Free the Captives: Witness Against Illegal Detention and Torture

Today's reports offer a scathing indictment of the war in Iraq on both strategic and legal grounds; a report released by the International Crisis Group plainly states that the U.S.-led Coalition "seem[s] to know little about the enemies they are fighting in Iraq," while the International Red Cross testifies about the gruesome images of torture from Abu Ghraib.

After these long weeks of anguish and waiting, we have found no news again today about Tom Fox or the other CPT peaceworkers held captive in Iraq. To their captors we repeat our plea to release these peaceful believers unharmed, and at once!

The latest tally of military and civilian deaths in Iraq according to Reuters remains in the range of 100,000 Iraqi civilians and 2,274 U.S. military casualties.

Also from Reuters: Insurgency little understood by coalition forces

"In Iraq, the US fights an enemy it hardly knows," reads an ICG report released on 15 February. "Its descriptions have relied on gross approximations and crude categories…that bear only passing resemblance to reality." [...]

A key finding in the report is that the current military approach to stamping out the insurgency is failing. ...the US and its allies must change tactics.

"Excessive use of force by coalition troops, torture, resort to tactics that inflict widespread harm on civilians and reliance on sectarian militias simultaneously undermine US legitimacy and boost the insurgents' own," the report states.

Abu Ghraib abuse against international law

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Thursday the latest images of abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison showed clear violations of international humanitarian law. [...]

"We are shocked and dismayed at the mistreatment and abuse displayed in these images," ICRC spokeswoman Dorothea Krimitsas told Reuters in Geneva.

"The type of treatment in these images -- video or photos -- very clearly violates the rules of international humanitarian law which are designed to protect people detained in the context of armed conflict," she added.

The 1949 Geneva Conventions protecting people captured in conflict -- which the ICRC seeks to uphold -- "forbid torture as well as any cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under any circumstance", according to the spokeswoman.

Two car bombs kill 7 Iraqis in Baghdad

One of the blasts ripped through a crowded Baghdad market in the Shi'ite district of Shula at about 11 a.m., killing six civilians and wounding 13, police said.

The second bomb exploded as an Iraqi police patrol drove by in Baghdad's Karrada district, killing one bystander and wounding two policemen, police said. Another civilian was hurt in that blast.

from the Associated Press: White House Readies Huge Aid Request

The Bush administration submitted a $65.3 billion war request, and Pentagon officials said the money would be sufficient to conduct the two wars at least through Sept. 30. Congress had approved $50 billion more for the war effort in December.

The war in Iraq now costs about $5.9 billion a month, while Afghanistan operations cost about $900 million per month, said Pentagon Comptroller Tina Jonas. That doesn't include the costs of replacing worn-out or destroyed equipment or training Iraqi and Afghan forces.