the home of the head of IFC Safety Force, Abd-alhussein Saddam, causing serious injuries to him and his young daughter. He is now hospitalized, and we await further details.

Oil & Utility Union Leaders on the Struggle Against Privatization

from Building Bridges, WBAI Radio

by Bill Weinberg, New America Media

Amid daily media body counts and analyses of whether the "surge" is "working," there is an even more horrific reality in Iraq, almost universally overlooked.

The latest annual report by the London-based Minority Rights Group International, released earlier this year, places Iraq second as the country where minorities are most under threat—after Somalia. Sudan is third. More people may be dying in Darfur than Iraq, but Iraq's multiple micro-ethnicities—Turcomans, Assyrians, Mandeans, Yazidis—place it at the top of the list.