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seth106 · 25-10-2006, 08:06 PM

Bush tells Maliki government to tackle militias or face penalties

By Julian Borger in Washington

10/24/06 - The White House confirmed yesterday that it had set "benchmarks and milestones" for the Iraqi government to disarm militias and take other concrete steps to stabilise the country.

The White House confirmed yesterday that it had set "benchmarks and milestones" for the Iraqi government to disarm militias and take other concrete steps to stabilise the country.
The administration had initially denied a report that the government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki would be given an ultimatum to do more to curb sectarian violence, but Dan Bartlett, President Bush's media adviser, yesterday argued that the report had simply been "overwritten" and there was little new in it.

"It is appropriate to have benchmarks and milestones," he told CNN. "This is something that we've been working for months with the Iraqi government on ... And we've been negotiating with them to discuss what exactly those goals and milestones would look like."

There is rising impatience in Washington and among US military commanders over the Maliki government's apparent inability or unwillingness to confront Shia militias. The report in the New York Times said the Bush administration was not threatening the Iraqi government with a full US withdrawal but with "changes in military strategy and other penalties".

Mr Bartlett would not go into details, but told Fox News: "There a lot of different ways in which you can either incentivise - or however you want to put it - to move them along that path. And that's something we're constantly working and adjusting with them."

On a weekend that took the month's death toll among US forces in Iraq to 86 - the highest monthly figure this year - President Bush held a video conference with his top military commanders.

"They are determined to continue to adapt their strategies, as well as our diplomats on the ground, to make sure the Iraqi government themselves understand the sense of urgency to bring all parties together to reconcile their differences," Mr Bartlett said.

A New York Times report from Baghdad described the effort to pacify the city as the US military's last throw of the dice in Iraq, with American commanders seeing no "plausible alternative" strategy. "As Baghdad goes, so goes Iraq," Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the commander of US troops there, was quoted as saying.

The initiative, codenamed Forward Together II, has shown no signs of curbing the bloodshed. It depends heavily on the involvement of Iraqi forces to maintain security in areas of the city "cleared" of militants by American combat troops. But many Iraqi soldiers have deserted rather than patrol Baghdad. Meanwhile, Iraqi police units have sided with Shia militias.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2006

seth106 · 26-10-2006, 10:58 AM

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush's War 2804

Iraq Coalition Casualties

Cost of America's War in Iraq
$337,008,587,795

seth106 · 30-10-2006, 10:15 AM

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush's War 2810

Iraq Coalition Casualties

Cost of America's War in Iraq
$337,580,504,977

seth106 · 30-10-2006, 10:17 AM

Iraq's Prime Minister Blames U.S. For Chaos

Iraq's al-Maliki sharply delineates differences with U.S. leadership

By JAY PRICE
McClatchy Newspapers

10/27/06 "Mercury News" -- -- BAGHDAD, Iraq — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki continued his open dispute with American officials Thursday, blaming the United States-led coalition for Iraq's chaos and faulting its military strategy.

His sharp comments, in an interview with Reuters, came as the White House and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sought to play down the idea of a growing rift between the United States and the Iraq government.

Rumsfeld urged critics of administration policy "to just back off" and "relax."

According to a partial transcript of the interview distributed by Reuters, al-Maliki said he thought that Iraqi troops, left to their own devices, could re-establish order in Iraq in six months, not the 12 to 18 months that top U.S. commander Gen. William Casey had predicted Tuesday.

Al-Maliki offered a different set of priorities for fighting violence than U.S. officials, who've said the greatest threat to Iraq comes from death squads aligned with Shiite Muslim militias. In recounting a meeting with the head of one of those militias, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, al-Maliki said he and al-Sadr agreed "that the efforts for all political groups should be focused on the most dangerous challenge, which is al-Qaida and the Saddam Baathists." Both those groups are made up primarily of Sunni Muslims.

Al-Maliki also said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was "not accurate" when he said Tuesday that the Iraqi government had agreed to a timetable for dealing with Iraq's problems.

The interview came as Bush administration officials in Washington continued to try to explain their position on setting "benchmarks" for Iraqi government actions. With just days to go before the midterm congressional election, Democrats and some Republicans have suggested that the U.S. begin withdrawing troops if the Iraqi government doesn't meet goals on time.

Rumsfeld said Thursday that there'd be no set dates for Iraqi leaders to meet nor any penalties imposed if they failed to meet goals.

He also said U.S. officials planned to increase spending on Iraq's army and police, but didn't say how much. The $70 billion in war spending that lawmakers tacked on to the 2007 defense-spending bill includes $1.7 billion to train and equip Iraq's security forces.

In Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi forces set up roadblocks Thursday and launched round-the-clock aerial surveillance of Baghdad as their search for an American soldier who may have been kidnapped entered its third day.

"We're using all assets in our arsenal to find this American soldier, and the government of Iraq is doing everything that it can also at every level," said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq. "Make no mistake: We will not stop looking for our service member."

The search was so intense, Caldwell said, that military officials think it may have contributed to a sudden drop in the level of violence in the city, which had reached record highs in recent weeks. Caldwell said the violence had declined the last two days, though he cautioned that the reduction also might be the result of the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

He declined to provide details of the search for the soldier, who's been described as an American of Iraqi descent. Family members told U.S. officials that the soldier, who was a translator, came to visit them in central Baghdad. Shortly after he arrived, three carloads of masked gunman stormed the house and took him away in handcuffs, family members said.

Baghdad residents reported that parts of Sadr City, a slum stronghold of Shiite militias and death squads, were blockaded. For much of the day every entrance but one also was blocked into the central district, where the missing soldiers' family lived.

Violence continued elsewhere. The U.S. military announced Thursday that four Marines and a sailor had been killed in combat Wednesday, raising to 96 the number of American deaths in Iraq so far in October. All but four were killed in action, making the month's combat toll the worst for U.S. troops in two years.

McClatchy correspondent Drew Brown contributed to this story from Washington.

seth106 · 30-10-2006, 10:31 AM

<div class="articleDetails"> Michael Howard in Kirkuk, Iraq
October 28, 2006
THE tribal chiefs, in traditional robes and chequered headdresses, emerged from the dust stirred up by their convoy of utility trucks and walked towards the big white tent, gesturing welcomes to each other as they sat.
Accompanied by about 500 clansmen and a gaggle of local journalists, the 35 Sunni sheiks - from Mosul, Tikrit, Samarra and Hawija - converged last week on Hindiya, on the scrappy western edges of Kirkuk, to swear their undying opposition to "conspiracies" to partition Iraq and to pledge allegiance to their president, Saddam Hussein.
Under banners exalting the man now standing trial in Baghdad for war crimes and genocide, the gathering heard speeches from prominent northern Iraqi sheiks, Sunni Arab politicians and self-declared leaders of the Baath party calling for the former dictator's release.
"If the Iraqi government wants national reconciliation to succeed and for the violence to end, they have to quickly release the President and end the occupation," said Sheik Abdul Rahman Munshid, of the Obeidi tribe. "But most important of all," he added, "Kirkuk must never become part of Kurdistan. It is an Iraqi city, and we will take all routes to prevent the divisions of Iraq."
The heated debate about federalism in Iraq is no better exemplified than in Kirkuk. Though it is largely free of the sectarian wars taking place in Baghdad and its surrounding area, observers say the ethnic faultlines running through the city, which lies atop Iraq's second-largest oilfield, make it a time bomb that could pit Kurd against Arab and draw in neighbours such as Iran and Turkey.
"There are few more sensitive issues in Iraq today than what happens to Kirkuk," said a Western diplomat in Iraq who works closely with the issue. "All eyes are on it, and all the ingredients for either consensual agreement or a devastating discord are there. If Kirkuk survives, then there's hope for Iraq."
As if to reinforce that message, within hours of the Sunni gathering a wave of suicide bombs rocked Kirkuk's city centre, including one in a crowded market and another in front of a women's teaching college. At least 15 civilians were killed and scores wounded.
Despite the oil riches that lie beneath, above ground Kirkuk appears a forlorn and neglected city. Street after street consists of humble two-storey dwellings with barely a modern building in sight. Litter is strewn everywhere, and there are huge queues at the petrol pumps. The tumbledown shops and market stalls in the centre of the city sell cheap consumer goods from Iran and Turkey.
The city's ancient citadel lies in ruins. The governor, Abdul Rahman Mustapha, a Kurd, blames the dilapidated state of the city on years of Baathist misrule. Nor does he have a good word for the current government in Baghdad. "They have ignored us and set so many obstacles in the path of our progress and reconstruction," he said.
Relatively peaceful in the first two years after the fall of Saddam - defying observers who said civil war would start here - Kirkuk is witnessing an alarming increase in bloodshed as the political tensions rise. The wave of violence is terrifying residents and testing to the limit the fragile relations among its Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman residents.
The United States military in Kirkuk says the city has been hit by 20 suicide bombs and 63 roadside bombs in the past three months. Local police and community leaders have been assassinated and politicians attacked.
Colonel Patrick Stackpole, who commands 5000 US troops in a province of about 1.5 million people, said the "violence is mainly by outsiders, though undoubtedly they have facilitators inside the city.
"Jihadis from east and west, belonging to groups such as Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunnah, are targeting the city, trying to stoke civil war," he said. "But there's also a large element of former regime loyalists who don't want the city to succeed."
Nevertheless, he described himself as "guardedly optimistic" and offered rare praise for the province's security forces. "They are taking over more and more functions, leading operations, and performing more effectively without the scale of problems of corruption and disloyalty seen in other forces in Iraq ," he said. "We haven't seen death squads."

seth106 · 30-10-2006, 10:38 PM

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush's War 2811

Iraq Coalition Casualties

Cost of America's War in Iraq
$337,580,504,977

Storekeeper · 31-10-2006, 11:13 AM

What do the Iraqis think of al-Queda ?

"Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very)."

History News Network

Milkman · 31-10-2006, 11:46 AM

^ Al-Qaeda is an issue in Iraq. But they are not the main issue.

Al-Maliki's government is the sole thing right now.

Al-Qaeda is mostly in Al-Anbar.

stroller · 03-11-2006, 03:21 PM

Isn't Iraq where the terrorists come from? Weren't they building an arsenal of nucelar and biological WMDs over there?

Anyway, I thought all Muslims favour Al-Quaida, because the Koran tells them to kill all infidels? They may not volunteer as suicide bombers, but they all are terrorist sympathizers - the poll has been manipulated by liberal traitors, just another lie by the democrats to win the elections.

Mr Earl · 03-11-2006, 11:45 PM

Stroller terrorist are really your friends and just looking to help put all of us poor confused and disillusioned infidels out of our misery.

seth106 · 05-11-2006, 08:47 AM

I Want To Hurt Somebody

By Greg Palast

11/03/06 for The Guardian (London) -- -- It was pure war-nography. The front page of the New York Times yesterday splashed a four-column-wide close-up of a blood-covered bullet in the blood-soaked hands of an army medic who’d retrieved it from the brain of Lance Cpl. Colin Smith.

There was a 40 column-inch profile of the medic. There were photos of the platoon, guns over shoulders, praying for the fallen buddy. The Times is careful not to ruin the heroic mood, so there is no photograph of pieces of corporal Smith’s shattered head. Instead, there’s an old, smiling photo of the wounded soldier.

The reporter, undoubtedly wearing the Kevlar armor of the troop in which he’s “embedded,” quotes at length the thoughts of the military medic: “I would like to say that I am a good man. But seeing this now, what happened to Smith, I want to hurt people. You know what I mean?”

The reporter does not bother — or dare — to record a single word from any Iraqi in the town of Karma where Smith’s platoon was, “performing a hard hit on a house.”

I don’t know what a “hard hit” is. But I don’t think I’d want one “performed” on my home. Maybe Iraqis feel the way I do.

We won’t know. The only Iraqi noted by the reporter was, “a woman [who] walked calmly between the sniper and the marines.”

The Times reporter informs us that Lance Cpl. Smith, “said a prayer today,” before he charged into the village. We’re told that Smith had, “the cutest little blond girlfriend” and “his dad was his hero.” Did the calm woman also say her prayers today? Is her dad her hero, too? We don’t know. No one asks.

The reporter and his photographer did visit a home in the neighborhood — but only after the “hit” force kicked in the door. I suppose that’s an improvement over the typical level of reporting we get. In dispatches home by the few US journalists who brave beyond the Green Zone, Iraqis are little more than dark shapes glimpsed through the slots of a speeding Humvee.

Last month there was a big hoo-ha over the statistical accuracy of a Johns Hopkins University study estimating that 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of this war.

I doubt the Iraqi who fired that bullet into Lance Cpl. Smith read the Hopkins study. Iraqis don’t need a professor of statistics to tell them what happens in a “hard hit” on a house. Of civilians killed by the US forces the Hopkins team found 46% are younger than fifteen years old.

I grieve for Lance Cpl. Smith and I can’t know for certain what moved the sniper to pick up a gun and shoot him. However, I’ve no doubt that, like the Marines who said prayers before they invaded the homes of the terrified residents of Karma, the sniper also said a prayer before he loaded the 7.62mm shell into his carbine.

And if we asked, I’m sure the sniper would tell us, “I am a good man, but seeing what happened, I want to hurt people.”

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Armed Madhouse ” Visit his website Greg Palast.

seth106 · 05-11-2006, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stroller

Isn't Iraq where the terrorists come from? Weren't they building an arsenal of nucelar and biological WMDs over there?

Anyway, I thought all Muslims favour Al-Quaida, because the Koran tells them to kill all infidels? They may not volunteer as suicide bombers, but they all are terrorist sympathizers - the poll has been manipulated by liberal traitors, just another lie by the democrats to win the elections.

I really do hope that this is ironic humour that I don't get

Eliminator · 25-11-2006, 07:20 AM

New savage twist to violence in Baghdad

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago

Revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers, drenched them with kerosene and burned them alive, and Iraqi soldiers did nothing to stop the attack, police and witnesses said.
The fiery slayings in the mainly Sunni neighborhood of Hurriyah were a dramatic escalation of the brutality coursing through the Iraqi capital, coming a day after suspected Sunni insurgents killed 215 people in Baghdad's main Shiite district with a combination of bombs and mortars.
The attacks culminated Baghdad's deadliest week of sectarian fighting since the war began more than three years ago.
Police Capt. Jamil Hussein said Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the burnings of Sunnis carried out by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, or in subsequent attacks that torched four Sunni mosques and killed at least 19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same northwest Baghdad area.
Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriyah, confirmed Hussein's account. He told Al-Arabiya television he saw people who were soaked in kerosene, then set afire, burning before his eyes.
Two workers at Kazamiyah Hospital said the bodies from the clashes and immolations had been taken to the morgue at their facility. They refused to be identified by name, saying they feared retribution.
In spite of the police and witness accounts, however, President Jamal Talabani appeared to discount the reports. He emerged from meetings with other Iraqi political leaders late Friday and said Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi told him that the Hurriyah neighborhood had been quiet throughout the day.
According to Hussein, the police official, militiamen rampaged through the district, setting fire to several homes in addition to the four mosques that were bombed and burned.
Some residents claimed that the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has begun kidnapping and holding Sunni hostages in order to slaughter them at funerals of Shiite victims of Baghdad's sectarian violence.
Such claims cannot be verified but speak to the deep fear that grips Baghdad, where retaliation has become a part of daily life.
In the past year, thousands of bodies have been found dumped across Baghdad and other cities in central Iraq, victims who were tortured, then shot to death, according to police. The suspected militia killers often have used electric drills on their captives' bodies before killing them. The bodies are frequently decapitated.
Burning victims alive, however, introduced a new method of brutality that seemed likely to be reciprocated by the other sect as the Shiites and Sunnis continue killing one another in unprecedented numbers. The attack, which came despite a curfew in Baghdad, capped a day in which at least 87 people were killed or found dead in sectarian violence across Iraq.
The Association of Muslim Scholars, the most influential Sunni organization in Iraq, said even more Sunni victims were killed. It claimed a total of 18 people had died in an inferno at the al-Muhaimin mosque.
The extreme violence continued to tear at the Iraq's social fabric even after the government had banned pedestrians and cars from the streets and closed the international airport until further notice in anticipation of a storm of retaliation for the five bombings and two mortar rounds that killed 215 in Sadr City on Thursday.
The airport closure forced Talabani to delay his planned Saturday departure for Tehran for meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian leader also invited Syrian President Bashar Assad, but it now appeared he would not attend.
The chaos also cast a shadow over the Amman, Jordan, summit next week between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bush.
Politicians loyal to al-Sadr threatened to boycott parliament and the Cabinet if al-Maliki went ahead with the meeting. The radical Shiite political bloc, known as Sadrists, is a mainstay of support for al-Maliki, himself a Shiite. The Mahdi Army is the organization's armed wing.
Sadrist lawmaker Qusai Abdul-Wahab blamed U.S. forces for Thursday's attack in Sadr City because they failed to provide security.
"We say occupation forces are fully responsible for these acts, and we call for the withdrawal of occupation forces or setting a timetable for their withdrawal," Abdul-Wahab said.
A U.S. helicopter patrolling above Sadr City came under intense fire from the ground and shot back, wounding two people Friday night, according to police 1st. Lt. Qassim Mohammed and witnesses.
The U.S. military said the helicopter had taken fire from six rockets launched from one site and destroyed the launcher. The military statement did not address whether there were casualties.
White House spokesman Scott Stanzil said the president's plans to meet with al-Maliki on Wednesday and Thursday were unchanged.
Al-Maliki is increasingly at odds with the Bush administration for his refusal to disband militias and associated deaths squads that are believed responsible for killing thousands of Sunnis since an al-Qaida attack blew up the golden dome of a revered Shiite shrine on Feb. 22 in Samarra, north of Baghdad.
Mortar fire rained down again on Sunni Islam's holiest shrine in Baghdad, the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Azamiyah neighborhood, wounding at least five people. Several mortars crashed into the area Thursday night within hours of the attacks in Sadr City, one of them puncturing the dome of the shrine and damaging the interior, including its library.
Also, militia gunmen raided a Sunni mosque in the Amil section of west Baghdad, killing two guards, police 1st Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said.
And in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, Sunni insurgents blew up the dome of the important Shiite mosque of leading cleric Abdul-Karm al-Madani.
In the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, 23 people were killed and 43 wounded when explosives hidden in a parked car and in a suicide belt worn by a pedestrian detonated simultaneously outside a car dealership, said police Brig. Khalaf al-Jubouri.
Altogether, 56 people were killed across in Iraq on Friday, and police said they found 31 bodies dumped throughout Baghdad, most of them tortured before being shot.
In Sadr City, cleanup crews continued removing remains of the dead from wreckage of the car bombs, and tents were erected throughout the ramshackle district for relatives to receive condolences.
Hundreds of men, women and children beat their chests, chanted and cried as they walked beside vehicles carrying the caskets of their loved ones toward the holy Shiite city of Najaf for burial. Despite Baghdad's curfew, al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, ordered police to guard the processions.
As the funeral processions reached the edge of Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad, the cars and minivans left most of the mourners behind and began the 100-mile drive south to Najaf, a treacherous journey that passes through many checkpoints and areas controlled by Sunni militants in Iraq's so-called "Triangle of Death."
___
AP correspondents Thomas Wagner, Bassem Mroue and Qais al-Bashir contributed to this report.

stroller · 25-11-2006, 11:34 AM

^
It was, sorry.

Boon Mee · 30-11-2006, 05:23 AM

Iraq War:

Proxy - not civil...

raycarey · 30-11-2006, 06:50 AM

semantics, not news.

let's get to news---that is the thread title after all....

bush flew to the other side of the world with his hat in his hand (god damn, could US foreign policy be any more fucked up than this group has made it?) and his 2 day meeting was not only postponed, but cut back to a breakfast chat.

Quote:

AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 29 — Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of Iraq and King Abdullah II of Jordan cancelled a meeting with President Bush at the last minute today, against the backdrop of a radical Shiite cleric’s boycott of the Maliki government and the disclosure of a classified White House memo that was highly critical of Mr. Maliki.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki are still scheduled to have breakfast together here Thursday morning, and to hold a much-anticipated joint press conference afterward.

But after meeting earlier today, Mr. Maliki and King Abdullah decided that a joint session planned for this evening with Mr. Bush was unnecessary, according to a senior White House official.

“The Jordanians and the Iraqis jointly decided they did not feel it was the best use of time” and notified Zalmay Khalilzad, the United States ambassador to Iraq, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. Mr. Khalilzad then called Air Force One to tell Mr. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who were flying to Amman from Riga, Latvia.

Bush-Maliki Talks Are Postponed - New York Times

raycarey · 30-11-2006, 07:32 AM

and here's the opening of the memo...

Quote:

We returned from Iraq convinced we need to determine if Prime Minister Maliki is both willing and able to rise above the sectarian agendas being promoted by others. Do we and Prime Minister Maliki share the same vision for Iraq? If so, is he able to curb those who seek Shia hegemony or the reassertion of Sunni power? The answers to these questions are key in determining whether we have the right strategy in Iraq.

the entire memo is here....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/29/wo...ll&oref=slogin

raycarey · 30-11-2006, 07:36 AM

by the way, has any else noticed that the meeting is taking place in jordan and not iraq?

150,000 troops apparently aren't enough to protect GWB.

but yeah, freedom's on the march....progress is being made in iraq.....'we' will win the war in iraq.

25-10-2006, 08:06 PM	#41 (permalink)
seth106 Koh Phangan Last Online: 27-04-2008 01:04 PM Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Not quite sure really Posts: 634	Bush tells Maliki government to tackle militias or face penalties By Julian Borger in Washington 10/24/06 - The White House confirmed yesterday that it had set "benchmarks and milestones" for the Iraqi government to disarm militias and take other concrete steps to stabilise the country. The White House confirmed yesterday that it had set "benchmarks and milestones" for the Iraqi government to disarm militias and take other concrete steps to stabilise the country. The administration had initially denied a report that the government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki would be given an ultimatum to do more to curb sectarian violence, but Dan Bartlett, President Bush's media adviser, yesterday argued that the report had simply been "overwritten" and there was little new in it. "It is appropriate to have benchmarks and milestones," he told CNN. "This is something that we've been working for months with the Iraqi government on ... And we've been negotiating with them to discuss what exactly those goals and milestones would look like." There is rising impatience in Washington and among US military commanders over the Maliki government's apparent inability or unwillingness to confront Shia militias. The report in the New York Times said the Bush administration was not threatening the Iraqi government with a full US withdrawal but with "changes in military strategy and other penalties". Mr Bartlett would not go into details, but told Fox News: "There a lot of different ways in which you can either incentivise - or however you want to put it - to move them along that path. And that's something we're constantly working and adjusting with them." On a weekend that took the month's death toll among US forces in Iraq to 86 - the highest monthly figure this year - President Bush held a video conference with his top military commanders. "They are determined to continue to adapt their strategies, as well as our diplomats on the ground, to make sure the Iraqi government themselves understand the sense of urgency to bring all parties together to reconcile their differences," Mr Bartlett said. A New York Times report from Baghdad described the effort to pacify the city as the US military's last throw of the dice in Iraq, with American commanders seeing no "plausible alternative" strategy. "As Baghdad goes, so goes Iraq," Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the commander of US troops there, was quoted as saying. The initiative, codenamed Forward Together II, has shown no signs of curbing the bloodshed. It depends heavily on the involvement of Iraqi forces to maintain security in areas of the city "cleared" of militants by American combat troops. But many Iraqi soldiers have deserted rather than patrol Baghdad. Meanwhile, Iraqi police units have sided with Shia militias. © Guardian News and Media Limited 2006 __________________ Jah Rastafari

31-10-2006, 11:13 AM	#47 (permalink)
Storekeeper Because I said so. Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Ban Phe Posts: 4,822	What do the Iraqis think of al-Queda ? "Overall 94 percent have an unfavorable view of al Qaeda, with 82 percent expressing a very unfavorable view. Of all organizations and individuals assessed in this poll, it received the most negative ratings. The Shias and Kurds show similarly intense levels of opposition, with 95 percent and 93 percent respectively saying they have very unfavorable views. The Sunnis are also quite negative, but with less intensity. Seventy-seven percent express an unfavorable view, but only 38 percent are very unfavorable. Twenty-three percent express a favorable view (5% very)." History News Network __________________ "England forever; the USA one day longer" To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

25-11-2006, 07:20 AM	#53 (permalink)
Eliminator Elite Member Last Online: Today 07:46 AM Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Thailand Posts: 1,857	New savage twist to violence in Baghdad By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago Revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers, drenched them with kerosene and burned them alive, and Iraqi soldiers did nothing to stop the attack, police and witnesses said. The fiery slayings in the mainly Sunni neighborhood of Hurriyah were a dramatic escalation of the brutality coursing through the Iraqi capital, coming a day after suspected Sunni insurgents killed 215 people in Baghdad's main Shiite district with a combination of bombs and mortars. The attacks culminated Baghdad's deadliest week of sectarian fighting since the war began more than three years ago. Police Capt. Jamil Hussein said Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the burnings of Sunnis carried out by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, or in subsequent attacks that torched four Sunni mosques and killed at least 19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same northwest Baghdad area. Imad al-Hasimi, a Sunni elder in Hurriyah, confirmed Hussein's account. He told Al-Arabiya television he saw people who were soaked in kerosene, then set afire, burning before his eyes. Two workers at Kazamiyah Hospital said the bodies from the clashes and immolations had been taken to the morgue at their facility. They refused to be identified by name, saying they feared retribution. In spite of the police and witness accounts, however, President Jamal Talabani appeared to discount the reports. He emerged from meetings with other Iraqi political leaders late Friday and said Defense Minister Abdul-Qader al-Obaidi told him that the Hurriyah neighborhood had been quiet throughout the day. According to Hussein, the police official, militiamen rampaged through the district, setting fire to several homes in addition to the four mosques that were bombed and burned. Some residents claimed that the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has begun kidnapping and holding Sunni hostages in order to slaughter them at funerals of Shiite victims of Baghdad's sectarian violence. Such claims cannot be verified but speak to the deep fear that grips Baghdad, where retaliation has become a part of daily life. In the past year, thousands of bodies have been found dumped across Baghdad and other cities in central Iraq, victims who were tortured, then shot to death, according to police. The suspected militia killers often have used electric drills on their captives' bodies before killing them. The bodies are frequently decapitated. Burning victims alive, however, introduced a new method of brutality that seemed likely to be reciprocated by the other sect as the Shiites and Sunnis continue killing one another in unprecedented numbers. The attack, which came despite a curfew in Baghdad, capped a day in which at least 87 people were killed or found dead in sectarian violence across Iraq. The Association of Muslim Scholars, the most influential Sunni organization in Iraq, said even more Sunni victims were killed. It claimed a total of 18 people had died in an inferno at the al-Muhaimin mosque. The extreme violence continued to tear at the Iraq's social fabric even after the government had banned pedestrians and cars from the streets and closed the international airport until further notice in anticipation of a storm of retaliation for the five bombings and two mortar rounds that killed 215 in Sadr City on Thursday. The airport closure forced Talabani to delay his planned Saturday departure for Tehran for meetings with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian leader also invited Syrian President Bashar Assad, but it now appeared he would not attend. The chaos also cast a shadow over the Amman, Jordan, summit next week between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bush. Politicians loyal to al-Sadr threatened to boycott parliament and the Cabinet if al-Maliki went ahead with the meeting. The radical Shiite political bloc, known as Sadrists, is a mainstay of support for al-Maliki, himself a Shiite. The Mahdi Army is the organization's armed wing. Sadrist lawmaker Qusai Abdul-Wahab blamed U.S. forces for Thursday's attack in Sadr City because they failed to provide security. "We say occupation forces are fully responsible for these acts, and we call for the withdrawal of occupation forces or setting a timetable for their withdrawal," Abdul-Wahab said. A U.S. helicopter patrolling above Sadr City came under intense fire from the ground and shot back, wounding two people Friday night, according to police 1st. Lt. Qassim Mohammed and witnesses. The U.S. military said the helicopter had taken fire from six rockets launched from one site and destroyed the launcher. The military statement did not address whether there were casualties. White House spokesman Scott Stanzil said the president's plans to meet with al-Maliki on Wednesday and Thursday were unchanged. Al-Maliki is increasingly at odds with the Bush administration for his refusal to disband militias and associated deaths squads that are believed responsible for killing thousands of Sunnis since an al-Qaida attack blew up the golden dome of a revered Shiite shrine on Feb. 22 in Samarra, north of Baghdad. Mortar fire rained down again on Sunni Islam's holiest shrine in Baghdad, the Abu Hanifa mosque in the Azamiyah neighborhood, wounding at least five people. Several mortars crashed into the area Thursday night within hours of the attacks in Sadr City, one of them puncturing the dome of the shrine and damaging the interior, including its library. Also, militia gunmen raided a Sunni mosque in the Amil section of west Baghdad, killing two guards, police 1st Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. And in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, Sunni insurgents blew up the dome of the important Shiite mosque of leading cleric Abdul-Karm al-Madani. In the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, 23 people were killed and 43 wounded when explosives hidden in a parked car and in a suicide belt worn by a pedestrian detonated simultaneously outside a car dealership, said police Brig. Khalaf al-Jubouri. Altogether, 56 people were killed across in Iraq on Friday, and police said they found 31 bodies dumped throughout Baghdad, most of them tortured before being shot. In Sadr City, cleanup crews continued removing remains of the dead from wreckage of the car bombs, and tents were erected throughout the ramshackle district for relatives to receive condolences. Hundreds of men, women and children beat their chests, chanted and cried as they walked beside vehicles carrying the caskets of their loved ones toward the holy Shiite city of Najaf for burial. Despite Baghdad's curfew, al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, ordered police to guard the processions. As the funeral processions reached the edge of Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad, the cars and minivans left most of the mourners behind and began the 100-mile drive south to Najaf, a treacherous journey that passes through many checkpoints and areas controlled by Sunni militants in Iraq's so-called "Triangle of Death." ___ AP correspondents Thomas Wagner, Bassem Mroue and Qais al-Bashir contributed to this report. __________________ Eliminator 1986 Kawasaki 900

26-10-2006, 10:58 AM	#42 (permalink)
seth106 Koh Phangan Last Online: 27-04-2008 01:04 PM Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Not quite sure really Posts: 634	Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush's War 2804 Iraq Coalition Casualties Cost of America's War in Iraq $337,008,587,795

30-10-2006, 10:15 AM	#43 (permalink)
seth106 Koh Phangan Last Online: 27-04-2008 01:04 PM Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Not quite sure really Posts: 634	Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush's War 2810 Iraq Coalition Casualties Cost of America's War in Iraq $337,580,504,977

30-10-2006, 10:17 AM	#44 (permalink)
seth106 Koh Phangan Last Online: 27-04-2008 01:04 PM Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Not quite sure really Posts: 634	Iraq's Prime Minister Blames U.S. For Chaos Iraq's al-Maliki sharply delineates differences with U.S. leadership By JAY PRICE McClatchy Newspapers 10/27/06 "Mercury News" -- -- BAGHDAD, Iraq — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki continued his open dispute with American officials Thursday, blaming the United States-led coalition for Iraq's chaos and faulting its military strategy. His sharp comments, in an interview with Reuters, came as the White House and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sought to play down the idea of a growing rift between the United States and the Iraq government. Rumsfeld urged critics of administration policy "to just back off" and "relax." According to a partial transcript of the interview distributed by Reuters, al-Maliki said he thought that Iraqi troops, left to their own devices, could re-establish order in Iraq in six months, not the 12 to 18 months that top U.S. commander Gen. William Casey had predicted Tuesday. Al-Maliki offered a different set of priorities for fighting violence than U.S. officials, who've said the greatest threat to Iraq comes from death squads aligned with Shiite Muslim militias. In recounting a meeting with the head of one of those militias, cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, al-Maliki said he and al-Sadr agreed "that the efforts for all political groups should be focused on the most dangerous challenge, which is al-Qaida and the Saddam Baathists." Both those groups are made up primarily of Sunni Muslims. Al-Maliki also said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was "not accurate" when he said Tuesday that the Iraqi government had agreed to a timetable for dealing with Iraq's problems. The interview came as Bush administration officials in Washington continued to try to explain their position on setting "benchmarks" for Iraqi government actions. With just days to go before the midterm congressional election, Democrats and some Republicans have suggested that the U.S. begin withdrawing troops if the Iraqi government doesn't meet goals on time. Rumsfeld said Thursday that there'd be no set dates for Iraqi leaders to meet nor any penalties imposed if they failed to meet goals. He also said U.S. officials planned to increase spending on Iraq's army and police, but didn't say how much. The $70 billion in war spending that lawmakers tacked on to the 2007 defense-spending bill includes $1.7 billion to train and equip Iraq's security forces. In Iraq, U.S. and Iraqi forces set up roadblocks Thursday and launched round-the-clock aerial surveillance of Baghdad as their search for an American soldier who may have been kidnapped entered its third day. "We're using all assets in our arsenal to find this American soldier, and the government of Iraq is doing everything that it can also at every level," said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq. "Make no mistake: We will not stop looking for our service member." The search was so intense, Caldwell said, that military officials think it may have contributed to a sudden drop in the level of violence in the city, which had reached record highs in recent weeks. Caldwell said the violence had declined the last two days, though he cautioned that the reduction also might be the result of the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He declined to provide details of the search for the soldier, who's been described as an American of Iraqi descent. Family members told U.S. officials that the soldier, who was a translator, came to visit them in central Baghdad. Shortly after he arrived, three carloads of masked gunman stormed the house and took him away in handcuffs, family members said. Baghdad residents reported that parts of Sadr City, a slum stronghold of Shiite militias and death squads, were blockaded. For much of the day every entrance but one also was blocked into the central district, where the missing soldiers' family lived. Violence continued elsewhere. The U.S. military announced Thursday that four Marines and a sailor had been killed in combat Wednesday, raising to 96 the number of American deaths in Iraq so far in October. All but four were killed in action, making the month's combat toll the worst for U.S. troops in two years. McClatchy correspondent Drew Brown contributed to this story from Washington.

30-10-2006, 10:31 AM	#45 (permalink)
seth106 Koh Phangan Last Online: 27-04-2008 01:04 PM Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Not quite sure really Posts: 634	<div class="articleDetails"> Michael Howard in Kirkuk, Iraq October 28, 2006 THE tribal chiefs, in traditional robes and chequered headdresses, emerged from the dust stirred up by their convoy of utility trucks and walked towards the big white tent, gesturing welcomes to each other as they sat. Accompanied by about 500 clansmen and a gaggle of local journalists, the 35 Sunni sheiks - from Mosul, Tikrit, Samarra and Hawija - converged last week on Hindiya, on the scrappy western edges of Kirkuk, to swear their undying opposition to "conspiracies" to partition Iraq and to pledge allegiance to their president, Saddam Hussein. Under banners exalting the man now standing trial in Baghdad for war crimes and genocide, the gathering heard speeches from prominent northern Iraqi sheiks, Sunni Arab politicians and self-declared leaders of the Baath party calling for the former dictator's release. "If the Iraqi government wants national reconciliation to succeed and for the violence to end, they have to quickly release the President and end the occupation," said Sheik Abdul Rahman Munshid, of the Obeidi tribe. "But most important of all," he added, "Kirkuk must never become part of Kurdistan. It is an Iraqi city, and we will take all routes to prevent the divisions of Iraq." The heated debate about federalism in Iraq is no better exemplified than in Kirkuk. Though it is largely free of the sectarian wars taking place in Baghdad and its surrounding area, observers say the ethnic faultlines running through the city, which lies atop Iraq's second-largest oilfield, make it a time bomb that could pit Kurd against Arab and draw in neighbours such as Iran and Turkey. "There are few more sensitive issues in Iraq today than what happens to Kirkuk," said a Western diplomat in Iraq who works closely with the issue. "All eyes are on it, and all the ingredients for either consensual agreement or a devastating discord are there. If Kirkuk survives, then there's hope for Iraq." As if to reinforce that message, within hours of the Sunni gathering a wave of suicide bombs rocked Kirkuk's city centre, including one in a crowded market and another in front of a women's teaching college. At least 15 civilians were killed and scores wounded. Despite the oil riches that lie beneath, above ground Kirkuk appears a forlorn and neglected city. Street after street consists of humble two-storey dwellings with barely a modern building in sight. Litter is strewn everywhere, and there are huge queues at the petrol pumps. The tumbledown shops and market stalls in the centre of the city sell cheap consumer goods from Iran and Turkey. The city's ancient citadel lies in ruins. The governor, Abdul Rahman Mustapha, a Kurd, blames the dilapidated state of the city on years of Baathist misrule. Nor does he have a good word for the current government in Baghdad. "They have ignored us and set so many obstacles in the path of our progress and reconstruction," he said. Relatively peaceful in the first two years after the fall of Saddam - defying observers who said civil war would start here - Kirkuk is witnessing an alarming increase in bloodshed as the political tensions rise. The wave of violence is terrifying residents and testing to the limit the fragile relations among its Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman residents. The United States military in Kirkuk says the city has been hit by 20 suicide bombs and 63 roadside bombs in the past three months. Local police and community leaders have been assassinated and politicians attacked. Colonel Patrick Stackpole, who commands 5000 US troops in a province of about 1.5 million people, said the "violence is mainly by outsiders, though undoubtedly they have facilitators inside the city. "Jihadis from east and west, belonging to groups such as Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunnah, are targeting the city, trying to stoke civil war," he said. "But there's also a large element of former regime loyalists who don't want the city to succeed." Nevertheless, he described himself as "guardedly optimistic" and offered rare praise for the province's security forces. "They are taking over more and more functions, leading operations, and performing more effectively without the scale of problems of corruption and disloyalty seen in other forces in Iraq ," he said. "We haven't seen death squads."

30-10-2006, 10:38 PM	#46 (permalink)
seth106 Koh Phangan Last Online: 27-04-2008 01:04 PM Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Not quite sure really Posts: 634	Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In Bush's War 2811 Iraq Coalition Casualties Cost of America's War in Iraq $337,580,504,977

31-10-2006, 11:46 AM	#48 (permalink)
Milkman Gone Off Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: shelf Posts: 9,547	^ Al-Qaeda is an issue in Iraq. But they are not the main issue. Al-Maliki's government is the sole thing right now. Al-Qaeda is mostly in Al-Anbar.

03-11-2006, 03:21 PM	#49 (permalink)
stroller Kraut Last Online: 01-07-2008 11:03 AM Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: under the headphones Posts: 17,181	Isn't Iraq where the terrorists come from? Weren't they building an arsenal of nucelar and biological WMDs over there? Anyway, I thought all Muslims favour Al-Quaida, because the Koran tells them to kill all infidels? They may not volunteer as suicide bombers, but they all are terrorist sympathizers - the poll has been manipulated by liberal traitors, just another lie by the democrats to win the elections.

03-11-2006, 11:45 PM	#50 (permalink)
Mr Earl The Grand Wazoo Last Online: Today 03:29 PM Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Ranong Posts: 4,919	Stroller terrorist are really your friends and just looking to help put all of us poor confused and disillusioned infidels out of our misery.

05-11-2006, 08:47 AM	#51 (permalink)
seth106 Koh Phangan Last Online: 27-04-2008 01:04 PM Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Not quite sure really Posts: 634	I Want To Hurt Somebody By Greg Palast 11/03/06 for The Guardian (London) -- -- It was pure war-nography. The front page of the New York Times yesterday splashed a four-column-wide close-up of a blood-covered bullet in the blood-soaked hands of an army medic who’d retrieved it from the brain of Lance Cpl. Colin Smith. There was a 40 column-inch profile of the medic. There were photos of the platoon, guns over shoulders, praying for the fallen buddy. The Times is careful not to ruin the heroic mood, so there is no photograph of pieces of corporal Smith’s shattered head. Instead, there’s an old, smiling photo of the wounded soldier. The reporter, undoubtedly wearing the Kevlar armor of the troop in which he’s “embedded,” quotes at length the thoughts of the military medic: “I would like to say that I am a good man. But seeing this now, what happened to Smith, I want to hurt people. You know what I mean?” The reporter does not bother — or dare — to record a single word from any Iraqi in the town of Karma where Smith’s platoon was, “performing a hard hit on a house.” I don’t know what a “hard hit” is. But I don’t think I’d want one “performed” on my home. Maybe Iraqis feel the way I do. We won’t know. The only Iraqi noted by the reporter was, “a woman [who] walked calmly between the sniper and the marines.” The Times reporter informs us that Lance Cpl. Smith, “said a prayer today,” before he charged into the village. We’re told that Smith had, “the cutest little blond girlfriend” and “his dad was his hero.” Did the calm woman also say her prayers today? Is her dad her hero, too? We don’t know. No one asks. The reporter and his photographer did visit a home in the neighborhood — but only after the “hit” force kicked in the door. I suppose that’s an improvement over the typical level of reporting we get. In dispatches home by the few US journalists who brave beyond the Green Zone, Iraqis are little more than dark shapes glimpsed through the slots of a speeding Humvee. Last month there was a big hoo-ha over the statistical accuracy of a Johns Hopkins University study estimating that 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of this war. I doubt the Iraqi who fired that bullet into Lance Cpl. Smith read the Hopkins study. Iraqis don’t need a professor of statistics to tell them what happens in a “hard hit” on a house. Of civilians killed by the US forces the Hopkins team found 46% are younger than fifteen years old. I grieve for Lance Cpl. Smith and I can’t know for certain what moved the sniper to pick up a gun and shoot him. However, I’ve no doubt that, like the Marines who said prayers before they invaded the homes of the terrified residents of Karma, the sniper also said a prayer before he loaded the 7.62mm shell into his carbine. And if we asked, I’m sure the sniper would tell us, “I am a good man, but seeing what happened, I want to hurt people.” Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Armed Madhouse ” Visit his website Greg Palast.

25-11-2006, 11:34 AM	#54 (permalink)
stroller Kraut Last Online: 01-07-2008 11:03 AM Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: under the headphones Posts: 17,181	^ It was, sorry.

30-11-2006, 05:23 AM	#55 (permalink)
Boon Mee Senior Member Last Online: Today 03:40 PM Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 9,823	Iraq War: Proxy - not civil...

30-11-2006, 07:36 AM	#58 (permalink)
raycarey texpat's sexual obsession Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: deleting posts in issues Posts: 5,550	by the way, has any else noticed that the meeting is taking place in jordan and not iraq? 150,000 troops apparently aren't enough to protect GWB. but yeah, freedom's on the march....progress is being made in iraq.....'we' will win the war in iraq.