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."

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.

'Progress' kills 21 in Baghdad, Anbar today

I guess since Bush warned us that there would be "difficulties" ahead, Republicans can probably feel justified in brushing away today's Iraqi casualties. Yet, they are ostensibly so deeply concerned about any deaths that would occur should the U.S. withdraw its occupation forces.

Or better still, perhaps there is some secret way that these deaths can be statistically transformed into "non-deaths".

So, 11 more bodies turn up in Baghdad. Who knows if these are sectarian killings, anyway? Let's assume they dropped dead celebrating all of the 'progress'. Five more dead in bombings means we get to shake our fists and curse Al-Qaeda, though nothing in particular indicates they were involved. See, we get to assume whatever suits the Decider's case. That's what makes it patriotic.

And that "Awakening" Bush has been bragging about for almost a year now? It seems that the leader of it, and a few others as well, were killed in a roadside bomb in that peaceful Anbar province. Who could possibly have anticipated something like this? Only those who read the news reports from Iraq, apparently.

Baghdad

4 civilians were killed and 10 injured in a parked can bomb in Talbiyah neighborhood east Baghdad around 11 am.

A civilian was killed and 3 were wounded in a road side bomb in Zayuna neighborhood east Baghdad around 10,30 am.

Police found 11 unidentified bodies in Baghdad today in the following neighborhoods. & bodies were found in Karkh, the western side of Baghdad in the following neighborhoods (2 bodies in Amil, 2 bodies in Doura, 1 body in Bayaa, 1 body in Hurriyah and 1 body in Mahmoudiyah). 4 bodies were found in Rusafa, the eastern side of Baghdad in the following neighborhoods (2 bodies in Sadr city and 2 bodies in Qahira.)

Ramadi

Sheikh Sattar Abo Risha, the head of Anbar awakening council was killed in an IED explosion targeted his armed car near his house in Ramadi city today afternoon. Abo Risha's nephew, his aid and two of his guards were killed in the explosion.

Bush continues to lie about surge's success

So it seems that violence against Iraqi civilians isn't down, that Iraqis continue both to flee the country and also to become internally displaced, that the military is providing questionable figures to "prove success", and that the Iraqi military, aside from its low numbers, continues to have loyalties to sectarian militias.

The surge was supposed to be about quelling the sectarian militias and promoting political stability, not about chasing Al-Qaeda from one city to another and dubbing certain terrorists "good" and others "bad".

The surge has merely produced marginal security improvements in isolated areas that is not even likely to continue after the surge ends. At $12 billion a week, this is not a great value. Add to that, however, that the infrastructure and economy is not improving either and both are continuing disasters. And also consider that the political situation is close to a "failed state" scenario. Anyone besides a Bush cheerleader or in the pay of the Decider can see that the surge is a failure.

story from Mc Clatchy

Report: Surge hasn't cut attacks on Iraqi civilians

By Renee Schoof and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The surge of additional U.S. troops in Iraq has failed to curtail violence against Iraqi civilians, an independent government agency reported Tuesday.
Citing data from the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies, the Government Accountability Office found that daily attacks against civilians in Iraq have remained "about the same" since February, when the United States began sending nearly 30,000 additional troops to improve security in Iraq.
The GAO also found that the number of Iraqis fleeing violence in their neighborhoods is increasing, with as many as 100,000 Iraqis a month leaving their homes in search of safety.
The GAO's conclusions contradict repeated assertions by the White House and the Pentagon in advance of the coming congressional debate on whether to stay the course in Iraq or to begin some withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Neither a July report from the White House nor a report last month from 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, however, provided any statistics to support their claims that the surge has improved security. The GAO report, in contrast, includes charts showing the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians, Iraqi security forces and U.S. troops. Only attacks against U.S. troops have declined in recent weeks.
In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, U.S. comptroller general David S. Walker, who heads the GAO, said he couldn't vouch for charts that Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, had shown him during a recent congressional visit to Iraq. Coleman said those charts showed a decrease in violence.
"Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree. So I don't know what Gen. Petraeus is giving you," Walker said.
When President Bush announced in January that he'd dispatch more troops, he said the goal was to cut sectarian violence so the government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki could work out political compromises on key issues among Iraq's rival religious and ethnic groups.
Supporters and opponents of the surge now agree on at least one thing: Maliki has been unable to bring about those agreements. So does the GAO. Its report found that of the 18 benchmarks Iraq's government set for itself, three have been met, four have been partially met and 11 haven't been met.
"Overall, key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," the report said.
The GAO said it couldn't determine whether sectarian violence in Iraq is down "because measuring such violence requires understanding the perpetrator's intent, which may not be known."
But the report said it was possible to assess the overall daily number of attacks against civilians. A chart showed that those attacks have remained relatively constant throughout 2007, despite the additional U.S. troops. The GAO referred a request for precise numbers to the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Army Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, acknowledged the controversy over the numbers in comments to reporters in Baghdad on Tuesday. But he said that violent incidents in Iraq are at their lowest point in 15 months this week.
"There's been some controversies about civilian casualties," Odierno said. "Ours still see it as below what it was. We think we're making progress."
The GAO said that the Pentagon disagreed with its conclusion that there was no discernable trend in sectarian violence and provided the agency with additional data. But the GAO said it wasn't persuaded and didn't change its conclusion.
The GAO said it did change its assessment of two benchmarks from "not met" in a draft report to "partially met" after it received additional information. Those were whether the Iraqi government had provided three trained and ready brigades to join in Baghdad security operations and whether it had ensured that there were no safe havens for outlaws, regardless of sectarian affiliation.
Walker said that Iraqi forces have made progress in providing some security in Baghdad, but that it's unclear whether they can sustain those gains alone.
"I think there's a serious question whether they on their own will be able to hold these neighborhoods for an extended period of time . . . absent direct U.S. troop involvement," Walker said. "That's probably the $64,000 question."
The report found that many Iraqi military units include fighters with strong sectarian and tribal loyalties, and therefore are unwilling to confront extremist militias.
Walker said it was important to determine not just whether Iraqi forces were ready to fight, but also whether they were "committed to a unified Iraq and committed to fight on that basis."
That kind of loyalty will be hard to achieve until Iraqi politicians reach political reconciliation, Walker said. Currently, he said, the Maliki government is "dysfunctional".
The GAO report also provided evidence to support some analysts' belief that U.S. combat deaths have declined in the past few months because some Iraqi groups have chosen not to face American troops on the battlefield.
U.S. officials had predicted that combat deaths would rise when the surge was at full strength and the U.S. began a series of military offensives. Instead, U.S. combat deaths declined from a high of 120 in May to 55 in August, according to the icasualties.com Web site.
Citing a June 2007 Pentagon document, the GAO report said that many fighters from the Mahdi Army militia of Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr left Baghdad as the number of U.S. and Iraqi troops there increased. However, it said, "they now engage in ethnic and sectarian violence in northern and central Iraq" and are battling another Shiite militia, the Badr Organization, for control of southern Iraq.
(Leila Fadel in Baghdad contributed.)

McClatchy Newspapers 2007

GAO: Benchmarks not met

This is the report that the necons have staked everything on, and it isn't looking good.
Let's face it: Republicans expected big things from the surge, and all we've seen is progress on the margins. This is not what $12 billion a week was supposed to buy. This is exactly why Bush and the Republicans didn't object to "all or nothing" standards until now; they thought this would bring "victory" in Iraq.

'Little progress' seen on Iraq goals

The Iraqi government has failed to meet the vast majority of political and military goals laid out by lawmakers to assess President Bush's Iraq War strategy, congressional auditors have determined.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, was due to report that at least 13 of the 18 benchmarks to measure the surge of US troops to Iraq are unfulfilled ahead of a September 15 deadline. That's when Bush is to give a detailed accounting of the situation eight months after he announced the policy, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been made public, also said the administration is preparing a case to play down the findings, arguing that Congress ordered the GAO to use unfair, "all or nothing" standards when compiling the document.

The GAO was to give a classified briefing about its findings to lawmakers on Thursday (local time). It is not yet clear when its unclassified report will be released but it is due today amid a series of assessments called for in January legislation that authorized Bush's plan to send 30,000 more troops to Iraq, where there is now a total of more than 160,000 troops.

Among those Bush will hear from are the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; the commander of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus; and the US Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker. The Pentagon said on Wednesday Bush was likely to get a variety of views from different military officials. Bush will then deliver his own report to Congress by September 15.

The GAO report comes at a pivotal time in the Iraq debate. So far, Republicans have mostly stood by Bush on the war and staved off Democratic demands of troop withdrawals. But in exchange for their support, many GOP members said they wanted to see substantial progress in Iraq by September or else they would call for a new strategy, including possibly a withdrawal of troops.

Democrats are expected this fall to push for another round of votes on their legislation ordering most troops out by spring. A likely target for the debate will be a $147 billion bill the military needs to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The money covers the 2007 budget year, which begins October 1.

The GAO, the congressional watchdog, is expected to find that the Iraqis have met only modest security goals for Baghdad and none of the major political aims such as passage of an oil law.

The White House declined to comment on the specific findings of the GAO report, which one official said would put the Iraqi government's success rate at about 20 percent.

"While we've seen progress in some areas, it would not surprise me that the GAO would make this assessment given the difficult congressionally mandated measurement they had to follow," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the National Security Council.

An internal White House memorandum, prepared to respond to the GAO findings, says the report will claim the Iraqis have failed on at least 13 benchmarks. It also says the criteria lawmakers set for the report allow no room to report progress, only absolute success or failure.

Source: China Daily/Agencie

Iraqi civilian casualties are up

Iraqi civilian deaths are up. The Bush Administration likes to compare the summer months against the winter months to show a false progress. In the summer, civilan deaths generally go down because it's too hot to go out and slaughter people, so if you compare the summer deaths to the winter deaths you then see a decline.

Any way you slice it, 1800 dead in one month is not stability. It does not inspire confidence in the security situation. And the recent high-profile assasinations are big step backward from last year. Capturing a dozen or so "insurgents" means nothing in the big picture. They will be replaced by others desperate for money or revenge.

I find it ironic that the truce proclaimed by Al-Sadr, the guy that the Bush Administration has portrayed as the most evil villain imaginable, is the current bright spot in the sham parade of good news. Of course, Bush is determined to destroy this bright spot by taking this as an opportunity to arrest those associated with Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, so this will fade into one of those false turning points pretty soon.

More than 1,800 killed in ongoing attacks

Sep 01, 2007 12:07 PM

Associated Press

BAGHDAD – A huge suicide attack in northern Iraq caused civilian deaths to rise slightly in August despite security gains elsewhere, making it the second deadliest month for Iraqis since the U.S. troop buildup began, figures compiled by The Associated Press showed Saturday.

At least 1,809 civilians were killed, compared to 1,760 in July, based on figures compiled from official Iraqi reports.

The August total included 520 people killed in quadruple suicide bombings near the Syrian border on Aug. 14, the deadliest day since the war began in March 2003. The attacks targeted Yazidis, a small Kurdish-speaking sect whose members are considered to be blasphemers by Muslim extremists.

U.S. deaths last month remained well below figures from last winter, when the U.S began dispatching 30,000 additional troops to Iraq.

American officials have maintained that violence is declining in Iraq in the run-up to a series of reports to Congress this month that will decide the course of the U.S. military presence here.

The top U.S. commander, Gen. David Petraeus, told The Australian newspaper in an interview published Friday that the troop increase has sharply reduced sectarian killings in Baghdad, in particular. Petraeus is expected to make the same point when he reports to Congress in about two weeks.

The U.S. said Saturday that it welcomed an order by the most powerful Shiite militia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, for his Mahdi Army to halt attacks for up to six months so he could reorganize and purge the force of unruly factions that the U.S. maintains are armed and trained by Iran.

"If implemented, Sadr's order holds the prospect of allowing coalition and Iraqi security forces to intensify their focus on al-Qaida-Iraq and on protecting the Iraqi population," the U.S. military said.

Its statement said an end to Mahdi Army violence "would also be an important step in helping Iraqi authorities focus greater attention on achieving the political and economic solutions necessary for progress and less on dealing with criminal activity, sectarian violence, kidnappings, assassinations, and attacks on Iraqi and coalition forces.''

Meanwhile, U.S. and Iraqi forces carried out raids in Shiite areas, at least some targeting breakaway Mahdi Army factions.

Before daybreak, Iraqi and American forces raided Sadr City, the Baghdad stronghold of the Mahdi Army. The U.S. military said American troops and Iraqi police were involved in the raid and searched two houses, detaining three suspects. On the way back to base the group was attacked with a roadside bomb but suffered no injuries, Spc. Emily Greene said in an e-mailed statement.

Leaflets scattered around Sadr City urged people to report on Shiite militants who are cooperating with the Iranians, providing a cell phone number and a yahoo.com e-mail address.

"The criminal Iraqis who work with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are toys under Persian control," read one of the leaflets, which pictured a puppet dancing on strings. "Iranian Revolutionary Guards are interfering in Iraq's affairs while Iraqis are dying.''

Iran denies the U.S. claim that it has been arming Shiite extremists, including breakaway Mahdi Army factions which the U.S. refers to as the "special groups.''

In two other Baghdad operations that targeted special groups, eight other suspects were captured, the U.S. military said.

The targets of the operations were leaders believed responsible for helping bring Iranian weapons and other munitions into Iraq, said military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver. Troops confiscated three AK-47s, a large sum of Iraqi currency, suspicious documents and photographs during searches of several buildings.

Armed Shiite groups are locked in a struggle for power in Shiite areas of the capital and in the Shiite heartland of the south, which includes major religious shrines and vast oil wealth. Control of the shrines offers not only prestige but access to huge sums of money donated by Shiites from around the world.

As part of that power struggle, gunmen on a motorcycle assassinated Muslim al-Batat, an aide to the country's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, police said. The attack occurred in Basra, where numerous militias are competing for power. Al-Sistani has called for unity in the majority Shiite community.

In other violence, five Iraqi soldiers were killed and their vehicle destroyed in an afternoon roadside bombing in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi army Brig. Gen. Noor Eddin Husein

In several American operations Friday and Saturday, the U.S. military said it had killed seven terrorist suspects and captured 15 others.

The raids included one in the Baghdad neighborhood of Rusafa on Saturday in which the military said it had captured a suspect believed to be a member of al-Qaida in Iraq responsible for security in the area, who is responsible for kidnapping and car-bombing operations.

Famous "turning points" in Iraq

Below is part of a chronology of Iraq "turning points" that turned out to be illusions. It appeared in Foreign Policy, and I encourage you to check out the entire article.

The purpose of these "turning points" was primarily to buy Bush time, in the hope that somehow something would go right. At each of these "turning points", the "liberal" media cheered, politicians sagely nodded, and war supporters darkly predicted doom for the 'defeatists' at home.

As always, unwarranted optimism is patriotic and sober scepticism is treasonous.

As the Bush administration readies a “pivotal” progress report on Iraq, it’s worth asking if this time will be any different than the past. We’ve seen countless politicians and pundits on both sides herald the arrival of a “turning point” in Iraq, only to watch the war roll on. Herewith, a quick rundown of the “turning points” that turned out to be anything but.

Lt. Gen. Jay Garner arrives in Baghdad

Date: April 21, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 131

Unwarranted optimism: “We will be here as long as it takes. We will leave fairly rapidly.” —Lt. Gen. Jay Garner

President Bush appears beneath “Mission Accomplished” banner

Date: May 1, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 140

Unwarranted optimism: “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” —U.S. President George W. Bush

L. Paul Bremer III takes over from Jay Garner

Date: May 11, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 148

Unwarranted optimism: “The coalition provisional authority, led by Ambassador Bremer, has a comprehensive strategy to move Iraq toward a future that is secure and prosperous.” —George W. Bush

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) announces Iraqi Governing Council

Date: July 13, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 225

Unwarranted optimism: “The establishment of the Iraqi Governing Council is an important step forward in the ongoing transition from ruthless dictatorship to a free and democratic Iraq with Iraqis determining their own future. We look forward to working with the Council as it moves toward a democratic and prosperous Iraq, at peace with its neighbors.” —George W. Bush

U.S. forces kill Uday and Qusay Hussein

Date: July 22, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 238

Unwarranted optimism: “While there is still much work to do in Iraq, the Iraqi people can see progress each day toward a better and more prosperous future for their country.” —White House statement

U.S. forces capture Saddam Hussein

Date: December 13, 2003

U.S. military fatalities to date: 463

Unwarranted optimism: “Iraq’s future, your future, has never been more full of hope. The tyrant is a prisoner. The economy is moving forward. You have before you the prospect of a sovereign government in a few months.” —L. Paul Bremer III, head of the CPA

Iraqi Governing Council completes Transitional Administrative Law

Date: March 8, 2004

U.S. military fatalities to date: 557

Unwarranted optimism: “The adoption of this law marks a historic milestone in the Iraqi people’s long journey from tyranny and violence to liberty and peace. While difficult work remains to establish democracy in Iraq, today’s signing is a critical step in that direction.” —George W. Bush

U.S. transfers sovereignty to Iraqi interim government

Date: June 28, 2004

U.S. military fatalities to date: 858

Unwarranted optimism: “Let freedom reign!” —George W. Bush, writing on a napkin

Iraq holds elections for Transitional National Assembly

Date: January 30, 2005

U.S. military fatalities to date: 1,438

Unwarranted optimism: “Across Iraq today, men and women have taken rightful control of their country’s destiny, and they have chosen a future of freedom and peace.” —George W. Bush

Ibrahim al-Jaafari forms new Iraqi government

Date: April 28, 2005

U.S. military fatalities to date: 1,580

Unwarranted optimism: “The United States is confident that the new government will meet these challenges in the months ahead, and America will stand by Iraq, its leaders, and the Iraqi people as they continue their work to establish a stable, peaceful, and democratic Iraq.” —George W. Bush

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney declares insurgency in “last throes”

Date: May 30, 2005

U.S. military fatalities to date: 1,665

Unwarranted optimism: “The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” —Dick Cheney

White House releases “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq”

Date: November 30, 2005

U.S. military fatalities to date: 2,113

Unwarranted optimism: “As we make progress toward victory, Iraqis will take more responsibility for their security, and fewer U.S. forces will be needed to complete the mission.” —George W. Bush

"You've Got Cholera"

Due to the collapse of the Iraqi water delivery infrastructure, which after four years of effort is still a cruel joke, northern Iraq is now seeing a cholera outbreak. Once a modern, successful country, Iraq has now been "liberated" into a sorry state that makes many Third World countries look attractive. Lack of electricity means no power to pump the water or run the purification or sewage plants. Iraqis are drinking what could be classified as sewage, and not surprisingly, are getting sick.
The refugees, fleeing from the "success" in Baghdad, are the ones most susceptible to the cholera outbreak, due to the deplorable conditions they are forced to live in. While neocons and senior military commanders speak in bright tones about how the Iraqi provincial and federal government is "improving the lives of ordinary Iraqis", the truth is that millions are internally displaced and are left to fend for themselves. These are the ones who can't afford to join the 50,000 other Iraqis a month who flee the country's "progress".
Of course, warnings of the current crisis went unheeded by Iraqi officials, who are devoted to the sectarian political struggle, and also by the U.S. military, which is obsessed with Al-Qaeda to the exclusion of everything else.

Notice the anecdote in the article of the poor Iraqi woman who fled Baghdad after her child was kidnapped. Or the man who fled because sectarian militias threatened his life. These are the faces of "progress" in Baghdad, where the surge promised the most. Neocons, who profess such concern over the Iraqis should we withdraw, merely brush aside these stories of shattered lives and grim futures.


story from L.A. Times

Deadly cholera outbreak in north Iraq

SULAYMANIYA, IRAQ -- A cholera outbreak in northern Iraq, where thousands of people have sought refuge from sectarian violence, is overwhelming hospitals and has killed as many as 10 people, health officials said Friday.

The outbreak in Sulaymaniya and Kirkuk is seen as the latest example of the displacement and deterioration of living conditions caused by the Iraqi conflict.

The water-borne disease has struck more than 80 people in the two cities, which are about 100 miles apart, said Claire Hajaj of the U.N. Children's Fund, or Unicef. She said cholera had been confirmed as the cause of five deaths and was suspected in five others.

Local officials said more than 2,000 people had been affected.

Aid agencies had warned of the possibility of a cholera outbreak as blazing summer heat settled in Iraq, where the infrastructure is shattered by war and neglect. The disease tends to appear in the summer because, as the temperature rises, Iraq's chronic electricity shortages make it difficult to operate pumps at sewage and drinking-water treatment plants, which leaves many people without clean water.

That was evident Wednesday at a squalid encampment outside Sulaymaniya, where several hundred people live in makeshift tents that are little more than worn blankets draped over wooden frames. Girls and women lined up to fill containers from a tanker distributing water.

"We drink from this water, whether it's drinkable or not," Zahra Jabbar Kadhim said.

"In this tent, we bathe, cook and sleep," she said, pointing to the canvas she shares with her husband, Abdullah Ahmed, and four children.

Ahmed, a Sunni Arab, said they fled Baghdad after a Shiite militia threatened to kill him.

Lamia Karim Shaalan ended up at the camp after she sold everything she had, including her shop, to pay a $60,000 ransom to kidnappers who took her 10-year-old daughter in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood.

"We live in this handmade tent on the sand and in the middle of heat and snakes," she said.

A Shiite man whose wife gave birth in their tent a week ago said they fled to Sulaymaniya from the Sadiya neighborhood in southwest Baghdad seven months ago after Shiite militiamen discovered his wife was Sunni and ordered him to divorce her.

A nurse with the Kurdistan Health Organization, Abdul Karim, said the camp, which has neither garbage disposal nor a sewage system, is a breeding ground for disease.

The International Organization for Migration, in its latest assessment of Iraq's internal displacement problem, says that more than 70,000 Iraqis have fled to the northern region this year, most of them to escape violence. Such people increasingly are living in camps or camp-like settings because of the scarcity of affordable housing, it says.

In Kirkuk, Dr. Sabah Amin, director of the provincial health department, announced measures to curb the disease, including the closure of public swimming pools, a ban on street vendors selling food and drinks, and testing at ice and soft drink factories.

The number of patients arriving at health facilities with cholera symptoms, which include severe diarrhea, has increased to the point that hospitals have stopped testing everyone.

"They simply can't test them all," said Hajaj, of Unicef. "They're just assuming that if it looks like cholera, they have cholera."

Re-defining our way to "success"

In the continuing efforts to divide the terrorist sectarian militias into "good" and "bad" camps, we now see that one of the primary tools to bring "success" to Iraq is to simply change definitions of terms. In my previous post, I asked about the definition of the term "insurgent". In the article below we see that the military has changed the definition of one of the sectarian militias in Diyala so that they are no longer "insurgents" at all.

Let's take a look at how one of the "boots on the ground" in Diyala assessed the 1920 Revolution Brigade, as they call themselves:

A Sunni insurgent group we’ve been battling for months, responsible for the death of my friend and numerous attacks, agreed to fight Al Qaeda alongside us. Since then, they’ve grown into a much more organized, lethal force. They use this organization to steal cars and intimidate and torture the local population, or anyone they accuse of being linked to Al Qaeda. The Gestapo of the 21st century, sanctioned by the United States Army.

This assessment from Alex came a mere one week ago. Since they have allied with us for the time being, they are "patriots", not terrorists. Yet, let's look at another of Alex's observations concerning an exchange with one of these "patriots":

For now, our relationship with 1920 is one of mutual distrust and hatred, a sign of the times. A conversation between a member of my platoon and a 1920 source is ripe with foreboding on the future of this partnership, and of the war to come.
“Do you want to kill me?” asked the soldier.
“Yes,” replied the source, coldly and without emotion. “But not today.”

Can you feel the love?
How could this approach possibly fail?
We are now throwing away the possibility of real success for the sake of claiming success over Al-Qaeda, in a process that is merely keeping Al-Qaeda "on the run". We are merely deferring the inevitable conflict with the sectarian militias in order to create a short-term illusion of "progress" against a relatively minor factor in the "big picture" of unrest and instability. Unable to resolve the complex social, ethnic, and political issues creating unrest and instability by solely military means, the senior officers of our military have instead engaged in a "semantics offensive" to re-define our way to victory. We have already witnessed the re-definiton of "success" to exclude car bombings and sectarian militia killings and to include the mere ability to drive Al-Qaeda's violence into other areas. We have already seen Bush "lowering the bar" for "victory" to merely a reduction of violence to pre-surge levels that may or may not even include "democracy" in its definition. Now we are seeing the "elimination" of sectarian militias by merely changing the definition of the words.

Perhaps we should merely re-define the word "corpse" and make some real progress?



full story

What's in a name? U.S. rebrands Iraq ex-insurgents

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces have rebranded one of the main insurgent groups in Iraq and now use the term "concerned local nationals" to refer to a group that once claimed responsibility for killing scores of Americans.

The updated vocabulary for referring to the 1920 Revolution Brigade, described by a U.S. commander on Saturday, is a sign of the abrupt change in tactics that has seen U.S. forces cooperate with former Sunni Arab enemies

The 1920 Revolution Brigade was one of the main anti-American Sunni Arab insurgent groups in Iraq in the years after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and has claimed responsibility for killing scores of U.S. troops in ambushes and bomb attacks.

But for the past several months its members have cooperated with U.S. forces to help drive the strict al Qaeda Islamists out of Sunni Arab areas, part of a new U.S. tactic of cooperating with former Sunni Arab foes against al Qaeda.

Colonel David Sutherland, the U.S. commander in Diyala Province, said his men prefer not to call the group by its name.

"The 1920s as they're called, we call them 'the Baquba Guardians', we call them the 'concerned local nationals'," he said. Baquba is the provincial capital.

"These are patriots who have come forward and have joined the security process. They are working with my soldiers and they are working with the Iraqi security forces," he said.

Al Qaeda's adherence to a hardline form of Sunni Islam and indiscriminate attacks has isolated it from Sunni Arabs and nationalist insurgent groups.

Sutherland said the 1920 Revolution Brigade name was now being used widely to refer to local pro-government militia and not anti-American insurgents. Some Shi'ite elders were asking if they too could recruit "1920s," he said, a sign the Sunni Arab group's name was no longer seen as sectarian.

"It has become a name, a catch-all phrase for these concerned local nationals throughout the province," he told a news conference by video link to Baghdad.

His forces "do not deal with terrorists, and if we have information on individuals then we will act accordingly," Sutherland said. "The individuals we are working with.... I have confidence in them and I have confidence in their leadership."

Surge facts, Bush spin

This AP story does an excellent job of sumarising why Bush's weekly radio address is based on false premises and facts. Sectarian killings are double what we saw before the surge was even proposed, life for the average Iraqi is not improving, the "bad" terrorists are simply moving to wherever the surge isn't concentrated, the north and south are increasingly becoming destabilised as the surge concentrates on Baghdad, and the electrical grid that pumps the water for the population is still highly unreliable and not likely to improve.

What do we do when the facts are in contradiction to the Decider's crazy little world? Cue the parrot, of course. "al-Qaeda! al-Qaeda! War on Terror! 9/11! SQUAWK!"

There, now don't you feel better?

There is the "glass half full" optimism, but what we are seeing from Republicans is a glass with a few drops being presented as a full one. And anyone who questions the definition of "full" is unpatriotic and treasonous. This facile tactic has not convinced the 70% who oppose the occupation, but Bush is far past trying to change their minds. He is instead engaged in a bitter struggle to keep the margins of his support from bolting by portraying those who stop reciting the script as "supporters of terrorism". Since the Republicans have staked everything on the success of the occupation, they have little choice but to continue the fantasy. Any signs of dissent from the right will be, like the surge, too little, too late.

full story here

Iraq body count running at double pace

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer 47 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - This year's U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.

Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more than half of all war-related killings — the same percentage as a year ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.

The tallies and trends offer a sobering snapshot after an additional 30,000 U.S. troops began campaigns in February to regain control of the Baghdad area. It also highlights one of the major themes expected in next month's Iraq progress report to Congress: some military headway, but extremist factions are far from broken.

In street-level terms, it means life for average Iraqis appears to be even more perilous and unpredictable.

The AP tracking includes Iraqi civilians, government officials, police and security forces killed in attacks such as gunfights and bombings, which are frequently blamed on Sunni suicide strikes. It also includes execution-style killings — largely the work of Shiite death squads.

The figures are considered a minimum based on AP reporting. The actual numbers are likely higher, as many killings go unreported or uncounted. Insurgent deaths are not a part of the Iraqi count.

The findings include:

• Iraq is suffering about double the number of war-related deaths throughout the country compared with last year — an average daily toll of 33 in 2006, and 62 so far this year.

• Nearly 1,000 more people have been killed in violence across Iraq in the first eight months of this year than in all of 2006. So far this year, about 14,800 people have died in war-related attacks and sectarian murders. AP reporting accounted for 13,811 deaths in 2006. The United Nations and other sources placed the 2006 toll far higher.

• Baghdad has gone from representing 76 percent of all civilian and police war-related deaths in Iraq in January to 52 percent in July, bringing it back to the same spot it was roughly a year ago.

_According to the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, the number of displaced Iraqis has more than doubled since the start of the year, from 447,337 on Jan. 1 to 1.14 million on July 31.

However, Brig. Gen. Richard Sherlock, deputy director for operational planning for the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, said violence in Iraq "has continued to decline and is at the lowest level since June 2006."

He offered no statistics to back his claim, but in a briefing with reporters at the Pentagon on Friday he warned insurgents might try intensify attacks in Iraq to coincide with three milestones: the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., the beginning of Ramadan and the report to Congress.

The U.S. military did not get all the additional American forces into Iraq until June 15, so it would be premature to draw a final statistical picture of the effect of the added troops.

But initial calculations validate fears that the Baghdad crackdown would push militants into districts north of the capital, including Diyala province where U.S. force and Iraqi soldiers have conducted major operation to clear its main city, Baqouba, of al-Qaida in Iraq fighters.

In July, the AP figures show 35 percent of all war-related killings occurred in northern provinces. The figure one year ago was 22 percent.

The final death count for August also will likely be further oriented to the north after the savage Aug. 14 attack by suspected al-Qaida truck bombers near the Syrian border in Ninevah province. At least 500 villagers from the Yazidi sect were killed in the deadliest civilian attack of the war.

In the first months of this year, many extremists fled to Baghdad and regions to the north after Sunni tribesmen in Anbar, the sprawling desert province west of the capital, turned on their erstwhile al-Qaida allies.

Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said many militants are trying to hang onto footholds in central Iraq.

"Most of the force shifts are still in the Baghdad ring and Diyala," he said in a recent interview, predicting more spectacular attacks in the days leading to next month's report to Congress by U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

"Will it lead to more bloody attacks as they try to exploit the American political debate? Yes."

Nora Bensahel, a military analyst at the Rand Corp., said that northern Iraq had become increasingly destabilized over the past few months.

The insurgents have made a "concerted effort to concentrate attacks in other parts of the country," Bensahel said, in part to escape the increased U.S. troop presence in Baghdad and in part to give the impression that no place in Iraq is safe.

Mostly, she said, the insurgents have shifted their focus to the Baghdad suburbs, but they are particularly keen to undermine the notion that northern Iraq is a "success story" for Washington and its key Iraqi partners — including the Kurds who have maintained a near-autonomous state in the north since the early 1990s.

Staging attacks in the north "has a symbolic effect," she said.

And beyond that, Bensahel said the tactic puts the United States in a difficult situation.

"There isn't an ability to move north in any significant numbers without abandoning Baghdad" — a change in strategy that Washington is not prepared to make, she said.

But a huge problem also looms in the south, the center of Shiite political and spiritual influence and the site of Iraq's main oil fields.

There are daily gunbattles between the Mahdi Army militia — loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr — and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the powerhouse Shiite political party that controls most of the bureaucracy and police forces in southern Iraq.

This month, the governors of two southern provinces loyal to the Supreme Islamic Council were killed in roadside bombings.

The clashes are expected to grow more intense as Britain draws downs its forces in southern Iraq over the coming months. The effect of the shrinking British presence is already being felt, said Cordesman in an assessment released Aug. 22.

"The end result was to turn the four provinces in southeastern Iraq over to feuding Shiite factions whose actions were mixed with corruption, extortion and links to criminal activities," he wrote.

And there are increasing signs that whole regions of the south are inclined to seek increased autonomy from the center — moves that many Iraqis fear could lead to partition of the country.

In Najaf — the spiritual heart for Shiites around the world — the provincial spokesman, Ahmed Deibel, told AP early this month that the gas turbine generator there had been removed from the national electricity grid. The unilateral action has contributed to several nationwide power blackouts.

He said the provincial plant produced 50 megawatts, while the province needed at least 200 megawatts.

"What we produce is not enough even for us. We disconnected it from the national grid (Aug. 1) because the people in Baghdad were getting too much, leaving little electricity for Najaf," he said.

Iraq's water supply infrastructure has collapsed

Who needs water, anyway? Infrastructure is overrated. Bullets and airstrikes can solve any problem, as long as you "want to win".

More than four years into the conflict, Iraqis still do not have electricity or clean running water like many Third world countries that we haven't poured $500 billion into.

Currently, one in three Iraqis is "in dire need of emergency aid". That makes Haiti look like a country with its act together. Yet we are still told that Iraq is a remarkable success, since we have chased Al-Qaeda into new areas that were previously peaceful. Hooray. Clearly, these Iraqis getting sick and dying from unclean water are just trying to make Bush look bad, and there's no way anyone could have predicted problems from four years without electricity.

If they can just go without water or electricity for another 5 to 10 years (by Petraeus' reckoning), then we'll be able to sort all this out and provide some Republican-contributing contractor a chance to do some really shoddy work for an obscene sum. So we do have a plan, after all.

By the way, does it mean anything when this reporter is warned that visiting the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources is a good way to get kidnapped by the security forces? Now there's a media response plan that Republicans can really get behind. Is having the security forces involved in kidnapping supposed to be a positive sign? Couldn't we find a contractor capable of handling the kidnappings so that the security forces could devote themselves to other tasks? The important thing is that this is the perception of the Iraqi people; the government is the enemy and does only bad things for you.

IRAQ: Between the Two Rivers, Lack of Water Kills
By Ali al-Fadhily*

BAGHDAD, Aug 17 (IPS) - The collapse of Iraq's infrastructure has created a worsening water crisis that is killing untold numbers of Iraqis.

Iraq, with its famous Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run the length of the country, is now unable to provide drinking water to most of its people.

"The two rivers are still there, great as they always were, and flowing all through the year," chief engineer Ahmad Salman of the Baghdad Water Authority told IPS. "Yet Iraqis are thirsty, and we are ashamed of being engineers in the service. We have simply failed to provide our people with half of the drinking water they need."

Much of the country is suffering severe lack of water, and the small quantities supplied are not good for human use.

"I analysed the water supplied by the water authority, and the result was shocking," Dr Ibrahim Ali, a laboratory owner in Baghdad told IPS. "It is definitely not good for human consumption, and every time we analyse it we find something new that might, in time, cause death."

The doctor added, "Various kinds of bacterial pollution and germs we are finding can be as dangerous as biological weapons."

Iraqi hospitals are full of people with illnesses due to the unsafe water. Doctors at several hospitals confirmed to IPS that water is one of the worst causes of diseases, especially among children, and that some of children had died of water-borne diseases compounded by a severe lack of medicines.

These problems are exacerbated during the summer when both the quantity and quality of water are at their lowest.

"One of the reasons for this lack of water is lack of electric power and fuel for generators," a member of a local municipal council in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IPS. "We have got tired of raising our needs for the water stations because our ministers and their leaders are busy fighting over chairs so that they make as much money as possible before they are thrown away."

U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker acknowledged to reporters Jul. 19 that Baghdad residents were receiving on average only one hour of electricity a day. Before the U.S.-led invasion, Baghdad residents received 16-24 hours of electricity daily. Without electricity, water cannot be pumped to homes.

A report released Jul. 30 by the international agency Oxfam and NCCI, a network of aid organisations working in Iraq, said that eight million Iraqis, nearly one in three, were in dire need of emergency aid.

The report, 'Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq' said that 70 percent of Iraqis are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50 percent in 2003, the year the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was launched. About 80 percent of Iraqis lack effective sanitation, the report said.

According to the Oxfam report, "child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 percent before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 to 28 percent now." Lack of potable water is at the root of most such conditions.

"It is corruption more than anything else," an engineer at the Baghdad Water Authority, who did not wish to be named, told IPS. "The authority is full of corruption from bottom to top, and there is no way to improve the situation unless the political situation is improved by removing these corrupt officials."

An IPS correspondent was advised not to go to the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources in the face of a danger of being kidnapped by security men at the ministry.

"It is another weapon that the Americans are killing us with," 62-year-old Abu Mahmood, a carpenter from Baghdad told IPS. "No water means diseases that lead to slow, but certain death. They did it to us at the time of sanctions and now it is their chance to do it again without firing bullets and making scandals."

Few Iraqis see hope under the present government. "The problem is that we do not have a government like any other country," Baghdad resident Nabhan Mukhlis told IPS. "We should just stop complaining and surrender to the death penalty that was issued the day Americans decided to invade our country."

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region) (END/2007)

50,000 flee Iraq's "success" each month

If the surge is such a big "success" and Iraq is "steadily improving", one must wonder why 50,000 Iraqis flee the country each month to join the more than 2 million others in Jordan, Syria, and Egypt.
It's certainly interesting that "bad boy" Syria has been forced to support an increasing share of refugees from the shining success in Iraq. 30,000 Iraqis each month flee their native land into a repressive dictatorship. Iraqis seem to be voting indeed, only it's with their feet.

Meanwhile, Iraq asks these already strained countries to do more to help those who flee, while failing to pay the money they promised.

This is one of the major signs that Iraq is not improving, as the Decider and his ventriloquist dummies continously say. The surge was instituted to improve the security situation, and "The security situation is what is driving Iraqis to leave their country", according to this report. If things truly were improving, then Iraqis would be returning, not continuing to flee.

Let's see what the Decider does in response to this mammoth problem that his fictionally-premised, ill-conceived, and massively expensive war has caused. My guess is that he'll do exactly what he does with everyone else disillusioned with the occupation: ask for patience. Or tell them to "shut up".

What message does this send to our allies, not only in the Middle East, when it's obvious the U.S. does not care what problems it causes with its actions? When Bush talks about how the invasion of Iraq will do "great things" for the region, those countries in the region must be thinking about these huge costs. Far from a shining positive example of democracy and prosperity, Iraq is looking like a complete disaster and people are fleeing that disaster in droves. How many people in the Middle East are looking to Iraq and thinking, "maybe we can get some of that democracy stuff here"? It's obvious that the repressive stability of Syria is a huge draw, even to those with purple-stained fingers.

Jordan reiterates call for assistance to Iraqi Refugees (MENAFN - Jordan Times) AMMAN Jordan on Thursday called on the international community to issue "immediate and direct assistance" to help it maintain services to hundreds of thousands of Iraqis residing in the country. The call was made during a one-day meeting in Amman for Iraqi-hosting countries, particularly Jordan and Syria. "Iraqi-hosting countries are currently under immense pressure in services offered, infrastructure, natural resource strain, security, and particularly the health and educational sectors, as a result of the huge number of Iraqi guests," Interior Ministry secretary general and head of the Jordanian delegation, Mkhaimar Abu Jamous, told the gathering. The Jordanian official reiterated a plea made in April during a UN conference in Geneva when it was revealed that Iraqi guests are costing the Kingdom $1 billion a year. Abu Jamous stressed that the mounting pressure adds to the intensity of problems related to the country's meagre resources, particularly water. Jordan, he noted, is already one of the world's thirstiest countries in the world. He also highlighted the security challenge posed by the consequences of the war in Iraq. "The security situation is what is driving Iraqis to leave their country. The increase of Iraqis in the Kingdom has amounted to a higher cost on the budget to provide security," Abu Jamous said. The United Nations estimates that over two million Iraqis have fled from violence in Iraq to neighbouring countries with around 50,000 more who continue to do so each month. Jordan, in respect to its population of nearly 5.5 million, has absorbed around 750,000, according to UN estimates. This means that around one in every eight persons living in the Kingdom is an Iraqi national. Jordan's unemployment rate is around 15 per cent which leaves the government unable to give preferential treatment to Iraqis with respect to issuing large number of residency permits allowing them to work. Syria, with a population of around three times the size of Jordan's, has also taken in around 1.5 million Iraqis and its government estimates it is allowing an additional 30,000 a month to enter. The Syrian head of delegation raised much of the same concerns as Jordan, adding the US must shoulder its responsibilities and extend direct assistance to hosts. UN officials have repeatedly warned the international community that Jordan and Syria are under severe strain "particularly in the health and education sectors" and must not be ignored. Director of the Jordan Information Centre Bisher Khasawneh noted that Jordan's educational system, already strained because of natural growth, struggles to stand up to the challenge posed by the Iraqi community. He explained that the ratio between students to teacher has become a problem and that some schools are being forced to return to the infamous double shift system because of extra number of Iraqi students who are attending public schools. The government, upon directives by King Abdullah, admits all Iraqi school-age children into public and private schools, even if they do not hold residency permits. A government source told The Jordan Times that around 50,000 Iraqi children are receiving education in some of Jordan's 3,200 schools. Iraqis are also ensured open access to public health services that are "heavily subsidised" at around 65 per cent, Khasawneh said. In his address at yesterday's meeting, secretary general of Iraq's foreign ministry, Mohammad Al Hajj Al Hmoud, called on host countries to facilitate more residency permits, allow Iraqis holding non-G series passports to continue to enter borders and provide better health and educational facilities until conditions are suitable for their return. "It is the duty of the international community and in particular neighbouring countries to provide assistance to displaced Iraqis," Hmoud said. On the eve of the meeting that was attended by members representing Iraq, Syria, Egypt, the UN, the EU and the Arab League, Amnesty International (AI) released a statement urging the international community to support Jordan and Syria both financially and by establishing generous resettlement programmes for the Iraqis in greatest need of protection. "It is vital that states who pledged funds to help at a previous conference last April to honour their commitments, which all too few have done to date." AI said that $25 million pledged by Iraq's government had still not materialised. A list of recommendations was released at the conclusion of the meeting, in which participants collectively agreed that all parties should work towards the return of security and stability in Iraq since it is the deteriorating security situation that is forcing Iraqis to leave their country. They recommended Iraqi nationals of all ethnic backgrounds to return to their country to participate in its political recovery. The meeting was also attended by supervisors from Iran, Turkey, Russia, US, UK and Japan.

Yep, the Democrats are afraid of the surge's "success". That's what it all boils down to. Apparently a lot of Iraqis are afraid of the surge's "success", too.

Baghdad blows up; the surge 'succeeds' again

More 'signs of improvement' in Baghdad as two car bombs explode. Yes, the surge is "working", we are told daily by neocons. What these shameless shills mean by "improvement" is that we kill people and then arbitrary dub the corpses "Al-Qaeda", which means that things are improving because (based on nothing) it has been decided that Al-Qaeda is the source of all instability and violence in Iraq. Of course, when things like this happen, we are supposed to put on our smiley faces and think about how wonderful Iraq will be when the surge finally solves all of Iraq's problems. Again, I point out the bizarre disconnect of 'concern' for innocent Iraqis should we withdraw and apathy towards those innocents killed while the surge is underway.

At least 50 dead after car bombs target celebrating Iraqis

Jul 25, 2007 02:47 PM

Associated Press
BAGHDAD — Officials in Iraq say two suicide car bombings struck soccer fans in Baghdad today as they were celebrating Iraq’s victory in the Asian Cup semifinal.

At least 50 people are dead and more than 100 wounded.

The victims were among the thousands of revellers who took to the streets of the capital after Iraq’s soccer team beat South Korea to reach the tournament’s final against Saudi Arabia on Sunday in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Police and hospital officials say the first attack took place about 6:30 p.m. when a bomb exploded in a crowd of people cheering near a popular ice cream parlour in Baghdad’s western neighbourhood of Mansour.

Interior Ministry officials say at least 30 people were killed and 75 wounded in that attack.

Another suicide car bomber detonated his payload about 45 minutes later in the midst of dozens of vehicles filled with revellers near an Iraqi army checkpoint in the eastern district of Ghadeer.

The second attack killed at least 20 people, including two soldiers, and wounded 61.

Baghdad yields yet more signs of progress

Yet another tragedy that has nothing to do with Al-Qaeda, but rather the woeful indifference to the sectarian militias. Since tackling the militias is proving much more difficult than he laid out in his surge proposal back in January, Bush has instead shifted to the focus to "All Al-Qaeda, all the time".
Of course, Al-Qaeda simply moves to wherever the surge forces are not concentrated, and this is apparently some kind of 'success' in some circles, especially those circles involving those under the command of or in the pay of the Decider.

full story

Bodies of seven abducted Iraqi policemen found south of Baghdad

The bodies of seven abducted Iraqi policemen, including an officer, were found in an area in Babil province south of Baghdad on Thursday, a provincial police source said.

"Our police patrols found seven bodies of policemen, including the body of Lieutenant Colonel Salam Hannon, police chief of Iskandariyah town, dumped in the Mwiylha area outside the town," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The victims were attacked and then adducted by a group of gunmen on Wednesday evening in a rural area outside the town of Iskandariyah, some 50 km south of Baghdad, the source said.

Iskandariyah, along with several large towns in the Babil province including Yousifiyah, Mahmoudiyah, Musayyib and Latifiyah, are parts of an area known as the "Triangle of Death" inhabited by both Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

Source: Xinhua

Nobody knows for sure

The Administration, Petraeus, and virtually all war supporters keep on saying that the surge has only just started. This isn't exactly true. 3/4 of the troops were in place in June. It has been a phased deployment over the past 4 and a half months. During that time, there has not been a significant improvement, despite mouthings from the Administration's ventriloquist dummies about 'signs of progress'. The situation in Diyala has worsened, and the improvement in Anbar is not due to the surge, but rather to pitting one armed gang against another. Attacks on the Green Zone continue. The Iraqi military has not "stood up", sectarian deaths have increased, and Al-Qaeda is merely moving to wherever the surge isn't taking place. We call that being "on the run".
Still, we are told that it's far too early to pass judgment on the surge. Well, if we grant that, then why has the Administration seen fit to attribute any ephemeral signs of success over the past four months to the surge? Isn't it far too early to say that any 'signs of progress' are due to the surge?

In other words, it's too early to say the surge is a failure, but apparently it's been okay to say the surge is a success for the past few months, even though the troops have 'just arrived'.

Unwarranted optimism is thus okay, but sober skepticism is dangerous. "Nobody knows for sure if the surge will succeed or not", however we seem to "know for sure" there will be a bloodbath if we leave before we achieve "victory". We also "know for sure" that Al-Qaeda will "follow us home", too. How does that work? Isn't it "defeatist" to assume the worst possible outcome? Not if you support the President, but it is if you don't support the President. See how that works now?

Unwarranted optimism in military endeavours can be disatrous. Why didn't we optimistically send our entire fleet right into Japan and launch an amphibious assault immediately after Pearl Harbor? Nobody "knew for sure" that would fail, did they? The threat was certainly real to America, and failure in Japan would mean arguably worse consequnces for us. So why not employ wishful thinking and optimism in an immediate massive invasion? Because we would have been wiped out. But "nobody knows that for sure", do they? Would those opposing such a plan for an immediate invasion have been called "defeatists" and "surrenderists" who didn't want to "win"?
This entire war and occupation have been fought by only considering the best possible outcome and proceeding as if it were a forgone conclusion.

No, "nobody knows for sure" that the surge will fail. We do know that we tried a surge almost a year ago, though, and that didn't help. We do know that the surge has not had a dramatic effect over the past few months. Now, the addition of a few thousand more troops will somehow magically turn the tide, I guess.
Remember, the idea of the surge was to allow the Iraqi military to gain control by reinforcing them as the Iraqis launched a major operation to restore stability. The trouble is that Iraqi military forces are a no-show. The most important element of the surge, therefore, completely failed and has been failing for some time. Nobody knows for sure if the Iraqi military will "stand up" by next spring, either. Nobody knows for sure how shuffling Al-Qaeda from one province to another will defeat them, either. Nobody knows for sure if al-Maliki will be able to survive a no-confidence vote. Nobody knows for sure how many Iraqis have been killed in the violence. Nobody knows, but somehow it's okay to proceed as if everything will go our way and somehow it's bad to stop and ponder the minefield straight ahead of us.

One thing we can all be sure of, however, is that in September Petraeus will say that there has been 'some improvement' and that we need more time. We can be sure that Bush will give it to him. We can be sure that the sectarian militias will still be there. And we can be sure that neocons will be trotting out the same tired old arguments that they picked up from Fox News.

Back in January, Bush "believed" that al-Maliki would have control of all the provinces by November. Now Petraeus is talking about the spring of '08 as the time when we will have a "clearer picture" as to whether this will happen. Not that it will have happened, mind you, just a better idea how much more time it will take. Does this sound like a credible track record? A year ago Bush was all thumbs-up and optimistic, but things didn't work out like he thought they would. But now something has changed, this time his brilliant scheme really will work....because, in his own words, "it has to". That's so reassuring.

Crossing your fingers and hoping everything will come out okay is not leadership, and neither is it courageous.

Redefining the success of the 'surge'

From the Daily Telegraph, an honest look at how Bush defines "success" when it comes to the 'surge':

Mr Campbell, whose remarks may cause embarrassment to Downing Street and anger in Washington, said that the casualty figures for April - in which 1,500 civilians are believed to have been killed - provided no "encouraging" evidence.

Speaking on the record last week to a public audience at Chatham House, the London-based foreign-policy research institute, he said: "The evidence does not suggest that the surge is actually working, if reduction in casualties is a criterion. The figures in April were not encouraging."

In unusually candid comments, Mr Campbell also disclosed that American commanders had decided that the criteria for the "success" of the troop surge would be nothing more than a reduction in violence to the level prior to last year's al-Qaeda bombing of the al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, which destroyed its golden dome.

The destruction of the shrine, one of the most important Shia sites in the world, led to a dramatic escalation in sectarian conflict between Sunni and Shia factions, peaking at 3,500 deaths in September last year. Casualty figures had been running at 800 a month before that, a level that few would regard as anything approaching peace.

While the United States military has made little secret of its view that the bloodshed in Iraq can now only be contained, rather than stamped out altogether, the suggestion that 800 murders a month in the country would be a measure of success is an indication of how far the coalition has been forced to reign in its expectations.

Just like "victory" in Iraq keeps getting redefined, the "success" of the 'surge' is likewise just a matter of which definition is used. No matter what Iraq looks like in September, there should be no doubt that the 'surge' will be a success, simply because Bush will tell his military commanders that success is defined by whatever the situation is at that point.
Due to the results of recent votes in Congress, it's now clear that the 'surge' will last for the remainder of Bush's term. This also is an example in semantics, by changing the definition of the word "surge" to that of the word "escalation". So, after more than three years of thumbs-up, smiley-face assessments, it will turn out that two more years of a roughly 30% troop increase was all we needed to get us back where we started. At that point, more thumbs-up, smiley-faced assessments will be in order and Republicans will be able to blame whoever takes over after Bush. Republicans will hail Bush as a great military leader for using the 'surge' to get the back to the point where it was before the 'surge'.

You know, it's not a question of victory or defeat here. It's not as if we are fighting a conventional war or a regular army. We are essentially fighting social unrest and political impotence with crude force. There is no "social unrest" commander with a headquarters that we can go to and surrender. But Republicans keep casting the situation in Iraq as if it were a conventional war, precisely because a conventional war can be lost, and an occupation cannot be lost. Bush knows that Americans don't like the idea of "defeat", so a small segement continues to grudgingly support his failed policies to avoid it. We all want to see Good prevail over Evil, so we tell ourselves that there are clearly defined Bad Guys and clearly defined Good Guys. However, the truth is that a lot of the Bad Guys wear the uniforms of the Good Guys, and Al-Qaeda doesn't wear uniforms at all. And when anyone starts talking about the truth in Iraq, you can be sure that a Republican will accuse them of treason. It's kind of like blaming the people who dial 911 for the crimes that are committed, because they are somehow admitting that crime exists and therefore 'emboldening' criminals. Sadly, we are now dealing with an Administration that uses wishful thinking and semantics as the primary tools of leadership.