2500

[lynn]

US deaths in Iraq reach 2500
By Fredrik Dahl and Omar al-Ibadi in Baghdad
16-06-2006
From: Reuters

THE number of US military deaths in Iraq has reached 2500, the Pentagon said, and the military warned it expected the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq to continue the bloody tactics of his predecessor.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have also been killed since the US-led invasion more than three years ago to overthrow Saddam Hussein, igniting an insurgency by his once-dominant Sunni Arab minority that is showing little sign of easing.

The US military said it believed the real identity of al-Qaeda's new leader in Iraq was Egyptian-born Abu Ayyub al-Masri and that it expected him to adopt the same methods as his predecessor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a June 7 air raid.

On a day when at least 24 Iraqis lost their lives in five separate attacks, an official in Baghdad said the security forces had seized documents giving key information about the militant group's network and its leaders in Iraq.

"We believe this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaeda in Iraq," national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said.

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

Sure sounds like they are turning the corner in Iraq. Another sad day for military families here.

[rollhead]

Originally Posted by lynn

Sure sounds like they are turning the corner in Iraq. Another sad day for military families here.

I was going to say they see the "light at the end of the tunnel," or we are in the "end game," or in "another six months"... as Tom Friedman says


Tom Friedman's Flexible Deadlines
Iraq's 'decisive' six months have lasted two and a half years

5/16/06

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman is considered by many of his media colleagues to be one of the wisest observers of international affairs. "You have a global brain, my friend," MSNBC host Chris Matthews once told Friedman (4/21/05). "You're amazing. You amaze me every time you write a book."

Such praise is not uncommon. Friedman's appeal seems to rest on his ability to discuss complex issues in the simplest possible terms. On a recent episode of MSNBC's Hardball (5/11/06), for example, Friedman boiled down the intricacies of the Iraq situation into a make-or-break deadline: "Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."

That confident prediction would seem a lot more insightful, however, if Friedman hadn't been making essentially the same forecast almost since the beginning of the Iraq War. A review of Friedman's punditry reveals a long series of similar do-or-die dates that never seem to get any closer.



"The next six months in Iraq—which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there—are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time."
(New York Times, 11/30/03)


"What I absolutely don't understand is just at the moment when we finally have a UN-approved Iraqi-caretaker government made up of—I know a lot of these guys—reasonably decent people and more than reasonably decent people, everyone wants to declare it's over. I don't get it. It might be over in a week, it might be over in a month, it might be over in six months, but what's the rush? Can we let this play out, please?"
(NPR's Fresh Air, 6/3/04)


"What we're gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war."
(CBS's Face the Nation, 10/3/04)


"Improv time is over. This is crunch time. Iraq will be won or lost in the next few months. But it won't be won with high rhetoric. It will be won on the ground in a war over the last mile."
(New York Times, 11/28/04)


"I think we're in the end game now…. I think we're in a six-month window here where it's going to become very clear and this is all going to pre-empt I think the next congressional election—that's my own feeling— let alone the presidential one."
(NBC's Meet the Press, 9/25/05)


"Maybe the cynical Europeans were right. Maybe this neighborhood is just beyond transformation. That will become clear in the next few months as we see just what kind of minority the Sunnis in Iraq intend to be. If they come around, a decent outcome in Iraq is still possible, and we should stay to help build it. If they won't, then we are wasting our time."
(New York Times, 9/28/05)


"We've teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it's going to come together."
(CBS's Face the Nation, 12/18/05)


"We're at the beginning of I think the decisive I would say six months in Iraq, OK, because I feel like this election—you know, I felt from the beginning Iraq was going to be ultimately, Charlie, what Iraqis make of it."
(PBS's Charlie Rose Show, 12/20/05)


"The only thing I am certain of is that in the wake of this election, Iraq will be what Iraqis make of it—and the next six months will tell us a lot. I remain guardedly hopeful."
(New York Times, 12/21/05)


"I think that we're going to know after six to nine months whether this project has any chance of succeeding. In which case, I think the American people as a whole will want to play it out or whether it really is a fool's errand."
(Oprah Winfrey Show, 1/23/06)


"I think we're in the end game there, in the next three to six months, Bob. We've got for the first time an Iraqi government elected on the basis of an Iraqi constitution. Either they're going to produce the kind of inclusive consensual government that we aspire to in the near term, in which case America will stick with it, or they're not, in which case I think the bottom's going to fall out."
(CBS, 1/31/06)


"I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq."
(NBC's Today, 3/2/06)


"Can Iraqis get this government together? If they do, I think the American public will continue to want to support the effort there to try to produce a decent, stable Iraq. But if they don't, then I think the bottom is going to fall out of public support here for the whole Iraq endeavor. So one way or another, I think we're in the end game in the sense it's going to be decided in the next weeks or months whether there's an Iraq there worth investing in. And that is something only Iraqis can tell us."
(CNN, 4/23/06)


"Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."
(MSNBC's Hardball, 5/11/06)

[lynn]

I was listening to an interview on Fresh Air, wish I could remember the guest, and he made the comment that Iraq has turned so many corners it's heading back the way it came from. We could only wish.

[patricia]

Is anyone else surprised that despite the fact that the building in which Al Zarqawi and other people were discovered levelled to rubble, computer messages detailing al Queda's battle plans survived intact and were retrieved?
The written notes, in Arabic, detailed plans to misinform the world that Iran had WMDs and various other false information to create havoc in the region, apparently.

[shrugs]

Originally Posted by patricia

Is anyone else surprised that despite the fact that the building in which Al Zarqawi and other people were discovered levelled to rubble, computer messages detailing al Queda's battle plans survived intact and were retrieved?

I believe there was a basement.

Or the laptop could have been a toughbook.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by shrugs

I believe there was a basement.

Or the laptop could have been a toughbook.

Oh. Well then....

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by lynn

I was listening to an interview on Fresh Air, wish I could remember the guest, and he made the comment that Iraq has turned so many corners it's heading back the way it came from. We could only wish.

Why would you wish that?

You anti-Bush types are perplexing sometimes.

[graypencil]

The most disgusting aspect to thiss weeks "success" with blowing away the current bogeyman is DUBBya seizing the opportunity to grandstand yet again by his "unannounced" overnight flight to Baghdad to meet the new panjandrum ..

..and "look him in the eye" while spewing that "the USA keeps its promises "bullshit
again ..

..with no mention ( of course ) of anything resembling an exit strategy from this useless bloody mess he and his reichstag have created.

..and then theres that six and a half foot tall terrorist with the alleged bad kidneys

...still on the loose ..

[lynn]

Well Scott -

I guess that means we could be bringing our people home. I certainly can't find fault with that. Is there something about his comments that is uncomprehensable. Maybe you just had to be there. Maybe it got lost in translation. Whatever makes you happy.

Just a sad milestone for our military families.

[lynn]

Originally Posted by graypencil

The most disgusting aspect to thiss weeks "success" with blowing away the current bogeyman is DUBBya seizing the opportunity to grandstand yet again by his "unannounced" overnight flight to Baghdad to meet the new panjandrum ..

..and "look him in the eye" while spewing that "the USA keeps its promises "bullshit
again ..

..with no mention ( of course ) of anything resembling an exit strategy from this useless bloody mess he and his reichstag have created.

..and then theres that six and a half foot tall terrorist with the alleged bad kidneys

...still on the loose ..

My personal favorite is Bush accusing Democrats of making the world less safe from terror by wanting develop a timeline to bring our troops home. Who in the hell started this mess in Iraq in the first place? ARRRRRRGGGGGGG!

He certainly must have his head jammed up a dark hole.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by lynn

Well Scott -

I guess that means we could be bringing our people home. I certainly can't find fault with that. Is there something about his comments that is uncomprehensable. Maybe you just had to be there. Maybe it got lost in translation. Whatever makes you happy.

Just a sad milestone for our military families.

Wouldn't you wish that we could leave there and have a stable government in place that could give the people of Iraq a better life than they had before?

[shrugs]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Wouldn't you wish that we could leave there and have a stable government in place that could give the people of Iraq a better life than they had before?

Please pardon the mess but we're the United States and we'll be bettering your country for the next decade or so.

[lynn]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Wouldn't you wish that we could leave there and have a stable government in place that could give the people of Iraq a better life than they had before?

Sure Scott, somebody should have a democracy after this is all over. It won't be our country. Plus we'll be broke, our kids will be broke and our grandkids will be broke, still paying for this mindboggling folly.

[GoodSpeak]

And how many Mothers have died with them....?

[GoodSpeak]

I pray to God, every night, my son won't be called to die for Bush next.

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

You anti-Bush types are perplexing sometimes.

Every night, before going to bed, I kneel and give thanks that our fearless (cowboy) leader is not perplexing.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by lynn

Sure Scott, somebody should have a democracy after this is all over. It won't be our country. Plus we'll be broke, our kids will be broke and our grandkids will be broke, still paying for this mindboggling folly.

They already have a fledgling one. But you somewhat sidestepped my question. Your original statement, if I interpretted it correctly, said that you wanted Iraq to return to where it was before the war. Is that the way you truly feel?

[lynn]

You didn't. He meant that they have turned so many corners they should be heading home by now.

Wounded in action 18,500+. Official Iraqi casualties 30,000+. Baghdad residents killed since January, 6,000+

[Gary Sisco]

It would not be at all uncommon to find things left intact after a bomb explodes. Of course, it's not uncommon the other way either! If a human can survive one -- and many do -- why not a computer disk?

It's fantasy to assume that the insurgency is on the wane for this, however, since Al Q's franchise in Iraq has been a decidedly small one all along. The insurgency isn't any one thing or outfit. It's something rising up out of the people themselves and will continue to do so for years to come.

Taking out one guy changes nothing and making projections about the future based on a short time's events is just silly. One remembers Westmoreland stepping on his dick on the eve of Tet in '68. Light at the end of the tunnel, alright. Lighting up the whole frickin' country!

[patricia]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

It would not be at all uncommon to find things left intact after a bomb explodes. Of course, it's not uncommon the other way either! If a human can survive one -- and many do -- why not a computer disk?

It wasn't a computer disc that I saw on the news, Gary. It was several undamaged sheets of paper, written in Arabic. I thought it strange that in a building, levelled by two five hundred pound bombs, these particular sheets of paper, detailed operational plans, a holy grail, would have survived and been found so quickly.
I think my skepticism is warranted.

[Gary Sisco]

You can think so but stranger things than that have happened in explosions, Pat. Hell, the allies reduced most German cities to rubble during WW2 but much of the country's cultural artifacts survived regardless. It's not uncommon at all for an explosion to blow paper around all over the place without destroying it.

It's also not uncommon for a microscopic shard of shrapnel to instantly kill a human without even a show of blood -- something I've seen with my own eyes.

Every explosion has its own freak occurences. I'm certain there were many such freak things in the rubble of WTC, as well.

It's all a roll of the dice.

In the end, it matters not, however, because nothing written or said, factual or bogus, is going to change the events unfolding in Iraq.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by lynn

You didn't. He meant that they have turned so many corners they should be heading home by now.

Wounded in action 18,500+. Official Iraqi casualties 30,000+. Baghdad residents killed since January, 6,000+

I was going by your quote, though. You said "back to where it came from".

[patricia]

I know, Gary. But, it just seemed odd that the very evidence that was needed was immediately discovered and on the 6 o'clock news.
And, because the papers were written in Arabic, they could be anything. We are told that they are a detailed blueprint of al Queda activities and plans. For all we know they could be somebody's grocery list. Remember the trucks in the desert and the supposed vials of poison presented at the U.N. meeting by Powell?
Your points are of course valid. But, you can hardly blame me for questioning.
It's getting so that if their lips are moving, they're lying.

[Gary Sisco]

Well, there is always the lying factor -- or psywar -- but this one would be mightly lame since Al Q and other Islamists are also on the web, not to mention Arab News (which is in English), so it would be so easily refuted as to be a waste of time. Not that wasting time or other people's money isn't the primary pastime of pols and bureaucracies (the military is only an armed bureacracy, let's face it).

They do have translators, Pat, and the translation can be read in newspapers American and international. Certainly you don't suspect their controlling range to include the international press as well as the American?

And they don't lie about everything. There's nothing to gain in this situation by lying. One guy's death is meaningless to the outcome of either the war or the insurgency. Al Q itself, to the extent that it's an organization (which isn't much -- it's much more of a mood than an organization), has little to no effect on the outcome in Iraq, one way or another, outside the often feverish American imagination.

There is always the idiot factor, too, however, and it's also true that they haven't been able to adjust their brains to the new (apparently, to them) reality of instant communcations worldwide, in millions of directions. News travels faster than any plan to control it possibly could. Hell, there are American soldiers and Marines posting directly from combat or immediately afterward to bbs's and e-lists, and there are very likely more media per capita there than anywhere before in history.

Nothing can be covered up in that situation. Even if it was a fabrication, it would be public knowledge by now, worldwide.

[patricia]

Nevertheless, Gary, ever since the Big Slide Show at the U.N. council before the war was launched and the "Mission Accomplished" photo-op, not to mention the NSA spying admission, I find myself not just skeptical, but looking at ever news item billed as a major development as public relations, rather than the unmanaged truth.
I guess it's because even when those who have been shown to be chronic liars tell the truth, I find it difficult to believe them.

[Gary Sisco]

Skeptical everyone should be. It can grade into paranoia, however, if you're not careful.

The NSA I'm sorry to tell everyone has been monitoring communications into and out of the country for many years -- long, long before Bush. It being the most secretive of the secret agencies, it hasn't received many headlines but it's been busy, regardless. Most of the laws and regs prohibiting this or that are honored more in the breech than not by the intelligence services, anyway, and there's nothing new about that either. Does anyone really think the CIA didn't do any spying in the US for all of those years? Why would they honor that law but not the many others they've routinely broken? And how would anyone know in most cases?

Part of the problem is the damnable tube. Hard to pull a "Mission Accomplished" on people who don't watch. How anyone could have been fooled by Powell's show is beyond me. Did anyone think he'd actually be walking around -- in the UN of all places which isn't even American territory, legally speaking -- with a vial of some of the most deadly stuff on the planet?
Come on, already. Only the gullible can be gulled in a situation like that. A little thought is all it takes to scoff right there on the spot. An accident with a vial of antrax that large in NYC would have made the death toll from WTC seem like a day at the beach.

[patricia]

I think, and have always thought, that the idea that the military which were being amassed around Iraq, while the inspections were being conducted would be called back if they didn't find any WMDs, chemical plants or biological weapons was the most ridiculous.
I remember posting comments here which were ridiculed by those who actually believed that Powell and everyone else had a real interest in using an invasion as a last resort, which war should, IMO, always be.
As the inspections were being conducted, President Bush and other admin officials were giving speeches that made it clear to me that it didn't matter what happened, Iraq was lying and was hiding whatever the U.N. inspections couldn't find.
There was never any doubt in my mind that the die had already been cast.
If the U.N. inspections served any purpose at all, it was to buy some time to co-ordinate the sure victory for the already deployed invasion force.
Of course, the quick, Faulkland Islands-esque victory was a pipe dream, but there was never a question that Iraq was going to be invaded.
Like you, Gary, I watched the charade at the U.N. and wondered how anyone could take the exhibits and the case itself seriously. It required a level of trust in the interpretation by those who had already decided their course, on the pictures and presentation which defied logic. And yet, the anger when every country didn't buy it had immediate reprecussions then, extending to today for those who were skeptical. Yes, like Canada. With our new Prime Minister anxious to repair relations with the U.S. who knows what he will agree to do, to that end?
But, regardless, here we all are....