Free the Captives: Witness Against Illegal Detention and Torture

As new outbursts of violence exploded across Iraq today, there was no news of the fate of Tom Fox and the other CPT peaceworkers held captive there.

Scores were killed by bombings and other assaults. More mosques were attacked. US and UK troops also took casualties. The streets in many neighborhoods were increasingly filled with barricades and other defensive emplacements. Christian Peacemaker Teams, meanwhile, continues its day-to-day work in Iraq. Today's update logged some of their recent activities:

After fully debriefing the Muslim Peacemaker Team (MPT)-Najaf meeting of 25-26 January, the team requested a follow-up meeting with the group to learn more about their work with prisoners' rights and conditions in the mid-Euphrates region. [...]

Peggy Gish made arrangements to accompany the family of a detainee imprisoned for eighteen months without specific charge by the British in Basrah. The team agreed to advocate for the prisoner.

An Iraqi government minister asserted that captive reporter Jill Carroll is alive and will be released soon. The sources of his information were unclear, however. And a new study disclosed that a third of US soldiers returning from Iraq seek treatment for psychological difficulties stemming from their combat service. This report came as the prospect of future cuts in veterans health benefits loom on the federal budget horizon.

And while it may seem ridiculous by comparison, some leading conservative figures in the US have recently been loudly denouncing the Iraq war as a failure. William F. Buckley, a godfather of modern conservatism, published an article headlined It Didn't Work. And conservative columnist George Will stated in a TV interview that "this is a civil war," questioning the reality of the Iraqi government. Even scholar Francis Fukuyama, one of the founders of the "neo-conservative" movement that promoted the war, has now published a book which delclares flatly that "Neoconservatism has evolved into something I can no longer support."

Very plausible estiamtes put the Iraqi civilian death toll at more than 100,000. The Iraqi government said a total of 379 people have been killed and 458 wounded in violence since Wednesday's bombing of a Shi'ite Muslim shrine in Samarra. There have been several other attacks since the figures were released.