Middle East democracy taks another step backward

Egypt, a nominal democracy at best, is now clamping down on dissent. You may recall the last Egyptian national election when soldiers were posted outside polling places to quiz potential voters. Those who gave answers indicating support for the opposition were turned away from the polls.
Egypt is also the second-largest recipient of foreign aid, after Israel.

EGYPT: Regime Cracks Down on Independent Press
By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Sep 28 (IPS) - Several prominent independent and opposition journalists received prison sentences this month for libelling senior figures of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), including President Hosni Mubarak and his influential son, Gamal. Some critics say that the move represents an attempt to quash discussion about the so-called "inheritance" of the presidency, which many close observers believe is imminent.

"The regime is very busy now with its plans for transfer of the presidency from father to son," Abdel-Halim Qandil, former editor-in-chief of opposition weekly al-Karama and one of those to receive a prison sentence, told IPS. "The aim of the current campaign against journalists is to scare them away from discussing presidential succession or criticising the presidential heir."

On Sep. 13, four prominent journalists were sentenced to one year each in prison for publishing libellous material about the President, his son -- who is also assistant secretary general of the ruling party -- and the interior minister. Along with Qandil, the defendants included Ibrahim Eissa of independent daily al-Dostour, Wael al-Ibrashi of independent weekly Sout al-Umma, and Adel Hammouda of independent weekly al-Fagr.

In addition to the jail terms, the four newspapermen were also slapped with fines of 20,000 Egyptian pounds (roughly 3,600 dollars) each.

The defendants, who are currently free on bail while awaiting appeal, attribute the harsh penalties to a heavy-handed attempt by the ruling party to stifle criticism of the regime.

"The NDP has decided it can no longer afford newspapers that expose malpractice and corruption," Ibrashi was quoted as saying in the state press on Sep. 20. "It's a signal that anyone who stands up to the NDP will be gotten rid of."

Al-Dostour's Eissa is facing additional charges of "publishing false information" concerning the President's health, with a trial scheduled to begin in early October.

According to state prosecutors, Eissa "acted against the public interest" when he ran a report in late August suggesting that the 79-year-old Mubarak was seriously ill. The prosecution claims that the rumour -- which later proved to be untrue -- caused foreign investors to pull some 350 million dollars of capital out of the Egyptian economy in the days following the erroneous report.

President Mubarak, citing the potential dangers to national security posed by inaccurate news reporting, defended the rulings.

"I am not against criticism," he was quoted as saying in a Sep. 15 interview with independent weekly al-Esboua. "But there's a difference between constructive criticism that seeks to benefit society and destructive criticism that seeks to undermine it."

The opposition press took another hit on Sep. 24, when the editor-in-chief and two journalists from liberal opposition daily al-Wafd were handed even harsher sentences. Found guilty of publishing statements in January that were falsely attributed to Justice Minister Mamdouh Marei, the three defendants were each sentenced to two years in jail.

Local press organisations and civil liberties activists, meanwhile, see the recent developments as a new escalation against Egypt's burgeoning free press.

"The handing down of prison sentences to seven journalists in less than a month -- five of whom are editors-in-chief -- is unprecedented in the history of Egyptian journalism," Yehia Qulash, secretary-general of the Egyptian Journalists' Syndicate, told IPS.

Qandil sees the recent decisions as a sign of the ruling party's reluctance to tolerate an independent press that has grown markedly -- both in terms of diversity and audacity -- in recent years.

"In the last few years, journalists have begun crossing the red lines traditionally associated with Egyptian journalism, including the unspoken rule against criticising the President," he said. "They have done this despite the fact that 18 different articles of the penal code still include provisions for jailing journalists for press offences.

"This is the root of the problem. Egypt must follow the example of most other countries in the world and amend these restrictive laws."

In February of 2004, President Mubarak famously vowed to amend Egypt's press law to eliminate prison terms for so-called "publication offences". Despite the promise, however, the restrictive legislation remains in place, and reporters still run the risk of serving jail time for publishing material critical of the regime's leadership.

Along with the crackdown on journalists, this month has also witnessed new escalations against the Muslim Brotherhood opposition movement and the closure of a local NGO devoted to promotion of civil liberties.

The younger Mubarak was appointed in 2004 to head the NDP's Policies Committee, which has been highly influential in forging recent government policy. Since then, much of the political opposition -- along with numerous independent political observers -- has suggested that the ruling party is preparing for the "inheritance" of the presidency.

"The timing of the campaign against journalists comes right after rumours involving the president's health and conjecture about the regime's future, which are very sensitive subjects," said Qulash. "The rulings also suggest that major arrangements are now being made behind the scenes, which the regime doesn't want the free press to raise questions about." (END/2007)

Iran asks for nuclear inspections in Israel

We all know that Israel has nuclear weapons. They certainly have nuclear power. It is a fact that they refuse to sign the NPT. Why won't Israel submit to IAEA inspections? They have loudly and publicly demanded the same of Iran.

full story

Thanks to Olmert, Iran Demands IAEA Inspect Dimona

(IsraelNN.com) Israeli and Iranian representatives hurled angry accusations at each other Friday during a meeting of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency. The Iranians demanded IAEA inspections of Israel's Dimona nuclear plant because of statements by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made in an interview several months ago, in which he implied that Israel possessed nuclear weapons.

The Iranian demand comes in the wake of criticism of Likud head Binyamin Netanyahu last week by supporters of the Prime Minister, who accused Netanyahu of revealing Israeli defense secrets when he confirmed in an interview with Channel 1 that Israel had struck a Syrian target in an IAF raid over northern Syria several weeks ago. In response to the criticism of Netanyahu, MK Gilad Erdan (Likud) said "It was actually Olmert who, with his endless chatter, exposed the existence of Israel's nuclear arms. He should remain silent and not create a virtual storm over the support he is receiving from the head of the opposition," Erdan said.

Iraq says Nisoor Square killings caught on tape

I'm still waiting for more of the dust to settle on this issue before I comment further.
I will point out, however, that the Iraqi government has gone from permanent license revocation for Blackwater, to a temporary licence suspension, to "never mind". Anyone who believes that Bush's granting of "sovereignty" to Iraq was anything more than a sham should have their illusions dispelled by this incident.

full story from the Globe and Mail

Blackwater guards caught on tape: Iraqi official

ROBERT H. REID

Associated Press

September 22, 2007 at 8:00 PM EDT

BAGHDAD — Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in a shooting last week that left 11 people dead, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case was referred to the Iraqi judiciary.
Iraq's president, meanwhile, demanded that the Americans release an Iranian arrested this week on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias. The demand adds new strains to U.S.-Iraqi relations only days before a meeting between President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Iraqi authorities had completed an investigation into the Sept. 16 shooting in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths.
He told The Associated Press that the conclusion was based on witness statements as well as videotape shot by cameras at the nearby headquarters of the national police command. He said eight people were killed at the scene and three of the 15 wounded died in hospitals.

Blackwater, which provides most of the security for U.S. diplomats and civilian officials in Iraq, has insisted that its guards came under fire from armed insurgents and shot back only to defend themselves.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said Saturday that she knew nothing about the videotape and was contractually prohibited from discussing details of the shooting.
Maj. Gen. Khalaf also said the ministry was looking into six other fatal shootings involving the Moyock, N.C.-based company in which 10 Iraqis were killed and 15 wounded. Among the shootings was one Feb. 7 outside Iraqi state television in Baghdad that killed three building guards.
“These six cases will support the case against Blackwater, because they show that it has a criminal record,” Maj. Gen. Khalaf said.
Maj. Gen. Khalaf said the report was “sent to the judiciary” although he would not specify whether that amounted to filing of criminal charges. Under Iraqi law, an investigating judge reviews criminal complaints and decides whether there is enough evidence for a trial.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh denied that authorities had decided to file charges against the Blackwater guards and said Saturday that decision had been taken whether to seek punishment.
“The necessary measures will be taken that will preserve the honour of the Iraqi people,” he said in New York, where Mr. al-Maliki arrived Friday for the U.N. General Assembly session. “We have ongoing high-level meetings with the U.S. side about this issue.”
Mr. al-Maliki is expected to raise the issue with Bush during a meeting Monday in New York.

...

Shortly after the Sept. 16 shooting, U.S. officials said they “understood” that there was videotape, but refused to give more details. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to release information to the media.
Following the Nisoor Square shooting, the Interior Ministry banned Blackwater from operating in Iraq but rolled back after the U.S. agreed to a joint investigation. The company resumed guarding a reduced number of U.S. convoys on Friday.
The al-Maliki aide said Friday that the Iraqis were pushing for an apology, compensation for victims or their families and for the guards involved in the shooting to be held “accountable.”
Hadi al-Amri, a prominent Shiite lawmaker and al-Maliki ally, also said an admission of wrongdoing, an apology and compensation offered a way out of the dilemma.
“They are always frightened and that's why they shoot at civilians,” Mr. al-Amri said. “If Blackwater gets to stay in Iraq, it will have to give guarantees about its conduct.”
Allegations against Blackwater have clouded relations between Iraq and the Americans at a time when the Bush administration is seeking to contain calls in Congress for sharp reductions in the 160,000-strong U.S. military force.

Iraqi provincial control date moves back again

We now learn that 60% of the Iraqi police we have trained thus far are no longer on the job. Also, Bush promised when he proposed the surge, the Iraqis would have control of all 18 provinces by November. Now he is talking about July '08. Of course, if violence continues, it may be even later. Any wagers on the cessation of violence in Iraq over next 8 months?

In yet another example of Bush's brilliant skills in prediction and his unwarranted optimism, five months after he promised to hold the al-Maliki government to the November benchmark, he moved that date to March '08. Now he is moving that date to July '08, in spite of claims of remarkable 'progress' in the September report.

If things looked good enough in Iraq back in January to expect Iraq to take over security by November, and we've had so much "progress" from the surge since then, why does the date keep moving further away? Before all of the surge troops were even in place, he had already added four months to the handover date. And this was all while Bush was talking up the immense "success".
Bush's real plan and strategy in Iraq has been essentially to cross his fingers and hope for a miracle, while passing on the disaster to his successor. He keeps creating new scapegoats for his failure: Al-Qaeda, Iran, the "traitorous" American public, Syria, and now the corpse of Saddam Hussein.

Bush sold his surge to the American public with 18 benchmarks that he himself created. He succeeded in 3 of them. He promised to hold the Iraqi government to those benchmarks. Then he said that was unrealistic, and that nobody could possibly have seriously expected the benchmarks to be met. He said that the Iraqi military would lead the surge, with U.S. in merely a support role. Then he said it was silly to think that the Iraqi forces would ever have been able to do something like that, since there are now fewer Iraqi troops ready to operate independently than there were before the surge.

Bush keeps on making promises and then basically saying that we were stupid to actually believe that last promise, but his new promises are really, truly sincere. And every failure of his policies is really only further proof that we need to continue them.

full story

More Delays in Shift to Iraqi Control

By ROBERT BURNS – 2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — In another sign of U.S. struggles in Iraq, the target date for putting Iraqi authorities in charge of security in all 18 provinces has slipped yet again, to at least July.

The delay, noted in a Pentagon report to Congress on progress and problems in Iraq, highlights the difficulties in developing Iraqi police forces and the slow pace of economic and political progress in some areas.

It is the second time this year the target date for completing what is known as "Provincial Iraqi Control" has been pushed back. The Pentagon report submitted to Congress on Monday hinted at the possibility of further delays.

....

The intent is to give the provincial governments control over security in their area as a step toward lessening — and eventually ending — the U.S. security role.

Thus far seven of the 18 provinces have reverted to Iraqi control.

The process has gained relatively little attention in the broader debate in Washington about when and how to get the Iraqis ready to provide their own security so that U.S. forces can begin to leave. That may be in part because some details of the provincial transition process are classified secret.

...

An independent commission that examined the issue of provincial Iraqi control this summer concluded in a report to Congress on Sept. 4 that the process is too convoluted and an impediment to the overall U.S. goals of speeding the transition to Iraqi control and supporting sovereignty.

"Our current policy of determining when a province may or may not be controlled by its own government reinforces the popular perception of the (U.S.-led) coalition as an occupation force," according to the commission, headed by retired Marine Gen. James Jones. "This may contribute to increased violence and instability."

The commission recommended that all 18 provinces return to Iraqi control immediately. U.S. forces would continue to operate in the areas they are now, in coordination with Iraqi authorities; Iraqi control would mean U.S. troops could transition to less combat-intense roles.

In an interview Wednesday, Jones said he and the other commissioners got the strong impression from Iraqi officials they met in Baghdad this summer that they want full provincial control without further delay.

"The whole process seems to be acting as more of a brake on progress than a help," Jones said. "If the Iraqi government is willing, I think we should be putting as much on them as possible. To have a sovereign government that doesn't control all of its provinces doesn't make a lot of sense to me."

In an Associated Press interview last week, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, defended the transition process. It involves a series of detailed reviews and assessments by U.S. and Iraqi officials, culminating with input by Petraeus and the most senior Iraqi government leaders.

Though slow, it is helpful in sorting out problems that stand in the way of a smooth transition, he said.

"It forces people to come to grips with those issues," Petraeus said.

In January, Bush announced his new strategy for stabilizing Iraq and his decision to send an additional 21,500 U.S. combat troops to Baghdad and to Anbar province. He, said, at the time, that the Iraqi government "plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November."

In June the Pentagon informed Congress that the target had slipped to "no later than" next March.

In this month's report, the Pentagon said its "current projection" was that all 18 provinces would move to Iraqi control "as early as" July; that would be eight months later than Bush's original projection.

...

The Pentagon report cited a litany of problems with the police. For example, it said as few as 40 percent of those trained by coalition troops in recent years are still on the job. Also, due to combat loss, theft, attrition and poor maintenance, a "significant portion" of U.S.-issued equipment is now unusable.

Or, as Juan Cole summarised it:

Just to underline what is said here, 60 percent of the policemen who got even the very minimal training on offer to them have disappeared from the force; and not much is left of the weaponry ("equipment") that the US gave the Iraqi police.

The report is here (pdf).

Iraq occupation costs $12 billion a week

The cost of the ill-conceived occupation of Iraq is now $12 billion a week. This works out to about half a million bucks every minute.

Bush says that Iraq is "critical" to the U.S.
That's funny, because it wasn't critical before Bush took office. In fact, during Bush Sr's term, Iraq was a nominal ally of the U.S. by engaging in a bloody WWI-style war with our enemy, Iran.

But, oh yes, I forget Al-Qaeda. Yes, the very same Al-Qaeda that Saddam's secular government kept out of Iraq. The Al-Qaeda that wasn't in Iraq before we invaded. The Al-Qaeda that the Pentagon estimates is only responsible for about 10% of the violence in Iraq. The aforementioned Al-Qaeda that the surge merely shuffled from one province to another, and into previously stable areas. The Al-Qaeda that has successfully used the continuing occupation as a great recruiting tool.

So it costs us $12 billion a week to keep a problem (that our occupation exacerbates) merely "off-balance".
And this is "critical" to our future somehow. Because if we do succeed in driving Al-Qaeda from Iraq, they will never, ever return for some reason. And they certainly won't go someplace else and create trouble there. I'm not really really sure why they won't, but surely the Decider has some secret intelligence that proves they won't. Otherwise, he would be an idiot, wouldn't he? I mean, only an idiot would spend $600 billion in order to move a problem from Iraq to Somalia, for instance. Especially when nothing but crossing our fingers keeps them from returning to Iraq again.

Apparently Al-Qaeda has learned that by investing a thousand or so of their numbers in a country, they can induce the U.S. to engage is a costly and protracted invasion and occupation for years. 1000 terrorists produces a $600 billion response. This is quite a different kind of "return on success". We will run out money (and allies) long before Al-Qaeda runs out of terrorists.

Maybe, just maybe, terrorism is not efficiently dealt with by military force, but rather by law enforcement measures. Europe has had striking success against "jihadists" by employing hard detective work rather than expensive electronic surveillance, and certainly without sending the military in to destroy their country.

Of course, saying things like this will only get you accused of "treason" by Republicans.

full story from the L.A. Times

The Bush administration said earlier this year that it probably would need $147.5 billion for 2008, but Pentagon officials now say that and $47 billion more will be required. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and other officials are to formally present the full request at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday.

The funding request means that war costs are projected to grow even as the number of deployed combat troops begins a gradual decline starting in December. Spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is to rise from $173 billion this year to about $195 billion in fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1.

When costs of CIA operations and embassy expenses are added, the war in Iraq currently costs taxpayers about $12 billion a month, said Winslow T. Wheeler, a former Republican congressional budget aide who is a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

"Everybody predicts declines, but they haven't occurred, and 2008 will be higher than 2007," Wheeler said. "It all depends on what happens in Iraq, but thus far it has continued to get bloodier and more expensive. Everyone says we are going to turn the corner here, but the corner has not been turned."

In 2004, the two conflicts together cost $94 billion; in 2005, they cost $108 billion; in 2006, $122 billion.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are financed through a single administration request to Congress, and their costs are combined in the legislation.

The new spending request is likely to push the cumulative cost of the war in Iraq alone through 2008 past the $600-billion mark -- more than the Korean War and nearly as much as the Vietnam War, based on estimates by government budget officials.

Bush says his plans for Iraq were unrealistic

What we have now is the Decider saying that nobody could possibly have expected the restoration of democracy in Iraq or the hand off of security responsibility to Iraqis to succeed. It's just too difficult, there are too many challenges, and it's Saddam's fault, besides.

Then why did has he spent the past four years or so telling us that these things were proceeding smoothly?

full story from VOA

Bush: Saddam's Legacy Slowing Progress in Iraq

President Bush says one of the reasons for the slow pace of political progress in Baghdad is the continuing legacy of former dictator Saddam Hussein.

When President Bush announced he was sending reinforcements to Iraq earlier this year, one of his goals was to have Iraqis in charge of security in all 18 provinces by November.

That is not going to happen. And U.S. military officials say it will not until next July, at the earliest.

Yes, this was one of the promises of the surge: that Iraqis would take control of the security situation so that we could leave. It failed. Bush bought himself nine more months on Iraq by making big promises, and now he is using his failure to deliver on those promises as a bizarre justification to ask for more time. No new plan this time around, just a stall.

Acknowledging the slower than expected progress at a White House news conference Thursday, the president said while the timing has changed, his determination has not.

"The goals are the same," said President Bush. "And have we achieved them as fast? No we haven't. But, however, having not achieved them doesn't mean we ought to quit."

Perhaps it does mean that we could reasonably expect doubts on Bush's ability to predict success, however. Bush has been consistently wrong on virtually every prediction for years. Perhaps we could take this opportunity to re-assess our strategy? Bush's answer is that apparently it's Saddam's fault.

Mr. Bush said one of the reasons there is not what he called "instant democracy" in Iraq is that people there are still recovering from the former regime's violence against political opponents. President Bush said the former Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein prevented the possible emergence of a unifying figure akin to South Africa's Nelson Mandela.

"Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas," said Mr. Bush. "He was a brutal tyrant who divided people up and split families and people are recovering from this. So there is a psychological recovery that is taking place, and it is hard work for them."

Did we not know this before the invasion? It took over four years to figure out that Iraq is not suitable for democracy? This is hardly "instant democracy", either. And if we did know this, then why did Bush continually predict "instant democracy" and prosperity for years?

It is obvious that Bush's plan was to install Ahmed Challabi as a puppet leader who would virtually give away Iraq's oil to the 'liberators'. The Iraqis, however, would have none of it. So we had elections, which the Sunnis boycotted. Yes, despite all the "Mandelas" being wiped out by Saddam, we proceeded with elections. Now wise old Mr. Bush tells us that we shouldn't have expected this to succeed. Then why did we do it, and why was has it been presented as the major glowing achievement of the invasion?

Similarly, the Iraqi military was supposed to take the lead in the surge and restore security. That was the plan as proposed by Bush in his January 10 speech. Now we are told that this is completely unrealistic, that the Iraqi military cannot possibly be trained fast enough to have enough numbers to take over.
Then why was that the plan?
Bush is, in effect, saying that his own plans for democracy and security were ridiculous, and that nobody should ever have expected them to succeed.
He certainly didn't share that bit of wisdom with the nation, did he?

The president is trying to rebuild public support for the war, in part by announcing that progress there now allows him to bring nearly 6,000 U.S. troops home from Iraq by the end of the year.

In other words, troops that were told they would be coming home by the end of the year are now actually being allowed to come home. And this is because of the surge's "success", somehow. And there's so much 'progress' that we can now admit that this plan was fatally flawed from the outset. Sounds like a great way to "rebuild public support".

Iraq is a central issue in the race to succeed President Bush, with most opposition Democrats calling for more troop withdrawals and most Republicans backing the president.

Asked if he is an asset or a liability for his Republican Party, Mr. Bush said he is a strong asset.

"Candidates who go out and say that helping these Iraqis realize the benefits of democracy are going to do well," he said. "Candidates who go out and say that it is very important for the U.S. to have clear principles when it comes to foreign policy, they will do well."

VOA News

Those candidates had better be able to show any "benefits" from that democracy. The government the Iraqis elected is impotent and incompetent. 50,000 Iraqis each month flee the "benefits of democracy", and most of them in favour of an authoritarian police state in Syria. The health care, water delivery, and electrical delivery infrastructures have collapsed. New victims of sectarian violence show up in Baghdad nearly every day. Torture in Iraqi prisons is commonplace. People wait all day in lines for the mere chance of buying gasoline at ridiculous prices. Contractors kill innocent civilians on the street and the government's demands that they be expelled are ignored by the U.S.

As for "clear principles when it comes to foreign policy", all Bush has to offer are constantly shifting goals. The current one is that we are dividing the terrorists into 'good' and 'bad' categories. The 'good terrorists' will be used to wipe out the 'bad terrorists', since the Iraqi military is a no-show. But we're against terrorism, unless the terrorists make a temporary alliance with us to wipe out the competition. And somehow the 'good terrorists' will just fade quietly away after the 'bad terrorists' are defeated. How could this possibly fail?
In 2003 our goals were:

"We will disarm Saddam Hussein and thwart the danger posed by his weapons of mass destruction, bring stability and unity to a free Iraq, "deliver medicine to the sick," and move emergency rations to feed the hungry. "After defeating enemies, we did not leave behind occupying armies, we left constitutions and parliaments. We established an atmosphere of safety, in which responsible, reform-minded local leaders could build lasting institutions of freedom. In societies that once bred fascism and militarism, liberty found a permanent home."

And now we are reduced to merely hoping that we can keep the violence to pre-surge levels while the country whimpers in economic, social, and ethnic chaos.

Iraq cholera epidemic worsens

Not only is Iraq an economic basket case, a humanitarian crisis, a failed state, and the source of 50,000 refugees a month, but now the collapsed health care system is struggling with a cholera epidemic from contaminated water supplies. Despite having nearly a month to deal with the epidemic, nothing has been done except to prevent chlorine supplies from reaching water-treatment facilities.

After more than four years of smiley-faced assessments, Iraq is even further from becoming the shining beacon of hope that the Decider predicted it would become. With reconstruction efforts showing little progress and egregious examples of fraud and mismanagement abounding, $12 billion a week has not even bought safe drinking water for the population.

And despite the dubious 'progress' we hear so much about, the numbers of internally-displaced Iraqis continue to rise, worsening the spread of cholera.

Cholera spreads in Iraq

People displaced by war spreading disease, officials fear

Sep 22, 2007 11:23 AM

The Associated Press and Reuters

BAGHDAD – A case of cholera has been confirmed in southern Iraq, a senior health official said today, raising fears the virulent water-borne disease is spreading through the country.

The vast majority of Iraq's 1,500 cases are in the north but cholera has been confirmed in Baghdad this week and now near Basra in the south.

Health Ministry Inspector-General Adil Muhsin told Reuters the latest case was a 7-month-old girl from Mudeyna, near Basra, who contracted the disease from drinking water.

Cholera, mainly transmitted through contaminated water and food, can cause death within hours from dehydration and kidney failure.

Ill-equipped medical facilities and hospitals will hamper efforts to rein in the outbreak around Kirkuk in the north, which the UN World Health Organisation describes as an epidemic.

About 75 percent of people infected with cholera do not develop any symptoms but the pathogens stay in their faeces for up to two weeks.

Earlier this week, a 25-year-old woman from western Baghdad was found to have cholera after she turned up at the hospital with a severe case of diarrhea, said Dr. Naeema al-Gasseer, the WHO representative in Iraq.

Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease that is typically spread by drinking contaminated water and can cause severe diarrhea that in extreme cases can lead to fatal dehydration. It broke out in mid-August but had been limited to northern Iraq.

Several suspected cases had been reported in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, but al-Gasseer said none of those had been confirmed.

The latest WHO report, dated Sept. 14, reported a total of 24,532 cases of people with symptoms of cholera such as diarrhea and vomiting in the northern provinces of Sulaimaniyah, Tamim and Irbil. It said 10 people have died — nine in Sulaimaniyah and one in Tamim.

Al-Gasseer said health authorities were concerned that the disease could be spread through the movement of people within Iraq's borders, which have seen hundreds of thousands of displaced people fleeing their homes because of the violence.

"We need to look at safe water, safe import of food, hygiene, the network of water and the network of sewage disposal,'' al-Gasseer said in a telephone interview.

She also said some 100,000 tons of chlorine were being held up at Iraq's border with Jordan apparently because of fears the chemical could be used in explosives. She urged authorities to release it for use in decontaminating water supplies.

CIA analyst on terrorist motivation

I thought it was because they hated us for our freedom. It turns out they hate our foreign policy. Who could possibly have predicted that?

story from Xinhua

CIA analyst says West losing in Iraq, Afghanistan

The West is losing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because it does not understand the true motives of terrorists and is thus taking wrong strategies against them, a former analyst of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said Sunday.

The reason for Osama bin Laden and his followers to fight the West is not because of their different values, or because they hate freedom, democracy or gender equality, but rather lies in Western countries' policies in the Middle East, Michael Scheuer, a retired 22-year CIA veteran told Canadian Television during an interview.

American and the West's unqualified support for Israel, support for tyrannical regimes in the Middle East, and dependence on oil in the region are the real factors behind the terrorist acts of Islamic fundamentalist, he pointed out.

Western countries so far have not realized or acknowledged these true reasons for terrorism, and so "we're fighting an enemy that doesn't exist," he said, adding "if you don't fight the enemy in the way that he's motivated, you're going to lose."

He warned the United States should never have entered Iraq and is on the verge of losing the war in that country. He said Western countries like Canada are pursuing wrong strategies in Afghanistan and may also face loss there.

Canada and its allies have too many agendas in Afghanistan and yet have deployed too few soldiers to carry out the tasks. This has already led to a near-defeat there and if Western countries decide to pull out combat troops it would mean the ultimate triumph of terrorism, he said.

Scheuer said that victory against Islamic fundamentalists can only come if Canadian, the United States, and other Western governments change strategies and understand what motivates terrorists.

Scheuer's book "Through Our Enemies' Eyes" was mentioned by Osama bin Laden in a video released last week when the al Qaida leader tried to explain why the West was to lose in fight with him.

Source: Xinhua

Iraq progress: "only" 25 died today

Yes, the 'progress' is in full swing in Baghdad.
25 dead, 42 injured... almost "normal".

This doesn't count the four U.S. troops who also died. Diyala was supposed to be such a success story, but it still kills 3 more.

story from McClatchy

Baghdad

- Around 7 a.m. a road side bomb targeted a police patrol in Zafaraniyah. One civilian was killed and 2 policemen were injured.

- Around 8 a.m. a bomb inside a bus exploded in Zayuna. Two civilians were killed and 5 were injured.

- Around 9 a.m. Two parked car bomb exploded in parking yard not far away from Baghdad morgue. 5 people were killed and 20 were injured.

- Around 1 p.m. a parked car bomb targeted civilians in Ur neighborhood near Al Firdous mosque. 8 civilians were killed and 15 others were injured.

- Police found 9 dead bodies throughout Baghdad. 1 in Rashad, 2 in Zafaraniyah, 1 in Sleikh, 1 in Mahmoudiyah, 1 in Hurriyah, 1 in Jamiaa, 2 in Amil.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

story from Xinhua

Four U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq on Tuesday: military

Four U.S. soldiers were killed and at least three others injured in an explosion and a vehicle accident in Iraq on Tuesday, the U.S. military said.

According to the latest statement of the military, three American soldiers were killed and three more injured in an explosion in Iraq's Diyala province northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday.

The incident occurred when the Task Force Lightning soldiers triggered an explosion near their patrol, the military said in the statement, without giving details on the type of explosion.

Diyala province, which stretches from the eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border, has long been the hotbed of insurgency and sectarian violence since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Meanwhile, another Task Force Lightning soldier also died Tuesday in a vehicle accident in the northern Ninevah province, according to the military.

The latest death brings the number of U.S. soldiers who have been killed in Iraq to at least 3,785 since the outbreak of the Iraqi war in 2003, according to media count based on Pentagon figures.

Source: Xinhua

Republicans have lost the public

Republicans live in some kind of Fox News-fueled fantasy world where it is always 1994. This is how they could look at Bush's 51/49 victory in 2004 and see not only a "landslide", but a "mandate". Most people would look at those numbers and say half of the country opposes you. As Bush slipped to 40% support in the polls, then to 30%, Republicans still went into the 2006 elections believing they would win big. Now, after losing both the House and Senate, a wave of resignations among sitting Congresspeople and Cabinet members, and widespread collective yawning whenever the Decider recites his talking points, Republicans still feel, somehow, that the public supports them. In 2002, a wave of Republicans were elected largely on the basis of being associated with the Bush "team". Any idiot, with the proper evangelical Christian credentials and history of political donations, could read the script and get elected. That was then; this is now.

Those Senators and Representatives who got elected by dropping Bush's name are not in such a good position now. Bush is unpopular, for several reasons. Rather than stand on their own and explain why they are a more qualified candidate than their opponent, they apparently will still cling to the "team" model. In effect, they are asking the electorate to not look very closely at them and vote for the party's plan, of which they are on board. You don't pick up Independents with this kind of campaign, however. The "my opponent is a traitor" message only works with the people who already support you.

As for the war and occupation, all Republicans are offering is more of it, and perhaps a couple new ones. Americans do like to win, but they also like a quick, decisive win. Petraeus is saying ten more years in Iraq, on top of what will be five years when the election rolls around. The WMD, "flypaper", and liberation theses have not gained public acceptance, nor are they likely to. Bush has pushed his talking points weekly, almost daily, and nobody is buying except for the same relatively few people who bought them all along. This is why the false "critics of the war", O'Hanlon and Pollack, were such a media asset; these were people who, allegedly, changed their minds about the occupation and the surge. The truth is, however, that nobody is changing their minds about Iraq. It's virtually fixed in stone, and it's against the Republicans. O'Hanlon and Pollack were supporters of the surge all along, though one of the pair was a "critic" of its relatively small size.

The Petraeus report was going to change all of that. The public was supposed to believe that great progress was being made, and somehow also believe that there was so much progress that we would be staying in Iraq a long time. Data was fixed, statistics doctored, isolated examples were portrayed as if they were the whole story, scary predictions were made, straw men were set up and knocked down, accusations of treason were repeatedly made....but still, no minds were changed. Politically, Bush merely treaded water and held on to the support that he had before the report. All of that effort to get back to where they started, with yet another report due in six months when the same fiasco will be replayed.

Two polls (the article below) show that Bush gained nothing from the September report. And In fact, a poll taken before the report was made, showed that there was deep scepticism of the report's honesty. There was sham "news" of actually letting soldiers whose tours are up return home, and this was presented as a "withdrawal". Ending the surge, which was supposed to be temporary from the outset, was portrayed as a "drawdown". People looked back on what they had expected the surge to accomplish when it was proposed, and what actually had been accomplished. They were not impressed. Americans were again called traitors. Nobody really paid much attention. Stories of scary Islamic bogeymen were employed. America yawned.

There is very little serious consideration by Republicans as to what a post-election situation will mean for their Party. Just like the unwarranted optimism employed throughout the war and occupation, they still think the next report in March will do great things for them. They still believe they have credibility with the public, because all they hear is their own echo chamber of Fox News and talk radio, and that tells them they are on top. And, if Bush actually permits the elections to occur, they will experience a rude awakening when they lose the White House. At this point, it doesn't look as if the Democrats will win a veto-proof majority in the Senate, but who cares if the next President isn't making vetoes?

As for now, the polls are not good for Republicans:


story from CNN

Polls: Bush, Petraeus didn't change public views on Iraq

By Bill Schneider
CNN Senior Political Analyst

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- There were two high-profile media events about Iraq last week: The top U.S. commander testified before Congress and President Bush delivered a prime-time speech. What impact did they have?

Very little, according to two polls taken at the end of the week.

Before the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus and the President's speech, 26 percent of Americans polled by CBS News approved of President Bush's handling of Iraq. After the speech, 25 percent approved.

Before the testimony and the speech, 41 percent of Americans believed the United States did the right thing to take military action in Iraq. After the speech, 39 percent said it was the right thing.

The poll's margin of error was plus-or-minus 4 percent.

President Bush spoke about a "return on success.'' Drawing on General Petraeus' " . . . belief we're succeeding, his belief we will succeed,'' the president asked "the United States Congress to support the troop levels and the strategies I have embraced.''

Democrats were skeptical. "We have now set the bar so low, that modest improvement in what was a completely chaotic situation -- to the point where now we just have the levels of intolerable violence that existed in June of 2006 -- is considered a success, and it's not," said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois.

Does the public believe the U.S. troop build-up is making the situation in Iraq better? Before last week, 35 percent of Americans said yes in the CBS News poll. At the end of the week, 31 percent said yes.

A poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found 54 percent of Americans want the U.S. to bring its troops home as soon as possible -- that's the same as in July.

The Pew poll's margin of error was plus-or-minus 2.5 percent.

President Bush's overall job approval hardly changed. It was 30 percent before the speech and 29 percent after. But the president's rating did jump 15 points among Republicans.

Bottom line? Nothing much changed. The public still wants out of Iraq. But the president's Republican base remains loyal.

Iraqi Army less ready than when the surge started

Fewer Iraqi army and police battalions are ready to operate independently than there were at the start of the year when Bush proposed the surge. The number of Iraqi troops "not ready" has more than tripled since the surge was proposed.

Yet the fundamental crux of the surge was that Iraqi troops would take the lead in kicking in doors and shutting down the sectarian militias. As Bush said the Jan. 10 speech in which he proposed the surge:

Now let me explain the main elements of this effort: The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi Army and National Police brigades across Baghdad's nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi Army and National Police brigades committed to this effort, along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations — conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints, and going door-to-door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents.
........

Our troops will have a well-defined mission: to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs.

And Petraeus' withdrawal plan relies on the Iraqi troops stepping up to the plate, as well. If the plan fails, the result will be another stop-loss. The sole carrot that Petraeus' report offered would vanish. Republicans would be left with nothing but more scary talk, pictures of eagles, and accusations of treason. The best that the Republicans can hope for is a return to the situation that called for the surge in the first place. The White House has a pretty awful record of coming up with best-case scenario results.

Obviously, judging from his Jan. 10 address, Bush thought we could train the Iraqi military quickly enough to take over by the time the September report was due. Now, however, we are rebuked for ever thinking that this could have happened, that this is unrealistic, that it takes time to train the required number of troops.
Why, then, did we base the surge strategy on a fully-trained, fully-manned Iraqi military?

It takes nine weeks to train a U.S. marine. Nine months later, we have fewer Iraqi battalions ready than we had in January. Eh? The answer is that two battalions got killed since then. So this plan hinges on no more Iraqi military casualties? How realistic is that?

Bush said in his September report speech that by December, "our troops will shift from leading operations to partnering with Iraqi forces to eventually overwatching those forces." This is essentially what he said we would be doing in January when he proposed the surge. It failed. It failed, in large part, because the Iraqi military has failed. And now we are going to try using this failed Iraqi military once again to get our troops home.

And so wait we until March, when this whole plan will be trotted out again. Again the plan will be for the Iraqi military to take over for the U.S. troops. Again we will be told that we are "increasing training efforts". Again we will be told that it takes time to build the Iraqi military, and again no one will ask why we thought the Iraqi military would be able to take over if we also thought at the same time that we could not train those troops quickly enough to take over.

full story from the Boston Globe

Petraeus war plan is doubted

Data show Iraqi units unprepared

By Bryan Bender and Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | September 16, 2007

WASHINGTON - Despite his conclusion that Iraqi units can replace US combat troops who will return home by the end of the year, statistics produced by General David Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, indicate that there are now fewer Iraqi units that can operate independently than there were at the beginning of the year.

As a result, some US and Iraqi officials are skeptical that Petraeus's plan, which gives the Iraqis more responsibility as US troops leave, can actually work.

That plan, they say, is overly optimistic and could jeopardize the fragile gains made in recent months by the "surge" of 30,000 additional troops President Bush sent to Iraq earlier this year. The officials point to the persistent lack of readiness of the Iraqi Army and national police, as well as the fear that many members of the Iraqi forces are more loyal to their sectarian factions than to their own central government.

Iraqi forces "are not ready necessarily to hold areas by themselves that have been cleared out" by American combat troops, said Kenneth Katzman, Middle East specialist at the Congressional Research Service, an arm of Congress. "Whatever gains there were from the surge, I believe they will be eroded. Once US forces are thinned out, the insurgents will regroup."

Some in the US military even argued that the upcoming withdrawal of 20,000 troops, which President Bush announced in a nationwide speech Thursday night, should be postponed until the spring, when Iraqi units might be better able to take on more responsibility, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity and were involved in the deliberations.

The number of Iraqi Army and police battalions considered ready to conduct combat operations without help from the United States has declined from 15 at the beginning of the year to 12 this month, according to data that Petraeus provided to Congress last week.

Though the general was on Capitol Hill as part of two days of intense, high-profile hearings on the progress of the war, the readiness of Iraqi troops received scant attention from Petraeus or lawmakers.

At the same time, Pentagon assessments show that the number of Iraqi battalions considered "not ready" increased from 13 in November 2006 to 43 this past summer.

But the Petraeus plan, which Bush adopted last week, depends on a sufficient number of capable Iraqi units replacing at least 20,000 US combat troops that are set to return home beginning this month.

Bush said in his speech that by December, "our troops will shift from leading operations to partnering with Iraqi forces to eventually overwatching those forces."

Yet many American military officials now acknowledge that when Iraqi forces took the lead in 2006 in a series of operations known as Together Forward I and II, the strategy failed, in part because of abuses committed by largely Shia Muslim Iraqi troops against minority Sunnis and their inability to hold area cleared of insurgents.

"In Together Forward we cleared neighborhoods but had no strategy to hold neighborhoods," said retired Army General Jack Keane, who has been a key adviser to the Bush team on Iraq strategy and was an architect of the surge method. "It has been the problem for the last three plus years. We did the same thing in Fallujah and Samarra and we never had a strategy for protecting the population after we ran the bad guys out."

-------------

Fred Kagan, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who was also an early proponent of the surge, said that the Petraeus-Bush plan could backfire.

"I think it is possible to reduce forces without jeopardizing our success, but I think we have to acknowledge that it is increasing our risks against the possibility of unforeseen developments," Kagan said.

But Keane said Petraeus and his commanders have assured him that there is a backup plan: stop bringing troops home if the violence increases.

"These forces will be redrawn based on conditions on the ground," Keane said. "If the enemy starts to act in ways we had not foreseen . . . the forces that were to be drawn down will not be drawn down."

Bush gambles and loses on Iraq

Bush's "the way forward" non-plan is simply to go back to what we doing before the surge, only now we have categorised the sectarian militias into "good" and "bad" terrorists. The "good" terrorists are doing the job that the Iraqi military and Police were supposed to do, which only serves to prove that the Iraqi military and Police are a failure. Remember, the surge plan was to have the Iraqi military take the lead in a massive clampdown on the sectarian militias. It never happened, largely because the military and Police are thoroughly, hopelessly infiltrated by the militias themselves. So the surge plan, as it was proposed, failed miserably in one of the fundamental aspects.

The White House, along with the Iraqi government, put together 18 benchmarks for judgment of the surge's effectiveness. Congress did not put these benchmarks together. In effect, they gave Bush the chance to write his own exam. Why would the White House and the Iraqi government put together a list of benchmarks that they thought they could not meet? The answer is obviously they thought the surge would be a glorious success, the benchmarks would be met, and Iraq would be looking more or less peaceful by the time the September report came around. This is just one more example of the unwarranted optimism Bush employs in every aspect of his Administration. When asked after the surge was proposed why he thought this effort would succeed where the previous efforts had not, Bush replied, "Because now it has to". Oh, okay. So virtually any strategy could be justified under this reasoning, because now it has to work.

Republicans were convinced that the surge would yield great progress by the September report's release, and so kept deferring judgment on the surge until then. They surely were told by the White House that the Iraq strategy would be vindicated by Petraeus, and that they could take victory to the polls in November '08. Instead, it was more of the same. The public remained unconvinced of the 'progress', and the report only gave Republicans some small, dubious cover. But the die was already set. The Republicans had gone too far down the imaginary road of Bush's vision, and there is not enough time nor is there the courage for the GOP to back away from Bush now.

When you write the "exam", and have to quibble over getting 'partial credit' over the "questions" you got wrong, and make up your own definitions as you go, then one would not regard that as a sign of 'progress' on your part. When you fail the exam that you wrote, and ask for six more months before taking the "exam" again, then you are merely stalling.

It has nothing to do with wanting to "win" or "lose". I concede there was a possibility of post-invasion success, but the White House destroyed that possibility quickly in the early months of the occupation, and never really regained its balance since. They failed. Whether we want them to succeed or fail does not matter; they failed, completely and miserably. They continually made glowing predictions of imminent success, but they never came to pass. Bush certainly wanted to "win", but merely wanting to win is not enough. Bush got every dime that he asked for, and more, from the Congress. Bush boldly laid out a course and ignored public opinion, always believing that he would be rewarded with big success for his patience. He gambled and lost, but is still unwilling to accept the consequences of his failed wager. He could have succeeded, but he didn't. He failed, and we are stuck with the bill. And like a failed gambler, he is still hitting us up for more time and more money until he gets his big score. Just one more throw of the dice, and you'll see. He'll win big, because now he has to. And he really, truly expects that this approach will work on the American public, not to mention our allies. His judgment is impaired, and if you want to be the Decider, then good judgment is essential.


story from China Daily:

US report offers no solution: Arabs

DUBAI: The report by the top US general in Iraq offers no new ideas on ending bloodshed and suggests Washington has lost the war whether its troops stay in Iraq or go, according to analysts in the Arab world.

General David Petraeus, facing Democratic lawmakers and many voters demanding a quick end to the US engagement in Iraq, recommended cutting American troops by 30,000 in the next year but not fundamentally changing strategy in the war.

The reduction would return US troop strength to roughly the same level it was before an increase ordered by US President George W. Bush from February to June.

Analysts from across the Arab world were disappointed by the reports from Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, which they said seemed calculated only to shore up Bush's policy and preclude any substantial shift in approach on Iraq.

"Washington wants to bring the situation in Iraq back to square one, to the pre-surge period, which means there is no improvement. Things are not really moving forward," said Khaled al-Dakhil, a political sociology professor in Saudi Arabia.

Gulf Research Center's Sulayman Awad Ibrahim said it was worrying that Washington was relying on tribal leaders to push out Al-Qaida. "How can a few tribes, and these are really militias, in Anbar do what 160,000 US soldiers could not do? There must be something wrong. The US is, after all, the world's only superpower," he said. "When a government loses credibility, not just with the occupied people but with their own people, it is very difficult to regain the confidence that they can fulfil their mission."

With sectarian violence in Iraq raging and Washington apparently unwilling or unable to change course, some analysts said they feared Iraq would crumble into three parts - a Kurdish north, a Shi'ite south run by parties and militias close to Iran and Sunni tribes controlling the center.

Source: China Daily/agencies

Violence continues in Anbar, Baghdad

Another peaceful day in Iraq, what with all the 'progress' there. Sure, a car bomb killed ten people in Baghdad, where the surge is focused and the biggest "return" was expected. And eleven more bodies were found, up from six the day before. However, these were "just" Iraqis, and the neocons don't care about Iraqis unless someone talks about withdrawing troops. These deaths are easily wiped away by re-defining violence, supressing or dismissing the reports out of hand, or as a last resort, pointing to the dead as the reason why we have to stay in Iraq.

In Anbar province, model of the "Awakening", three bodies were found and one civilian was killed in a grenade attack on a police checkpoint.

In other words, just a typical day in progress-filled Iraq. And the morticians are doing brisk business, so look on the bright side.

report from McClatchy

Baghdad

- Around 7 p.m. a car bomb exploded at Amil neighborhood near a bakery shop, which is near the petrol station in the area, killing ten people and injuring 15 others.

- Police found 11 unidentified dead bodies in the following neighborhoods in Baghdad; (6) were found in west Baghdad( Karkh bank); 2 in Amil , 1 in Mahmoudiyah , 1 in Bayaa , 1 in Jihad and 1 in Doura. While (5) dead bodies were found in east Baghdad ( Risafa bank) ; 2 in Karrada , 2 in Sadr city and 1 in Suleikh.

Anbar

-Police found three dead bodies of people from the Jumaili tribe at Karma town (north Falluja), which is controlled by Qaeda organization, eyewitnesses said, accusing Al-Qaeda of the killing as this tribe stood against them.

-Around 9.30 p.m. of Friday, an unknown gunman attacked one of the police check points at Hadhra Muhamadiyah intersection in Falluja with a grenade killing a civilian and injuring 5 policemen.

Cholera outbreak in Iraq dramatically worsens

The military 'progress' in Iraq hasn't improved the standard of living there.
The water supplies are contaminated and only available for a few hours. Cholera is spread by unsanitary water, and is a cruel wasting disease that kills by dehydration which forces one to drink even more of the contaminated water. Most third-world countries (that don't get $2 billion a week poured into them) can at least provide clean water to population centres. Further, the fact that warnings were ignored of this beforehand doesn't make the U.S. look pro-active.
The problem comes down to an unstable electrical grid, which doesn't allow pumps or waste water treatment facilities to be online for very long.

While only 10 deaths have been reported, unchanged since I first commented on the situation, the number of those infected can now be estimated and that number is currently 16,000.

Ironically, it is the "irrelevant" and "outdated" UN that is the only one doing anything concrete about it. I expect that we will see this as a model for the remainder of Bush's Presidency; the UN picks up the pieces that occupation creates. Bush will squeeze whatever allies we have left dry to avoid the consequences of his actions at home.

story from AFP:

Cholera infects 16,000 people in northern Iraq: WHO

1 day ago

GENEVA (AFP) — The cholera outbreak in northern Iraq has infected some 16,000 people since late August, of whom at least 10 have died, the World Health Organisation said on Friday.

Since August 23, at least 6,000 people have been reported with diarrhoeal diseases in Sulaymaniyah province, almost 7,000 in Kirkuk province and at least 3,000 in Erbil province, WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told journalists.

The outbreak has so far remained confined to the three northeastern provinces, which have a population of three million people.

A UN team is working on the ground to help Iraqi authorities fight the epidemic and inspect water sources in the affected areas since the end of August.

The source of the epidemic remains unclear but the WHO remains confident it can be brought under control, Chaib said.

Naeema Al-Gasseer, the WHO's representative in Iraq, warned however that delays in ensuring access to safe water, safe food and enhanced hygiene practices could all lead to the further spread of cholera.

Northern Iraq suffered an earlier cholera outbreak in 1999, while the disease struck the southern province of Basra shortly before the US-lead invasion of 2003.

Military meets most recruiting goals in August

While the Army National Guard and Air National Guard failed to meet their recruiting goals in August, the regular services managed to pull it off after failures earlier in the year.
Of course, it took a $20,000 bonus to do this. One wonders if these recruits are motivated by Bush's rhetoric or by the desire to get their families out debt or pay medical bills.

Either way, the recruiter's task is getting tougher. The numbers for both mothers and fathers encouraging their children to go into the military is sharply declining, and young people themselves decreasingly see a future in the military.

Even with the new bribe programme, the Army surpassed its goals by only 528 recruits. The Marines got only 372 more than the goal. The Navy and Air Force just squeaked by with their target numbers.

We simply are not seeing large numbers lining up for the Decider's vision. With some elements of the Reserves missing their goals, it would seem that those already in are opting out of further devotion to Bush's endless war strategy.

full story from Washington Post

The Army had been regularly meeting its monthly recruiting goals until the service missed its active-duty targets in May and June, prompting new initiatives aimed at boosting Army enlistments amid one of the most difficult recruiting environments in the history of the all-volunteer Army. Because the Army has stringent qualification standards and must compete in the open market for soldiers, the effort encounters difficulties during good economic times and during protracted wars, when potential recruits realize they could be deployed to a fight.
Particularly troubling to the Army is the declining perceptions of the "influencers" -- such as parents, coaches and teachers -- who are increasingly discouraging young people from joining the military as a career. Bostick said the willingness of mothers to send their children to the Army has dropped from 40 percent in March 2004 to 25 percent now, according to Army data, while the willingness of fathers has dropped from 50 percent to 33 percent over the same period.
The Army continues to try to reach influencers while also making aggressive efforts to reach out to young people directly. Bostick said he considers the Army not just an all-volunteer Army but nearly an all-recruited Army.
"Not many folks are just walking into the recruiting station saying this is what they want to do," Bostick said. Later, he added: "This is not just a challenge for the Army; it's a challenge for the nation."
Also worrisome for the Army is the dropping desire of young adults to serve in the military. Bostick said that 20 years ago, approximately 25 percent of people ages 17 to 24 showed a desire to serve in the military, a figure that has dropped to 15.7 percent today.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Army's Recruiting Goal Lags For Second Month in a Row

By Josh White

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, July 10, 2007; Page A07

The U.S. Army fell short of its active-duty recruiting goal for June by about 15 percent, defense officials said yesterday. It is the second consecutive month the service's enlistment effort has faltered amid the American public's growing discontent over the war in Iraq.

Army officials confirmed yesterday that the service missed its June target -- the first time its recruiters have missed their monthly mark twice in a row since they were hit hard in 2005 -- but declined to discuss specific numbers before a scheduled release today. Three defense officials said the Army fell short by about 1,400 soldiers, well shy of its goal of 8,400 for June.

Because recruiters consistently exceeded their targets throughout the first half of fiscal 2007, the Army still remains above its year-to-date goal by about 700 recruits.

July, August and September are traditionally the best months for military recruiters, and this year the Army hopes to take in more than a third of its expected 80,000 new recruits in that period. According to Army recruiting statistics, the service aims for 28,850 new soldiers between now and the end of the fiscal year in September -- an average of more than 9,600 each month.

"To date, we're still ahead for the year," said Col. Dan Baggio, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. "Obviously, we're concerned, but we're not panicking. We are ahead for the year, and we're just going to have to work hard to make our numbers."

The Army has met its recruiting numbers in the past two years by mobilizing a larger force of recruiters, offering higher incentives to join and broadening its potential pool by offering waivers -- for physical conditions and violating the law -- to people who normally would not qualify.

Mirroring concerns in 2005, when the Army fell thousands short of its monthly goals during much of the year, defense officials said that a good economy and lack of encouragement for military service from parents, coaches and other "influencers" have caused the recruiting slump. The Iraq war's sharp decline in popularity has also made recruiting far more difficult, as many recruits almost certainly will deploy to the battlefield.

"If you don't think that's affecting the influencers, then you have your head under a rock," said one Pentagon official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the June numbers have not yet been released.

Pentagon officials acknowledge that the coming months will be challenging because the potential recruit market is difficult and they did not anticipate the Army's total slipping as much as it did in June.

Service officials, however, are encouraged by steady retention rates in the active-duty Army and the Army Reserve and point to successes earlier in the year as evidence that the numbers can recover this summer. The Army recruited 9,309 new soldiers in January, nearly 1,000 more than its goal.

Edwin Dorn, a former undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness who is now with the University of Texas, said the Army has always had more trouble recruiting than other services, and he noted that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan make it far harder.

"To me, the big surprise is that Army recruiting has remained as healthy as it has been, given the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war," Dorn said. "The mystery is not why they are falling short; to me, it's how they have succeeded as well."

Staff writer Ann Scot

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the 7 p.m. ET hour of the July 30 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:

WOLF BLITZER (host): The U.S. Army is stretched thin and facing new recruiting problems, but it may have come up with a solution. Let's go to our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr -- Barbara.

STARR: Wolf, the Army's been having trouble signing up new recruits. So, it's got a new idea: a $20,000 bonus if you sign up and you agree to ship out for training within 30 days. It applies not to just new recruits, but soldiers who may have gotten out of the Army and want to come back in.

The Army's been trying this out at some recruiting stations in Ohio. It's worked so well that within the next few days, they're going to announce that the program has gone nationwide. And being the military, they have a name for it all. That $20,000 bonus, it's called the "quick shipper" bonus. Thirty days to training, and then most likely on to Iraq or Afghanistan -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Barbara Starr, reporting for us from the Pentagon. Thank you, Barbara.

Iraq 'progress' kills 18 more

The 'progress' never stops in Iraq. I know, Petraeus said all of this was going away, but the bodies still pile up. But if we leave Iraq, the bodies will pile up. At least we can finally call it a civil war.
It's kind of hard to relegate beheaded corpses to "ordinary crime", but we can be sure that each and every one of these deaths will be statistically played with by "patriots" who deeply care about the Iraqi people.

Of course, these are just the reported deaths, and of those, the ones that the military couldn't cover up beforehand.

Baghdad

- Police found six dead bodies throughout Baghdad. 3 (beheaded) in Abo Desheer, 1 in Amil, 1 in Bayaa , 1 in New Baghdad.

Salaheddin

- A suicide car bomb targeted Mashallah restaurant as policemen car parked in front of it in Beiji city today. 10 people were killed (including 4 policemen) and 15 were injured.

Kirkuk

- Gunmen killed a mother, Hadla Ali Hassan, and injured her daughter on the main road west of Kirkuk near Al Zihaidiay village yesterday.

- Gunmen killed Colonel Hussein Alwan, officer of the protection force in Salaheddin province health dept, in Al Wasity neighborhood in Kirkuk today.

Cheer for progress if you want the troops home

Let's look at what Bush is expecting the American people to believe.
After four years of "turning the corner" and "the next six months will be crucial" statements, the surge was announced as the way to crush the sectarian militias and expel Al-Qaeda from Iraq, as well as stabilise the Iraqi government so that it would become "a strong ally in the War On Terror".

None of that happened. Instead, we divided the sectarian militias into 'good' and "bad' terrorists, moved Al-Qaeda to areas where they hadn't had a presence before, and watched the Iraqi government slide into impotence and irrelevance while they supported their own terrorist militias and let the Iraqi army and police flounder.

Now with this dubious 'success' under its belt, the surge can end. We can apparently build on this 'progress' and return to the policies that made the surge necessary in the first place. We're no longer looking for "victory", but merely "success", and success is a word that has a very malleable definition. Success is now something that can be spun out of whole cloth with suspect statistics. Questioning those statistics is treason.

On top of that, Gates now says that if 'progress' allows, we could see 30,000 more troops come home.
The subtext is simple: if you want to see the troops come home, then you had better start talking up the "success" in Iraq.
In yet another slimy, manipulative, and cynical move doomed to failure, Bush is now trying to enlist Democrats (and the nation as a whole) in a massive cheerleading effort. Like some perverse Peter Pan, if only we clap for "progress" loud enough, the troops will come home. We will still be engaged in a seemingly endless occupation of a failed state with 100,000 troops, but we will gain the return of 30,000 troops. And Bush will leave office vindicated, of course, regardless of what the conditions really are in Iraq. That will be his successor's problem.

The most obvious problem with this approach is that Bush has no credibility whatsoever with the American people beyond his base. His base will believe anything he says, no matter how fantastic it is. The public at large simply does not believe Bush would keep to his word.

The second problem is that this is not what those who marginally support the war really want. They want 'victory', and they want it soon. They don't want us there for another ten years or more, which is what Petraeus is estimating it will take to bring stability to Iraq.

The third problem with this domestic strategy is that the Republicans have tied themselves irrevocably to Iraq, and the Democrats are not going to let them slip out from under it with a wink and a nod about false 'progress'.

The fourth problem is that, far from pulling away from military involvement in the Middle east, Bush is now planning new attacks against Iran and Syria. The troops that are "withdrawn" from Iraq will merely go to Bush's new wars, and he will wring his hands that he was forced not be able to keep up his end of the bargain. If only the world would align itself with Bush's fantasies, we would have peace. Instead, we must move forward with new wars, with fewer allies, to make the Decider look like a visionary. Your patriotism is appreciated as we move through these difficult times.

The fifth problem is that Bush's Iraqi strategy of dividing terrorists into "good' and "bad" categories was a short-term one to create the illusion of progress for the September report. The 'good' terrorists are only with us as long as it serves their interests, which is to use our troops to wipe out the rival 'gangs'. Strengthening the militias only makes the Iraqi army's task more difficult in the long-term. Either the Iraqi military will have to contest the 'good' terrorists for control, or the Iraqi military will become infiltrated by the 'good' terrorists and merely serve their interests. Neither case will bring stability, no matter how much Americans cheer at home.

The bottom line is that Iraq's Shia majority will naturally align itself with Iran, and unless we topple the Iranian regime with another invasion and long occupation, Iraq will never be a strong ally in the War On Terror. Iraq, the American people, nor the world at large has the stomach for Bush's vision. And while the U.S. is tied up in the Middle East and Afghanistan, it will be unable to respond to new challenges that arise. Bush is promising nothing more than endless war that will bankrupt us and destroy our military, and subvert our democracy here at home.

The "way forward" is paved with lies and new wars, and obscene profits for military contractors. I'm not cheering for that.

Defying calls for a dramatic change of course, president says he's building long-term ties
Sep 14, 2007 04:30 AM
Tim Harper
WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON–George W. Bush told Americans last night he is building an "enduring relationship'' with Iraq, one that may mean fewer U.S. troops in that country, but one that will extend well beyond his presidency.

The message from the U.S. president that the American troop presence, as he envisions it, will last for years to come was a major change in tone and led to suggestions here last night that he was looking at the Korean model, where Americans have been for half a century.

The last time Bush went on national television last winter, to announce his so-called "troop surge'' he said he had made it clear to Iraqi leaders that "America's commitment is not open-ended.''

But that is precisely what Bush seemed to say last night.

In a prime time address to the country – Bush's eighth direct television appeal on Iraq – the president said he would order a withdrawal of American troops beginning with 2,200 Marines already scheduled to leave Iraq this month.

The numbers would rise to 5,500 by Christmas and more than 20,000 could be home by next summer, but that would still leave more than 130,000 Americans in the country during the stretch run of the 2008 presidential campaign.

That has not only galvanized Democratic opposition to what they are now calling an "open-ended'' Bush war, but it is also causing much nervousness among Republicans facing re-election with an unpopular war still taking American lives at the rate of about 60 per month.

Never before has Bush faced such a skeptical public and the troop reduction he trumpeted last night would bring the country back only to the troop level of last November, when voters handed control of Congress to Democrats because of unhappiness with a war that showed no sign of progress.

Critics pointed out that Bush, acting on the recommendations of his top military commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, was merely returning troops from a military "surge'' he ordered last January in a last-ditch effort to secure Iraq.

Bush said Iraqi leaders support a drawdown of troops but have made it clear they want an American presence in Iraq well beyond the end of his term in January 2009.

"These Iraqi leaders have asked for an enduring relationship with America,'' Bush said. "And we are ready to begin building that relationship – in a way that protects our interests in the region and requires many fewer American troops.''

Rhode Island's Jack Reed delivered the Democratic rebuttal, saying Bush had provided for the "indefinite'' mission of 130,000 Americans, but did not provide "either a plan to successfully end the war or a convincing rationale to continue it.

"Thousands of brave Americans remain in the crosshairs of another country's civil war,'' Reed said.

He called on Republicans to work with Democrats to bring troops home. "An endless and unlimited military presence in Iraq is not an option," he added.

The war, in its fifth year, has so far killed 3,777 Americans, wounded more than 27,000 and killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.

Although Bush, like Petraeus, touted success in Iraq's Anbar province, one of the Sunni leaders who had worked closely with U.S. forces there, Abdul-Sattar Abu Reesha, was killed yesterday, 10 days after he met Bush during the president's visit to Anbar.

Before the speech, a senior administration official told reporters Bush wanted to get Iraq to "a good place'' for the next president.

But the official said a long-term relationship does not mean strictly military boots on the ground. "We have interests in this region that go beyond Iraq proper. It doesn't mean 169,000 troops.''

Bush said he believed the way forward he was describing made it possible "for the first time in years'' for people on the opposite side of the war to come together.

There was little sign of that and his speech only hardened Democratic views and provided fodder for those seeking that party's presidential nomination.

"The American people long ago lost faith in the president's leadership of the war in Iraq because his rhetoric has never matched the reality on the ground,'' House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

"The choice is between a Democratic plan for responsible redeployment and the president's plan for a 10-year war in Iraq."

Democratic presidential hopefuls pounced on the Bush speech as too little, too late.

"What the president told the American people (last night) is that one year from now, there will be the same number of troops in Iraq as there were one year ago,'' said New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. "That is ... unacceptable to this Congress and the American people who have made clear their strong desire to bring our brave troops home."

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said Bush continues to hurt America's standing in the world by refusing to change course in Iraq.

"Iraq's leaders are not making the political progress that was the stated purpose of the surge, but the president wants us to keep giving him a blank check,'' Obama said.

Barbara Lee, an anti-war Democrat from California, said the speech was an exit strategy for Bush at the expense of American troops.

"It's the president's plan to run out the clock on his failed policy, to move the goal posts once again, so that he can sneak out the back door and leave the American people holding the bag,'' she said.

The battle over the future of the war will begin anew here next week, when Democrats in the Senate are expected to again try to muster enough votes to pass a bill that would lengthen the time between troop deployments.