[Kabar-indonesia] SMH: Revealed: How Downer Waged War with US to Protect Iraq Wheat Trade

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

also: LATimes: Massacre at Market in Iraq [A suicide car bombing 
at a crowded open-air market Saturday killed 77 people and wounded 
96 in the deadliest single attack since the Iraqi government was formed 
six weeks ago.]

Sydney Morning Herald
Monday, July 3, 2006

Revealed: How Downer Waged War 
with US to Protect Iraq Wheat Trade

by Richard Baker

THE Howard Government used Australia's support for the US in Iraq as a 
bargaining chip to protect the country's multibillion-dollar wheat trade with 
Baghdad.

Documents seen by the Herald detail how Australia feared the US would 
muscle in on Australia's dominant trading position with Saddam Hussein's 
regime.

They show that more than six months before the outbreak of war, the Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, suggested that military support for 
the 
US in Iraq would benefit Australia's commercial position. Once war had broken 
out, he was concerned the US would use its battle deaths as justification for 
seizing Australia's wheat trade.

At a meeting in August 2002 in Mr Downer's Canberra office, the Prime 
Minister, 
John Howard, senior government officials and executives from the wheat 
exporter 
AWB discussed the outlook for Australia's sales.

The documents reveal an idea was floated at the meeting whereby Australia 
would 
provide military support for the US on the condition its wheat trade was 
protected. 
A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade record of conversation shows Mr 
Downer 
suggested Australian support for the US would benefit "Australia's commercial 
position in Iraq".

Before the March 2003 invasion, Australia tried desperately to strike a deal 
with the 
US. Documents show Mr Downer raised the wheat trade with the then secretary 
of 
state, Colin Powell, at least three times. He also discussed it with Mr 
Powell's deputy, Richard Armitage.

In one dispatch, a Foreign Affairs official reported Mr Downer telling Mr 
Powell words 
to the effect that the US could "forget Aussie support in future" if America 
flooded Iraq with wheat after the war.

Mr Downer stipulated that his request for Australia's Iraqi sales to be 
protected be formally recorded in the minutes of his meetings with Mr Powell. 
Senior Australian officials in Washington were instructed to press the issue at 
every opportunity.

Once the war began, the wheat issue was never far from the Government's mind.

On March 24, 2003, Mr Downer and AusAID officials met the then head of AWB, 
Andrew Lindberg, to discuss its impact on wheat sales. A record shows Mr 
Downer's 
"prime concern" was the US concluding that "its sacrifices on the battlefield 
entitled 
its farmers" to the Iraqi wheat market. "He was sure the US well understood 
that 
Australians would go 'feral' if the US was seen to steal our wheat market, 
though he 
felt it unlikely that we could avoid losing a portion of it," the Foreign 
Affairs document 
records the minister as saying.

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The Los Angeles Times
July 2, 2006

Massacre at Market in Iraq

By Louise Roug and Raheem Salman, Times Staff Writers

BAGHDAD -- A suicide car bombing at a crowded open-air market Saturday killed 
77 people and wounded 96 in the deadliest single attack since the Iraqi 
government was formed six weeks ago. Other violence brought the day's toll to 92 
even as authorities announced the discovery of 26 bodies.

The market, in the poor Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, was teeming with 
activity when the bomber struck: Fruit sellers could be heard haggling loudly as 
shoppers wandered past carts laden with vegetables and watermelons.

"Then the huge explosion came," said Raheem Shawaili, a 47-year-old 
shopkeeper, recounting how everything around him changed in an instant.

First, there were "gray plumes of smoke," he said. "Then, the smoke became 
dark."

The blast shattered windows, ripped doors from their hinges and set rows of 
cars ablaze. Carts used by children to carry goods for shoppers lay wrecked in 
the dusty street among other debris: metal, human flesh and crushed vegetables.

The attack came as Prime Minister Nouri Maliki embarked on a trip to Saudi 
Arabia and other Persian Gulf states to gather support for a reconciliation 
initiative intended to bridge the gap between Shiites and Sunni Arabs.

Under the plan, some insurgents will be offered amnesty, although it is 
unclear exactly how it would be implemented. Americans have criticized the plan for 
being too broad, but Sunni Arabs have faulted it for being too narrow.

Maliki said last week that extending amnesty to violent insurgents was out of 
the question.

"There are demands for general amnesty, but in my opinion this is wrong," he 
said. "We have people we have detained who have confessed to killing 10, 20, 
50, 100 Iraqis and Americans."

The high death toll Saturday could further impede Maliki's reconciliation 
plan.

In Sadr City, the political office affiliated with firebrand Shiite cleric 
Muqtada Sadr criticized Maliki for not canceling his trip, and angry residents 
criticized the government and American troops for failing to prevent the attack.

"With whom does Maliki want us to make reconciliation?" Mansoor Munim, 26, 
said. "With those who are killing us daily?"

Survivors remembered some of those killed in the bombing: a 12-year-old boy 
named Aqil and his mother, who had been selling eggs at one of the stalls; an 
older man who was a taxi driver, also named Aqil; Abu Waleed, a father of six; 
and many others.

"Even the animals were the victims of their brutality," said Hanoon Thamir, 
47. "I saw an injured horse bleeding and kicking from the pain of its injuries 
until it died."

Sabri Faleh Bahadli looked on with despair as residents cleaned up the bloody 
scene, shoveling debris and victims' shoes onto dump trucks.

The 49-year-old baker saw his neighbor's teenage son, Sami, stagger away from 
the explosion cradling his right hand, which was almost severed at the wrist.

Officials at the Imam Ali Hospital in Sadr City said early today that 77 
people had died in the explosion and 96 had been wounded. At the morgue next to 
the hospital, some volunteers helped people find their relatives. Others, 
including Ali Aboodi, 35, collected body parts.

"This eye, this ring, this leg," Aboodi said, as he separated the remains 
into three nylon bags. Some of the remains, including a small arm, belonged to 
children, he said.

A previously unknown group calling itself the Sunni Supporters claimed 
responsibility for the bombing in an Internet statement. The statement could not be 
verified.

After a relative lull, sectarian violence has escalated, sending this country 
skittering again to the edge of civil war.

On one side, the Sunni Arab-led insurgency's relentless bombings have 
devastated the Shiite majority, killing soldiers and police officers, women and 
children. On the other, Sunni Arab leaders allege that police officers and special 
commandos, most of them Shiites, operate death squads that target the minority 
sect in a campaign of sectarian cleansing.

On Saturday, Sunni legislator Taiseer Mashhadani and her four bodyguards were 
kidnapped on the road from Baqubah to Baghdad. According to her political 
group, 30 armed men stopped her convoy at a checkpoint and disarmed and seized 
everyone except one guard who managed to escape.

"If abducting members of parliament keeps going on, then there will be no 
parliament and no country," said Amal Qadhi, another legislator with the Iraqi 
Accordance Front, the main Sunni group.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad condemned the kidnapping as "repugnant."

"Acts such as the abduction of Ms. Mashhadani have no justification," a 
statement said. "They aim simply to terrify innocent Iraqis and provoke further 
conflict."

Despite a much-publicized security crackdown in Baghdad, at least 15 people 
were killed in other incidents and authorities reported the discovery Saturday 
of 26 bodies in three locations.

In south Baghdad, police discovered a grave containing the remains of 16 
people recently killed. In addition, two bodies were found in the southern 
neighborhood of Dora and eight were discovered on the banks of the Euphrates River 
near Musayyib, south of Baghdad. The victims included soldiers and civilians, 
and all bore signs of torture.

Two roadside bombs killed three police officers and injured five people in 
separate attacks in the eastern neighborhood of New Baghdad. Across the river, 
to the west, gunmen in separate attacks killed an engineer, a taxi driver and a 
20-year-old who was waiting in line for gasoline.

In the restive Diyala province, gunmen opened fire at three men and two 
children in a barbershop. The men, who were brothers, were killed but the barber 
and the children survived, authorities said.

On the road between Tikrit and Kirkuk, armed men in a convoy of 10 cars 
attacked a checkpoint, killing five Iraqi soldiers and abducting three others, an 
Iraqi army official said.

Gunmen also killed Alaa Khaled, a traffic cop, at the city's Festival Square. 
Friends and relatives said Khaled was buried in a suit he had just bought — 
for his wedding the following day. 

Times staff writer Saif Rasheed in Baghdad contributed to this report.

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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