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Banned
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Originally Posted by stevo
Keep coming back to the TFP, oracle. Give us first-hand accounts of our progress in iraq. There's a lot of anti-war people on this board, but theres a good deal of mission supporters as well. Stick around a while, people need to hear the good first hand. God bless you and your buddies.  |
'couple-o-questions for ya, stevo.....
Do anecdotal accounts from oracle, influence you more than the results of answers to questions in a recent, scientific poll, with a purported 2-1/2 percent margin of error, of over 1700, random Iraqi adults....and if they do....could you send a "loved one"...to risk their life or limb to fight for this "cause"?
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http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ory?id=1389228
Poll: Broad Optimism in Iraq, But Also Deep Divisions Among Groups
Analysis By GARY LANGER and JON COHEN
Dec. 12, 2005
........ Negatives
Other views, moreover, are more negative: Fewer than half, 46 percent, say the country is better off now than it was before the war. And <b>half of Iraqis now say it was wrong for U.S.-led forces to invade in spring 2003,</b> up from 39 percent in 2004.
The number of Iraqis who say things are going well in their country overall is just 44 percent, far fewer than the 71 percent who say their own lives are going well. Fifty-two percent instead say the country is doing badly.
<b>There's other evidence of the United States' increasing unpopularity: Two-thirds now oppose the presence of U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq, 14 points higher than in February 2004.</b> Nearly six in 10 disapprove of how the United States has operated in Iraq since the war, and most of them disapprove strongly. And nearly half of Iraqis would like to see U.S. forces leave soon.
Specifically, 26 percent of Iraqis say U.S. and other coalition forces should "leave now" and another 19 percent say they should go after the government chosen in this week's election takes office; that adds to 45 percent. Roughly the other half says coalition forces should remain until security is restored (31 percent), until Iraqi security forces can operate independently (16 percent), or longer (5 percent).
This survey was sponsored by ABC News with partners Time, the BBC, the Japanese network NHK and the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel, with fieldwork by Oxford Research International. It consists of in-person interviews with a random national sample of 1,711 Iraqis from early October through mid-November.........
.........And despite the billions spent, reconstruction does not win broad accolades. Just 18 percent of Iraqis say postwar reconstruction efforts in their area have been "very effective." Instead 52 percent say such efforts have been ineffective or, while needed, have not occurred at all.
<b>Few — just 6 percent — credit the United States with the main role in reconstruction.</b> More say it's the Iraqi people (12 percent) or the Iraqi government (9 percent), but 37 percent say it's "no one." .......
.....<b>Confidence in Public Institutions: Percent Confident</b>
Police 68%
Iraqi Army 67%
Religious Leaders 67%
Natl. Govt. 53%
Ministeries in Baghdad 45%
Local Governate 42%
Local Leaders 41%
U.N. 31%
Political Parties 25%
<b>U.S./U.K. Forces 18%</b>
.......Methodology
This poll was conducted for ABC News, Time magazine, the BBC, NHK and Der Spiegel by Oxford Research International. Interviews were conducted Oct. 8 to Nov. 22, 2005, in person, in Arabic and Kurdish, among a random national sample of 1,711 Iraqis age 15 and up. The results have a 2.5-point error margin. Details of the survey methodology are available upon request.
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stevo, is it "anti-war" to offer observations, backed by poll results like the ones above, that "hint" that oracle2380 may not be the "authority" on how the war is "going", that you and he so strongly believe that he is?
Is there any chance that I am offering accurate, well documented observations, below, from authoritative voices....such as oracle2380's commanders, and their predecessors....that demonstrate a consistant assessment, contrary to what oracle2380's...that the U.S. is fighting a primarily homegrown, guerilla insurgency, all over Iraq?
Consider reports below, that in the latest offensive drive against the insurgents in the city of Ramadi, only 145 soldiers in an Iraqi battalion, could be persuaded to fight and die alongside American troops. Consider that this latest offense has the potential to destroy another large Iraqi city, like Fallujah, the former city of 400,000, before it. stevo, how many cities this large, in a country of only 27 million, can be destroyed in these actions, rendered unliveable for many years to come, before you could begin to question the "mission" and the tactics of our military, and of the POTUS?
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Originally Posted by oracle2380
..... I see all these sources from stateside reporters, who for the most part have never set foot in Iraq. ......
.......The problems we face here are not, for the most part, from the Iraqis socially, but from the insurgents 'joining the fight' from elsewhere in the arab world. We are making progress here, though it is not often shown on CNN or MSNBC, and the people appreciate the troops.....
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How do oracle2380's comments about "stateside reporters", look alongside the results of polls offered here, conducted exclusively by questioning only folks randomly, who were all in Iraq? How do they look, when you consider that more members of the press have been killed or wounding covering the Iraq war....from Iraq, including the ABC co-anchor, and a prominent CBS foreign correspondent, the lone survivor recently, in a press crew of three, than in the much longer, Vietnam war?
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http://www.defenselink.mil/transcrip...1230-1082.html
Tuesday, December 30, 2003 9:01 a.m. EST United States Department of Defense.
News Transcript
resenter: Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director for Operations
Q What is the scale in terms of the situation of foreign fighters in Iraq? What sort of incidents does the coalition suspect foreign fighters of? And what does the coalition suspect their numbers are, as well?
GEN. KIMMITT; Well, we've said a number of times that we think that the number of foreign fighters is a small minority of <b>the overall enemy that we face here in Iraq, probably on the order of 10 percent, no more.</b> But that could change on a daily basis. What type of activities do we sort of instantly say, "We better look at that one because that might be foreign fighters"? Any time that we see a car bomb, we start saying that probably is not something that was home grown, that that might be from somewhere else. We've seen tactics being used by some of the belligerents, some of the enemy, that would indicate that they might have had training in other than former-regime element, former Iraqi army. And that's sort of how we say we better take a look at that one a little bit closer.....
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Quote:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/...ney.interview/
Cheney: Iraq will be 'enormous success story'
Friday, June 24, 2005; Posted: 12:28 a.m. EDT (04:28 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday defended his recent comment that the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last throes," insisting that progress being made in setting up a new Iraqi government and establishing democracy there will indeed end the violence -- eventually.
However, in an exclusive interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Cheney said he thinks there still will be "a lot of bloodshed" in the coming months, as the insurgents try to stop the move toward democracy in Iraq.
"If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period, the throes of a revolution," he said. "The point would be that the conflict will be intense, but it's intense because the terrorists understand that if we're successful at accomplishing our objective -- standing up a democracy in Iraq -- that that's a huge defeat for them.........
......Cheney compared the current situation in Iraq to the last months of World War II, when Germans launched a desperate offensive in the Battle of the Bulge and the Japanese offered stiff resistance on Okinawa.
He said the insurgents will "do everything they can to disrupt" the process of building an Iraqi government, "but I think we're strong enough to defeat them.".......
Quote:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/30/cheney.iraq/
Iraq insurgency in 'last throes,' Cheney says
Monday, June 20, 2005; Posted: 12:19 p.m. EDT (16:19 GMT)
....."I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," Cheney said. "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."......
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Quote:
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/Transcripts/051002b.htm
Interview with Gen. Abizaid
" MEET THE PRESS" on NBC TV
OCTOBER 2, 2005
MR. RUSSERT: How many insurgents are there in Iraq?
GEN. ABIZAID: I think there's no more than 20,000 insurgents in Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: There was a study done, and this is according to The Christian Science Monitor -- even if the U.S. can seal Iraq's borders stopping the flow of foreign fighters would do little to eliminate most of the country's insurgents, only 4 percent to 10 percent of the country's combatants are foreign fighters, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Do you agree with that?
<h3>GEN. ABIZAID: I think we have to watch out hyping the foreign fighter problem to the point where it becomes unrealistic. The foreign fighters are not the broad majority of fighters that are taking part in the insurgency.</h3> But the foreign fighters generally tend to be people that believe in the ideology of al Qaeda and their associated movements, and they tend to be suicide bombers. So while the foreign fighters certainly aren't large in number, they are deadly in their application. They've killed well over 5,000 Iraqis here this year alone in suicide attacks, and these are innocent Iraqis that are minding their own business trying to get through the day and, all of a sudden, somebody from Tunisia, Algeria, Libya or some other foreign country shows up and explodes a suicide bomber. Very rarely do they ever hit a target of military value.
MR. RUSSERT: But if there are 20,000 insurgents, and most of them Iraqis, it is largely, then, a homegrown insurgency that could not exist without the support of the people. Is that fair?
GEN. ABIZAID: It all depends what you say the support of the people might mean. Insurgency is not endemic throughout Iraq. The north is calm, the south is calm, essentially there are portions of the Sunni Arab community that are in insurgency. And that's where we've got to concentrate our efforts, both militarily and, by the way, politically. We need the Sunni Arab community in Iraq to be part of the future of Iraq.
MR. RUSSERT: General Casey said there are about 500 attacks a week. Vice President Cheney said the insurgency was in final throes. Is the vice president correct?
GEN. ABIZAID: Tim, I knew somehow or other the final throes question would come. I will tell you that the insurgency, as long as politics continues to move in the direction that it appears to be moving, and the Iraqi security forces continue to move in the direction that they're moving, the insurgency doesn't have a chance for victory.
MR. RUSSERT: But is it alive and well?
GEN. ABIZAID: It's certainly alive and well, and I don't think any of us that are military people have every said anything other than the fact that we've got fighting on our hands, especially as we go through this political process. The political friction associated with the referendum and with the new government is tremendous. And in Iraq, unfortunately, they've got a long, long record of resorting to violence in order to solve their political problems. This revolutionary change that's taken place is going to require some military effort to suppress it...
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Quote:
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075
Released: February 28, 2006
U.S. Troops in Iraq: 72% Say End War in 2006
......About two in five see the insurgency as being comprised of discontented Sunnis with very few non-Iraqi helpers. “There appears to be confusion on this,” Zogby said. But, he noted, less than a third think that if non-Iraqi terrorists could be prevented from crossing the border into Iraq, the insurgency would end. A majority of troops (53%) said the U.S. should double both the number of troops and bombing missions in order to control the insurgency.
The survey shows that most U.S. military personnel in-country have a clear sense of right and wrong when it comes to using banned weapons against the enemy, and in interrogation of prisoners. Four in five said they oppose the use of such internationally banned weapons as napalm and white phosphorous. And, even as more photos of prisoner abuse in Iraq surface around the world, 55% said it is not appropriate or standard military conduct to use harsh and threatening methods against insurgent prisoners in order to gain information of military value.
Three quarters of the troops had served multiple tours and had a longer exposure to the conflict: 26% were on their first tour of duty, 45% were on their second tour, and 29% were in Iraq for a third time or more.
A majority of the troops serving in Iraq said they were satisfied with the war provisions from Washington. Just 30% of troops said they think the Department of Defense has failed to provide adequate troop protections, such as body armor, munitions, and armor plating for vehicles like HumVees. Only 35% said basic civil infrastructure in Iraq, including roads, electricity, water service, and health care, has not improved over the past year. Three of every four were male respondents, with 63% under the age of 30.
The survey included 944 military respondents interviewed at several undisclosed locations throughout Iraq. The names of the specific locations and specific personnel who conducted the survey are being withheld for security purposes. Surveys were conducted face-to-face using random sampling techniques. The margin of error for the survey, conducted Jan. 18 through Feb. 14, 2006, is +/- 3.3 percentage points.
(2/28/2006)
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Quote:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...nWubQ&refer=us
Cheney Says U.S. Underestimated Iraq Insurgency (Update1)
June 19 (Bloomberg) -- Vice President Dick Cheney said that while the administration underestimated the strength of anti- American violence in Iraq, he still believes the insurgency is in its ``last throes,'' as he asserted last year.
``I don't think anybody anticipated the level of violence we encountered,'' Cheney said in a question-and-answer session following a speech today at the National Press Club in Washington.
The past 18 months will be viewed by history and a crucial period for democracy in Iraq as ``Iraqis increasingly took over responsibility for their own affairs,'' Cheney said.
Asked if he still believed the insurgency was in its final throes, as he said in a CNN interview on May 31, 2005, Cheney said, ``I do.'' He cited election of an interim government, a constitutional referendum and parliamentary elections in December that established a unity government as evidence the insurgency is being pushed to the margins.
Insurgent and sectarian violence has flared during the same period, and Cheney as well as President George W. Bush previously have acknowledged errors in dealing with the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion and coping with resistance.
Still, Cheney said, that is the ``period that we'll be able to look at and say: That's when we turned the corner, that's when we began to get a handle on the long-term future of Iraq.''
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Quote:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/06/...0627ramadi.php
U.S. and Iraqi troops push into Ramadi
By Dexter Filkins The New York Times
Published: June 26, 2006
.....Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, has bedeviled American forces for months, making itself the toughest city in the most violent of Iraqi regions. Whole city blocks here look like a scene from some post-apocalyptic world: row after row of buildings shot up, boarded up, caved in, tumbled down.
Many neighborhoods are out of the control of either the American or Iraqi government forces; insurgents hold sway.......
....Central to the strategy, American commanders say, is the decision to commit significant numbers of Iraqi troops who can hold the neighborhoods after the Americans do most of the work of pacification. That, the American commanders hope, will make the city safe enough for its shattered economy to renew itself and for Iraqi police officers to feel secure enough to start showing up for work.
"I'm a realist," Colonel MacFarland said. "I know we are not going to be here long enough to realize that vision. The Iraqis will have to do that. What we can do is try to impart an irreversible momentum."
The challenges of doing even that became evident as the operation unfolded Monday. American soldiers - trained, disciplined, with overwhelming firepower - outnumbered their Iraqi counterparts. Officers here said there were about 250 American soldiers involved in the operation, and about 145 Iraqis.
Lt. Col. Raad Niaf Haroosh, the Iraqi battalion commander, said the 145 soldiers represented a fraction of the battalion's usual numbers. <h3>He said as many as 500 of his fellow soldiers - most of them Sunni Muslims from Al Jabouri tribe - stayed behind in Mosul rather than fight in Ramadi.</h3>
Colonel Raad is a Sunni, as are most of the Iraqi soldiers who made the trip with him. They seemed alert and disciplined as they moved about the area, in contrast to some Iraqi units that have accompanied American soldiers in the past.
<h3>He said that many of the Iraqi soldiers who stayed behind feared they would create tribal vendettas if they came to Ramadi and killed other Iraqis.
"They said, 'We don't want fight our own people,' " he said.</h3>
As it was, Colonel Raad, who is a tribal sheik when out of uniform, said he got a warm reception from the Iraqis as he moved through the streets. He said he hoped the operation started on Sunday would begin to loosen the hold of insurgents on Ramadi.
"Insurgents have the bigger grip here," he said......
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...062600312.html
Iraq conflict leaves at least 130,000 displaced
By Hiba Moussa and Michael Georgy
Reuters
Monday, June 26, 2006; 8:26 AM
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's sectarian violence of the past four months has pushed the number of displaced people to above 130,000, parliament heard on Monday as members urged ministers to give more aid and security to contain the crisis.
"There should be more field visits to understand their plight," Sunni Arab parliamentarian Dhafir al-Ani told the assembly. "The government should take direct steps and provide security for displaced families, including at their camps."
Iraq's Ministry of Displaced and Migration now puts the number of internal refugees at 130,386, or 21,731 families, its spokesman Sattar Nowruz said.
The number of registered displaced has climbed by as much as 30,000 in the last month, according to ministry statistics.
The actual figure must be higher as many thousands go uncounted, quietly seeking refuge with relatives or heading abroad. It seems hardly no-one in Baghdad does not have a friend, relative or neighbor who has had to move in fear.
Already a problem due to the violence and anarchy of recent years, the crisis deepened after the February 22 bombing of a major Shi'ite shrine in the town of Samarra set off reprisals and pushed Iraq to the brink of sectarian civil war.
The problem has been likened to the "ethnic cleansing" of the Balkans in the 1990s and few expect a quick solution.
Sectarian violence, which kills dozens of people a day in Baghdad alone, has started to force demographic shifts, with Shi'ites and Sunnis fleeing for safer areas made up of their own sect.
Mixed neighborhoods are breaking apart.....
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To sum it up for you, stevo, and oracle2380, the results of the polling are consistant with news reports that U.S. troops are destroying vast urban areas of a small country, rendering huge numbers displaced, and a signifigant number of innocents killed or wounded, against a primarily homegrown insurgency, while making little progress in fielding an Iraqi security force to replace them on the "battlefield". This is aggravated by a U.S. executive branch, as Cheney's assertions above, show, that is neither credible, nor competent to quickly resolve the situation that is has mired our troops in.
The misinformed, myopic opinions of oracle2380, IMO, and, when compared to the polling results of questions asked randomly of the soldiers who he serves alongside of, are understandable, considering where they are, and what is easier to believe, in order to motivate them to follow orders, but they are, IMO, unsupported by the facts.
Please stevo or oracle2380, post the comments by oracle2380 that either of you believe are accurate enough to "be taken to the bank", and the documentation that counters what I have posted. Supply the name and the quote of an American commander who agrees with oracle2380, that <b>"The problems we face here are not, for the most part, from the Iraqis socially, but from the insurgents 'joining the fight' from elsewhere in the arab world."</b>
Show me random scientific polling results of Iraqis, conducted by well known sources, that indicate Iraqi support of the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq. Show me proof that the "news" from Iraq is primarily sourced from
"stateside reporters".
Persuade other readers that it is "host", and not you, matthew330, and oracle2380 who is posting "propaganda", and that you guys are the ones, armed with the facts, cuz I don't see that to be the case. If you're right, you should be able to provide arguments with some substance...like....uhhhh....I seem to do...even with the "questionable" reputation that mattew330 hung on me, with nothing posted to back it up.....
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Originally Posted by matthew330
Will, again with Hosts history I will not take anything he says at face value, so his large fonts are meaningless to me.....
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Give me credit for continued participation here....if the above is an example of the quality of the argument from the "other side...." I believe that this subject is too important to concede to any point that seems contrary to what my research persuades me to believe....and so I continue to share it here.
I may be "anti-war", stevo, but my opinions are supported by a well documented set of quotes, polls, and reports. What is the basis of your opinions? Where are you getting them, and why do they trump what I bring to this discussion?
Last edited by host; 06-28-2006 at 10:42 AM..
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