In addition to all this, I lost my only uncle, Abu Omar, his wife, and their four children, while they were trying to flee the country to Syria. Insurgents stopped them, accused my uncle of being a traitor and shot dead the entire family.

But, life must go on and we find other ways to survive. I'm still a bachelor because my fiancee broke up with me last September after I became handicapped. Since the death of my parents I have been living with my sister Sahar and her husband, but the latest tragedy occurred two weeks ago.

Sahar and her husband were driving to work when their car exploded. Both died instantly. She had 90 percent burns and her husband's body was found in pieces.

I don't have anyone now. Neighbours are trying to help me find a place to live because the house was rented and I don't have money to pay for it, and all my relatives have been killed or are abroad.

Thousands of Iraqis are suffering like me. Lives are being lost due to sectarian violence. The government this week said that 12,000 people died last year but it is a lie because for sure the number is much higher. And if they don't take urgent action, this year could be the worst for Iraqis.

I'm now an adult orphan, with no one to turn to for help. The sectarian violence is everywhere and I cannot move alone anymore. I hope someone can help me to survive because I would rather die and join my dead family members than go begging for food in the streets.

This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer to the copyright page for conditions of use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"If you lost an arm or a leg in Vietnam, you were also tremendously injured in your chest and abdomen, which were not protected by the armour plates back then," he said. "Now, your heart and chest and lungs and heart are protected by armour, leaving only your extremities exposed."

Dr. Imbascini just returned from a four-month deployment to Germany, where he treated the worst of the U.S. war wounded. He said that an extremely high number of wounded soldiers are coming home with their arms or legs amputated. Imbascini said he amputated the genitals of one or two men every day.

"I walk into the operating room and the general surgeons are doing their work and there is the body of this Navy SEAL, which is a physical specimen to behold," he told IPS. "And his abdomen is open, they're exploring both intestines. He's missing both legs below the knee, one arm is blown off, he's got incisions on his thighs to relieve the pressure on the parts of the legs that are hopefully gonna survive and there's genital injuries, and you just want to cry."

According to documents obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, 25 percent of veterans of the "global war on terror" have filed disability compensation and pension benefit claims with the Veterans Benefits Administration.

One is a Jul. 20, 2006, document titled "Compensation and Pension Benefit Activity Among Veterans of the Global War on Terrorism," which shows that 152,669 veterans filed disability claims after fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan. Of the more than 100,000 claims granted, Veterans Administration records show at least 1,502 veterans have been compensated as 100 percent disabled.

Pentagon studies show that 12 percent of soldiers who have served in Iraq suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The group Veterans for America, formerly the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, estimates 70,000 Iraq war veterans have gone to the VA for mental health care.

New guidelines released by the Pentagon released last month allow commanders to redeploy soldiers suffering from traumatic stress disorders.

According to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, servicemembers with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder as a "treatable" problem.

"As a layman and a former soldier I think that's ridiculous," Steve Robinson, the director of Veterans Affairs for Veterans for America, told IPS.

"If I've got a soldier who's on Ambien to go to sleep and Seroquel and Qanapin and all kinds of other psychotropic meds, I don't want them to have a weapon in their hand and to be part of my team because they're a risk to themselves and to others," he said. "But apparently, the military has its own view of how well a soldier can function under those conditions and is gambling that they can be successful."

Robinson said problems with the policy are already starting to arise.

On Christmas, for example, Army Reservist James Dean barricaded himself in his father's home with several weapons and threatened to kill himself. After a 14-hour standoff with authorities, Dean was killed by a police officer after he aimed a gun at another officer, authorities told the Washington Post.

Veterans for America's Robinson told IPS that Dean, who had already served 18 months in Afghanistan, had been diagnosed with PTSD. He had just been informed that his unit would be sent to Iraq on Jan. 14.

"We call that suicide by cop," Robinson said.

After his death, Dean's friends told the Washington Post that the reservist enjoyed hunting and fishing but had lost much of his enthusiasm for life when he found out that he was being deployed to Iraq.

"When Congress comes back in session we're looking forward to accountability hearings," Robinson said. "We want to see veterans helped in the first 100 hours of the new session. We want to see the word 'veteran' somewhere in that first hundred hours."

Robinson says his organisation has also documented the existence of at least 1,000 homeless veterans of the Iraq war.

"We need to get on top of the problem of homelessness," he said. "It's too soon to be seeing homelessness. I want to be seeing a commitment from the Democratic Congress to dealing with the war and the needs of the soldiers in the first hundred hours of them coming to power."

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an American serviceman or woman, would you intervene?

Would you at least protest?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?

What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them -- and was then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe thousands, more?

This is where we stand [with] President Bush's "new Iraq strategy," and his impending speech to the nation, which, according to a quoted senior American official, will be about troop increases and "sacrifice."

The president has delayed, dawdled and deferred for the month since the release of the Iraq Study Group.

He has seemingly heard out everybody, and listened to none of them.

If the BBC is right -- and we can only pray it is not -- he has settled on the only solution all the true experts agree cannot possibly work: more American personnel in Iraq, not as trainers for Iraqi troops, but as part of some flabby plan for "sacrifice."

Sacrifice!

More American servicemen and women will have their lives risked.

More American servicemen and women will have their lives ended.

More American families will have to bear the unbearable and rationalize the unforgivable -- "sacrifice" -- sacrifice now, sacrifice tomorrow, sacrifice forever.

And more Americans -- more even than the two-thirds who already believe we need fewer troops in Iraq, not more -- will have to conclude the president does not have any idea what he's doing -- and that other Americans will have to die for that reason.

It must now be branded as propaganda -- for even the president cannot truly feel that very many people still believe him to be competent in this area, let alone "the decider."

But from our impeccable reporter at the Pentagon, Jim Miklaszewski, tonight comes confirmation of something called "surge and accelerate" -- as many as 20,000 additional troops -- for "political purposes" ...

This, in line with what we had previously heard, that this will be proclaimed a short-term measure, for the stated purpose of increasing security in and around Baghdad, and giving an Iraqi government a chance to establish some kind of order.

This is palpable nonsense, Mr. Bush.

If this is your intention -- if the centerpiece of your announcement next week will be "sacrifice" -- sacrifice your intention, not more American lives!

As Sen. Joseph Biden has pointed out, the new troops might improve the ratio our forces face relative to those living in Baghdad (friend and foe), from 200 to 1, to just 100 to 1.

"Sacrifice?"

No.

A drop in the bucket.

The additional men and women you have sentenced to go there, sir, will serve only as targets.

They will not be there "short-term," Mr. Bush; for many it will mean a year or more in death's shadow.

This is not temporary, Mr. Bush.

For the Americans who will die because of you, it will be as permanent as it gets.

The various rationales for what Mr. Bush will reportedly re-christen "sacrifice" constitute a very thin gruel, indeed.

The former labor secretary, Robert Reich, says Sen. John McCain told him that the "surge" would help the "morale" of the troops already in Iraq.

If Mr. McCain truly said that, and truly believes it, he has either forgotten completely his own experience in Vietnam ... or he is unaware of the recent Military Times poll indicating only 38 percent of our active military want to see more troops sent ... or Mr. McCain has departed from reality.

Then there is the argument that to take any steps toward reducing troop numbers would show weakness to the enemy in Iraq, or to the terrorists around the world.

This simplistic logic ignores the inescapable fact that we have indeed already showed weakness to the enemy, and to the terrorists.

We have shown them that we will let our own people be killed for no good reason.

We have now shown them that we will continue to do so.

We have shown them our stupidity.

Mr. Bush, your judgment about Iraq -- and now about "sacrifice" -- is at variance with your people's, to the point of delusion.

Your most respected generals see no value in a "surge" -- they could not possibly see it in this madness of "sacrifice."

The Iraq Study Group told you it would be a mistake.

Perhaps dozens more have told you it would be a mistake.

And you threw their wisdom back, until you finally heard what you wanted to hear, like some child drawing straws and then saying "best two out of three ... best three out of five ... hundredth one counts."

Your citizens, the people for whom you work, have told you they do not want this, and moreover, they do not want you to do this.

Yet once again, sir, you have ignored all of us.

Mr. Bush, you do not own this country!

To those Republicans who have not broken free from the slavery of partisanship -- those bonded still, to this president and this administration, and now bonded to this "sacrifice" -- proceed at your own peril.

John McCain may still hear the applause of small crowds -- he has somehow inured himself to the hypocrisy, and the tragedy, of a man who considers himself the ultimate realist, courting the votes of those who support the government telling visitors to the Grand Canyon that it was caused by the Great Flood.

That Mr. McCain is selling himself off to the irrational right, parcel by parcel, like some great landowner facing bankruptcy, seems to be obvious to everybody but himself.

Or, maybe it is obvious to him and he simply no longer cares.

But to the rest of you in the Republican Party:

We need you to speak up, right now, in defense of your country's most precious assets -- the lives of its citizens who are in harm's way.

If you do not, you are not serving this nation's interests -- nor your own.

November should have told you this.

The opening of the new Congress on Wednesday and Thursday should tell you this.

Next time, those missing Republicans will be you.

And to the Democrats now yoked to the helm of this sinking ship, you proceed at your own peril, as well.

President Bush may not be very good at reality, but he and Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rove are still gifted at letting American troops be killed, and then turning their deaths to their own political advantage.

The equation is simple. This country does not want more troops in Iraq.

It wants fewer.

Go and make it happen, or go and look for other work.

Yet you Democrats must assume that even if you take the most obvious of courses, and cut off funding for the war, Mr. Bush will ignore you as long as possible, or will find the money elsewhere, or will spend the money meant to protect the troops, and re-purpose it to keep as many troops there as long as he can keep them there.

Because that's what this is all about, is it not, Mr. Bush?

That is what this "sacrifice" has been for.

To continue this senseless, endless war.

You have dressed it up in the clothing, first of a hunt for weapons of mass destruction, then of liberation ... then of regional imperative ... then of oil prices ... and now in these new terms of "sacrifice" -- it's like a damned game of Colorforms, isn't it, sir?

This senseless, endless war.

But -- it has not been senseless in two ways.

It has succeeded, Mr. Bush, in enabling you to deaden the collective mind of this country to the pointlessness of endless war, against the wrong people, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

It has gotten many of us used to the idea -- the virtual "white noise" -- of conflict far away, of the deaths of young Americans, of vague "sacrifice" for some fluid cause, too complicated to be interpreted except in terms of the very important-sounding but ultimately meaningless phrase "the war on terror."

And the war's second accomplishment -- your second accomplishment, sir -- is to have taken money out of the pockets of every American, even out of the pockets of the dead soldiers on the battlefield, and their families, and to have given that money to the war profiteers.

Because if you sell the Army a thousand Humvees, you can't sell them any more until the first thousand have been destroyed.

The service men and women are ancillary to the equation.

This is about the planned obsolescence of ordnance, isn't, Mr. Bush? And the building of detention centers? And the design of a $125 million courtroom complex at Gitmo, complete with restaurants.

At least the war profiteers have made their money, sir.

And we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.

You have insisted, Mr. Bush, that we must not lose in Iraq, that if we don't fight them there we will fight them here -- as if the corollary were somehow true, that if by fighting them there we will not have to fight them here.

And yet you have re-made our country, and not re-made it for the better, on the premise that we need to be ready to "fight them here," anyway, and always.

In point of fact even if the civil war in Iraq somehow ended tomorrow, and the risk to Americans there ended with it, we would have already suffered a defeat -- not fatal, not world-changing, not, but for the lives lost, of enduring consequence.

But this country has already lost in Iraq, sir.

Your policy in Iraq has already had its crushing impact on our safety here.

You have already fomented new terrorism and new terrorists.

You have already stoked paranoia.

You have already pitted Americans, one against the other.

We ... will have to live with it.

We ... will have to live with what -- of the fabric of our nation -- you have already "sacrificed."

The only object still admissible in this debate is the quickest and safest exit for our people there.

But you -- and soon, Mr. Bush, it will be you and you alone -- still insist otherwise.

And our sons and daughters and fathers and mothers will be sacrificed there tonight, sir, so that you can say you did not "lose in Iraq."

Our policy in Iraq has been criticized for being indescribable, for being inscrutable, for being ineffable.

But it is all too easily understood now.

First we sent Americans to their deaths for your lie, Mr. Bush.

Now we are sending them to their deaths for your ego.

If what is reported is true -- if your decision is made and the "sacrifice" is ordered -- take a page instead from the man at whose funeral you so eloquently spoke this morning -- Gerald Ford:

Put pragmatism and the healing of a nation ahead of some kind of misguided vision.

Atone.

Sacrifice, Mr. Bush?

No, sir, this is not "sacrifice." This has now become "human sacrifice."

And it must stop.

And you can stop it.

Next week, make us all look wrong.

Our meaningless sacrifice in Iraq must stop.

And you must stop it.

Watch this video HERE

The sources said Friday in a release that the last victim died on Thursday when patrolling the capital.

The new year has begun claiming its first US casualties in the Arab country, after December 2006 was reported as the third deadliest month for the US occupation, with 115 soldiers dead.

Over nearly four years of war, 3,006 US soldiers have died and over 22,000 been wounded, mostly in clashes with the insurgency.

To bring the human cost to Americans of the invasion and occupation of Iraq home, antiwar groups across the country are marking mark the 3,000th death of a member of its military components (at this writing the total is 3,004).

But by focusing only on the number of dead Americans we are being manipulated along with the media and public by the administration's determination to minimize the cost in blood of establishing permanent military bases in the heart of the Middle East oil patch.

That public relations strategy consists of prohibiting images of the dead and wounded returning home and those of U.S. casualties in Iraq in the U.S. media as well as aggressive efforts to prevent such coverage by foreign media --including deadly attacks on Al-Jazeera reporters and offices. It also plants stories and interviews, leaks to FOX and other Pentagon-friendly reporters and provides generous payola to foreign (especially Iraqi) news sources.

Still, the most consistent propaganda effort since the invasion aims to keep public attention away from the actual amount of blood being shed by American military victims of the war and their families. That cost now exceeds 50,000 casualties -- a far cry from the 3,000 to which most of the public is restricted to know.

"Casualties" in the military sense is the total number made unavailable for duty from all causes, including deaths and wounds suffered in combat as well as injuries, accidents and illness in a war "theater" such as "Operation Iraqi Freedom" (the official Pentagon name for the invasion and occupation). So whether caused by "hostile" (24,965 as of Dec.27) or "non-hostile" (25,406 as of Dec. 2) causes, the Pentagon's own web sites record a toll of more than 50,000 so far in "OIF."

However, for most Americans who depend on mass media for information, the approaching number of only 3,000 is the only measure of the loss of life and limb the media allow them to know. For the rest of us, here are the facts: The Pentagon reports deaths on a daily basis at although its own total always lags behind the wire services number because it insists survivors must be informed before a dead solider, marine, sailor or airman can be added to the casualty lists. But the Pentagon only reports the wounded on the weekly basis (usually on Tuesdays) at the same site and it reports the non fatal casualties from non hostile causes only monthly and on another website.

From those sources, we can count U.S. military occupation forces casualties as more than 50,371 as of Dec. 27. The total (as above) includes 2,400 killed and 22,565 wounded (which includes both severely and less severely wounded) by what the Pentagon classifies as "hostile" causes. By that date, another 583 military personnel had died from "non hostile" causes such as accidents, suicides (there were 99 "self inflicted fatalities") and illness and, as of Dec. 2, another 24,823 had been injured or become ill seriously enough to require medical evacuation. According the excellent siteIraq Coalition Casualty Count, another 147 U.S. "contractors" have also been killed since they invaded Iraq.

I urge opponents of the war to make the public aware that the actual human cost of the invasion and occupation of Iraq exceeds 50,000 troops and their families who have suffered death and often life-long disability -- of whom the 3,000 are just one tragic part.

Michael Munk is a retired political scientist in Portland, Ore., where his "Portland Red Guide" is to be published by Ooligan Press on May Day.

After an estimated 10 percent of active journalists in Iraq died in 2006, the rest are asking themselves what lies ahead for them in the New Year.

A report released by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RWB, also known as Reporters sans Frontieres), on the last day of 2006 described Iraq as "the world's most dangerous country for the media." The group said it had called upon Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to put a stop to "hostile accidents" against journalists.

The RWB says 64 journalists and media assistants were killed in Iraq during 2006, "more than twice the number in the 20-year Vietnam war." Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, 139 journalists have been killed in Iraq, 90 percent of them Iraqis, RWB says.

The survey says what journalists in Iraq know too well.

"The security situation in Baghdad and other insecure parts of the country made journalists suffer heavily, and be victimised in the worst possible form in the conflict in 2006," Hamid Mohammed Ali, member of the administrative council of the Kurdistan Journalists Syndicate (KJS) told IPS. The KJF is one of the two press unions in Iraq, with the Iraqi Journalists Syndicate, that are recognised by the International Federation of Journalists.

"Since journalists are doing field work in covering events, they face serious problems and are regularly targeted," he added.

"The point is that every group wants to shut the voice of journalists to prevent the deteriorated situation of Iraq from being shown worldwide," Afif Sarhan, a Lebanese-Brazilian journalist working in Baghdad wrote in an email interview.

"Today, the word journalist means coming death. Hundreds of journalists have been targeted, kidnapped or killed for their stories."

All conflicting parties in Iraq today, from militias to insurgents to the government and U.S. forces are blamed for targeting journalists, imprisoning them or detaining them for interrogation.

But security is not the only problem. The media also suffers from a legal vacuum caused by the lack of a law that could regulate journalistic activities.

The harsh press laws of Saddam Hussein's regime were abolished after his government collapsed, but no law has been created to fill the gap. As a result, many complain of confusion over rights, duties and work limits as journalists.

In the country's northern Kurdistan region, the KJS has drafted a new press law. Although the proposed law has been criticised by many journalists as curbing press freedom, the KJS officials take pride in calling it "the most progressive press law in the entire Middle East region."

"The new press law in Kurdistan prohibits the government from imprisoning journalists, and the highest punishment for a journalist would be fining him," said Hamid Mohammed Ali from KJS.

According to the draft law, journalists will not need government authorisation to publish newspapers, and only need to be registered with the KJS.

Kurdistan has been spared much of the bloodshed engulfing other parts of the country, but many journalists still complain that the KJS has failed to protect their rights in the face of harsh treatment by the government.

"I believe if the KJS is there to protect my rights as a journalist and defend me, then they are almost non-existent, because they mainly represent political parties in the region," Rahman Gharib, correspondent for the prominent Hawlati Weekly published in Kurdistan told IPS.

He described 2006 as "a bad history in the relationships between journalists and government in Kurdistan."

Gharib was once detained for three hours and then beaten on two occasions by local security forces in the course of covering mass demonstrations and strikes that engulfed large parts of Kurdistan in 2006. The demonstrations were held against the regional government's failure to providing basic services.

The circumstances of Naji's death were unclear. Dozens of Iraqis are found slain almost every day in Baghdad, many believed victims of sectarian death squads.

Naji's wife, Sahba'a Mudhar Khalil, reported him missing Dec. 30 when he did not return that evening. He had left home by motorcycle in the Ashurta Al Khamsa District in southwest Baghdad at 10:30 a.m., telling her he was going to the AP office. Naji's body was found in a morgue.

In addition to his wife, Naji is survived by 4-month-old twins, a boy, Zaid, and a girl, Rand.

The death came as colleagues were still mourning Aswan Ahmed Lutfallah, 35, an AP cameraman who was shot to death by insurgents while covering clashes Dec. 12 in Mosul. He was the second AP journalist killed in that northern Iraqi city in less than two years.

On April 23, 2005, cameraman Saleh Ibrahim was killed after an explosion in Mosul. He was a father of five in his early 30s. AP photographer Mohammed Ibrahim was wounded. The circumstances surrounding the death and injury are still unclear.

In 2004, Ismail Taher Mohsin, an AP driver, was ambushed by gunmen and killed near his home in Baghdad.

Naji's death brings to 30 the number those who have lost their lives on assignments for the AP since the news cooperative was founded in 1846.

Before Naji's killing, Reporters Without Borders had recorded at least 94 journalists killed in Iraq since the war started nearly four years ago. Forty-five media assistants also have been killed, according to the Paris-based advocacy group.

The Committee to Protect Journalists had put the figure at 92 journalists and 37 media support workers killed in Iraq.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

"That's the $24 million question," her lawyer, Arnold Robinson, told The Press of Atlantic City for Friday's newspapers.

Reynolds was undergoing psychological treatment, Robinson said in court. He later declined to comment on how long she had been in treatment.

Reynolds, the mother of a young son and daughter, said she knew she was pregnant but did not get prenatal care. Prosecutors said the baby was not born prematurely.

As part of a plea bargain, Reynolds, 30, of Millville, faces at least three years, four months and 26 days in state prison when sentenced March 2 by state Superior Court Judge John M. Waters Jr.

"Under all the circumstances, that was the appropriate sentence in exchange for her plea of guilty," said First Assistant Cumberland County Prosecutor Kenneth A. Pagliughi.

Reynolds is married to Millville Officer Richard Reynolds, who was not in court for his wife's guilty plea.