Did one ever consider that all those back-channels that Barack Obama opened early in 2008-2009 with Iran for an eventual deal on the nuclear program included a demand by Iran that the United States get out of Iraq, which we did in 2011 so Iran could annex the country and government? Signs are pointing for this to be true. The same goes with Russia annexing Syria and challenging the Baltics as well as Ukraine at the same time.
The United States has been forced to tolerate Iranian militia all over Iraq for many years…liberating Ramadi, Fallujah and soon to be Mosul is our work with the Kurds to hand it all over to Iran…really? Uh huh.
US officials: Up to 100,000 Iran-backed fighters now in Iraq
FNC: As many as 100,000 Iranian-backed Shiite militia are now fighting on the ground in Iraq, according to U.S. military officials — raising concerns that should the Islamic State be defeated, it may only be replaced by another anti-American force that fuels further sectarian violence in the region.
The ranks have swelled inside a network of Shiite militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces. Since the rise of Sunni-dominated ISIS fighters inside Iraq more than two years ago, the Shiite forces have grown to 100,000 fighters, Col. Chris Garver, a Baghdad-based U.S. military spokesman, confirmed in an email to Fox News. The fighters are mostly Iraqis.
Garver said not all the Shia militias in Iraq are backed by Iran, adding: “The [Iranian-backed] Shia militia are usually identified at around 80,000.”
According to some experts, this still is an alarmingly high number.
“The effect of the Obama administration’s policy has been to replace American boots on the ground with the Iranian’s. As Iran advances, one anti-American actor is being replaced with another,” Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said in a recent phone interview.
Garver said other Popular Mobilization fighters also consist of Sunni tribal fighters from Anbar and Nineveh provinces in Iraq.
Whether the force size is 80,000 or 100,000, the figures are the first-known estimates of the Iranian-backed fighters. The figure first surfaced in a recent Tampa Bay Times article and marks the latest evidence of Tehran’s deepening involvement in the war against ISIS, with the U.S. military also confirming that Russian bombers are now flying into Syria from a base in Iran. The growth also could create greater risk for Americans operating in the country, as at least one Iran-backed group vowed earlier this year to attack U.S. forces supporting the Iraqis.
Even more troubling to the U.S. military are reports that Qassem Soleimani, an Iranian general who commands the Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, is now on the ground outside Mosul ahead of an expected operation to retake Iraq’s second-largest city which has been under ISIS control for the past two years.
According to the Long War Journal, a spokesman for the Iranian-backed forces said earlier this month that Soleimani is expected to play a “major role” in the battle for Mosul.
When asked about Shia militias participating in the liberation of Sunni-dominated Mosul, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq said last week, “The government of Iraq is in charge of this war. We’re here to support them. So, who they [want in] the campaign is really their decision.”
A U.S. military official could not confirm Soleimani’s presence in Mosul, but said Soleimani had been seen throughout Iraq and Syria in the past two years coordinating activities.
Garver stressed Tuesday there is no coordination between the U.S. and Iranians. “We are not coordinating with the Iranians in any way, we are not working with them in any way,” he said during a press conference, adding: “However the government of Iraq comes up with the plan, we are supporting [their] plan for the seizure of Mosul.”
Last August, Fox News first reported Soleimani’s visit to Moscow 10 days after the landmark nuclear agreement in July to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and top Russian officials to plan Russia’s upcoming deployment to Syria in late September.
Soleimani is banned from international travel through United Nations Security Council resolutions. He was first designated a terrorist and sanctioned by the U.S. in 2005. In October 2011, the U.S. Treasury Department tied Soleimani to the failed Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States at a popular restaurant in Washington, D.C. Soleimani’s Quds Force is the special forces external wing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, responsible for supporting terrorist proxies across the Middle East.
At his confirmation hearing last year, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford was asked how many Americans were killed by Iranian-backed forces under the command of Soleimani.
“The number has been recently quoted as about 500. We weren’t always able to attribute the casualties we had to Iranian activity, although many times we suspected it was Iranian activity even though we didn’t necessarily have the forensics to support that,” Dunford said.
The threat to American troops remains. Last month, firebrand Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — responsible for attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq a decade ago – once again called for his supporters to kill American troops.
“[U.S. forces] are a target for us,” he said on his website.
In March, one Iranian-backed group said it would attack U.S. forces after the Pentagon announced that hundreds of U.S. Marines were supporting Iraqi forces with artillery fire.
“If the U.S. administration doesn’t withdraw its forces immediately, we will deal with them as forces of occupation,” Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) said on its TV channel.
The Iranian-backed group has claimed responsibility for over 6,000 attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq since 2006 and operates under the supervision of Soleimani, according to a report by the Institute for the Study of War.
Meanwhile, there are more indications that Russia and Iran are expanding their military ties. The U.S. military has confirmed that Russian bombers flying from a base in Iran have bombed three areas in Syria.
In addition to the up to 100,000 Iranian-backed forces in Iraq, there are thousands of Iranian-backed forces in Syria as well in support of President Bashar al-Assad. Some of these Iranian-backed forces come from as far as Afghanistan and hundreds have recently died fighting Syrian rebels in the city of Aleppo, according to recent reports.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – Fifteen prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have been released to the United Arab Emirates in the single largest transfer of detainees during the Obama administration.
The release of 12 Yemeni nationals and three Afghans comes amid a renewed push to whittle down the number of detainees held at the U.S. base in Cuba. The men have been cleared for transfer by U.S. government departments and agencies.
The Pentagon says 61 detainees remain at Guantanamo.
President Barack Obama has been seeking to close the detention center amid opposition from Congress.
Naureen Shah is Amnesty International USA’s director of national security and human rights. She says Monday’s transfers are a “powerful sign that President Obama is serious about closing Guantanamo before he leaves office.”
**** 
Photo from Miami Herald, click here for more details.
ABC: The latest batch of released prisoners had mostly been held without charge for some 14 years at Guantanamo. They were cleared for release by the Periodic Review Board, comprised of representatives from six U.S. government agencies.
The UAE successfully resettled five detainees transferred there last year, according to the Pentagon.
Lee Wolosky, the State Department’s special envoy for Guantanamo’s closure, said the U.S. was grateful to the United Arab Emirates for accepting the latest group of 15 men and helping pave the way for the detention center’s closure.
“The continued operation of the detention facility weakens our national security by draining resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and partners, and emboldening violent extremists,” Wolosky said.
Obama has been seeking to close the detention center amid opposition from Congress, which has prohibited transferring detainees to the U.S. for any reason. The administration has been working with other countries to resettle detainees who have been cleared for transfer.
According to Amnesty, one of the Afghans released to the UAE alleged that he was “tortured and subjected to other cruel treatment” while in U.S. military custody. The man, identified only as Obaidullah, was captured by U.S. special forces in July 2002 and allegedly admitted to acquiring and planting anti-tank mines to target U.S. and other coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan.
In clearing him for transfer, the review board said he hasn’t expressed any anti-U.S. sentiment or intent to re-engage in militant activities. However, a Pentagon detainee profile also said he provided little information and they had little “insight into his current mindset.”
One of the Yemeni men sent to the UAE was identified as Zahir Umar Hamis bin Hamdun, who traveled to Afghanistan in 1999 and later apparently acted as a weapons and explosives trainer.
A Pentagon profile from September 2015 said he expressed dislike of the U.S., which they identified as “an emotion that probably is motivated more by frustration over his continuing detention than by a commitment to global jihad.”
***** One such detainee profile:
It is unlikely Hillary lied to the FBI during her three hour interview. Why? If she was asked easy questions including questions where she could claim no memory, then the entire interview was purely theater. It is important to note that the Director of the FBI, James Comey was not in attendance for this interview. It is stunning that a presidential candidate and a top government official was being interviewed and the FBI Director was not a participant. Why? Again, the questions were thin on substance and hardly probing and perhaps pre-planned. But Congress is about to have possession of the records.
His July 5 announcement – which led to the Department of Justice officially dropping the case – also resulted in Comey having to testify before Congress, which he did two days later.
There, he was asked about Clinton’s interview with the FBI.
Comey divulged that the three-hour interview hadn’t taken place under oath and thus no official transcript would be available.
Notes from the interview, however, existed and Republicans have been trying to get their hands on those for the past month. More here.
****
Congress could get record of FBI’s Clinton interview over emails by this week
FNC: Some of the FBI files on the agency’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server exclusively for government business while serving as secretary of state could be given to a House oversight committee as early as this week, a congressional source confirmed with Fox News on Sunday.
The matter has been progressing since early July, when a formal request was made by Congress for the file, the remaining block appears to rest within the Justice Department.
The FBI, after interviewing Clinton last month, concluded its investigation of Clinton’s use of a private server, confirming publicly that 113 classified emails were sent and received by Clinton, as well as 2,000 that were classified after the fact.
FBI Director James Comey said investigators found at least three emails that contained classified markings, adding that the Democratic presidential nominee was “extremely careless.” However, he did not recommend criminal charges, and the Justice Department closed the case.
While Clinton has insisted nothing was marked classified at the time, the investigation found otherwise, with the emails containing a portion marking (C for confidential, the lowest level of classification). Fox News first reported that some of the emails were marked classified in June.
The Oversight Committee has formally asked if Clinton committed perjury during her Benghazi testimony in October 2015, because her statements to Congress appear to conflict with the FBI’s findings. Clinton has maintained she was truthful in her FBI interview.
Fox News is told that the FBI and Justice Department have confirmed the receipt of the committee’s request.
Congressional investigators — led by House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah — have been aggressively seeking the entire file, including a summary of Clinton’s interview, known as a “302.”
However, the document is considered highly classified, because Clinton’s FBI session included questions on the 22 top secret emails that are too damaging to national security to make public.
Note that, it is standard for FBI interviews not to be recorded, so there is no transcript, but agents take extensive notes and they form the basis for the written report known as the “302.”
The possible release of the file to congressional investigators was first reported by CNN.
The House Oversight Committee questioned Comey for over five hours in July after he said no reasonable prosecutor would pursue criminal charges.
Guccifer 2.0 has been busy toward the end of the week with a new release found below:
As you see the U.S. presidential elections are becoming a farce, a big political performance where the voters are far from playing the leading role. Everything is being settled behind the scenes as it was with Bernie Sanders.
I wonder what happened to the true democracy, to the equal opportunities, the things we love the United States for. The big money bags are fighting for power today. They are lying constantly and don’t keep their word. The MSM are producing tons of propaganda hiding the real stuff behind it. But I do believe that people have right to know what’s going on inside the election process in fact.
To make a long story short, here are some DCCC docs from their server. Make use of them.
Special thanks to Nirali Amin for the list of passwords.
By the way, the complexity of the passwords leaves much to be desired.
Here are more docs from the DCCC server.
Copy of 114th Congressional Contacts
FL-18 Campaign Overview Appendix
These docs are from Nancy Pelosi’s PC
*****
Clinton Releases 2015 Tax Returns — Here’s Where 96 Percent of Their Charitable Donations Went
TheBlaze and Mediaite: Of the $10.6 million Hillary and Bill Clinton earned last year, they gave more than $1 million to charity, according to a tax filing released by the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign Friday.
As it turns out, 96 percent of the Clintons’ 2015 charitable donations went to the Clinton Family Foundation, a tax-exempt charity owned by the Clintons but separate from the well-known Clinton Foundation. According to the tax release, the Clintons donated $42,000 to Desert Classic Charities and $1 million to the Clinton Family Foundation.
Interestingly, as the Daily Caller pointed out, the money donated to Desert Classic soon funneled back to the Clintons as the charity donated $700,000 to the Hillary, Bill and Chelsea Clinton Foundation. The money was donated for work on obesity programs.
In 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney became the subject of much scrutiny for his charitable donations. The former Massachusetts governor earned $14 million and gave $4 million to charity. Many progressive pundits hit Romney because a majority of his charitable giving went to the Mormon church and part of it was gifted to a foundation controlled by his family.
The Clintons’ charity work has been criticized ever since the release of Peter Schweitzer’s 2015 book “Clinton Cash.” The author asserts that many of the embattled Clinton Foundation’s donations from foreign and domestic people occurred alongside favorable treatment from Clinton’s State Department.
This comes amid a new release of Clinton emails seemingly showing a tangled relationship between the State Department and the Clinton Foundation during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state.
The FBI pushed the Department of Justice to launch an integrity probe into the Clinton Foundation, but the agency denied, claiming there was not enough evidence of wrongdoing to justify such an investigation.
**** Oh Bill, what have you been doing lately?
Bill Clinton netted $1.6 million from for-profit colleges
WashingtonExaminer: Bill Clinton netted $1.6 million last year from a pair of for-profit education companies that caused controversy for the future president during Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state.
Laureate Education paid Bill Clinton nearly $1.1 million in 2015, according to tax returns released by his wife’s campaign Friday. GEMS Education, a Dubai-based firm, paid him more than $560,000.
Both companies are major donors to the Clinton Foundation.
Bill Clinton’s lucrative consulting contracts with the corporations have raised questions about how closely his personal fortune is linked to his philanthropic activities.
What’s more, the State Department handed Laureate’s chairman taxpayer-funded grants under Hillary Clinton’s watch.
** Be sure to click the link below for the income graphic.Douglas Becker, CEO of Laureate, also heads a nonprofit group called the International Youth Foundation, which netted millions from the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2010. USAID is an arm of the State Department.
The Clintons have weathered criticism in the past for promoting affordable or free higher education while accepting a paycheck from one of the largest for-profit college education firms in the world.
Bill Clinton said he ended his time as the honorary chancellor of Laureate in April of last year, the same month Hillary Clinton launched her presidential bid.
Contracts with GEMS and Laureate have earned Bill Clinton more than $15 million. That sum padded the additional millions he pocketed from speaking fees thanks to engagements he booked around the world while Hillary Clinton served as the nation’s chief diplomat.