Can anyone now say the Surge isn't working? - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

host · 02-17-2008, 11:40 PM

Ustwo, you want to persuade me that the same administration that fucked the pooch so pathetically in NOLA has pulled off some kind of "miracle reversal" in Iraq?

Quote:

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...YRSz43-tYNO7fQ
Baghdad drowning in sewage: Iraqi official
Feb 3, 2008

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Baghdad is drowning in sewage, thirsty for water and largely powerless, an Iraqi official said on Sunday in a grim assessment of services in the capital five years after the US-led invasion.

One of three sewage treatment plants is out of commission, one is working at stuttering capacity while a pipe blockage in the third means sewage is forming a foul lake so large it can be seen "as a big black spot on Google Earth," said Tahseen Sheikhly, civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan.

Sheikhly told a news conference in the capital that water pipes, where they exist, are so old that it is not possible to pump water at a sufficient rate to meet demands -- leaving many neighbourhoods parched.

A sharp deficit of 3,000 megawatts of electricity adds to the woes of residents, who are forced to rely on neighbourhood generators to light up their lives and heat their homes.

"Sewerage, water and electricity are our three main problems," said Sheikhly, adding that many of these problems date back to the Saddam Hussein regime when not enough attention was paid to basic infrastructure.

Insurgency, sectarian violence and vandalism since the US-led invasion in March 2003 had further ravaged services in the capital, he added.

More positively, he said, the extensive Baghdad security plan, known as Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (Imposing Law) and launched on February 14 last year, was allowing services to be gradually restored.

"After the destruction there is now the reconstruction," Sheikhly said. "We have solved many of the security problems, now we can focus on rebuilding.".....

Quote:

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/176513.html
Published: 2/8/2008

Cholera Crisis Hits Baghdad
Iraqi capital fears an epidemic if stricken sewerage system collapses as the rainy season arrives
Baghdad is facing a 'catastrophe' with cases of cholera rising sharply in the past three weeks to more than 100, strengthening fears that poor sanitation and the imminent rainy season could create an epidemic.

The disease - spread by bacteria in contaminated water, which can result in rapid dehydration and death - threatens to blunt growing optimism in the Iraqi capital after a recent downturn in violence. Two boys in an orphanage have died and six other children were diagnosed with the disease, according to the Iraqi government. 'We have a catastrophe in Baghdad,' an official said.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) said 101 cases had been recorded in the city, making up 79 per cent of all new cases in Iraq. It added that no single source for the upsurge had been identified, but the main Shia enclave of Sadr City was among the areas hardest hit.

As Iraq's rainy season nears, its aging water pipes and sewerage systems, many damaged or destroyed by more than four years of war, pose a new threat to a population weary of crisis. Claire Hajaj, a spokeswoman for Unicef, said: 'Iraq's water and sanitation networks are in a critical condition. Pollution of waterways by raw sewage is perhaps the greatest environmental and public health hazard facing Iraqis - particularly children. Waterborne diarrhea diseases kill and sicken more Iraqi children than anything except pneumonia. We estimate that only one in three Iraqi children can rely on a safe water source - with Baghdad and southern cities most affected.'

Although US forces in Baghdad have found that security is improving, on daily patrols they face complaints from residents about streets plagued by piles of household waste and fetid cesspools, often near schools and where children are playing. Captain Richard Dos Santos, attached to the 3rd squadron of the 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment, said that in the al-Hadar area of south Baghdad sewage pumps were only 30 to 40 per cent operational. 'There is sewage near schools and there is an increased threat of cholera and flu in winter when resistance is low,' he said.

The UN has reported 22 deaths from cholera this year, and 4,569 laboratory-confirmed cases, almost exclusively in northern Iraq where it was first detected in Kirkuk in August. It has now spread to half of the country's 18 provinces, but anxiety is focused on Baghdad.

Unicef said it was providing oral rehydration salts and water purification tablets for families - it distributed three million to the worst hit areas two weeks ago - as well as jerry cans at water distribution points. It is transporting 180,000 liters (47,552 gallons) of safe water per day to Baghdad's worst hit districts.

Unicef issued an urgent appeal to the Iraqi government to clean water storage tanks in all institutions as one preventive measure. Hajaj said: 'Only 20 per cent of families outside Baghdad have access to sewage services, and Iraq's sewage treatment plants operate at just 17 per cent of capacity.'

Cholera is preventable by treating drinking water with chlorine and improving hygiene, but it is estimated that around 70 per cent of Iraqis do not have access to clean water. Many have been too poor or too afraid to go out to buy bottled water, relying instead on tap water, often from polluted sources. Companies responsible for collecting waste and sewage have been reluctant to enter Baghdad's most violent areas.

The government has been trying to educate Iraqis through advertisements on TV and in newspapers and with leaflets handed out at checkpoints. But it admits that six hospitals have unsafe water supplies.

By Guardian Unlimited © Copyright Guardian Newspapers 2008

<h3>Seems like hellish living conditions in Baghdad, thanks be to Allah that so much of the population had escaped this misery via death or by violence driven evacuation from the city.....and that there are so few remaining to further tax the deteriorating municipal utlities infrastructure.</h3>

Quote:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...%20ref=opinion
Is the US really bringing stability to Baghdad?

To judge from the talk in Washington, the 'surge' that put 30,000 more US troops on the ground in Iraq has succeeded in bringing stability to a nation still riven by ethnic, religious and tribal conflict. Life, the Pentagon boasts, is returning to normal. But the truth is a very different story.

An Iraqi soldier mans a checkpoint in Baghdad © AFP/Getty Images

More pictures Related Articles
A week in Iraq: 'People say things are better, but it's still terrible here'
Iraq death rate belies US claims of success
Bush: pace of withdrawal from Iraq may have to slow
By Patrick Cockburn
Friday, 15 February 2008

....The only source of money in Iraq is oil revenues, and the only jobs – four million, if those on a pension are included – are with the government. The Shia, in alliance with the Kurds, controlled both. "The Sunni people found that the only way to be protected from the Shia was to be allied to the Americans," said Kassim Ahmed Salman, a well-educated Sunni from west Baghdad. "Otherwise we were in a hopeless situation. For the last two years it has been possible for Sunni to be killed legally [by death squads covertly supported by the government] in Baghdad."

The "surge" – the 30,000 extra US troops implementing a new security plan in Baghdad – has helped to make Baghdad safer. <h3>In effect, they have frozen into place the Shia victory of 2006.</h3> The city is broken up into enclaves sealed off by concrete walls with only one entrance and exit.

Areas that were once mixed are not being reoccupied by whichever community was driven out. Bassim can no more reclaim, or even visit, his house in the Jihad district of Baghdad than he could a year ago. He can still work as a taxi driver only in Sunni areas. The US military and the Iraqi government are wary of even trying to reverse sectarian cleansing because this might break the present fragile truce.

"People say things are better than they were," says Zanab Jafar, a well-educated Shia woman living in al-Hamraa, west Baghdad, "but what they mean is that they are better than [during] the bloodbath of 2006. The situation is still terrible."

Baghdad still feels and looks like a city at war. There are checkpoints everywhere. "You seldom see young girls walking in the streets, or in restaurants," adds Zanab Jafar, "because their families are terrified they will be kidnapped, so they send private cars to pick them up directly from school." New shops open, but they are always in the heart of districts controlled by a single community because nobody wants to venture far from their home to shop.

For all the talk of Baghdad being safer, it remains an extraordinarily dangerous place. <h3>One Western security company is still asking $3,000 to pick a man up at the airport and drive him six miles to his hotel in central Baghdad.</h3> The number of dead bodies being picked up by the police every morning in the capital is down to three or four when once it was 50 or 60.......

.........Even the police chief of Fallujah, Colonel Feisal, the brother of Abu Marouf, cheerfully explained that until he was promoted to his present post in December 2006 he was "fighting the Americans". Abu Marouf is threatening to go back to war or let al-Qa'ida return unless his 13,000 men receive long-term jobs in the Iraqi security services. The Iraqi government has no intention of allowing this because to do so would be to allow the Sunni and partisans of Saddam Hussein's regime to once again hold real power in the state.

<h3>Bizarrely, the US is still holding hundreds of men suspected of contacts with al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan and elsewhere, while in Iraq many of the Awakening members are past and, in many cases, probably current members of al-Qa'ida being paid by the US Army.

"I knew a young man, aged 17 or 18," says Kassim Ahmed Salman, "who was a friend of my brother and used to carry a PKC [a Russian light machine-gun] and fight for al-Qa'ida. I was astonished to see him a few days ago in al-Khadra where he is a lieutenant in al-Sahwa, standing together with Iraqi army officers."</h3>

The present state of Iraq is highly unstable, but nobody quite wants to go to war again. It reminds me of lulls in the Lebanese civil war during the 1970s and 1980s, when everybody in Beirut rightly predicted that nothing was solved and the fighting would start again. In Iraq the fighting has never stopped, but the present equilibrium might go on for some time.

All the Iraqi players are waiting to see at what rate the US will draw down its troop levels. The Mehdi Army is discussing ending its six-month ceasefire, but does not want to fight its Shia rivals if they are supported by American military power. Al-Qa'ida is wounded but by no means out of business. Four days after I had seen Abu Marouf, who was surrounded by bodyguards and maintains extreme secrecy about his movements, al-Qa'ida was able to detonate a bomb in a car close to his house and injure four of his guards.

Protestations of amity between Shia security men and Awakening members should be treated with scepticism. My friend, the intrepid French television reporter Lucas Menget, filmed a Shia policeman showering praise on the Awakening movement. He introduced two of its members, declaring enthusiastically to the camera: "You see, together we will defeat al-Qa'ida." Back in his police car, the policeman, lighting up a Davidoff cigarette and shaking his head wearily, explained: "I don't have a choice. I was asked to work with these killers."

Iraq remains a great sump of human degradation and poverty, unaffected by the "surge". It was not a government critic but the civilian spokesman for the Baghdad security plan, Tahseen Sheikhly, who pointed out this week that the city is drowning in sewage because of blocked and broken pipes and drains. In one part of the city, the sewage has formed a lake so large that it can be seen "as a big black spot on Google Earth".....

I read the crap above and I'm thinking, boy....what a bargain....and it only took five years, cost 3,500 American lives, 20,000 serious American casualties and an immediate expense of $500 billion, leaving the US with a "broken" ground force, worn out combat troops, empty national guard equipment lots and military motor pools packed with wornout, broken down, light to heavy duty mechanized transport and combat equipment.

What a bargain, and Ustwo, you're a victim of the influence of Lincoln group military propaganda! At least the Pentagon hasn't paid a "good news" distribution service to shepherd me to my opinion of this disaster.

Willravel · 02-17-2008, 11:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

http://www.reuters.com/article/world...Name=worldNews

Attacks in Baghdad fall 80 percent: Iraq military

The U.S. military says attacks have fallen across Iraq by 60 percent since June

The American military did not count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks including suicide bombings when it reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders in the Baghdad area last month, the U.S. command said Monday.
The US military doesn't give accurate reports regarding Iraq. We've known about this for years.

Believe what you want, but don't expect everyone else to take the military at it's word. We know better.

host · 02-18-2008, 12:15 AM

From the article linked below:

Quote:

......By and large, however, the survey passed from public view fairly quickly, and the news media continued to cite the very low numbers produced by the Iraq Body Count, a U.K.-based NGO that counts civilian deaths through English-language newspaper reports.

Another survey, this one undertaken by a private U.K. firm, Opinion Business Research (ORB), found more than one million dead through August 2007. Yet another, a much larger house-to-house survey was conducted by the Iraq Ministry of Health (MoH). This also found a sizable mortality figure—400,000 “excess deaths” (the number above the pre-war death rate), but estimated 151,000 killed by violence. The period covered was the same as the survey published in The Lancet, but was not released until January 2008.

The ORB results were almost totally ignored in the American press, and the MoH numbers, which did get one-day play, were covered incompletely. Virtually no newspaper report dug into the data tables of the Iraqi MoH report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, for that total excess mortality figure, or to ask why the MoH report showed a flat rate for killing throughout the war when every other account shows sharp increases through 2005 and 2006. The logical explanation for this discrepancy is that people responding to interviewers from the government, and a ministry controlled by Moktada al Sadr, would not want to admit that their loved one died by violence. There were, instead, very large numbers of dead by road accidents and “unintentional injuries.” The American press completely missed this.

What some in the news media did not miss, however, was a full-scale assault on the legitimacy of the Lancet article by the National Journal, the “insider” Capitol Hill weekly.....

Quote:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/ea..._id=1003711142

Counting Iraqi Casualties -- and a Media Controversy
The author commissioned the "Lancet" study recently attacked in a National Journal report and by the Wall Street Journal. He calls the criticism a "hatchet job," fraudulent or based on innuendo.

By John Tirman

(February 14, 2008) -- (Commentary) One puzzling aspect of the news media’s coverage of the Iraq war is their squeamish treatment of Iraqi casualties. The scale of fatalities and wounded is a difficult number to calculate, but its importance should be obvious. Yet, apart from some rare and sporadic attention to mortality figures, the topic is virtually absent from the airwaves and news pages of America. This absence leaves the field to gross misunderstandings, ideological agendas, and political vendettas.

The upshot is that the American public—and U.S. policy makers, for that matter—are badly informed on a vital dimension of the war effort.

As an academic interested in the war’s violence, I commissioned a household survey in October 2005 to gauge mortality, and I naturally turned to the best professionals available—the Johns Hopkins University epidemiologists who had conducted such surveys before in Iraq, Congo, and elsewhere. Their survey of 1,850 households resulted in a shocking number: 600,000 dead by violence in the first 40 months of the war. <h3>The survey was extensively peer reviewed and published in the British medical journal, the Lancet, in October 2006.....</h3>

....The attack, by reporters Carl Cannon and Neil Munro, which was largely built on persistent complaints of two critics and heaps of innuendo, was largely ignored—its circulation is only about 10,000—until the Wall Street Journal picked up on one bit of their litany: that “George Soros” funded the survey. “The Lancet study was funded by anti-Bush partisans and conducted by antiwar activists posing as objective researchers,” said the January 9, 2008, editorial (titled “The Lancet’s Political Hit”) and concluded: “the Lancet study could hardly be more unreliable.” The editorial created sensation in the right-wing blogosphere and in several allied news outlets.

Let me convey what I thought was a simple and unremarkable fact I told Munro in an interview in November and one of the Lancet authors emailed Cannon the details of how the survey was funded. My center at MIT used internal funds to underwrite the survey. More than six months after the survey was commissioned, the Open Society Institute, the charitable foundation begun by Soros, provided a grant to support public education efforts of the issue. We used that to pay for some travel for lectures, a web site, and so on.

OSI, much less Soros himself (who likely was not even aware of this small grant), had nothing to do with the origination, conduct, or results of the survey. The researchers and authors did not know OSI, among other donors, had contributed. And we had hoped the survey’s findings would appear earlier in the year but were impeded by the violence in Iraq. All of this was told repeatedly to Munro and Cannon, but they choose to falsify the story. Charges of political timing were especially ludicrous, because we started more than a year before the 2006 election and tried to do the survey as quickly as possible. It was published when the data were ready.

The New York Post and the Sunday Times of London, both owned by Rupert Murdoch, followed the WSJ editorial and trumpeted the Soros connection and the supposed “fraud” which Munro and Cannon hinted. “$OROS IRAQ DEATH STORY WAS A SHAM” was a headline in the Post, which was followed by a story in which scarcely anything stated was true.

The charges of “fraud” that were also central to the National Journal piece were based on distortions or ignorance of statistical method, such as random sampling and sample size, or speculations about Iraqi field researchers fabricating data. Nothing close to proof of misdeeds was ever offered.

The two principal authors, Gilbert Burnham and Les Roberts, parried the fraud charges effectively on their web site and in letters to the editors, but of course these are rarely noticed as much as the original charges. Those charges were wholly speculative and at times based on small irregularities in the collection of data, hardly a crime in the midst of the bloodiest period of the war. For example, some death certificates were not collected from respondents; about 80 percent of the time they were. (In the Iraqi MoH survey, death certificates were never collected, making their claims about violence v. nonviolent causes unconfirmable.)

In any case, the many peer reviews of The Lancet article, including one by a special committee of the World Health Organization, gave the survey methods and operations passing grades.

Munro then went on the Glenn Beck program and suggested the Iraqi researchers were unreliable (“without U.S. supervision”) and that the Lancet authors “made it clear they wanted this study published before the election.” Both of those assertions are untrue. Beck then repeated these allegations on his radio program, and added that there was no peer review of the fatality figures, another falsehood, and “we’re getting it jammed down our throat by people who are undercover who are pulling purse strings, who are manipulating the news.”

The charge, repeated in all these media, that the Iraqi research leader, Riyadh Lafta, M.D., operated “without U.S. supervision” and was therefore suspect is particularly interesting. Munro, in a note to National Review Online, asserted that Lafta “said Allah guided the prior 2004 Lancet/Johns Hopkins death-survey,” which he also had noted in the National Journal piece. When he interviewed me he pestered me about two anonymous donors, demanding to know if either were Arab or Muslim. A pattern here is visible, one which reeks of religious prejudice.

Munro had also ignored the corroborating evidence I sent him, the 4.5 million displaced (suggesting hundreds of thousands of fatalities, drawing on the ratio of all other wars); estimates of new widows (500,000 from the war); and the other surveys done in Iraq suggesting enormous numbers of casualties (ABC/USA Today poll of March 2007, showing roughly 53% physically harmed by war). When I mentioned these things to him on the telephone, he literally screamed that such data didn’t matter, that the Lancet probe was “a hoax.” Lancet article authors also cite several cases where they were misquoted. The National Journal’s editors have been informed of their reporters’ misconduct and errors, and have not responded.

So the smear is complete—a “political hit” by the “anti-Bush billionaire,” complicity by anti-war academics, fraud by Muslims devoted to Allah—and repeated over and over in the right-wing media. Little has of this has appeared in the legitimate news media, apart from right-wing columnists like Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe.

One might expect that such nonsense is obvious to neutral observers, but it constitutes a kind of harassment that scholars must fend off, diverting from more important work. Gilbert Burnham, the lead author on the Lancet article, runs health clinics in Afghanistan and East Africa, and is spending inordinate amounts of time responding to the attacks. Les Roberts, a coauthor, and I have both had colleagues at our universities called by Munro to ask if they would punish us for fraud. The OSI people have also been writing letters to set the record straight. Most important, Riyadh Lafta, who has been threatened before, may be in more danger due to these attacks.

As to the issue of the human cost of the war, even the legitimate press that has avoided this kerfuffle might be intimidated from taking on the issue in depth. The fact that the National Journal hatchet job and the MoH survey appeared within days of each other sent a message to editors around the United States—one survey is “discredited” and one is legitimate. The treatment of the MoH survey that week often noted its death-by-violence number was one-fourth of the Lancet figure -- forgetting, again, that total war-related mortality were much closer in both, and congruent with other surveys. The New York Times did run an editorial in early February about the dead in Iraq — the 124 journalists killed in the war.

The topic of the war’s exceptional human costs, now inflamed by these calumnies, appears to be too hot to handle. Even with all this fuss in January, no explorations of the Iraqi mortality from the war have appeared in the major dailies. No editorials, no examination of the methods (or the danger and difficulty of collecting data), no sense that the scale of killing might affect the American position, or might shed some light on U.S. war strategy, or might point to honorable exits and reconstruction obligations. Remarkably, no curiosity at all about the dead of Iraq, and what they can tell us.

That, in the end, may be the biggest injustice of all.
*
To comment or read more, go to <a href="http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/">blog</a>

Links:

All the surveys can be found <a href="http://mit.edu/humancostiraq">here.</a>

The National Journal article, “Data Bomb,” is <a href="http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/databomb/index.htm">here</a>

My annotated copy of "Data Bomb" and much more is <a href="http://www.johntirman.com/">here.</a>

Let's see some denial posts...the Pentagon pays Lincoln group hundreds of millions to plant favorable stories, and you guys post them for free.....

Willravel · 02-18-2008, 12:19 AM

Host, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I won't know the "Surge is working" until I see independent, verifiable numbers.

host · 03-27-2008, 07:59 PM

My sister's son is serving in the US military, near Baghdad. I am worried about his safety. It looks like it might be over for the US....time to pick up the pieces and go home. How many more will have to die to attempt to preserve the notion that Bush and Cheney are manly men?

Quote:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...ub=CTVNewsAt11

Green Zone turns into war zone, Basra under siege
Updated Thu. Mar. 27 2008 10:05 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Baghdad's Green Zone -- often referred to as a relatively safe and fortified refuge for Americans, other Westerners, and politicians in Iraq -- appeared to be nothing short of a war zone Thursday.

Warning sirens for bombs blared all day as diplomats and U.S. workers donned flak jackets and ducked for cover from mortars and rockets that poured down throughout Baghdad. Those U.S. government workers brave enough to ignore a lockdown order by their government and venture into nearly empty city streets saw a city under siege. .....

Quote:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle3631718.ece

From Times OnlineMarch 27, 2008

<h2>Areas of Baghdad fall to militias as Iraqi Army falters in Basra</h2>

Gunmen loyal to Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr have fought back against the Iraqi Army
Image :1 of 4

James Hider, of The Times, in Baghdad
Analysis: Zubair 1 is crucial pipeline

Iraq’s Prime Minister was staring into the abyss today after his operation to crush militia strongholds in Basra stalled, members of his own security forces defected and district after district of his own capital fell to Shia militia gunmen.

With the threat of a civil war looming in the south, Nouri al-Maliki’s police chief in Basra narrowly escaped assassination in the crucial port city, while in Baghdad, the spokesman for the Iraqi side of the US military surge was kidnapped by gunmen and his house burnt to the ground.

Saboteurs also blew up one of Iraq's two main oil pipelines from Basra, cutting at least a third of the exports from the city which provides 80 per cent of government revenue, a clear sign that the militias — who siphon significant sums off the oil smuggling trade — would not stop at mere insurrection.

In Baghdad, thick black smoke hung over the city centre tonight and gunfire echoed across the city.

The most secure area of the capital, Karrada, was placed under curfew amid fears the Mahdi Army of Hojetoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr could launch an assault on the residence of Abdelaziz al-Hakim, the head of a powerful rival Shia governing party.

While the Mahdi Army has not officially renounced its six-month ceasefire, which has been a key component in the recent security gains, on the ground its fighters were chasing police and soldiers from their positions across Baghdad.

Rockets from Sadr City slammed into the governmental Green Zone compound in the city centre, killing one person and wounding several more.

Mr al-Maliki has gambled everything on the success of Operation Saulat al-Fursan, or Charge of the Knights, to sweep illegal militias out of Basra.

It has targeted neighbourhoods where the Mahdi Army dominates, prompting intense fighting with mortars, rocket-grenades and machineguns in the narrow, fetid alleyways of Basra.

In Baghdad, the Mahdi Army took over neighbourhood after neighbourhood, some amid heavy fighting, others without firing a shot.

In New Baghdad, militiamen simply ordered the police to leave their checkpoints: the officers complied en masse and the guerrillas stepped out of the shadows to take over their checkpoints.

In Jihad, a mixed Sunni and Shia area of west Baghdad that had been one of the worst battlefields of Iraq’s dirty sectarian war in 2006, Mahdi units moved in and residents started moving out to avoid the lethal crossfire that erupted.

One witness saw Iraqi Shia policemen rip off their uniform shirts and run for shelter with local Sunni neighbourhood patrols, most of them made up of former insurgents wooed by the US military into fighting al-Qaeda.

In Baghdad, thousands of people marched in demonstrations in Shia areas demanding an end to the Basra operation, burning effigies of Mr al-Maliki, whom they branded a new dictator, and carrying coffins with his image on it.

From his field headquarters inside Basra city, the Prime Minister vowed to press on with his attack, which he said was not targeting the Mahdi Army in particular but all lawless gangs. "We have come to Basra at the invitation of the civilians to do our national duty and protect them from the gangs who have terrified them and stolen the national wealth," he said. "We promise to face the criminals and gunmen and we will never back off from our promise."

Supporters of Hojetoleslam al-Sadr, the rebellious cleric who formed the sprawling, 60,000-strong militia five years ago, have accused the Prime Minister of trying to wipe out the powerful Sadrists as a political force before provincial elections in October.

Residents of Basra complained that water and electricity had been turned off in the three main areas besieged by the Iraqi Army, which has an entire division deployed for the battle. They also said that they were running low on food an unable to evacuate their wounded. Estimates of the death toll in Basra reached as high as 200, with hundreds more wounded.

“The battle is not easy without coalition support,” lamented one Basra resident, who had worked as a translator for the British forces. “The police in Basra are useless and helping the Mahdi Army. The militia are hiding among the civilians. This country will never be safe, I want to leave for ever. I don’t know how to get out of this hell.”

One man was shot in the leg while trying to fix the rooftop water tank on his house but feared he would be taken for a militiaman if he tried to reach a hospital. Officials said that more than 200 militiamen had surrendered after the Government issued a three-day deadline to give themselves up.

While residents in Basra said that the army appeared to be making little headway against the militia bastions, a British Army spokesman based at nearby Basra airport said progress was being made.

“The Iraqi Army are rebalancing across the city, consolidating their positions, resupplying and preparing for future operations,” said Major Tom Holloway. “They made considerable progress, although not total progress by any stretch of the imagination.”

With fighting flaring across the Shia south, the police chief of Kut — where Mahdi fighters had seized large parts of the town, 110 miles southeast of Baghdad — said his men had killed 40 militiamen while losing four officers.

"The security forces launched an operation at around midnight to take back areas under the control of Shiite gunmen," Abdul Hanin al-Amara said.

While US and British military officials have been at pains to distance themselves from the push against the deadly militias, President Bush praised the high-risk strategy of tackling militias that a politically weak Mr al-Maliki had been forced to court in the past.

"Prime Minister Maliki's bold decision, and it was a bold decision, to go after the illegal groups in Basra shows his leadership and his commitment to enforce the law in an even-handed manner," Mr Bush said. "It also shows the progress the Iraqi security forces have made during the surge."

If the Iraqi forces fail to stamp out the powerful militias, however, and Iraq sinks into a new bout of in-fighting, Mr Bush’s troops and British forces may be forced to weigh in, sparking a new round of blood-letting ahead of US elections and scuttling British plans for an early withdrawal from Iraq.

host · 03-28-2008, 10:26 AM

Where are the surge kool-ade stand attendants today....I am thirs-----tee...for some common sense.

If there are US families who have suffered the loss of life or limb of a loved one sacraficed in Bush's surge, this is what Bush says they suffered or died for:

Quote:

http://www.asharqalawsat.com/details...64540&feature=

....various parties in parliament are responding differently to al-Maliki's military campaign in Basra. The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, with 85 members in parliament, strongly supported the operation. The major component of the UIA is the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, a rival of the Sadrists of Muqtada al-Sadr. <h3>Ironically, ISCI is denouncing the maintaining of a paramilitary by a party; yet it has its own militia, the Badr Corps.</h3>

In contrast, the Sunni fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front is opposed to the attack on the Mahdi Army, with its leader Adnan Dulaimi, saying that it does not work to the benefit of Iraq.

A member of Iyad Allawi's National Iraqi List, which has 22 seats in parliament, said it was necessary to stop the activities of lawless gunmen. But Izzat al-Shahbandar warned that if the campaign went on very long, it could derail the political process in Iraq.

At least we're down to less than half of our country who don't know when it's time to cut our losses.

host · 04-05-2008, 06:52 PM

Hmmm lonely thread....

The new US Embassy is finally ready, after a seven month delay. Why do US forces keep taking fire, at their allegedly most secure point, their HQ, if "the surge is working"?

Quote:

http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3463994
Embassy in Iraq cleared for occupancy
By TIM KAUFFMAN
April 04, 2008
Defects to fire protection systems in the new U.S. embassy compound in Iraq have been corrected, clearing the way for the State Department to declare the building ready for occupancy, a department official said this week. ....

....Shinnick, who became acting bureau chief in January, dispatched a team of department employees to Iraq last month to oversee progress in fixing problems that had been identified by bureau inspectors in a February report. Shinnick credited the architects, engineers, attorneys and contracting officers on the team with dropping everything and going into the war zone, especially as insurgents intensified their attacks on the area toward the end of March.
“These are folks often unheralded, some of them civil servants, and <h3>not always appreciated for their efforts in dangerous conditions. These people were out there and operating in the height of and in the direction of the fire and shelling of the Green Zone,” Shinnick said.</h3> “Despite that, they completed their mission and allowed the use of those buildings, even in advance of their formal accreditation.” .....

...and the opening of the new US Embassy starts off with a nice big "fuck you" to the people of Iraq....are the diplomats even attempting to be diplomatic? Is it a smart idea to designate Blackwater, once again as State Dept. security, with the automatic anomosity the decision brings, and the added cost and hastle of sending a State Dept. "minder" on every trip outside the Embassy compound? Is there an ounce of brains in the entire Bush administration combined, or do a they all just middle fingers the size of.....you finish the sentence!

Quote:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinio...ckwatered.html
Last updated March 16, 2008 4:52 p.m. PT
Blackwater: Dubious claims

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL BOARD

Earlier this month, The Boston Globe reported that former Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root uses offshore shell companies to avoid paying hundreds of millions in Social Security taxes and Medicare. To circumvent tax laws, the firm registers its American contractors in Iraq as employees of one of its two Caribbean shell companies.

And now a House Democrat is seeking a federal investigation into Blackwater Worldwide, a major war contractor. Rep. Henry Waxman says he has concerns that Blackwater's claims of business status, which he wrote in a letter sent out last week, "appear dubious." Indeed. Blackwater lists its security guards as independent contractors in order to be eligible for certain benefits, including federal small-business contracts.

How can a company that earns $1.25 billion in business contracts be eligible for $144 million in small-business contracts as well? Doing so, according to The New York Times, afforded Blackwater more than $31 million in avoided taxes. .....

Quote:

http://www.nytimes.com/inc_com/inc12...=smallbusiness
....Blackwater says Waxman's claims were unwarranted....

Quote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23961119/
Blackwater gets new Iraq contract from U.S.
Deal is renewed for a year while FBI investigates fatal shootings
MSNBC News Services
updated 4:00 p.m. CT, Fri., April. 4, 2008

WASHINGTON - The U.S. State Department has agreed to renew Blackwater USA's license to protect diplomats in Baghdad for one year while the FBI investigates a 2007 incident in which the company's guards are accused of killing 17 Iraqis.

Assistant Secretary of State Gregory Starr told reporters Friday that because the shooting of Baghdad civilians is still under investigation, there is no reason not to renew the contract when it comes due in May. Blackwater has a five-year deal to provide personal protection for diplomats, which is reauthorized each year.

Iraqis were outraged over a Sept. 16 shooting in which 17 civilians were killed in a Baghdad square. Blackwater said its guards were protecting diplomats under attack before they opened fire, but Iraqi investigators concluded the shooting was unprovoked.

A measure issued by the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in 2004 prevents foreign security contractors from being prosecuted in local courts. It is unclear whether they could be prosecuted under U.S. law.

After the incident, the State Department changed several elements of the contract, including tightening up rules of engagement, putting cameras on all convoys and having a diplomatic security officer ride along with the detail.

Starr said Blackwater was operating with the agreement of the Iraqi government and he did not know when the FBI's investigation of the incident would be completed.

Asked whether the Blackwater Baghdad deal could be scrapped if the FBI investigation found wrongdoing, Starr said: "We can terminate contracts at the convenience of the government if we have to."

"I am not going to prejudge what the FBI is going to find in their investigation. I think really, it is complex. I think that the U.S. government needs protective services," he said.

"Essentially I think they do a very good job. The September 16th incident was a tragedy. It has to be investigated carefully," he added.

<h3>"I am concerned (about the Iraqi response)</h3> and yet at the same time there have only been about three incidents, three escalation of force incidents, since Sept. 16," he said.

Ya think?

Watch CNBC interview of John Cusack about his new movie "WAR INC."
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=702430483&play=1

What do we need a movie like that for, John Cusack? You're just a liberal Hollywood actor trying to make trouble for The Bushes and Cheney:

Bush's brother Neil, his daddy, his uncle Bucky, Cheney and Giuliani have all made millions from the war...what's wrong with that?

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=22

Quote:

http://archive.southcoasttoday.com/d...rld-nation.htm
Bush uncle benefits from war spending
By WALTER F. ROCHE JR. , Los Angeles Times

Date of Publication: March 22, 2006

WASHINGTON — As President Bush embarks on a new effort to shore up public support for the war in Iraq, an uncle of the chief executive is collecting $2.7 million in cash and stock from the recent sale of a company that profited from the war.
A report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission shows that William H.T. Bush collected a little less than $1.9 million in cash plus stock valued at more than $800,000 as a result of the sale of Engineered Support Systems Inc. to DRS Technologies of New Jersey.
The $1.7 billion deal closed Jan. 31. Both businesses have extensive military contracts.
The elder Bush was a director of Engineered Support Systems. Recent SEC filings show he was paid cash and DRS stock in exchange for shares and options he obtained as a director......

dc_dux · 04-17-2008, 02:43 PM

An article (6 pages, but worth reading) in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs magazine provides what IMO is the best analysis of "The Price of the Surge" I have read:

Quote:

More than a year on, a growing conventional wisdom holds that the surge has paid off handsomely. U.S. casualties are down significantly from their peak in mid-2007, the level of violence in Iraq is lower than at any point since 2005, and Baghdad seems the safest it has been since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime five years ago. Some backers of the surge even argue that the Iraqi civil war is over and that victory on Washington's terms is in sight -- so long as the United States has the will to see its current efforts through to their conclusion.

Unfortunately, such claims misconstrue the causes of the recent fall in violence and, more important, ignore a fatal flaw in the strategy. The surge has changed the situation not by itself but only in conjunction with several other developments: the grim successes of ethnic cleansing, the tactical quiescence of the Shiite militias, and a series of deals between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes that constitute a new bottom-up approach to pacifying Iraq. The problem is that this strategy to reduce violence is not linked to any sustainable plan for building a viable Iraqi state. If anything, it has made such an outcome less likely, by stoking the revanchist fantasies of Sunni Arab tribes and pitting them against the central government and against one another. In other words, the recent short-term gains have come at the expense of the long-term goal of a stable, unitary Iraq.

Despite the current lull in violence, Washington needs to shift from a unilateral bottom-up surge strategy to a policy that promotes, rather than undermines, Iraq's cohesion. That means establishing an effective multilateral process to spur top-down political reconciliation among the major Iraqi factions. And that, in turn, means stating firmly and clearly that most U.S. forces will be withdrawn from Iraq within two or three years. Otherwise, a strategy adopted for near-term advantage by a frustrated administration will only increase the likelihood of long-term debacle.

(snip)

The Sunni sheiks, meanwhile, are getting rich from the surge. The United States has budgeted $150 million to pay Sunni tribal groups this year, and the sheiks take as much as 20 percent of every payment to a former insurgent -- which means that commanding 200 fighters can be worth well over a hundred thousand dollars a year for a tribal chief. Although Washington hopes that Baghdad will eventually integrate most former insurgents into the Iraqi state security services, there are reasons to worry that the Sunni chiefs will not willingly give up what has become an extremely lucrative arrangement.

The surge may have brought transitory successes -- although if the spate of attacks in February is any indication, the decrease in violence may already be over -- but it has done so by stoking the three forces that have traditionally threatened the stability of Middle Eastern states: tribalism, warlordism, and sectarianism. States that have failed to control these forces have ultimately become ungovernable, and this is the fate for which the surge is preparing Iraq. A strategy intended to reduce casualties in the short term will ineluctably weaken the prospects for Iraq's cohesion over the long run.

U.S. officials in Iraq have taken note of how the current U.S. approach has exacerbated the dangers of tribalism. Last month, a senior U.S. military adviser conceded, "We're not thinking through the impact of abetting further corruption and perpetuating tribal power." In December, a U.S. diplomat warned, "The absence of government in a lot of areas has allowed others to move in, whether militias or others." The net effect has been a splintering of the country rather than the creation of a unified nationalist Sunni front that, having regained its confidence, would be prepared to deal constructively with Baghdad

(snip)

At this stage, the United States has no good option in Iraq. But the drawbacks and dangers of the current bottom-up approach demand a change of course. The only alternative is a return to a top-down strategy. To be more effective this time around, Washington must return to the kind of diplomacy that the Bush administration has largely neglected.

What the United States could not do unilaterally, it must try to do with others, including neighboring countries, European allies, and the United Nations.

In order to attain that kind of cooperation, Washington must make a public commitment to a phased withdrawal. Cooperation from surrounding countries and European partners is unlikely to be forthcoming without a corresponding U.S. readiness to cede a degree of the dubious control it now has over events in Iraq.

Announcing a withdrawal will entail certain risks. Aware that U.S. forces will finally be departing, Iraqi factions might begin to prepare for a new round of fighting. The Sunnis, aware of their vulnerabilities to attack by militant Shiite forces without the United States to protect them, might resuscitate their alliance with al Qaeda. The government in Baghdad might be concerned about its own exposure to attack in the absence of a U.S. shield and proceed to forge tighter links with Tehran or encourage greater activism by the Mahdi Army. It is all the more vital, therefore, that the drawdown take place as part of a comprehensive diplomatic strategy designed to limit these risks.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/200805...the-surge.html

Its hard not to believe that the Bush strategy took a bad situation and made it worse.

Did they even consider the possibility of this outcome or are they so blinded by "victory at any cost" that they dont give a shit?

I'm looking forward to the day when we have a Pres who understands and values "a comprehensive diplomatic strategy" as a component of US foreign policy...and not just in Iraq.

fastom · 04-18-2008, 11:27 PM

Does anybody know how the "4000" are counted? It doesn't include the majority of US soldiers that died because of the war in Iraq. Maybe somebody can post the 4000 names and see if we can't add another few thousand to it.

It's supposed to be many, many times that. Perhaps the public outrage would shut that misguided operation down.

robot_parade · 04-19-2008, 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastom

Does anybody know how the "4000" are counted? It doesn't include the majority of US soldiers that died because of the war in Iraq. Maybe somebody can post the 4000 names and see if we can't add another few thousand to it.

It's supposed to be many, many times that. Perhaps the public outrage would shut that misguided operation down.

Are you saying the 4000 figure is somehow a lie? I rather doubt that, much as I disagree with pretty much everything the Bush administration does. The figure comes from the Pentagon. Sites like this one quote it: http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/, and without strong evidence to the contrary, I would tend to believe them. I wondered if perhaps the 4000 killed only included *combat* fatalities, but that above link breaks out combat fatalities. Less well known are things like the number of American wounded, and the number of Iraqi's killed and wounded. Figured vary widely, but they're all horrific.

If you think the war in Iraq is wrong, 4000 dead American soldiers is outrageous enough, leaving aside all the Iraqi casualties. If you think the war is a just one, then you probably consider the casualties a necessary outcome of it.

Willravel · 04-19-2008, 04:58 PM

Lie? No. Incomplete? Absolutely. It doesn't include suicides, for one.

fastom · 04-22-2008, 05:43 PM

Or soldiers that return and die of depleted uranium poisoning.

Willravel · 04-22-2008, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastom

Or soldiers that return and die of depleted uranium poisoning.

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=77804

...lest we forget.

fastom · 04-22-2008, 08:09 PM

On the suicide thing. Staggering numbers. I'm not sure how many of these soldier were proud to serve their country and "help" Iraq.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/gen...s_18_vets_.htm

aceventura3 · 05-20-2008, 10:14 AM

In February Pelosi said Iraq was a failure, after her surprise visit this week she says the following:

Quote:

She welcomed Iraq's progress in passing a budget as well as oil legislation and a bill paving the way for provincial elections in the fall that are expected to more equitably redistribute power among local officials.

She said the visit was to "pay our respects to our troops and at the same time learn more about what the situation is on the ground here."

Pelosi also was hopeful about the upcoming elections after meeting with Iraq's Sunni parliamentary speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.

"We're assured sure the elections will happen here, they will be transparent, they will be inclusive and they will take Iraq closer to the reconciliation we all want it to have," she said.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/i...osi-iraq_N.htm

What's up here? Is she changing her tone? Is it just political b.s.? Is she really "welcoming" of progress, "assured" and "hopeful" after meeting with Iraqi government officials?

highthief · 05-20-2008, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastom

On the suicide thing. Staggering numbers. I'm not sure how many of these soldier were proud to serve their country and "help" Iraq.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/gen...s_18_vets_.htm

Does anyone know how that compares to the general population? Didn't see that comparision in the article, though I admit I may have missed it.

Pacifier · 05-20-2008, 11:51 AM

It found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.)

One age group stood out. Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n3496471.shtml

05-20-2008, 11:51 AM	#57 (permalink)
Pacifier undead Location: Duisburg, Germany	It found that veterans were more than twice as likely to commit suicide in 2005 than non-vets. (Veterans committed suicide at the rate of between 18.7 to 20.8 per 100,000, compared to other Americans, who did so at the rate of 8.9 per 100,000.) One age group stood out. Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror. They had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/...n3496471.shtml __________________ "It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death — Albert Einstein

02-18-2008, 12:19 AM	#44 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Host, that's exactly what I'm talking about. I won't know the "Surge is working" until I see independent, verifiable numbers.

04-18-2008, 11:27 PM	#49 (permalink)
fastom Psycho Location: way out west	Does anybody know how the "4000" are counted? It doesn't include the majority of US soldiers that died because of the war in Iraq. Maybe somebody can post the 4000 names and see if we can't add another few thousand to it. It's supposed to be many, many times that. Perhaps the public outrage would shut that misguided operation down.

04-19-2008, 04:58 PM	#51 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Lie? No. Incomplete? Absolutely. It doesn't include suicides, for one.

04-22-2008, 05:43 PM	#52 (permalink)
fastom Psycho Location: way out west	Or soldiers that return and die of depleted uranium poisoning.

04-22-2008, 08:09 PM	#54 (permalink)
fastom Psycho Location: way out west	On the suicide thing. Staggering numbers. I'm not sure how many of these soldier were proud to serve their country and "help" Iraq. http://www.opednews.com/articles/gen...s_18_vets_.htm