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Stop the War leader Lindsey German explains in this week’s Socialist Worker why “Getting the troops out is still the key demand after the Iraqi election.” She says that “Every major political party had the end of the occupation as a central plank of their campaign. Therefore, you can only conclude that Iraqis voted for the troops to go.” Iraqis want the foreign troops to go but not immediately, regardless of the security situation. When will the SWP acknowledge this and stop abusing those who are trying to rebuild their country through a UN mandated process? (Gary Kent)

In yet another article in the Guardian criticising the elections, their veteran foreign correspondent Jonathan Steele argues that Iraq’s illegitimate election did not justify the invasion, nor did it make occupation popular.

Harry Barnes MP and Gary Kent for Labour Friends of Iraq met Hassan Jumaa al-Asaadi (General Secretary, Southern Oil Company Union and President, Basra Oil Union) on 8th February.

Wires report that Egyptian hostages have been freed in raid on Baghdad house.

Reporters without Borders says it is “extremely worried” by the abduction of the left-wing Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena of the daily Il Manifesto and called for immediate expressions of support and concern. Voicing its solidarity with her family and newspaper, the organization said action in support of Sgrena should be “immediate and massive.”

The Hak Mao blog has started selling mugs, badges and fridge magnets with the Purple Finger on it, as on the left of this web site, with the proceeds going to the IFTU and the Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party

Giuliana Sgrena, a correspondent working for the largest circulation far left Italian daily paper, Il Manifesto has been kidnapped in Baghdad while carrying out interviews in the street. LFIQ hopes that she is released unharmed and urges maximum publicity on this.

Labour Assembly Member and the Deputy Minister for Communities, Huw Lewis, laid into the Welsh Nationalist Party Plaid Cymru at a recent session of the Welsh Assembly for “knee-jerk anti-Labourism, cloaked by the populism of knee-jerk anti-Americanism” and using “the dreadful issue of war to recruit supporters from the left, who, it feels, are disillusioned with Labour on the issue of Iraq.”

Many thanks to the blogger Hak Mao for the ‘Give Fascism the Finger’ icon on the left. We urge all our readers display it in their workplace.