Meanwhile - back in Iraq

[lynn]

U.S. May Reassign Iraq Staff for Security
October 29, 2003 10:19 AM EST


WASHINGTON - As violence has spiraled in Iraq, top U.S. officials have debated pulling intelligence officers off the so-far unsuccessful hunt for weapons of mass destruction and reassigning them to counterinsurgency efforts, officials said Wednesday.

The United States already is planning to recruit more Iraqis to gather information about opposition fighters and may increase security measures to protect troops, President Bush said Tuesday, the third straight day of bombings in Iraq.

But Pentagon, CIA and other top officials have not been able to agree on whether to reassign some of the 1,400 people working on the weapons search, three officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday.

One intelligence official said they have been struggling for more than three weeks over the question of whether shifting intelligence personnel to the battle against insurgent forces would be harmful. Other possibilities include moving the needed intelligence officers, linguists and others from somewhere else, contracting outsiders or options that the official declined to cite.

Some officials have made the case that the No. 1 priority is to stop the attacks on coalition
forces, Iraqis and international organizations.

Others are arguing that it's vitally important to find out what happened to biological and chemical weapons that the Bush administration said Saddam Hussein had and which constituted the main rationale for war.

Any move to reduce those working on the weapons hunt would likely have political implications since critics charge the administration exaggerated the weapons charge to justify a war it had already decided to wage, one official said.

The 1,400 in the so-called Iraq Survey Group have been looking for weapons, former regime officials and evidence on the fate of the Navy pilot Scott Speicher, shot down and still missing from the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

At times, translators and analysts have been borrowed from the group to help with other intelligence work, one official said. But formally changing their tasking would require approval of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the official said.

The CIA is wary about undermining the search for weapons, the New York Times reported in Wednesday editions.

U.S. Commanders in Iraq have said for months they were working to improve their intelligence gathering to try to prevent attacks against coalition troops and the Iraqis who help them. They've claimed some successes by capturing or killing many of the top 55 most wanted members of the former government and encouraging more Iraqis to tip off troops to weapons caches and opposition fighters.

Yet American officials say they still don't know who is behind the car bombings that have been striking Baghdad for more than two months, despite the efforts of 130,000 U.S. troops, 22,000 other coalition troops, more than 80,000 Iraqi security forces and dozens of FBI agents.

Meanwhile, Bush said other changes are being planned to bolster Iraq security.

"We're constantly looking at the enemy and adjusting," the president said at a Rose Garden news conference. "Iraq is dangerous, and it's dangerous because terrorists want us to leave, and we're not leaving."

Also, a scathing internal report on the Army's information gathering in Iraq found intelligence specialists on the ground unprepared for their jobs and with little ability to analyze what they hear.

The Army report found the service's intelligence specialists in Iraq "did not appear to be prepared for tactical assignments" and often exhibited "weak intelligence briefing skills" and "very little to no analytical skills."

The criticism came in a report by a four-member team from the Center for Army Lessons Learned, the Army's agency for pushing commanders to learn from mistakes. The team visited Army units in Iraq during the first two weeks of June and released its report on an Army Web site last week.

A particular problem, the team said, has been finding enough competent Arabic interpreters to help American forces. Many of the interpreters don't have much training for their jobs and only enough specialized knowledge "to tell the difference between a burro and a burrito," the Army report said.


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

Copyright 2003 Associated Press.


This is looking worse by the day. I'm thinking Waterloo.

[Tom Storer]

Obviously they have to work to protect American and American-allied forces against attack. What I'm afraid of is that all the energy and resources will be going to either searching for WMDs or fighting the insurgents, instead of to preparing administrative and other infrastructures that work, and will work after America leaves. Because we ought to be planning on leaving.

[patricia]

Although it's true that, as wars go, this is not a long war, still the progress, if it is progress is slow, compared to the initial "victory".

It's starting to look to me like a "you made your bed, now lie on it" situation. That seems to describe the decision for the U.S. to continue to lose troops, almost on a daily basis, as well as the rest of the world's attitude toward sending troops to assist, particularly in the post-war plans, which turned out not to exist.
I think that this was absolutely predictable and said so, when the decision was made to attack Iraq, without the support of most other major forces.
Now, IMO, the question becomes how long will this go on and at what point can the troops withdraw, without the administration losing face??

There was NO post war plan, right Patricia? Progress, if there truly is any, is slow, do I also have that right?

All of this comes from the whitehouse.gov, so naturally it's all lies. I'm sure Lynn can even vouch for that with all the first hand knowledge she has of whats going on over there. You libs want to trumpet your propoganda, well, here's mine:

10 Signs of Better Security
The Coalition is working with Iraqis to improve internal security throughout the country. While the security situation is improving, dangerous remnants of the former regime and others continue to target progress and success.


New Iraqi army and police forces are being recruited, trained, and equipped. Some 1,200 Iraqis will be trained this year for the new Iraqi army, and in two years, 40,000 army recruits will be trained.

Fifty-eight of 89 Iraqi cities have hired police forces. In total, 34,000 Iraqis are employed in patrolling the streets of their country, and of these, 30,000 Iraqis are currently patrolling with coalition forces.

More than 8,200 tons of ammunition, thousands of AK-47s, grenades, and other weapons have been seized throughout Iraq -- much of which was stored by the Hussein regime in hospitals, schools, and mosques.

The CPA has hired more than 11,000 Iraqis to guard key facilities around the country.

Coalition forces, with information from an Iraqi, conducted operations that lead to the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein following their refusal to surrender. To date, 37 of the top 55 most wanted Iraqis have been captured or killed. With the deaths of Uday and Qusay, more and more Iraqis are freed from their fear and are volunteering their services and information.

Coalition forces continue to take the offensive against the remnants of the Ba'athist regime who are targeting the sites and symbols of reconstruction and stabilization successes.

An Iraqi Civil Defense Force will help U.S. and Coalition forces in rooting out Saddam loyalists and criminal gangs who have been attacking military forces and obstructing reconstruction efforts. Four thousand Iraqi militiamen will be trained by U.S. troops over the next eight weeks.

In Basra, 500 river police have been patrolling since June 19.

Some 148,000 U.S. service members and more than 13,000 Coalition troops from 19 countries are serving in Iraq.

Most of Iraq is calm and progress on the road to democracy and freedom not experienced in decades continues. Only in isolated areas are there still attacks.



10 Signs of Better Infrastructure and Basic Services

Electricity: Electricity is now more equitably distributed and more stable, instead of, as during Saddam Hussein's rule, being supplied to Baghdad at the expense of the rest of the country. For the rest of 2003, $294 million is budgeted to improve electrical systems.

Water Systems: Water supply in many areas is now at pre-conflict levels. Over 2000 repairs have been made to 143 water networks, and water quality sampling has restarted. There are plans to add 450 million liters of capacity to Baghdad's system.

Healthcare: Iraqi hospitals are up and running, and healthcare, previously available only for Ba'athist elite, is now available to all Iraqis. Drugs are being supplied to hospitals and clinics, and medical worker salaries are being paid regularly, ensuring employees attend work. Vaccinations are available across the country, and anti-malarial spraying will take place this autumn.

Returning Refugees: Refugees began returning from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. UNHCR and the Coalition are working together to ensure that groups of refugees in Jordan and Iran can return to Iraq safely and comfortably in the near future.

Revitalizing Oil Production and Distribution: Repairs and modernizations are being made to the antiquated and neglected oil production and distribution systems. Oil will provide the future wealth of the country but was severely misappropriated by the former regime.

Police: There are 6,000 police on the streets of Baghdad and 34 out of 60 police stations are currently operational. Throughout Iraq, there are some 30,000 police patrolling the streets.

Road Repairs: Emergency road repairs, underway throughout Iraq now, will employ even more Iraqis in the coming weeks.

Airports: The Baghdad and Basra airports are ready to open, and the airport in Basra is expected to begin commercial operations in August. Several airlines are likely to start regular air service to Iraq.

Major Bridges: $4.3 million has been provided to repair the Tikrit Bridge; $4.4 million to rebuild the Al Mat Bridge; and $3.2 million to rebuild the Khazir Bridge.

Port at Umm Qasr: The port at Umm Qasr is open and functioning again, and customs and port authority agents are being trained.


10 Signs of Democracy

A 25-member national Governing Council includes three women and Kurdish, Sunni, Christian, Turkmen, and Shi'ia representatives. The establishment of this body is a first and important move toward Iraqi self-government.

The Governing Council is creating a Preparatory Commission to write a constitution. After a constitution is approved, elections will lead to a fully sovereign Iraqi government.

There are municipal councils in all major cities and 85 percent of towns, enabling Iraqis to take responsibility for management of local matters like healthcare, water, and electricity.

Provisional councils have been formed in Najaf, Al Anbar, and Basra.

The Baghdad City Advisory Council was inaugurated on July 7, 2003. Its 37 members were selected by members of the city's nine district councils, who themselves were selected by Baghdad citizens in 88 neighborhoods throughout the city.

Local governance councils are robust in Basra and Umm Qasr, helping to identify areas for immediate humanitarian and reconstruction assistance.

The Office of Human Rights and Transitional Justice is working to locate missing persons, investigate, analyze, and exhume mass graves, archive past human rights abuses and promote civic education/public awareness about human rights.

To facilitate voluntary resolutions of property claims, the Property Reconciliation Facility is being created.

The Coalition is helping fund and train Iraqis wanting to create their own non-governmental organizations. These new NGOs include public policy think tanks and an association of former political prisoners.

More than 150 newspapers are now published in Iraq offering Iraqis access to many different kinds of information. Foreign publications, radio, and television broadcasts are also available.


10 Improvements in the Lives of Iraqi Children

A "back to school" campaign delivered 1,500 kits with book bags, notebooks, pens and pencils that helped 120,000 students in Baghdad return to their classrooms in May 2003. In preparation for the new school year, 1.2 million kits for secondary school students and 4,000 kits for their schools including desks, chairs, blackboards, and bookshelves are arriving in Iraq.

Malnutrition contributed to high mortality rates in Iraq during Saddam's rule. The food aid for Iraq has continued to supply the public distribution system and has allowed the majority of Iraqis access to food rations. On July 15, the World Food Program reported that nearly 1.5 million metric tons of food, or more than the three months supply required to keep the distribution system operating, have been dispatched to Iraq. An additional 2.2 million metric tons of food will arrive by the end of October. These steps will contribute to reversing malnutrition.

To date, 22.3 million doses of measles, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, and polio vaccines have been provided, enough to vaccinate 4.2 million children.

Nearly all Iraqi children have finished their exams from last year and are ready to start a new school year in the fall. All universities are reopened.

A $53 million program to rehabilitate more than 100 schools and clinics is underway. In the southern region, more than 50 schools are in various stages of rehabilitation. More than 600 schools will be in "like new" condition in time for the beginning of classes.

Five million revised math and science textbooks will be ready before the start of the school year.

Saddam Hussein's rhetoric is being removed from Iraqi schoolchildren's textbooks. In the words of Dunia Nabel, a teacher in Baghdad: "We want flowers and springtime in the texts, not rifles and tanks." (The Chicago Tribune, July 31, 2003).

Ten delivery rooms in hospitals and primary healthcare centers in Basra have been rehabilitated and stocked with essential drugs and medical supplies.

The juvenile institution for children that was the subject of reports of abuse and appalling conditions under Saddam Hussein has been replaced by a project run by UNICEF and NGOs. Seven orphanages have undergone major building renovations and training for staff.

Nearly 3,000 soccer balls were shipped on May 30 and another 60,000 balls on their way to Iraq through a private/public partnership and the U.S. soccer community.








Let the lame, and unsubstantiated arguments begin.

More you say?

Fine:

10 Signs of Economic Renewal

A New Economy: A new Iraqi economy is being built on the principles of market economics, respect for the rule of law, and transparency.

Salaries: The CPA regularly pays salaries to those teachers, healthcare workers, soldiers, police, and other public sector employees who have returned to work. Payments of pensions and other emergency payments have also helped to avert a humanitarian crisis. Teachers' salaries, and other key employees' salaries, have increased four-fold over their pay under Saddam Hussein. Some 39,000 electrical workers are back at work. Other sectors show similar encouraging signs.

Commerce: The marketplace in Baghdad has many goods that were previously unavailable because of sanctions or because they were forbidden under the previous regime. Items such as satellite dishes are now readily available to Iraqis.

Banks: Banks are open in Baghdad. The CPA is working with Iraqis outside of Baghdad to open banks across the country as soon as possible. In addition, international interest in establishing an Iraqi trade bank has been strong, and proposals from foreign banks are under review for creating this trade facility.

Food: The CPA has purchased the upcoming wheat and barley crops, helping to meet the country's food needs while supporting farmers. These crops include over 600,000 metric tons of Iraqi wheat and more than 300,000 metric tons of Iraqi barley.

Loans for Entrepreneurs: A micro-credit facility is now being set up in the South. Credit facilities for the rest of the country are also planned. Iraq's two major banks will start making small and medium sized business loans to help Iraqi entrepreneurs restart their businesses.

Currency: A unified currency for Iraq has been announced. The exchange of old banknotes for new ones is set to begin October 15.

Iraqis' Savings: The dinar has maintained its value against the dollar, preserving the dinar-dominated savings of Iraqi citizens.

Natural Resources: Oil production is increasing, with daily production of crude averaging 1 million barrels in recent days.

Budget: The budget for the last six months of 2003 is now being executed, and the 2004 budget formulation process has begun. Of the 2003 budget, more than $400 million has been released to Ministries in July and August alone. The 2004 budget process, to be run by Iraqis, will target the most important priorities for the country's reconstruction and build on the spending commitments of the budget for the last six months of 2003.


10 Examples of International Support for the Renewal of Iraq

The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said of the Iraqi Governing Council: "[The Council's] formation is an important first step towards the full restoration of Iraqi sovereignty." The UN is supporting the renewal of Iraq through the Oil for Food program, and by providing humanitarian assistance, promoting human rights, and assisting the Iraqi Governing Council in rejoining the international community.

The United Nations Security Council passed, without opposition, Resolution 1483, lifting sanctions against the Iraqi regime.

The top 12 financial supporters for the renewal of Iraq are (in descending order): the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Australia, Germany, Norway, Denmark, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Spain, and Kuwait.

The UN reports that its total humanitarian assistance for the people of Iraq is $2.2 billion, of which $1.2 billion is pledged or contributed from the international community and $1 billion is funded through the Oil for Food program.

In addition, several countries have pledged $800 million to UN programs. Nearly three dozen countries have made pledges or contributions to the renewal of Iraq.

There are now 34 foreign missions in Baghdad. Kuwait has reestablished relations with Iraq.

International pledges for reconstruction assistance are almost $3 billion, and an international conference to discuss additional funding for Iraq is scheduled for the fall.

More than 45 countries have offered military forces. The United Kingdom and Poland are each leading multinational divisions.

Numerous countries have contributed to the Coalition by providing basing and fly-over rights, as well as logistical support.

A total of 19 countries providing more than 13,000 troops in Iraq are supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom, and 14 countries are committed to deploying additional troops.


10 Signs of Cultural Rebirth

Iraqi Olympic Committee is reconstituted without fear from Uday Hussein: The new President of the Free Iraq Olympic group said, "The Iraqi teams used to produce the champions of Asia in many sports. They have declined since the arrival of Uday. Now we want to rebuild them with the help of the international community." -- Sharar Haydar, one of Uday Hussein's former torture victims, The Guardian (London), May 15, 2003.

The Baghdad symphony is performing, and their concerts are also being televised. The conductor of the symphony said, "We're trying to show the world that Iraqis have a great culture." -- Hisham Sharaf, at a performance of the Baghdad Symphony, Agence France Presse, June 12, 2003.

Theaters are quickly reopening. In the words of one filmmaker: "You cannot imagine what it means for us to be here on this national stage, where everything we stand for was forbidden. Now it is ours."-- Oday Rashid, Los Angeles Times, May 5, 2003.

Religious rites are being reestablished. As one Iraqi said: "I can't express my feelings. All I feel is joy. This is the first time I've seen this (Shiite celebrations) for 30 years. Saddam forbade everything. He forced us underground." -- Sami Abbas, a Shia at the holy shrine of Kadhimiy, The Washington Post, April 16, 2003.

150 newspapers on the streets of Baghdad help get out the news of a free Iraq. Ali Jabar is quoted as saying, "Every day I buy a different paper. I like them all." Says a newspaper editor: "We can't train staff fast enough. People are desperate here for a neutral free press after 30 years of a totalitarian state." -- Saad al-Bazzaz, editor of the Azzaman Daily in Baghdad, The Independent (London), July 8, 2003.

Satellite dishes are the most popular items for sale in Baghdad. "I want to watch all of the world, all channels in the world. I want to watch freedom." -- Mohammed al-Khayat, an Iraqi who just purchased his first satellite dish, The Baltimore Sun, April 26, 2003.

Banned books are now available in the market. A teacher selling books in Baghdad said: "Before, so many books were forbidden -- anything that didn't agree with the regime. Which means practically everything that was ever printed!" -- Imad Saad, Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2003.

Artists are free to display their works and poets are free to write. As one poet said: "For decades, we were used to watching ourselves. Now you can think with words. But to talk loudly and to think loudly takes time. Freedom needs practice, and it takes practice to be free." -- Mohammed Thamer, The Washington Post, April 22, 2003.

Education is being revitalized. As a member of Baghdad's city council pointed out, "We want to have a real education, to be a progressive country. Education is very important to the reconstruction of our society. If you want to civilize society, you must care about education." -- Al Sa'ad Majid al Musowi, The Chicago Tribune, July 31, 2003.

The Marshlands are being rehabilitated. In the words of one Iraqi, "We broke the dams when the Iraqi army left. We want to teach our children how to fish, how to move on the water again." -- Qasim Shalgan Lafta, a former fisherman who helped restore the water to the Iraqi wetlands that Saddam had destroyed, The Chicago Tribune, June 13, 2003.


10 Steps to Improve the Lives of Iraqi Women

The Coalition is working to ensure that women play an important role in all parts of the government.

Three Iraqi women who are members of the new Governing Council are fully engaged in promoting the involvement of women in Iraq's future.

An esteemed former female Iraqi judge in the Ministry of Justice is undertaking a review of laws, legal practices, and the legal profession in Iraq for ways to increase equality and participation of women.

The Ministry of Interior conducted an assessment of the former Iraqi Police Force in early April. This resulted in a requirement to target recruitment of women and their inclusion in training offered at all academies. The program will become a reality August 15 when the recruiting drive begins with women as one of the groups targeted for selection.

The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs has adopted a policy of equal access to services and benefits for all those eligible, and this policy will ultimately expand services as well as quality to larger numbers of Iraqis including women.

Iraqi women will have a role in the development of democracy and civil society. A senior administration official from the CPA Democracy and Governance team is conducting outreach activities to involve Iraqi women.

The Coalition team has held numerous meetings with Iraqi women from all walks of life to hear their concerns and to listen to their ideas for the future development of democracy in their country. In addition, the CPA has met with various women's groups and with international organizations regarding their ideas and efforts to meet the needs of Iraqi women.

The Coalition helped a group of Iraqi women conduct a conference July 9 that included workshops on the constitution and democracy, legal reform, education, health and social affairs, and economic and employment issues. More than 70 women attended, the majority of whom were Iraqi women experts in such fields as law, academia, medicine, and business.

Quotas restricting the entry of women into certain university courses have been raised or lifted altogether.

Iraqi women's organizations are being created to expand opportunities for women to improve their lives and those of their families.




No need to feel happy for the Iraqi people, lets just all sit around and bitch about what an evil fuck Bush is.

Oh, and by the way, this is all happening in a country where "violence is spiraling"!!




Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.........................................................

• "All of this comes from the whitehouse.gov, so naturally it's all lies."

Not all lies, of course, but the White House is not the most credible of sources, so you can be sure that this information is, at best, distorted.

BTW, Scott, I don't think anyone here has suggested that everything about our involvement in Iraq is negative, but this regime has lied so much, twisted things so much, and concealed so much information that quoting it has become a bit of a joke.

• If even a fraction of that rosy picture could be applied to our situation at home, fewer people would be looking forward to kicking this appointed regime out on its ass.

[Ron Thorne]

In the meantime, we still haven't been able to find Osama, Saddam or Saddam's top military leader, who's now thought to be orchestrating much of the chaos in Iraq.

It's absurd for anyone to think that nothing worthwhile or meaningful is taking place in Iraq. Of course, some fine things are happening, thanks to some superb efforts by Americans and others. In my estimation, it's equally absurd for anyone to think that this administration had a well-thought out post war plan, or if it did, that it's working effectively.

Nah, I'm just in awe of all the chaos.

It's absurd for anyone to think that nothing worthwhile or meaningful is taking place in Iraq. Of course, some fine things are happening

Are they, Ron? How interesting. Then I wonder why every single article that you and your lefty brethren posts is nothing but pure sorrow. But thats cool, think about it this way, you and I will make a great team. You can continue to post nothing but the negative, and I'll continue to post nothing but the positive.

Everyone wins!

[las.vegas.lynn]

Wow Scott, is that the Awe part of "Shock and Awe"? in the meantime the post war casualty figures have now outpaced the war death toll. I sure wouldn't be tooting your horn too soon there fella.

[Ron Thorne]

Warning: These are rhetorical questions.

Why is it that so many people can never "paint" with anything other than a ridiculously broad brush? Or, see any gray, instead of only black & white?

[Ron Thorne]

Gee, does this sound familiar? Hmmmm.

We have some major cajones at play here, folks.

Halliburton Gouging In Iraq?
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16, 2003


Two senior Democratic lawmakers say Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, is gouging U.S. taxpayers while importing gasoline into Iraq. The Houston-based company contends it is paying the best price possible.

The New York Times reports that in a letter to the White House budget office, Reps. Henry Waxman of California and John Dingell of Michigan contended that, "Halliburton seems to be inflating gasoline prices at a great cost to American taxpayers."

"The overcharging is so extreme that one expert has privately called it 'highway robbery,'" the lawmakers said in the latest Democratic attacks against the Houston company that received a no-bid contract.

Waxman and Dingell said Halliburton's KBR subsidiary is billing the Army between $1.62 and $1.70 per gallon, while the average price for Middle East gasoline is 71 cents.

They also complained that Iraqis are charged between 4 cents and 15 cents at the pump for the imported gasoline.

The charges cover the purchase and transportation of the petroleum from Kuwait and other countries.

Halliburton, originally hired to extinguish oil fires, has received the expanded role of restoring Iraq's oil industry. The company has been paid $1.4 billion through September for its work.

"KBR is not responsible for establishing the price Iraqi motorists pay for gasoline at the pump," Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall said.

She said the company negotiates "fair and competitive prices" with suppliers outside Iraq and must transport the gasoline in a hostile environment.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which chose Halliburton, has received bids for a replacement contract that could be awarded this month.

Corps spokesman Robert Faletti said he could not confirm the figures that Waxman and Dingell cited in a letter to Joshua Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget.

He said, however, that the contract is being audited by Congress and the Army.

In a further move against Halliburton, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., announced Wednesday he would propose barring the government from awarding Iraq reconstruction contracts to companies that maintain close financial ties to the president, vice president or members of the president's Cabinet.

Lautenberg wants the measure added to an $87 billion reconstruction bill for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cheney receives deferred payments from Halliburton and also has stock options.

Cheney's office has said the vice president had no role in the contract and that the deferred payments were for his services while he headed the company. He has said he would give the proceeds to charity should he profit from the exercise of stock options.

[BFrank]

Cheney's office has said the vice president had no role in the contract and that the deferred payments were for his services while he headed the company. He has said he would give the proceeds to charity should he profit from the exercise of stock options.

"Dogs flew spaceships!
The Aztecs invented the vacation!
Men and women are the same sex!
.
Everything you know is W R O N G!"



[courtesy of The Firesign Theatre]

[Gary Sisco]

233 armed attacks on American troops in the last week alone. If that's "post-war" we're really getting Orwellian. I can't believe the media's all trumping that shit. Obviously if you're under steady armed attack, the war isn't quite "post" yet. Duh.

[las.vegas.lynn]

Look for these companies to get huge tax breaks on top of their war profiteering. It is obsene.

Originally posted by las.vegas.lynn
Wow Scott, is that the Awe part of "Shock and Awe"? in the meantime the post war casualty figures have now outpaced the war death toll. I sure wouldn't be tooting your horn too soon there fella.

Beep Beep

How many folks died on American streets during that period?

Hell, Miami for that matter.

Ignore the good stuff Lynn. Keep trumpeting the most negative shit you can find, I wouldn't expect anything less from you. You are the most predictable one trick pony we've got around here, don't let us down.

[Ron Thorne]

Eyes Wide Shut

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: October 30, 2003


WASHINGTON — In the thick of the war with Iraq, President Bush used to pop out of meetings to catch the Iraqi information minister slipcovering grim reality with willful, idiotic optimism.

"He's my man," Mr. Bush laughingly told Tom Brokaw about the entertaining contortions of Muhammad Said al-Sahhaf, a k a "Comical Ali" and "Baghdad Bob," who assured reporters, even as American tanks rumbled in, "There are no American infidels in Baghdad. Never!" and, "We are winning this war, and we will win the war. . . . This is for sure."

Now Crawford George has morphed into Baghdad Bob.

Speaking to reporters this week, Mr. Bush made the bizarre argument that the worse things get in Iraq, the better news it is. "The more successful we are on the ground, the more these killers will react," he said.

In the Panglossian Potomac, calamities happen for the best. One could almost hear the doubletalk echo of that American officer in Vietnam who said: "It was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."

The war began with Bush illogic: false intelligence (from Niger to nuclear) used to bolster a false casus belli (imminent threat to our security) based on a quartet of false premises (that we could easily finish off Saddam and the Baathists, scare the terrorists and democratize Iraq without leeching our economy).

Now Bush illogic continues: The more Americans, Iraqis and aid workers who get killed and wounded, the more it is a sign of American progress. The more dangerous Iraq is, the safer the world is. The more troops we seem to need in Iraq, the less we need to send more troops.

The harder it is to find Saddam, Osama and W.M.D., the less they mattered anyhow. The more coordinated, intense and sophisticated the attacks on our soldiers grow, the more "desperate" the enemy is.

In a briefing piped into the Pentagon on Monday from Tikrit, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno called the insurgents "desperate" eight times. But it is Bush officials who seem desperate when they curtain off reality. They don't even understand the political utility of truth.

After admitting recently that Saddam had no connection to 9/11, the president pounded his finger on his lectern on Tuesday, while vowing to stay in Iraq, and said, "We must never forget the lessons of Sept. 11."

Mr. Bush looked buck-passy when he denied that the White House, which throws up PowerPoint slogans behind his head on TV, was behind the "Mission Accomplished" banner. And Donald Rumsfeld looked duplicitous when he acknowledged in a private memo, after brusquely upbeat public briefings, that America was in for a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No juxtaposition is too absurd to stop Bush officials from insisting nothing is wrong. Car bombs and a blitz of air-to-ground missiles turned Iraq into a hideous tangle of ambulances, stretchers and dead bodies, just after Paul Wolfowitz arrived there to showcase successes.

But the fear of young American soldiers who don't speak the language or understand the culture, who don't know who's going to shoot at them, was captured in a front-page picture in yesterday's Times: two soldiers leaning down to search the pockets of one small Iraqi boy.

Mr. Bush, staring at the campaign hourglass, has ordered that the "Iraqification" of security be speeded up, so Iraqi cannon fodder can replace American sitting ducks. But Iraqification won't work any better than Vietnamization unless the Bush crowd stops spinning.

Neil Sheehan, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "A Bright Shining Lie," recalls Robert McNamara making Wolfowitz-like trips to Vietnam, spotlighting good news, yearning to pretend insecure areas were secure.

"McNamara was in a jeep in the Mekong Delta with an old Army colonel from Texas named Dan Porter," Mr. Sheehan told me. "Porter told him, `Mr. Secretary, we've got serious problems here that you're not getting. You ought to know what they are.' And McNamara replied: `I don't want to hear about your problems. I want to hear about your progress.' "

"If you want to be hoodwinked," Mr. Sheehan concludes, "it's easy."

My favorite screaming mimi.

[Ron Thorne]

It's No Vietnam

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Published: October 30, 2003


Since 9/11, we've seen so much depraved violence we don't notice anymore when we hit a new low. Monday's attacks in Baghdad were a new low. Just stop for one second and contemplate what happened: A suicide bomber, driving an ambulance loaded with explosives, crashed into the Red Cross office and blew himself up on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. This suicide bomber was not restrained by either the sanctity of the Muslim holy day or the sanctity of the Red Cross. All civilizational norms were tossed aside. This is very unnerving. Because the message from these terrorists is: "There are no limits. We have created our own moral universe, where anything we do against Americans or Iraqis who cooperate with them is O.K."

What to do? The first thing is to understand who these people are. There is this notion being peddled by Europeans, the Arab press and the antiwar left that "Iraq" is just Arabic for Vietnam, and we should expect these kinds of attacks from Iraqis wanting to "liberate" their country from "U.S. occupation." These attackers are the Iraqi Vietcong.

Hogwash. The people who mounted the attacks on the Red Cross are not the Iraqi Vietcong. They are the Iraqi Khmer Rouge — a murderous band of Saddam loyalists and Al Qaeda nihilists, who are not killing us so Iraqis can rule themselves. They are killing us so they can rule Iraqis.

Have you noticed that these bombers never say what their political agenda is or whom they represent? They don't want Iraqis to know who they really are. A vast majority of Iraqis would reject them, because these bombers either want to restore Baathism or install bin Ladenism.

Let's get real. What the people who blew up the Red Cross and the Iraqi police fear is not that we're going to permanently occupy Iraq. They fear that we're going to permanently change Iraq. The great irony is that the Baathists and Arab dictators are opposing the U.S. in Iraq because — unlike many leftists — they understand exactly what this war is about. They understand that U.S. power is not being used in Iraq for oil, or imperialism, or to shore up a corrupt status quo, as it was in Vietnam and elsewhere in the Arab world during the cold war. They understand that this is the most radical-liberal revolutionary war the U.S. has ever launched — a war of choice to install some democracy in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world.

Most of the troubles we have encountered in Iraq (and will in the future) are not because of "occupation" but because of "empowerment." The U.S. invasion has overturned a whole set of vested interests, particularly those of Iraq's Sunni Baathist establishment, and begun to empower instead a whole new set of actors: Shiites, Kurds, non-Baathist Sunnis, women and locally elected officials and police. The Qaeda nihilists, the Saddamists, and all the Europeans and the Arab autocrats who had a vested interest in the old status quo are threatened by this.

Many liberals oppose this war because they can't believe that someone as radically conservative as George W. Bush could be mounting such a radically liberal war. Some, though, just don't believe the Bush team will do it right.

The latter has been my concern. Can this administration, whose national security team is so divided, effectively stay the course in Iraq? Has the president's audacity in waging such a revolutionary war outrun his ability to articulate what it's about and to summon Americans for the sacrifices victory will require? Can the president really be a successful radical liberal on Iraq, while being such a radical conservative everywhere else — refusing to dismiss one of his own generals who insults Islam, turning a deaf ear to hints of corruption infecting the new Baghdad government as it's showered with aid dollars, calling on reservists and their families to bear all the burdens of war while slashing taxes for the rich, and undertaking the world's biggest nation-building project with few real allies?

I don't know. But here's what I do know: If Mr. Bush doesn't treat the next year as his second term, when he must do all the right things in Iraq without regard to politics, it is the only second term he's going to see.

•

On Oct. 23, when I cited 900 wounded in action in Iraq, I was referring to the period since Mr. Bush declared major fighting over on May 1. I was still wrong. Pentagon data shows 1,059 U.S. soldiers wounded in action from May 1 to Oct. 22.

Hmmmmmmm, an interesting article, Ron.

[Gary Sisco]

Dolan -- If adjusted for population, the dead Iraqi civilians so far would be the equivalent of more than 100,000 dead American civilians. Do you really think that many people have died on the American streets since May? (Never mind in Miami.) Give it a rest. He's the president, not God. You don't have to believe everything on faith without bothering to do any research of your own or coming to your own conclusions about it. Parroting a knee-jerk reactionary loyalty (whether conservative or liberal or whatever) prevents anyone who does so from being taken seriously. By anybody. Ask Rush, who will be forever more a tabloid star but never again taken seriously as a politico. As Bennet the same thing. I saw dozens of his books on sale in hardcover yesterday for $2.49 each, and no one was buying. And I hate to tell you this, but nobody's buying the Bushist line either but the True Believers In The One True Faith. Where I live, even the conservatives mock him, though most of them will still vote for them under the mistaken impression that they'll pay less taxes if they do. But far's the war goes or anything else but taxes, he's the subject of endless mockery here, even by Repubs. And this was a one-party, Repub state from the days before Lincoln until well into the 60s, and is still very conservative.

I don't know if you're a vet or not, but in Vietnam if there had been 233 attacks on American troops in one week, it would have been called the Tet Offensive, and they would have been calling up the reserves.

Oh, whoops. I forgot. They already have called up the reserves. In 2001.

[las.vegas.lynn]

It gives me unbelievable delight to be such a thorn up Dolan's butt. You call it being a one trick pony, I call it "Staying the course". Recognize the rhetoric?

Dolan -- If adjusted for population, the dead Iraqi civilians so far would be the equivalent of more than 100,000 dead American civilians.

Why does the figure NEED to be adjusted?

And even though I don't need to explain myself to you of all people, I will once again make it perfectly clear that I have been critical of things that the Bush admin has done(just ask Lynn, she called me 'flaky' because of it). Have many here can say they have been both positive and negative?

Those who constantly spout negative shit day in and day out are the ones who are blindly following an agenda.

[las.vegas.lynn]

Aid Groups Exit Baghdad As Attacks Surge

(Picture) Iraqis loot a train, carrying military supplies, outside Fallujah, west of Baghdad, Thursday, Oct 30, 2003. The train was carrying supplies when an improvised bomb set four containers ablaze. No casulaties were reported, but the attacked sparked a frenzy of looting by Iraqis who carried off computers, tents and other supplies. (AP Photo/Omar Ali)


October 30, 2003 05:43 PM EST


BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saboteurs brought a trainload of U.S. Army supplies to a fiery halt west of Baghdad on Thursday, as a Ramadan campaign of terror bombs and escalating attacks spurred a new Iraq pullout by international aid groups.

An explosion rocked a row of shops in Baghdad's Old City late Thursday, killing two people, according to police, and deepening the unease in the Iraqi capital.

Many Baghdad parents apparently were keeping their children home from school out of fear of further bombings like the four that killed three dozen people and wounded more than 200 across the capital on Monday, start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

"We heard rumors about big bombs that will go off," said Duha Khalid, 18, most of whose friends stayed home Thursday from her girls' high school, situated near a police station.

The police, prime targets in the bombings Monday, were targeted again Thursday, when officers intercepted a motorist who tried to toss a hand grenade into a police station on the edge of Baghdad's heavily guarded "green zone," the headquarters enclave for the U.S. occupation.

As October's heat finally gave way to cooling winds off the desert, rumors of looming trouble spread through this city of 5 million, focusing on the start of the week - Saturday in Muslim Iraq.

One leaflet on the streets, purporting to be from Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, called for a general strike Saturday through Monday "to prove to our enemy that we are united people."

The plainly typed flyer will further feed the debate over the identity of the shadowy underground of bombers striking Iraqi cities and ambush teams harassing U.S. forces: Are they die-hard Baathists, other anti-U.S. nationalists, foreign Islamic fighters, or some combination?

The identity of those swarming over the sabotaged train Thursday was clear: they were Iraqis from the Fallujah area, 35 miles west of Baghdad, who fell upon the crippled train to loot it of computers, tents, bottled water and other Army supplies.

The goods had been bound for the town of Haditha, 100 miles up the Euphrates River from Fallujah, when a makeshift bomb exploded along the tracks four miles west of Fallujah. As the uninjured engineer fled, four shipping containers on flatcars went up in flames, and more than 200 area residents descended on the other cars to make off with whatever they could carry.

No U.S. forces came to the scene, but at one point the looters scattered when two American helicopters whirred in for a look. At another point, Iraqis backed trucks up to the bombed train to offload goods.

The 6-month-old U.S. occupation is highly unpopular in Fallujah and in much of the rest of Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland, a favored region under the Baathist regime toppled by the U.S.-British invasion force last April.

Monday's bombings, one of which devastated the Baghdad headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross, prompted international aid organizations to quickly review their presence in Iraq.

On Wednesday, the ICRC announced it would reduce its 30-member international staff in Iraq but would continue operations. Among other things, the Red Cross, which has 600 Iraqi employees, tries to ensure the rights of prisoners of war and other postwar detainees, has worked to improve water quality, particularly for hospitals, and delivered medical supplies to Iraqi hospitals.

A smaller medical aid group, Medecins Sans Frontieres - Doctors Without Borders - also said it was pulling its international staff out.

Later Wednesday, the United Nations, whose Baghdad headquarters was devastated by a bombing in August, said it will temporarily withdraw its remaining international staff from Iraq - approximately 60 people, including 20 in Baghdad. The U.N. staff in relatively peaceful northern Iraq will remain.

"It's not our intention now to pull out totally," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told The Associated Press in New York on Thursday. "Of course, it depends on what further developments are coming." "We want to reassess our position and our posture and also try and assess the new developments on the ground," Annan said, "because we seem to be entering a new phase with the attacks of the last 72 hours, and we need to analyze for ourselves what the future holds and how we should conduct our own operations."

"I think this sort of reflection is better done in a calmer place and then we determine what our next moves should be," he said.

The U.S. command reported Wednesday that the number of attacks in the past week had jumped sharply to an average of 33 a day. In one incident early Thursday, a bomb exploded near a U.S. Army convoy in the northern city of Mosul, slightly wounding a 101st Airborne Division soldier.

In other developments:

-A hand grenade blast in the southern city of Karbala late Wednesday wounded Sheik Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalai, a representative of Shiite Muslim leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Rivalries among Shiite factions have led to occasional bloodshed since the war's end.

-Early Thursday, U.S. 4th Infantry Division soldiers raided a half-dozen houses in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, and detained four people suspected of planning attacks on U.S. forces.

-Iraqi oil officials said bad weather halted exports of crude oil from its southern Basra terminal for three days. Iraqi and U.S. officials are counting on oil revenues to help boost Iraqi reconstruction.

---

AP correspondents Tarek al-Issawi in Fallujah, Katarina Kratovac in Tikrit, Mariam Fam in Mosul and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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

Sounds real secure to me!

And Scott, if I did call you flakey I was actually being nice.

[Uli]

Originally posted by Ron Thorne
[B]It's No Vietnam


Many liberals oppose this war because they can't believe that someone as radically conservative as George W. Bush could be mounting such a radically liberal war. Some, though, just don't believe the Bush team will do it right.

This is why I never liked Friedman's stance on the war. imho, it's complete bs to call this a liberal war. Sure, if one beliefs that this war was to liberate people from a harsh dictatorship one can say that the goal of the war were liberal. To believe however that this is best done with this war ain't nothing liberal, imho. As a war against terrorism I always thoutht this war was completely counterproductive. I agree that Irak is probably No Vietnam. imho what it is, is the creation of another Sharon type Israel.

[Gary Sisco]

Why does the figure need to be adjusted? That's not even a serious question so it doesn't deserve a response.

Alright, then, let's go with hard numbers: The US had already killed more civilians in Afghanistan (never mind unknown numbers of people who were "armed" in a country where everyone is armed, so no way of knowing who they were and no way of ever even finding out), by a long shot, than died on 9/11, and now they've killed even more in Iraq. If you really think that that many civilians have died on the streets in the US in the same amount of time, you need to turn off your television and stop watching action flicks. Or you need some medication. One or the other.

We won't even speak of the barbaric treatment of prisoners, most of whom are unknown themselves and could as easily be civilians as anything else, for all Americans know, including the government, which admits as much.

Alright, then, let's go with hard numbers: The US had already killed more civilians in Afghanistan (never mind unknown numbers of people who were "armed" in a country where everyone is armed, so no way of knowing who they were and no way of ever even finding out), by a long shot, than died on 9/11, and now they've killed even more in Iraq. If you really think that that many civilians have died on the streets in the US in the same amount of time, you need to turn off your television and stop watching action flicks. Or you need some medication. One or the other.

If only you could back all these claims up(and please point out the "hard numbers" in that quote). Oh, I'm sure there's some "thinktank" out there in bum fuck Iowa or somewhere(Cambridge, Mass?) who will be happy to feed you all the numbers YOU want to hear. And you'll gladly gobble them up without a second thought simply because they justify your bitter existence. Hmmmm, what was that you were saying about blindly following without checking out the facts thoroughly? Finding the "facts" that make you happy doesn't count as checking them thoroughly.

And I couldn't care less about action flicks, nice try though.

And speaking of medication, I feel that thats exactly what is wrong with this society. It's inhabited by a bunch of overly medicated loons, such as yourself. Enjoy your crutch Gary, poor little guy, some of us have the guts and the emotional stability to face reality without dulling the edges. I truly enjoyed the medication thread from a few months back, it really brought this board into a much tighter focus for me and made me realize what kind of people I am dealing with.

Originally posted by Gary Sisco post #16 The Medication Thread


I take Zoloft and drink alcohol.

Nuff said.

[Gary Sisco]

O, Religious One! I've raised nothing and said nothing that hasn't appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Christian Science Monitor, major (ri news pubs like Time or Newsweek, or the major British dailies, as well as Ha'aretz from Israel. If you don't read the papers, it's not my fault, and I don't have to do your research for you, thanks. All the news on the planet is a click away and clearly you spend enough time on the web to read the news on your own. This is, whatever else can be said of it, the most open society in the world and everyone has access to the same information, unless they are too lazy (literally or intellectually) to seek out information for themselves and come to their own conclusions about it.

But if you think the streets of the US, as you claimed above, are more dangerous than living in Iraq today, you are clearly clinical and in desperate need of help.

[BFrank]

NY Times
November 2, 2003
In the Ranks, Similarities Between Vietnam and Iraq
By ELIZABETH BECKER

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 — It is a different war in a different era, fought by a different American Army. Yet the emerging profile of the soldiers, sailors, pilots and other service members dying in Iraq bears a surprising similarity to those who lost their lives in the Vietnam War.

It is a snapshot of a new, unresolved conflict, based on preliminary information from the Defense Department, which in some ways is hard to compare with the rich history of a war that stretched out over more than a decade and claimed more than 52,000 American lives.

However inexact, the early comparison does suggest that death remains the great leveler — despite 30 years of a voluntary Army, revolutionary changes in technology in all branches and the new military doctrines that have evolved since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

Southern and Western states may provide far more members to the American military today than during the Vietnam-era draft. But so far the geographic distribution of deaths in Iraq includes men (and a few women) from every state except Hawaii, Montana and West Virginia.

Pentagon leaders may be worried about the mass call-up of Reserves and the National Guard for this war. But these groups are represented on the death rolls in roughly the same proportion in Iraq as in Vietnam.

The military is better integrated today and more of a melting pot than it was 30 years ago. But the percentage of deaths of blacks in Iraq is also roughly the same as in Vietnam. (There was no category for Hispanic fighters in that era.)

The soldiers in Iraq are older and more likely to have a family than was the case for soldiers in Vietnam. But so far, the proportion of married people killed in Iraq appears to be smaller than it was in Vietnam.

Despite changes in technology and warfare since Vietnam, enlisted men and women make up most of the casualties now as then.

These similarities are of more than historical interest, say experts, who are seeing signs of unease about the war among Americans as casualties slowly mount.

Charles C. Moskos, a professor of sociology at Northwestern University, said that these similarities were striking and that they were partly responsible for the growing questioning of the war. "Even with these relatively low casualties, you can see disenchantment in the public as the casualties mount," he said.

The Iraq war has brought a new kind of casualty, though: women now account for 2 percent of the deaths. The numbers may seem small: five women have died. In all the years of the Vietnam War, only eight American women died.

But the greatest difference is the absence in Iraq of waves of young men killed in action. In Vietnam, 60 percent of the deaths were men no older than 21. In Iraq, there have been more deaths of men and women between 25 and 30 than of those younger than 22.

William Hammond, a Vietnam historian of the Army, said that how the public viewed the war was closely tied to whether it accepted casualties. In Korea and Vietnam, he said, there was a mathematical precision to a drop in public acceptance of the war and the increase in casualties.

One anomaly in the casualty list is a high rate of suicides among the military in Iraq compared with the troops in Vietnam. This does not square with reports that say morale is good in Iraq.