Buried in this story in the Guardian about (what else) the violent death of ten security guards and the kidnapping of an African engineer, was this report about a suspected case of Bird Flu in Baghdad:
Elsewhere, Iraqi doctors were investigating if a 15-year-old girl who recently died from a lung infection was infected with bird flu, a Health Ministry official said Wednesday.
The girl’s family apparently kept chickens in their house in the northeast Iraqi city of Sulaimaniyah, and some of those birds also died, said Dr. Abdul Jalil Naji, who heads the ministry’s bird flu office.
A health official in Sulaimaniyah, Sherko Abdellah, said an initial autopsy found no evidence of bird flu in the girl but blood samples have been sent to Jordan for more tests. Officials were also on the way to Sulaimaniyah to investigate.
Turkey, which borders Iraq to the north, is battling an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, with 21 confirmed human cases. Sulaimaniyah is more than 120 miles from the Turkish border.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that bird flu might already have spread from Turkey to neighboring countries, including Iraq. There have been no confirmed human cases so far in Iraq.
Let’s hope the tests confirm this young woman didn’t die of bird flu, but this should remind all of us how quickly this epidemic could spread to the United States. Turkey, which borders on Iraq, has numerous cases of confirmed bird flu at present, and with all of our soldiers and other US civilians in Iraq, the virus is only a trans-atlantic flight away from appearing at a neighborhood or military base near you.
More Iraq stories after the break . . .
There are other incidents of violence reported in the same Guardian story, including this report about a 72 hour deadline imposed by the captors of hostage Jill Carroll, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor:
Police are also working to secure the release of kidnapped American journalist Jill Carroll, who was seen in a tape aired on an Arab TV station late Tuesday for the first time since her Jan. 7 abduction in Baghdad.
Al-Jazeera said the tape, a silent 20-second video showing Carroll appearing pale and tired, also included a threat to kill the 28-year-old freelance writer in 72 hours if U.S. authorities didn’t release all Iraqi women in military custody.
U.S. military spokeswoman Sgt. Stacy Simon said eight Iraqi women are currently detained, but provided no further details.
Carroll, working for the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, was abducted in one of Baghdad’s most dangerous neighborhoods as she was being driven to meet a Sunni Arab politician, who failed to appear for the interview. Carroll’s translator was killed.
On the tape, Carroll is wearing a white-colored pullover, while her long, straight, brown hair is parted in the middle and pulled back from her face as she speaks into the camera. Al-Jazeera would not tell The Associated Press how it received the tape, but the station issued its own statement calling for Carroll’s release.
A still photograph of Carroll from the videotape appeared on Al-Jazeera’s Web site carrying a logo reading “The Revenge Brigade,” a group that was not previously known from other claims of responsibility of violence in Iraq.
I fear that nothing will be done for Ms. Carroll in time to save her life. If so, she will be another casualty in a war which has claimed the lives of more journalists in 3 years than died during the entire Vietnam war. A true tragedy for her family, but also for all of us. By all accounts, Ms. Carroll is an intrepid reporter who has worked doggedly to expose the truth about the events in Iraq, despite the danger posed by the insurgents, and the obfuscation and disinformation of the US government.
Meanwhile, 1000 US troops backed by Iraqi forces have commenced yet another operation to clear insurgents in the western province of Anbar:
About 1,000 US troops backed by Iraqi soldiers have launched a counterinsurgency operation in the western Iraqi province of Anbar.
Operation Wadi Aljundi is targeting insurgents and their weapons caches in the Western Euphrates River Valley between the Jubbah and Baghdadi regions and the city of Hit, 85 miles west of Baghdad.
The US forces, with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), are searching houses and cordoning areas for weapons and insurgents.
If at first you don’t succeed . . . Not sure how many offensives have been conducted in Anbar by “Coalition” forces, but the mere fact they keep having to return, again and again, speaks volumes.
Finally, from the Department of Why Am I Not Surprised, comes this tidbit:
Early doubts about uranium sale to Iraq
By Eric Lichtblau The New York TimesWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2006
A high-level intelligence assessment by the Bush administration concluded in early 2002 that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was “unlikely” because of a host of economic, diplomatic and logistical obstacles, according to a secret memo that was recently declassified by the State Department.
Among other problems that made such a sale improbable, the assessment by the State Department’s intelligence analysts concluded, was that it would have required Niger to send “25 hard-to-conceal 10-ton tractor-trailers” filled with uranium across 1,000 miles and at least one international border.
The analysts’ doubts were registered nearly a year before President George W. Bush, in what became known as the notorious “16 words” in his 2003 State of the Union address, said that Saddam Hussein had sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
The White House later acknowledged that the charge, which played a part in the decision to invade Iraq in the belief that Baghdad was reconstituting its nuclear program, should not have been included in the speech and relied on faulty intelligence. And two months ago, Italian intelligence officials concluded that a set of documents at the center of the purported Iraq-Niger link had been forged by an occasional Italian spy.
Go read the whole article.
