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A woman holds an injured girl as Iraqi forces continue their advance against ISIS in Mosul. Felipe Dana / AP

The U.S. military said its priority was to stop people suffering by defeating ISIS as quickly as possible.

"The longer this takes, the more the people will suffer under ISIS," it said.

However, humanitarian workers in Mosul said this sense of urgency trumped their efforts to make coalition forces more mindful of the civilian population packed into a city that had some 1.5 million residents before the conflict started.

Belkis Wille, senior Iraq researcher for Human Rights Watch, told NBC News that in the final push to take Mosul there was a "massive uptick in ground fire" and the use of large 500-1,000-pound crater bombs that cause huge destruction and many deaths.

Human Rights Watch made recommendations to the warring parties to take some of those powerful weapons off the table, Wille said.

But there was a "general feeling among the military forces, 'We need to keep the momentum up. Its better for the civilians of Mosul if we can get ISIS out,'" she said.

For the Iraqi military, ISIS' use of civilians as human shields made some casualties inevitable.

"It is a battle inside towns and cities, so there must be some casualties among civilians when you target ISIS terrorists who are hiding among civilians," Brig. Yahya Rasool, the spokesman of the Iraqi Joint Operation Command, told NBC News in a phone interview.

Rasool said the Iraqi forces' "main concern is to prevent civilian deaths." He defended the U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, saying they were "very precise" and rely on "precise intelligence information."

For the people caught in the crossfire in Mosul over the last few months, it's been a living hell.

"That place, it was absolute death," a man fleeing Mosul's Old City told the AP on Wednesday. "We will never be the same. Once the fear has been planted in your heart, you can't get rid of it."

Meantime, coalition forces have also been closing in on

The city of approximately 220,000 is considerably smaller than Mosul, but it is of immense strategic importance to ISIS militants because they have used it as a base to launch attacks on the West.

In June, the U.N. Human Rights Council denounced the

"Violence continues to be directed against civilians, with complete disrespect for civilian protection," Paulo Srgio Pinheiro, the head of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said in a statement.

The fighting has involved the "unrestrained use of airstrikes against residential neighborhoods, attacks against doctors and hospitals, [and] the use of suicide bombers that deliberately target civilians," he added. "Fighting remains brutal in purpose and reprehensible in method."

He also warned against tactics that involved civilian deaths as collateral damage.

"The imperative to fight terrorism must not, however, be undertaken at the expense of civilians who unwillingly find themselves living in areas where ISIL is present," Pinheiro said.

Kinda Haddad, the head of Syria research at Airwars, has been monitoring U.S.-led coalition air strikes, as well as Russian and Assad regime-led strikes, for the last two and half years. She said she used to see an average of three to ten alleged coalition airstrikes per week but now she regularly sees about 50 per week.

A graph from Airwars tracking the number of U.S. and allied airstrikes on Syria from December 2014-June 2017.

"Earlier the [local] monitors said they knew when the airstrikes were coalition strikes because they were so precise," said Haddad. "But that has changed."

"The trend is telling us something," said Hadid. "The fighting is too intense. Choices can still be made. The preservation of human life should be at the forefront, not an afterthought."

For the aid organizations trying to help civilians fleeing the violence, it has been an extremely challenging experience to say the least.

"This is a very sophisticated conflict," Jonathan Henry, of Doctors Without Borders, told NBC News by phone from Iraq last week. "It is an urban conflict akin to World War II. It is very challenging to work in."

Henry is the outgoing emergency coordinator for the organization, which is also known as Mdecins Sans Frontires, in West Mosul. He said that even for MSF, which specializes in sending medical teams to conflict zones, trying to provide medical care to civilians when doctors are in range of artillery and sniper fire has not been easy.

"The horrific theme of the conflict, where women and children are among the victims, is extremely traumatic," said Henry, who has worked for MSF for the past 12 years in places like Darfur, Ethiopia and Syria.

On one positive note, he said that within days of opening their most recent medical treatment center close to the front line in West Mosul, they had their first baby delivery.

"So life goes on, even in a war zone," he said.

Continued here:
In Battle Against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, Civilians Suffer Most - NBCNews.com

A top law firm that brought war crime claims against British squaddies in Iraq is being probed over claims employees were ambulance chasing victims of the over the Grenfell Tower disaster .

Leigh Day suspended two trainee solicitors and launched an internal investigation yesterday after The Times discovered that they appeared to have been touting for business among survivors.

The firm said it had been completely unaware of the alleged activities of Harnita Rai and Sejal Sachania, whose names appeared on a poster offering to kick-start insurance claims, contact embassies and draft letters for people affected by the blaze in west London.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner are both examining the poster.

Leigh Day, which was cleared of professional misconduct over the Iraq war allegations, said the paralegals had been suspended.

The firm has no clients connected to Grenfell.

A spokesman said: "Leigh Day have no prior knowledge of the posters displayed around the Grenfell Tower brought to our attention.

"As soon as the posters were brought to our attention, a full internal investigation was commenced under formal protocols. The two individuals concerned have been suspended whilst this investigation takes place.

"Leigh Day would never have given authority for the posters or their display and we are taking this matter extremely seriously."

Read this article:
Law firm that brought claims against British troops in Iraq is accused of 'ambulance chasing' Grenfell Tower victims - Mirror.co.uk

The late, great Jim White, overnight host on KMOX when radio was king, had certain rules he lived by. One of them was that he wouldnt let callers talk about religion. Reason: Religion is too touchy a topic and the discussions rarely get anywhere.

Nevertheless.

When religion enters the public sector, as it did prominently in two instances last week, the rule goes out the window. One instance was the assertion by Jack Phillips, the Colorado bakery owner whose refusal to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, that Jesus would not have baked such a cake in similar circumstances.

The second instance was the U.S. Department of Justices lawsuit against Hobby Lobby and its president charging that the crafts store had illegally imported thousands of Iraqi artifacts, mislabeling them and lying about their origin. This is the same company that won a 2014 Supreme Court case over its objection to providing contraceptive coverage to its employees because of its owners religious beliefs.

The Hobby Lobby decision was seen as an important religious freedom case. It is a key part of Phillips argument that he should have the religious freedom not to bake a cake for a gay couple.

My personal belief is that any God reflected in any religious text anywhere would look at the Jesus-bakes-a-wedding-cake furor and the apparent flexibility of Hobby Lobbys religious beliefs and say, Really? This is the kind of thing youre arguing about?

Religion, as we have learned through the millennia, is sort of like Spandex: It can be stretched to smooth out all sorts of bumps. Crusades? No problem. Slaughter some Muslims, well make you a saint and name a city in the Midwest after you. Spanish Inquisition? No problem. Hijack some planes and fly them into buildings? Seventy virgins for you, my friend.

Thus Phillips claim, made June 30 on ABCs The View, pales in comparison. I believe the Bible clearly teaches marriage is between one man and one woman, Phillips said. Im not judging these two gay men who came in. Im just trying to preserve my right as an artist to decide which artistic endeavors Im going to do and which ones Im not.

See, hes an artist, not a baker, because an artist might have First Amendment protection that a baker, operating merely under the Commerce Clause, might not. These religious freedom cases attract shrewd lawyers from well-funded legal groups.

Asked by one of The Views hosts what Jesus might have done in his situation, the artist known as Masterpiece Jack said, Would Jesus have made the cake? I dont believe he would have, because that would have contradicted the rest of the biblical teaching. I dont believe that Jesus would have made the cake if he had been a baker.

This touched off one of those social media flaps that make the Internet the worst invention since the hydrogen bomb. Careful reading would have led you to a discussion of Judean cuisine 2,100 years ago and the likelihood (sparse, was the consensus) that a Galilean carpenter of that era would have been taught to bake. The gospels references to Jesus and baked goods are limited to the loaves-and-fishes thing and the Last Supper thing, when he merely shared them.

So thats inconclusive, as are biblical admonitions about homosexuality. We know Jesus had a pretty open attitude about his followers and fierce opposition to Scribes, Pharisees and other hypocrites (whited sepulchers).

Speaking of which, Steve Green, the president of Hobby Lobby and son of the founder, is chairman of the Museum of the Bible. His company has donated $800 million toward the 430,000-square-foot edifice, scheduled to open this fall just two blocks from the National Mall in Washington. At least some of the 5,500 artifacts that the Justice Department said were illegally obtained in Iraq were destined for this temple.

Green admitted being involved in obtaining the artifacts, despite being warned that their provenance was sketchy. The artifacts, labeled as tile samples, were Fed Exd to various Hobby Lobby stores with labels describing Turkey as their country of origin. Payment for them was made with wire transfers to multiple personal bank accounts. The Ten Commandments do not proscribe wire transfers, but one of them concerns bearing false witness.

In a statement, the company said regrettable mistakes were made. Hobby Lobby, which has estimated annual revenues of $4.5 billion, will pay a fine of $3 million. Green said the whole affair had been consistent with the companys mission and passion for the Bible.

Concerning the Bible, its amazing how some people can read the words and not hear the music. Something else Jim White used to say: Protect me from the good people.

Read more here:
Horrigan: Consult your Bible on Jesus' baked goods and looting Iraq - STLtoday.com

Members of the US Army Special Forces provide training for Iraqi fighters from Hashid Shaabi at Makhmur Camp, Iraq, Dec. 11, 2016. (photo byREUTERS/Mohammed Salem)

Author:Jack Detsch Posted July 7, 2017

The Senate Armed Services Committees defense budget proposal will give the United States greater authority to support Iraqi agencies tasked with securing the homeland.

The upper chambers version of the National Defense Authorization Act, set for release next week, allows the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraqa US office tasked with developing Iraqs militaryto extend their support to police and civilian security organizations, including the Ministry of the Interior, according to a committee aide.

The Office of Security Cooperation, housed in the US Embassy in Baghdad, has traditionally focused on supporting Iraqs Ministry of Defense and Counterterrorism service. The bill, aides say, will give US officials more leeway to support Iraqi police and homeland protection agencies as they develop a long-term strategy to secure the country.

Those plans are progressing as US-led troops and Iraqi forces clear out the final streets of the strategically vital city of Mosul after more than eight months of intense block-by-block combat that has left much of the city in ruins. On Thursday, officials for the US-led coalition said that Iraqi security forces had pushed into the last 500 square meters of Islamic State (IS) holdings in the city.

The multinational coalition fighting in Iraq is currently working on a two-year plan for the Ministry of Defense. It also is continuing to work with the Ministry of Interior on a plan that aims to prepare Iraqs police and border guards for duty in provinces that have been liberated from IS.

The specific amounts authorized for the office will appear in the full version of the Senate bill, set for release next week. But a summary of the bill that appeared last week authorizes nearly $1.3 billion for the US-led anti-IScoalition fulfilling an entire Defense Department request made in Mayto train and equip Iraqi troops and police units over the next year, providing them with thousands of M16 and AK-47 assault rifles, as well as hundreds of Humvees and armored vehicles.

That assistance could continue for some time. In a briefing on Thursday, Canadian Brig. Gen. D.J. Anderson, the director of force for the country coalition fighting ISin Iraq and Syria, told reporters that the effort had trained 106,000 Iraqi security force members, including 40,000 army soldiers, 15,000 policeand 14,000 counterterrorism fighters.

On Thursday, Anderson also announced a $50 million coalition initiative to provide police in a box to Iraq that will begin later this summer: Using 100 mobile shipping containers that include equipmentsuch as vehicles, weaponsand GPS trackers, that can help Iraqi quickly establish ad hoc police stations in areas devastated by ISfighters.

A Defense Department budget request submitted to Congress in May said Iraqi counterterrorism forces will require coalition financing for the next three years to grow to 20,000 members. The Pentagon expects its costs for training and equipping Iraqi forces to fall in next years budget and beyond as Baghdad gets better at sustaining its own military or those funds are shifted to other US security assistance programs.

But Anderson did not put exact timelines on coalition supportor when Iraqi security forces could fight on their own.

We'll be here as long as we need to be here, Anderson said. Our mission is to make sure that it's a self-sustaining force, and a self-sustaining force means that it's able to train itself, it's able to feed itself and it's able to fight by itself.

Read More: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/07/defense-budget-broad-support-iraq-security-services-police.html

More here:
Defense budget to provide broader Iraq security support - Al-Monitor

In a wide ranging interview with the BBC, Sir John Chilcot said Tony Blair was not straight with the nationand relied on belief rather than fact to take Britain into the Iraq War.

That the conflict was an unmitigated disaster, a historic mistake that casts a pall over the body politic to this day, is now accepted by just about everyone not completely won over by that belief at the time. And even by some who were.

But have we really learned anything? Has Sir Johns report into the conflict, and what he said during that interview, taught us anything?

With the country embarking on another historic mistake Brexit Id say not.

On the face of it, there wouldnt appear to be all that many parallels between the two, but there are if you think about it.

Brexit, too, is motivated by belief in opposition to fact, and expert advice.

Just as happened prior to the Iraq war, it had a corps of fierce partisans backing it, people who were willing to deploy a tissue of lies and half truths to convince a narrow majority of the public of their case.

Just as then, tens, hundreds, of thousands have taken to the streets in protest, only to be ignored or, worse still, to have their patriotism and loyalty called into question.

I think the countrys had enough of experts, said the member for Murdoch Central, Michael Gove, who was, at the time, the home news editor of The Times, a newspaper that supported the war. It speaks volumes, doesnt it?

The big difference between the two is, of course, that Brexit will not see brave young men and women put in harms way. Nor will there be any killing of civilians by stray ordinance.

Poverty kills, mind. So, if the economic fallout from Brexit is as bad as some fear, there will be blood on the hands of its backers. A lot less than was shed in Iraq, it is true, but blood all the same.

Minister appointed to negotiate Brexit wanted EU 'torn down'

Belief rather than fact. In a modern, wealthy democracy, which provides an education for its people, it shouldnt be that way. But it is.

Blairs reliance on belief is what makes him such a problematic figurehead for those who would oppose the countrys current lunacy. Hes a big beast. A genuine talent, in an age when they are extraordinarily hard to find in British politics.

By comparison to him, both sides of the continuing Brexit debate look small, mean and timid.

But it is all but impossible to call upon the man who once led the country down a deep, dark hole to try and save it from another, as has sometimes been mooted.

Chilcots comment doesnt really cast any new light on things. Most everyone who has followed this story will already have been aware that belief won with Blair. And those who still back his decision, in the face of all the evidence showing that it was a bad one? Their minds will never be changed. They too are motivated by a belief, one that has turned into a faith, just as it is faith that motivates Brexiteers.

Faith can be a dangerous thing if the certainty it confers on adherents is destructive.

Iraq proves that too. The pity of it is we are still prone to blindly follow zealots.

There was a brief moment when it looked like we had understood, or least when MPs showed that they might have understood.

Despite intense pressure being put upon them, they denied David Cameron when he asked for permission to bomb Syria in the wake of an appalling chemical attack that was almost certainly the work of the Assad regime.

Another Labour leader, Ed Miliband, speaking after the vote, said Britain had learned the lessons of Iraq.

It looks like he got that wrong.

Given the pit into which politics has descended of late, the shabby deal the Conservatives entered into with a party of faith-based sectarian zealots from Northern Ireland, Im not sure we will be able to trust Parliament to save us the next time it is tested.

Brexit is an act of economic and geopolitical stupidity, but despite the paranoid fantasies of some in the Brexit camp about EU armies with designs on forcing Britain into a superstate and yes there are people who actually think that no weapons will be drawn. No gun will be fired and no bomb will be dropped. Lets be thankful for that, at least.

However, there will come a time, and perhaps quite soon, when a Prime Minister calls for weapons to be raised and bombs to be dropped, based on the belief that it is the only way to solve some awful problem somewhere.

It will matter not that the facts show that violence only results in more violence, and solves nothing, particularly in the quagmire that is the Middle East.

Belief will win out. And people will die.

See the original post:
We should have learned after Iraq but Brexit shows we are still willing to blindly follow politicians into disaster - The Independent