The War That Just Won't End

Bush Reveals Iraq Exit Plan : "Based On Conditions Of Progress"

Americans Don't Trust BushCo. To Tell The Truth About The Iraq War

It's the Iraq Exit Plan that isn't.

On Thursday, President Bush is expected to announce that by mid-2008 the United States will have substantially cut the number of troops it has in Iraq, from 160,000 to 130,000. Or back to pre-"surge" numbers. But it's conditions-based, progress-based of course. So it's meaningless. BushCo. decides if the conditions are right, or if enough progress has been made to warrant troop withdrawals. There can be little doubt that General Petraeus is now firmly in the ranks of BushCo.

If BushCo. decides early next year that Iraq still needs American troops to stay, then the troops will stay. The only cut in troop numbers will come from the fact that the US is running out of fresh troops to send into the war zone, and that shortfall is expected to really start to bite by mid-2008 :

In a 15-minute address from the White House, Bush will endorse the recommendations of his top general and top diplomat in Iraq, following their appearance at two days of hearings in Congress, administration officials said. The White House plans to issue a written status report on the troop buildup on Friday, they said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Bush's speech is not yet final. Bush was rehearsing and polishing his remarks even as the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker were presenting their arguments for a second day on Capitol Hill.

In the speech, the president will say he understands Americans' deep concerns about U.S. involvement in Iraq and their desire to bring the troops home, they said. Bush will say that, after hearing from Petraeus and Crocker, he has decided on a way forward that will reduce the U.S. military presence but not abandon Iraq to chaos, according to the officials.

Both Democrat and Republican senators subjected General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker to hours of withering questions during two days of House and Senate hearings, but the pair stuck firmly to the BushCo. script, almost without falter :

The two top American military and diplomatic officials in Iraq conceded today that the Bush administration’s overall strategy in Iraq would remain largely unchanged after the surge in American forces is over next summer, and they made clear their view that the United States would need a major troop presence in Iraq for years to come.

Facing a day of withering questions from two Senate committees, Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker were unable to argue that the heightened troop levels had made more than fragile and transitory progress. Nor could they reassure senators that American efforts could help forge political compromise among battling sectarian groups.

The clashes over war strategy were more intense and emotional than had unfolded the previous days in the House, reflecting the powerful passions and ambitions of a Senate that includes five presidential aspirants. Some exchanges in the Hart Senate Office Building today struck a tone not heard on Capitol Hill in 40 years, since Gen. William C. Westmoreland defended the American approach to defeating North Vietnam.

In responding to General Petraeus’ recommendations, the White House said President Bush would address the nation at 9 p.m. Eastern time on Thursday. Mr. Bush is expected to endorse the call for no more than a gradual troop drawdown in coming months, one that would leave some 130,000 American troops in Iraq by next summer.

But Democratic leaders issued a pre-emptive attack on that approach this afternoon, with Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, emerging from a White House meeting to denounce the president’s approach as “an insult to the intelligence of the American people.”

As General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker wound up two days of grueling testimony to the House and Senate, Mrs. Pelosi said everything she had heard S “sounds to me like a 10-year, at least, commitment to an open-ended presence and war.”

Democrats who were briefed on the White House meeting said Mrs. Pelosi had told Mr. Bush that much of the public would be shocked at the prospect of an undefined, long-term presence in Iraq. They said the president acknowledged that he foresaw an extended involvement in Iraq and was backed by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who said the nation had made a commitment to the region.

The recommendation by General Petraeus calls for the step-by-step withdrawal between now and next July of the 30,000 additional forces that Mr. Bush has sent to Iraq as part of a increase in forces that he announced in January. But that leaves open the question that permeated the heated discussions in the Senate today about whether keeping the remaining 130,000 troops would serve a purpose.

“Buy time?” asked an angry Senator Chuck Hagel, the Republican from Nebraska who announced Monday he would retire from the Senate next year. “For what?”

General Petraeus, pressed first by Senator Susan M. Collins, a Maine Republican who is under tremendous pressure to abandon her lukewarm support for Mr. Bush’s war strategy, and then by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, conceded that he would be “hard-pressed” to justify America’s presence in Iraq if there is no political progress in Iraq over the next year.

Senator John W. Warner, the Republican of Virginia who is one of the party’s leading voices on foreign policy, asked whether the current strategy in Iraq is “making America safer.” General Petraeus first retreated to an explanation that he is doing his best “to achieve our objectives in Iraq.”

But when pressed again, he said: “Sir, I don’t know, actually.”

Both the general and the ambassador, who in the past have talked expansively about the regional and global effects of the Iraq war, stayed narrowly in their lanes of expertise today and stepped around repeated questions about whether a series of tactical victories in Anbar Province or some neighborhoods of Baghdad could be transferred into a broader agreement that would end a state of civil war.

Nor would they be drawn into any estimates of how many more years a major American troop presence would be required — or even when the oft-promised training of Iraqi troops would be complete enough to allow Americans to step into the background.

On just how many gains have really been made through the more than half year long troop "surge", the picture may be slightly less bleak in Baghdad, but across Iraq, not much has changed, according to the New York Times.

But many of the Petraeus claims that 'mixed' neighbourhoods in Baghdad are suffering less violence on the whole become even less impressive when you realise that many Sunni families have been driven out, literally, hundreds of thousands of people in the past three years, which leaves less targets for Shia militias :

Seven months after the American-led troop “surge” began, Baghdad has experienced modest security gains that have neither reversed the city’s underlying sectarian dynamic nor created a unified and trusted national government.

Improvements have been made. American military figures show that sectarian killings in Baghdad have decreased substantially. In many of Baghdad’s most battle-scarred areas, including Mansour in the west and Ur in the east, markets and parks that were practically abandoned last year have begun to revive.

The surge has also coincided with and benefited from a dramatic turnaround in many Sunni areas where former insurgents and tribes have defected from supporting violent extremism, delivering reliable tips and helping the Americans find and eliminate car bomb factories. An average of 23 car bombs a month struck Baghdad in June, July and August, down from an average of 42 over the same period a year earlier.

But the overall impact of those developments, so far, has been limited. And in some cases the good news is a consequence of bad news: people in neighborhoods have been “takhalasu” — an Iraqi word for purged, meaning killed or driven away. More than 35,000 Iraqis have left their homes in Baghdad since the American troop buildup began, aid groups reported.

The hulking blast walls that the Americans have set up around many neighborhoods have only intensified the city’s sense of balkanization. Merchants must now hire a different driver for individual areas, lest gunmen kill a stranger from another sect to steal a truckload of T-shirts.

To study the full effects of the troop increase at ground level, reporters for The New York Times repeatedly visited at least 20 neighborhoods in Baghdad and its surrounding belts, interviewing more than 150 residents, in addition to members of sectarian militias, Americans patrolling the city and Iraqi officials.

They found that the additional troops had slowed, but far from stopped, Iraq’s still-burning civil war. Baghdad remains a city where sectarian violence can flare at any moment, and where the central government is becoming less reliable and relevant as Shiite or Sunni vigilantes demand submission to their own brand of law.

The troop increase was meant to create conditions that could lead from improved security in Baghdad to national reconciliation to a strong central government to American military withdrawal. In recent weeks, President Bush and his commanders have shifted their emphasis to new alliances with tribal leaders that have improved security in Diyala Province, the Sunni Triangle and other Sunni areas, most notably Anbar Province.

That area, not Baghdad, was the one Mr. Bush conspicuously chose to visit this week.

But when he announced on Jan. 10 his plan to add 20,000 to 30,000 troops to Iraq, Mr. Bush emphasized that Baghdad was the linchpin for creating a stable Iraq. With less fear of death in the capital, “Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas,” he said.

That has not happened. More than 160,000 American troops are now in Iraq to help secure 25 million people. Across Baghdad — which undoubtedly remains a crucial barometer — American and Iraqi forces have moved closer to the population, out of giant bases and into 29 joint security stations. But even as some neighborhoods have improved, others have worsened as fighters moved to areas with fewer American troops.

The View From Baghdad On The Troop "Surge" : Reality On The Ground For Iraqis Makes A Mockery Of American Optimism

One Day In Iraq : 13 American GIs, 77 Iraqis Killed

Washington : Among Top Officials, "Surge" Has Sparked Months Of Clashes, Infighting

Iraqi Reporter Claims Baghdad Is "100 Times Worse" Than 12 Months Ago

Northern Iraq Battles Cholera Epidemic

Soldiers On The Ground In Iraq Go Online With War Videos

Why The Iraqis Turned On 'Al Qaeda' - Anatomy Of A Tribal Revolt

The War Over The War : Petraeus Claims Iran 'Exerting Influence'

US Seeks Pact With al-Sadr's Militia

Seven US Soldiers Tell The Truth About The War On Iraq

Confirmation Iraqi Army And Police Are Teaming Up To Target US Soldiers

Seven serving soldiers have risked retribution, and their chances of promotion, by speaking out about what they experienced in 15 months of war-fighting in Iraq, and why they believe the Iraq War cannot be won. Unlike American senators who spend as little as ten hours in Iraq and come home talking of the progress and success of the BushCo. troop "surge" strategy, the seven soldiers talk of "mounting civil, political and social unrest".

An historic piece, published in the New York Times, that cuts through the spin and distortion of American NeoCon think tanks, propaganda media and the Bush administration like a hot knife through butter.

It deserves to be republished, and read, in full, by every American, and every person in every country whose governments still support the Bush administration strategies in the War On Iraq.

It is an honor to republish it here :

The War As We Saw It

By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY

Baghdad

Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

Australian journalist John Martinkus recently spent time with the unit of the 82nd Airborne in which the seven soldiers of the above op-ed served. Here's Martinkus on the state of mind of the troops he was embedded with :

The attitude on this trip with these soldiers in Iraq this time - I was quite taken aback, by how negative a lot of them were about the war. There's a few reasons for that, there's the long deployments, there's the uncertainty about when they'll be able to go home. But really, it's this surge and these current operations are really putting a lot of pressure on the military, and it's really, you know, showing up a lot of their weaknesses. And it's the guys on the ground, who are being asked to do these things who know the dangers, know the problems they're facing, they're the ones saying this, and it's not going back up the chain.

Here's Martinkus on what sort of retribution the seven soldiers of 'The War As We Saw It' may face for speaking out :

I think most likely they will (face retribution). The military is a very big, bureaucratic organisation. There's any number of ways that they can be punished. They can have their tours extended, they can be given some unpleasant duties, they cannot be promoted, that kind of thing.

You can watch John Martinkus' balanced and revealing report from his time with the 82nd Airborne here. A follow-up interview with John Martinkus can be viewed here.


General Batiste Op-Ed Explaining Conservative View Of Iraq War Problems - The Wall Street Journal And Washington Times Refuse To Run Editorial

US Republican Senators Spend Ten Hours In Iraq, Come Home Talking Of "Progress" And "Clear Success" In Seven Provinces

Wanted International Criminal Paid $60 Million To Fly US Supply Missions Into Iraq

Number Of Black Americans Signing Up For US Military Service Plunges - "I'm Not Really Into Going Overseas With Guns And Fighting Other People's Wars"

If The Iraq "Troop Surge" Doesn't Work, Will American Generals Revolt?

September is the month now cited as being the make-or-break deadline to determine the success or failure of US President Bush's Iraq "troop surge" plan, and whether the Iraq War is still worth fighting.

Democrats, fellow Republicans and a growing majority of Americans are hammering and pressuring the president to pull America's troops out of Iraq by the end of the year, or by mid-2008 at the latest.

All the while President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, the swarm of Washington NeoCons and the pro-war media and commentariat are softening up the public for American forces to stay in Iraq, in increased numbers, right through 2008 and beyond.

Under siege from Washington, the media and the general public, at least President Bush can count on the American military to support him.

Or can he?

Go To 'Your New Reality' For The Full Story

One Week In Iraq - 19 Americans, More Than 560 Iraqis Killed


Stories From Iraq You Might Have Missed

Insurgents Proudly Boast Of Ambush That Killed 5 Americans, Saw 3 Captured - 4000 American Troops Now Involved In Search

Majority Of Iraqi Lawmakers Prepare Timetable For US Withdrawal

"Troop Surge" Is Not Slowing, Or Decreasing Number Of Attacks By Insurgency - More Than 150 Attacks A Day

Democrats Want To Give Bush Iraq War Deadlines, But May Give Him The Option To Waive Such Deadlines (?)

Iraqis Resist US Pressure To Enact Oil Law That Will See Most Of Their Oil Profits Leave The Country

Defence Department Bans MySpace & YouTube - Cuts Access For Deployed Soldiers To Communicate With Friends And Families

But Multinational Force In Iraq Has An Official YouTube Channel

Baghdad's 'Killing Fields' - 230 Iraqis Slaughtered By Death Squads In 11 Days

The Madness Of War Profiteering In Iraq - Hailburton Collected Fees For Trucks That Carried Nothing, But Saw Drivers Being Killed

Iraq : The Bombs And The Blood

April 18 : 302 Iraqis Die In Bloodiest Day Of Iraq War


US General said Iraqis Must "Learn To Live With" Car Bombings

So is the US "troop surge" to secure Baghdad working? It hasn't even really begun. To deploy the full "surge" of some 20,000 new troops, which may climb to more than 40,000, will take many more months. It is too early to declare it a success or failure. But in reality, it will never be either.

Iraq is beset by chaos, from new outbreaks of violence down south, through the living hell that is Baghdad, where nearly a thousand people a week are now dying, to the far north, where Iraqi Kurds are teasing the borders of Turkey, and facing the bullets of the Turkish military who may or may not already have crossed the border into Iraq to deal with the Kurdish independence fighters.

That there is some solid, locked-in, six month plan by the US or the Iraqi government to calm the chaos is a fiction. They are rewriting all the plans each week that violence grows, and both entities in Iraq are grasping at surviving the wholesale slaughter.

Despite the influx of fresh US and Iraqi troops into Baghdad, the bombers are still getting through, and the dead are so many, and the violence so frequent, and sudden, corpses are lying in the streets once more.

The purpose of the "troop surge" success or failure debate is strictly for Western media audiences, to distract them from the depopulation of a nation, the destruction of ancient tribes and the assassination of an entire, well-educated middle class, who were the best chance of Iraq rising to become the truly great Middle East nation it deserves to be now that Saddam Hussein is gone.

The US strategy in Iraq seems to now be little more than attempting to wait out the Iraqi insurgency. How long can they possibly keep on bombing and killing each other before they tire of the violence? Or before all those willing to sacrifice their lives, and the lives of innocent Iraqis, are dead? A year? Ten years?

As usual, the UK Independent's veteran reporter Patrick Cockburn supplies the best analysis of what is happening in, and to, Iraq :

Yesterday (April 18) will go down as a day of infamy for Iraqis who are repeatedly told by the US that their security is improving. Almost 200 people were killed on one of the bloodiest days of the four-year-old war, when car bombs ripped through four neighbourhoods across Baghdad, exposing the failure of the two-month-old US security plan.

In the aftermath of the blasts, American and Iraqi soldiers who rushed to the scene of the explosions were pelted with stones by angry crowds shouting: "Where is the security plan? We are not protected by this plan."

Billowing clouds of oily black smoke rose into the sky over the Iraqi capital after four bombs tore through crowded markets and streets leaving the ground covered in charred bodies and severed limbs. "I saw dozens of dead bodies," said a witness in Sadriyah, a mixed Shia-Kurdish neighbourhood in west Baghdad where 140 people died and 150 were injured. " Some people were burned alive inside minibuses. Nobody could reach them after the explosion. There were pieces of flesh all over the place. Women were screaming and shouting for their loved ones who died."

The escalation in devastating bomb attacks by Sunni insurgents against Shia civilians is discrediting the US security plan, implemented by a "surge" in American troop numbers. Launched on 14 February it was intended to give the Iraqi government greater control over the streets of Baghdad. The Mehdi Army Shia militia, blamed for operating death squads against Sunni civilians, had adopted a lower profile and avoided military confrontation with the US but that is unlikely to continue in the wake of these devastating bomb attacks. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is seen as being unable to defend his own people.

The worst attack was on Sadriyah meat and vegetable market in the centre of Baghdad. It had already been the target of one of Baghdad's worst atrocities when a suicide bomber blew up a Mercedes truck on 3 February, killing 137 people.

There is no doubt that the bombs were directed at killing as many Shia civilians as possible. About half an hour before the Sadriyah blast, a suicide bomber had rammed a police checkpoint at the entrance to the great Shia bastion in Sadr City in east Baghdad. It is also the stronghold of the Shia nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The explosion killed 35 people and wounded 75, police say. Black smoke rose from blazing vehicles as people scrambled over the twisted wreckage of cars to try to rescue the wounded.

"The problem is that the Shia stopped killing so many Sunni but the Sunni are killing more Shia than ever," said an Iraqi official before the attacks yesterday. He added: "If this goes on, the Shia will exact revenge. Sectarian massacres will dwarf anything we have seen before."

The bombings came hours after Mr Maliki said that Iraqi security forces would take full control of the whole country by the end of the year. But last night, amid a torrent of public criticism, the Prime Minister ordered the arrest of the Iraqi army colonel in charge of security around the Sadriyah market.

The 17-million strong Shia community, the majority of the Iraqi population, is increasingly hostile to the US presence while the five million Sunni generally support anti- American armed resistance. Only the Kurds fully back the US.

The success of the US security plan in Baghdad depended less on an additional five American brigades than in fostering a belief by Iraqis that it was providing them with security.

2007: A year of attacks despite the 'surge'

* 16 JANUARY

Car bomb and suicide bomber at Mustansiriya University, central Baghdad, kill at least 70, mainly students.

* 22 JANUARY

Double car bomb at a second-hand goods market in Bab al-Sharji, central Baghdad, kills 88.

* 1 FEBRUARY

Two suicide bombers strike at a market in Shia town of Hilla, killing 61.

* 3 FEBRUARY

Truck bomb kills 135 and wounds 305 at a market in Sadriya quarter of central Baghdad, the same market that was bombed yesterday.

* 12 FEBRUARY

Multiple car bombs explode in Shorja market, Baghdad, killing at least 71. At least nine others killed at Bab al-Sharji.

* 6 MARCH

Two suicide bombers strike in Hilla, killing 105 pilgrims. Insurgents attack Shia pilgrims in 12 other incidents. In all, a total of 137 pilgrims die.

* 27 MARCH

Two truck bombs explode in Tal Afar, near Syrian border, and Mosul; 152 dead.

A comprehensive summary of the string of attacks and assassinations of April 18 is supplied by the AntiWar.com site, whose tally comes to 302 Iraqis killed or found dead, and more than 300 wounded. We publish this summary in full as to present a more comprehensive picture of just how much violence occurs in Iraq on a given day, this one being April 18 :

A series of coordinated bomb attacks shook Baghdad hours after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said that security would be in Iraqi hands by the end of the year. Overall, at least 312 people were killed and 302 wounded throughout Iraq. One American soldier died yesterday of non-battle related injuries.

In Baghdad, one truck bomb killed 140 people and wounded 150 more in the mostly Shi’ite Sadriya neighborhood. A second bomb killed 41 and wounded 76 in Sadr City. In Karrada, the third bomb killed 11 and wounded 13 more. Two were killed and eight wounded in a checkpoint bombing in Saidiya. And, a bomb in a mini-bus in Risafi killed four and wounded six people.

Also in the capital, gunmen killed a police major who also worked a security detail for the Speaker of Parliament. Four policemen were killed and six civilians wounded during an attack by gunmen in central Baghdad. Mortars in Amil wounded three civilians. And, 15 dumped bodies were recovered.

Another 25 decomposed bodies were retrieved from a school in Ramadi. Yesterday, 17 bodies had been discovered.

A suicide bomber injured seven people southwest of Mosul at al-Ghayah. Two brothers were killed and a policeman was wounded in a gunbattle in central Mosul. Mortars rained on a security checkpoing where they injured eight people. Two people were killed, three wounded in a roadside bomb attack. An explosive device killed senior Iraqi army officer and wounded three soldiers. Also, eight bodies were found in Mosul.

A suicide bomber killed two policemen and wounded four people, including two civilians, near Mahmudiya.

A policeman and a soldier were wounded during multiple checkpoint attacks in Tal Afar.

In a drive-by shooting in Kirkuk, a judge and his wife and son were wounded. Four bodies, one beheaded, were found in separate locations.

The son of the Interior Minister and his two bodyguards were killed in Baiji.

Gunmen killed soldier and kidnapped two civilians in Khalis.

Two farmers died of injuries they received in a U.S. attack in Al Bo Asi Al Abagiyah village.

Three bodies were found in separate locations near Baquba.

Five civilians were injured in Khanaqeen.

The bodies of three kidnapped workers were found in Hawija.

The Basra homes of three Fadhila party members were attacked by bombs, but no casualties were reported.

Mortars landed on the U.S. base in Haditha, but no casualties were reported. A U.S. vehicle was damaged in a blast in Fallujah.

Three people were injured on Tuesday when a roadside bomb struck an ambulance near Mukayshifah.

During U.S. military raids in Taji, one suspect was killed and eight others were detained. Near Garma, five suspects were killed and 18 arrested. The Iraq army killed six suspects and captured 126 others during operations throughout the country. Three gunmen were killed in Muqdadiya. Combined U.S.-Iraqi forces killed 23 gunmen during security operations in Diyala.

Iraqi Government Announces It Intends To Take Control Of Security By End Of 2007

Iraqis "Must Learn To Live" With Drive-By Assassinations, Car Bombings, Executions, Says US General

Maliki Tells US To Halt Building Three Metre High "Separation Barrier" Through The Middle Of Sunni-Shia Baghdad Neighbourhood, After Sunni & Shia Neighbours Join Together In Protest

Gunmen Slaughter 23 Followers Of Ancient Pre-Islamic Religion In Northern Iraq

New Geo Survey Reveals Iraq May Hold Twice As Much Oil As Previously Thought - An Extra 100 Billion Barrels - Production Costs Of $2 Per Barrel

US Abandons Plan To "Stand Down As Iraqi Army Stands Up" - Troop Training Plans Fade

15,000 Iraqis Have "Disappeared" During Four Years Of War

In The Pentagon, War Planners Imagine Situation Beyond 'Failure In Iraq'

Iraq, Afghanistan War Veterans Hammer Congress

On Patrol In Baghdad With An American Task Force

By Darryl Mason

Although Bush's troop "surge" is widely promoted as being the United States' "last roll of the dice in Iraq", the truth is that preparations are already underway, and have been for months, for what will be happening in Iraq this time next year, when the Baghdad crackdown proves to be a failure, as it is likely to be - if only because key Shiite and Sunni insurgents are already laying low or have already exited the city knowing full well what was coming.

In fact, according to this report in Salon.com, policy planners inside the Pentagon are already meeting in preparation for the failure of the "surge" option, never having believed it would work in the first place, but knowing it would buy valuable time with the American public, under the endless Bush-Cheney-Gates chorus of "give the plan a chance to succeed".

But not only are these policy planners focused on what comes after the troop "surge" failure, they are meeting to discuss ways to cope with a situation in Iraq one year from now where violence and carnage and general chaos and mayhem has been accelerated by the Baghdad crackdown, and the spread of the civil war, as detailed in the latest National Intelligence Estimate.

The theme appears to be that not only won't things get better in Iraq, they can only get worse. Much worse than most Americans could even imagine.

From Salon.com :

On Feb. 2, the National Intelligence Council, representing all intelligence agencies, issued a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, as harsh an antidote to wishful thinking as could be imagined.

"The Intelligence Community judges that the term 'civil war' does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qaida and Sunni insurgent attacks on Coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence. Nonetheless, the term 'civil war' accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and population displacements."

The report described an Iraqi government, army and police force that cannot meet these challenges in any foreseeable time frame and a reversal of "the negative trends driving Iraq's current trajectory" occurring only through a dream sequence in which all the warring sects and factions, in some unexplained way, suddenly make peace with one another. Nor does the NIE suggest that this imaginary scenario might ever come to pass. Instead, it proceeds to describe the potential for "an abrupt increase in communal and insurgent violence and a shift in Iraq's trajectory from gradual decline to rapid deterioration with grave humanitarian, political, and security consequences."

The reception of the latest NIE, even more than the NIE itself, indicates again Bush's and Republicans' denial of objective analysis from the professional intelligence community.

The new (National Intelligence Estimate) offers more than "key judgments" on "The Prospects for Iraq's Stability." It is also a template for the short-term future of American politics. The ruthlessly cruel events projected for Iraq will blow back to the United States. The more Bush fights there, the more the embattled Republicans must fight here.

The Senate Republicans' vote to suppress the resolution on the war was the moment when they irrevocably aligned themselves completely with a president who rejects objective analysis.

Unable to shield him or themselves from the inevitable consequences, they have made a conscious decision to place the president's delusions above the welfare not only of the Republican Party but also of the troops sent into the deadly labyrinth of Baghdad. Quietly and calmly, as the Republicans hype the "surge," the war planners prepare for the worst.

In Washington, an organisation of more than 1000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are relentlessly pounding both Democrats and Republicans over their failure to stop Bush from moving ahead with his plan to pour more than 20,000 more troops into Baghdad in the coming months.

VoteVets.org is led by 29 year old Iraq war veteran, and firebrand, John Soltz. He's accused Republicans and Democrats who have tried to stop a full-blown debate on Iraq in the Senate as "aiding the enemy".

Last month, (VoteVets.org) dispatched veterans to the home states of Republican senators waffling over resolutions on the war. Next, it ran a stark television ad on Super Bowl Sunday that drew national attention. And this week, group members crisscrossed Capitol Hill, trying to persuade lawmakers and their staffs to oppose the troop increase.

The veterans are selling a blunt message: The Bush strategy in Iraq is a failure, and adding troops sends more young men and women to their deaths. If you care about the military, they told lawmakers, vote against the troop increase. Legislators who are stalling debate on the matter are "cowards," they said.

In several news conferences, Soltz accused McConnell of "aiding the enemy" by allowing the Bush administration to build up troops in Iraq at the expense of the hunt for Osama bin Laden. "We are not fighting the war on terrorism, we are in the middle of a civil war," he said, referring to Iraq. "Meanwhile, the guy who attacked this country on 9/11 is living in a cave in Afghanistan."

Soltz called Cheney a "draft dodger," repeating charges he made last month when he disparaged a "president who frankly knows nothing of war and a vice president who knows even less." He said: "Senators on the fence have a choice. They can stand with veterans like us, or they can stand with the draft dodgers down the road."

Democrats said they will not muzzle the veterans. In many ways, the former soldiers and Marines are expressing sentiments the lawmakers want broadcast, and they help inoculate Democrats against Republican claims that opposing the president's plan undermines the troops.

As with Vietnam, it will likely be the war's veterans who produce the most pressure to end the procession of American soldiers into Iraq, and the flow of caskets back home.

Groups like VoteVets.org are proving to be a troubling quandary for the rapidly dwindling public supporters of the Iraq War in the United States.

How can the enormously cliched claim that valid opposition to the war "undermines the morale of the troops", when it is the troops themselves, some who have lost limbs, genitals and mental faculties, who are leading the call to bring the war to a close?

So far, few in the conservative media and blogworld have been game enough to even try to call the honesty and credibility of VoteVets.org. something less than admirable.


An insightful first hand account of American troops on patrol in East Baghdad :

The American and Iraqi plan to pacify the capital rests on the assumption that U.S. troops can win the trust of a wary population by protecting civilians trapped amid sectarian warfare. Each day, U.S. soldiers go door-to-door in the city, searching bedrooms and bathrooms, cabinets and closets, for unauthorized weapons. The operations also offer a chance to cultivate Iraqis as sources of information about the violence entangling their neighborhoods.

But soldiers in a task force from the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment, who have patrolled Baghdad for months, say that trying to gain cooperation from Iraqi civilians is a thankless struggle. They say they feel powerless to prevent the city's slide into wider war and that Iraqis seldom open up to them with detailed intelligence. Since the task force of more than 800 soldiers arrived in August, 15 of them have been killed.

Although their commanders argue otherwise, the extent of the challenge led some soldiers to express doubt in interviews that the additional 17,500 American troops slated for Baghdad can make a lasting difference.

"I don't think the infantry or pretty much anyone in the United States Army are properly trained to deal with the guerrilla tactics these guys use against us," said Spec. Jeffrey Steele, 22. "This is a policing thing, you know. It needs more investigation into how these guys work, where
they're located. I don't think we can do any better."

* * * * * * *

Sgt. 1st Class Luis Enrique Gutierrez Rosales, 38, said most of the Iraqis he has met say they are pleased that the Americans patrol their neighborhoods. "They said they always feel safe when we're around. People stop on the road and say thank you. They say, 'If it wasn't for you, I probably wouldn't be alive,' " he said.

But some of his soldiers saw less reason to be hopeful about either their relations with the Iraqis or the troop increase. After the patrol on Thursday, Sgt. Michael Hiler, 26, stepped down from his Humvee and described the day's effort as "stupid."

"We should have pulled out a long time ago," Hiler said. "It's going to take the hand of God to change anything about what we do here, which is nothing. This country's going to fall apart sooner or later, and at this point I say, 'Good riddance.' "

Sitting on bunks while waiting for an evening patrol, a group of soldiers discussed the enemy and the latest security effort, described by Padgett as "the last best hope for Iraq."

"All these extra troops start coming into Baghdad, you'll start reducing the anti-American violence. That way, it will show quick results for the Bush administration. And that way, 'Hey, we won the war, let's get out of here,' " said Pfc. Daniel Gomez, 21, a medic. But he said of the forces opposing the Americans: "They're like the Viet Cong, they can wait it out. We're not going to be here forever, and they know that. And then we're gone, and it's all theirs."

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