Inflation truly hit home in 2007 with food prices rising 4.9 percent, the most since 1990, as energy costs for farmers surged and the production of crops, livestock and dairy products failed to keep pace with increased global demand.
Dairy prices gained the most of all foods last year, with milk surging 19.3 percent, the Labor Department said Wednesday. Fruits and vegetables increased 5.9 percent and cereal and baked-goods prices rose 5.4 percent. Bread prices jumped 10.5 percent, according to the report.
Companies including Kellogg Co. and General Mills Inc., the largest U.S. cereal-producers, boosted prices as the cost of commodities such as wheat reached record highs.
"If they're going to pay more for food, people offset that by being more frugal users of food and looking at other parts of their spending where they feel they can cut back," said Michael Walden, an economics professor at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. "Likely that would be entertainment, electronics, higher-end clothing, vacations."
and why are food costs rising so quickly?
One of the driving forces for higher food prices was the rising cost of fuel. Farmers and ranchers, along with transport companies, felt the same pinch that many consumers did in 2007 as energy prices, which include gasoline and diesel fuel, rose 17.4 percent.
We attacked an oil rich nation for what most beleive was the oil, yet the vast majority of American people have reaped no gain from this endless and destructive war.
The American people have been screwed and not even kissed while the Bush cronies have laughed all the way to the bank over the bodies of the dead soldiers and Iraqi civilians. Are you finally fed up enough? You elected this murderous moron, not once but twice and this is the result. His father was a poor President, this one is the worst in American history.
Iraq's government released statistics on the number of civilians and security force members it said were killed in 2007.
According to figures released Monday by the Iraqi government, 16,232 civilians, 432 soldiers and about 1,300 Iraqi policeman died in 2007. The previous year, according to the figures compiled by the health, defense and interior ministries, 12,371 civilians, 603 soldiers and 1,224 policeman were killed.
The government's figures were roughly in line with a count kept by The Associated Press, which found that 18,610 Iraqis were killed in 2007. In 2006, the only other full year an AP count has been tallied, 13,813 died.
If you still believe the corner has been turned in Iraq you are fooling yourself. Even if the surge was successful it would be just a temporary stopping of the violence. Until there is political reconciliation, there will be no peace. It's like putting 10 cops on the street corner where drugs are sold. Sure they will stop selling drugs but as soon as you leave they dealers will be right back UNLESS you have done some education or outreach which may change the underlying reasons that people turn to selling drugs. That type of political outreach has been absent from the situation in Iraq. We are an occupying force not an agent for change.
Democratic lawmakers and staffers privately say they're closing in on a broad budget deal that would give President Bush as much as $70 billion in new war funding.
The deal would lack a key provision Democrats had attached to previous funding bills calling for most U.S. troops to come home from Iraq by the end of 2008, which would be a significant legislative victory for Bush.
Democrats admit such a move would be highly controversial within their own party. Coming just weeks after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, vowed the White House would not get another dollar in war money this year, it would further antagonize the liberal base of the party, which has become frustrated with the congressional leadership's failure to push back on Bush's Iraq policy.
I don't understand why the Democrats constantly cave into this fool. His approval rating is 28% while the Democratically controlled Congress is even less. Don't they realize it is so low because they are seen as useless wimps.
It is time for a third party in this country. One that represents the good of the middle and lower classes. It is really sad to say that the best party for the future of this country right now is the Democrats. What does that say for the Republicans and the political process in this country when our best hope is a party of scared fools who can't stand up to the most unpopular and worthless President we have had in our history?
Reading this story made me so sad for the children of Iraq many of whom have no hope and no future. After reading this story, who with a heart will be able to remain silent as the devastation of Iraq continues? What crime did these children commit other than being born in a country with United States oil under their sand?
The plight of these children is a war crime and Bush and Cheney are no better than the despotic leaders they rail against. While their cronies get rich the children of Iraq are left to suffer and die and then we wonder why they hate us. If impeachment is off the table then those at the table need to be replaced. How can we as a nation tell our future generations that we did nothing to stop a despotic moron and his henchmen and expect them to understand. Doing nothing means admitting that this great experiment called American democracy has failed and the reason for its failure is apathy.
The head of Iraq's main humanitarian group said an 18-year-old approached him with a baby suffering from leukemia. The desperate mother said she'd do "anything" for treatment for her child -- and then offered herself up for sex.
Said Ismail Hakki breaks down in tears as he recalls that story. Leukemia can be treatable to a degree in much of the world, but not in Iraq. The baby died two months later.
"It shook me like hell," said Hakki, the president of the Iraqi Red Crescent. "All my life I've been a surgeon. I've seen blood; I've seen death. That never shook me -- none whatsoever. But when I see the suffering of those people, that really shook me."
The plight of Iraq's children is nearing epidemic proportions, he said, with mothers and fathers abandoning their children "because they're becoming a liability." The parents don't do it out of convenience, they do it out of desperation.
Can any of us even imagine the situation of this mother? Can you imagine watching your child slowly die and there is nothing you can do and no one available to help. This is hell on earth.
Hakki says Red Crescent has the monumental task of treating and feeding more than 1.6 million children under the age of 12 who have become homeless in their own country. That's roughly 70 percent of the estimated 2.3 million Iraqis who are homeless inside Iraq.
1.6 million children in Iraq is roughly 8% of the total population. If the same percentage of US children were homeless that would be 24 million homeless children. Can we ever imagine a day when that would happen?
We must all remember that this is being done in our names. The death and destruction must stop. The Iraqi children need peace and stability. They need to be educated, fed and loved. What we want for our own children we must demand for them. Doing anything less is criminal.
The nation has spent $415 billion in Iraq and another $190 billion since 2001 fighting the "war on terror," which includes the fighting in Afghanistan, according to a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office, Congress' nonpartisan research arm.
That number could grow substantially. The CBO estimated in August that the total could hit $1 trillion by 2013 and that's if nearly two-thirds of the 210,000 troops now deployed are brought home.
On Wednesday, CBO Director Peter Orszag is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill and is expected to say that those numbers have been revised higher.
In addition, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said recently that a long-term "Korea-like" presence in Iraq could end up costing $2.5 trillion, or enough to cover half the estimated shortfall in Social Security due to retiring baby boomers.
Remember this war when they tell us that they need to cut social security benefits. Instead of caring for our own citizens we wasted trillions of dollars on war and countless lives to satisfy this vindictive and stupid President. If you still support this man then you are truly stupid.
“As chairman of the Appropriations Committee I have absolutely no intention of reporting out of committee anytime in this session of Congress any such request that simply serves to continue the status quo,” Obey told reporters.
He wants a war spending bill to end U.S. involvement in combat operations by January 2009, allow more rest time for troops between deployments and start a “diplomatic surge.”
Obey also came out in favor of Rep. James McGovern’s (D-Mass.) war tax proposal.
“If you don’t like the cost, then shut down the war,” Obey said in a news conference.
The tax would be intended to raise roughly $150 billion for the war. It would be a surtax of 2 to 15 percent of income tax. A 2 percent surtax means that a person who would otherwise pay $100 in taxes would pay $102.
Finally some rational thinking from one of our lawmakers. Until everyone has a vested interest in this war it will continue unabated. Americans have been asked to sacrifice nothing for the supposed greatest challenge of our lifetime. It is time for everyone to put up or shut up on Iraq.
Hillary Clinton Will Vote No On Additional Funding For The Iraq War
I am probably one of the few that understand why Hillary Clinton voted for the war authorization in the first place. I believe she was in a uniquely difficult position on this vote. Had she voted against the authorization to use force and weapons were found she would have looked weak. Having spent eight years in a White House that also believed weapons of mass destruction may still be in Iraq, a vote against the authorization would have been spun into a rebuke of her husband's policies during his Presidency. Those who insist that she apologize for that vote don't understand the extra scrutiny that she is subjected to as a result of being the right wings number one hated person. Do I agree with her vote, absolutely not, but I can understand politically why she made that choice. I am not supporting Hillary Clinton for President, actually I have not decided whom to support. Her remarks on "Meet The Press" today were firm against continuing this war and she understands the only way to stop it is to vote against additional spending. I applaud her for this firm stance.
More than 1,500 people have cholera in Iraq and the outbreak has spread from the north to Baghdad, where conditions are ripe for the disease to thrive, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday.
Some 29,000 cases of acute watery diarrhoea have been reported by Iraqi authorities since mid-August, including 1,500 confirmed as cholera, the United Nations health agency said. At least 10 people have died, all in the north.
WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said a 25-year-old woman in Baghdad has contracted cholera, the first confirmed case in the Iraqi capital.
"For the time being, we have only one case (in Baghdad). It's likely that others will be identified," Chaib told a news briefing. She said the woman was in a Baghdad hospital and two other people with suspected symptoms were under investigation.
Claire-Lise Chaignat, the WHO's global cholera coordinator, said poor sanitary conditions could cause the disease to spread in Baghdad, home to some 7 million people.
"It's already an epidemic in the north. It is very worrying because parts of Baghdad have fragile water and sanitation systems due to the conflict. Pockets of the population are at high risk," the Swiss expert told Reuters.
These people have no clean water, not enough electricity and then we wonder why they hate us. They were better under Saddam Hussein. Having to say that and knowing it is true makes me sick. We destroyed a country and its people by choice.
Democrats' efforts to challenge President Bush's Iraq policies were dealt a demoralizing blow Wednesday in the Senate after they failed to scrape together enough support to guarantee troops more time at home.
The 56-44 vote _ four short of reaching the 60 needed to advance _ all but assured that Democrats would be unable to muster the support needed to pass tough anti-war legislation by year's end. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., was seen as the Democrats' best shot because of its pro-military premise.
"The idea of winning the war in Iraq is beginning to get a second look," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who led opposition to the bill alongside Sen. John McCain.
Webb's legislation would have required that troops spend as much time at home training with their units as they spend deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan. Members of the National Guard or Reserve would be guaranteed three years at home before being sent back.
They require 60 votes to stop a filibuster and the Democrats fell four short. One of those siding with the Republicans was Joe Lieberman. The people of Connecticut should be ashamed of themselves that they sent this worthless piece of garbage back to the Senate. Our troops and their families are being destroyed by ever longer tours of duty. This amendment would have allowed them equal time at home. If the Republicans are the party of family values how could they block this legislation?
I have heard the Randi Rhodes of Air America state "If they show you who they are believe them." This is who they are!! Actions speak louder than words. Remember that when you go to vote.
The Iraqi government has ordered employees of the North Carolina-based security firm Blackwater USA to leave the country and is opening a criminal investigation following Sunday’s deadly shootout in Mansour, during which a group of Blackwater contractors escorting a convoy of U.S. officials opened fire on nearby civilians.
Just who is Blackwater and how did they get such lucrative U.S. contracts? Watch this short film and learn how your tax dollars are being used to develop a private army whose goal is profit and where deaths of soldiers and civilians is just a business expense.
President Bush, defending an unpopular war, ordered gradual reductions in U.S. forces in Iraq on Thursday night and said, "The more successful we are, the more American troops can return home."
Yet, Bush firmly rejected calls to end the war, insisting that Iraq will still need military, economic and political support from Washington after his presidency ends.
Bush said that 5,700 U.S. forces would be home by Christmas and that four brigades _ for a total of at least 21,500 troops _ would return by July, along with an undetermined number of support forces. Now at its highest level of the war, the U.S. troop strength stands at 168,000.
"The principle guiding my decisions on troop levels in Iraq is: return on success," the president said, trying to summon the nation's resolve once again to help Iraq "defeat those who threaten its future and also threaten ours."
Basically what he said is that we will eventually get to pre-surge troop levels but we will maintain a 130,000 troop force until at least he leaves office. It is time for the American people to say enough is enough and that not one more American life is worth being lost in this disaster.
There has been no measurable progress in Iraq no matter what General Petraeus,"the ass-kissing little chickenshit" tell us. Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command(Centcom) needs to be called before Congress to give his sworn testimony.
His version of the situation on the ground is much different than General Petraeus who may have designs on the Presidency of the United States. Just what we need, someone else using the troops as props for political reasons.
General Petraeus today made a stunning admission, conceding "I don't know" if the course of action recommended in Iraq makes America safer:
WARNER: I hope in the recesses of your heart that you know that strategy will continue the casualties, stress on our forces, stress on military families, stress on all Americans. Are you able to say at this time, if we continue what you have laid before the Congress, this strategy, that if you continue, you are making America safer?
PETRAEUS: Sir, I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objections in Iraq.
WARNER: Does that make America safer?
PETRAEUS: Sir, I don't know actually. I have not sat down and sorted out in my own mind. What I have focused on and been riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the Multinational Force in Iraq.
This exchange verifies the argument VoteVets.org has been making, that General Petraeus' job is not to take those things into account, and therefore the President is hiding behind General Petraeus.
Let me explain.
General Petraeus was given an order -- find a military solution for Iraq where there is none, and without concern for troop overextension or the larger war on terror. General Petraeus followed his orders, giving the president what he wanted to hear, and now the president will hide behind that to justify his failure as a commander in chief.
General Petraeus has a very limited area of concern -- the US military in Iraq -- and his testimony today reflected that.
When one looks at the grander scale, past just the military in Iraq, the picture is dismal, and becoming a critical danger. From the Government Accountability Office report to Congressional Research Service report to the report by General Jones, it is clear that there has been no political reconciliation overall in Iraq or increased security, despite our military's strongest efforts.
From Admiral Fallon to Admiral Mullen, those above General Petraeus in the chain of command are telling the president that this war is hurting our military and our global security. The president has chosen to ignore all of this, in favor of a report based on a false premise with faulty findings, signed by a General with a very limited scope of concern. Call it denial, or call it stubbornness, or whatever you want; it all boils down to the same thing -- this president still refuses to listen to those he needs to listen to, in favor of those who tell him what he wants to hear.
Unwittingly, General Petraeus just confirmed all of that in the exchange above, today.
According to this latest poll, in key areas - security and the conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development - between 67 and 70% of Iraqis, or more than two-thirds, say the surge has made things worse.
All this as the political battle is about to erupt again in Washington over the future of the US mission.
The Bush administration is insisting progress is being made and that the surge needs more time.
Who are you going to believe, the people of Iraq or President Bush? That choice is pretty easy. They want us out and this poll speaks volumes about the believability of the Petraeus testimony. What an absolute mess!!!
The 30,000 additional troops deployed to Iraq in January could come home by next July, but further American withdrawals would be "premature," the U.S. commander there told a fractious congressional hearing Monday.
"Our experience in Iraq has repeatedly shown that projecting too far into the future is not just difficult, it can be misleading and even hazardous," Gen. David Petraeus said at a joint hearing of the House Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. "The events of the past six months underscore that point."
The real question is will the Democrats be able to stop this trainwreck? They do not have the 60 votes necessary to force the President to set a timetable for withdrawal and they do not have the 67 votes that would be needed to override a certain veto.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said in a statement, "Today, despite overwhelming evidence that neither goal has been achieved, Gen. Petraeus testified that the surge would last at least until next summer. This is simply unacceptable."
She added, "The president's strategy in Iraq has failed. It is time to change the mission of our troops to one that will promote regional stability and combat terrorism, so that the numbers of our brave men and women in uniform in Iraq can be reduced on a much more aggressive timetable than the one outlined today by Gen. Petraeus."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said, "Our enemies around the globe gain great advantage by having the United States mired in an Iraqi civil war."
President Bush and General Petraeus will make a token withdrawal of one or two brigades to show they are moving in a different direction but this will be a lie. Their intention is for a permanent occupation of Iraq. Their actions speak volumes. It is up to the American people to demand an end to this war or it could very well last as long or longer than Vietnam with a similar result.
Most Americans think this week's report from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus will exaggerate progress in Iraq, and few expect it to result in a major shift in President Bush's policy. But despite skepticism about the Petraeus testimony and majority support for a U.S. troop reduction in Iraq, there has also been a slight increase in the number who see the situation there as improving.
The findings, from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, underscore the depth of public antipathy toward the Iraq war, the doubts about the administration's policies and the limited confidence in the Iraqi government to meet its commitments to restore civil order.
Fifty-eight percent, a new high, said they want to decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. And most of those who advocated a troop reduction said they want the drawdown to begin either right away or by the end of the year. A majority, 55 percent, supported legislation that would set a deadline of next spring for the withdrawal of American combat forces. That figure is unchanged from July.
Only about a third believed the United States is making significant progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq, most said the buildup has not made much difference, and a majority said they do not expect the troop increase to improve the security situation over the next few months. Just one-third were confident the Iraqi government can meet its political and security goals.
We learned this week that the way of counting sectarian violence will not lead to a truthful representation of the facts on the ground. It was said that only bullets to the back of the head are now be counted as sectarian violence. All other shootings will be counted as regular crimes. The deck is stacked against a truthful representation of the facts in Iraq. Why should this report be any different than the rest of the lies we have been told over the past four years. It is nice to see the American people are finally realizing that nothing that comes from this administration can be trusted. That is the only silver lining to this horrible situation in Iraq.
On Sept. 18, 2002, CIA director George Tenet briefed President Bush in the Oval Office on top-secret intelligence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, according to two former senior CIA officers. Bush dismissed as worthless this information from the Iraqi foreign minister, a member of Saddam's inner circle, although it turned out to be accurate in every detail. Tenet never brought it up again.
Nor was the intelligence included in the National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002, which stated categorically that Iraq possessed WMD. No one in Congress was aware of the secret intelligence that Saddam had no WMD as the House of Representatives and the Senate voted, a week after the submission of the NIE, on the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq. The information, moreover, was not circulated within the CIA among those agents involved in operations to prove whether Saddam had WMD.
On April 23, 2006, CBS's "60 Minutes" interviewed Tyler Drumheller, the former CIA chief of clandestine operations for Europe, who disclosed that the agency had received documentary intelligence from Naji Sabri, Saddam's foreign minister, that Saddam did not have WMD. "We continued to validate him the whole way through," said Drumheller. "The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming, and they were looking for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy."
If this is true then President Bush should be impeached immediately and brought up on charges as a war criminal. This is the proverbial smoking gun that proves this war was all a big lie. How does he sleep at night with all the blood on his hands? My guess is that he sleeps soundly because the death and destruction are meaningless to him. We impeached President Clinton for a consensual affair and yet this President is given a pass as the number of dead grows daily. His lies have cost over 3700 of our soldiers their lives and possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis their lives.
Can someone explain to me how George W. Bush is any different than Saddam Hussein?
The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.
The draft provides a stark assessment of the tactical effects of the current U.S.-led counteroffensive to secure Baghdad. "While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved."
"Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised.
Remember this report when we get the glowing report on progress from General Petraeus who can no longer be trusted to tell the truth. The GAO is a non partisan government group and any assessment by them must be considered. The War in Iraq has been lost almost since the start but the drain on our treasury and the deaths of our soldiers continue.
President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.
The request -- which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.
Think of the number of roads we could have fixed, the children we could have insured, the borders we could have secured and other endless lists of priorities being neglected as we spend the Treasury on this endless quagmire in Iraq.
This year's U.S. troop buildup has succeeded in bringing violence in Baghdad down from peak levels, but the death toll from sectarian attacks around the country is running nearly double the pace from a year ago.
Some of the recent bloodshed appears the result of militant fighters drifting into parts of northern Iraq, where they have fled after U.S.-led offensives. Baghdad, however, still accounts for slightly more than half of all war-related killings _ the same percentage as a year ago, according to figures compiled by The Associated Press.
The tallies and trends offer a sobering snapshot after an additional 30,000 U.S. troops began campaigns in February to regain control of the Baghdad area. It also highlights one of the major themes expected in next month's Iraq progress report to Congress: some military headway, but extremist factions are far from broken.
In street-level terms, it means life for average Iraqis appears to be even more perilous and unpredictable.
After reading a report like this I wonder how the Iraqis can not be grateful that we removed an evil dictator? They have this great democracy now and even though many will never live to get that purple finger again, daily life is better now than under Saddam. Who needs clean water and electricity when you have a real democracy?
The killing fields of Vietnam are now in Iraq but the "surge" is working or at least that is what they will tell us in September.
Administration and military officials say Marine Gen. Peter Pace is likely to convey concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military. This assessment could collide with one being prepared by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, calling for the U.S. to maintain higher troop levels for 2008 and beyond.
Petraeus is expected to support a White House view that the absence of widespread political progress in Iraq requires several more months of the U.S. troop buildup before force levels are decreased to their pre-buildup numbers sometime next year.
Why would this General go against the Bush policy of perpetual war? General Pace understands that this war and its long deployments has stretched the military to a breaking point. He realizes that we could not respond to events in other parts of the world without some drastic changes to the military such as a draft.
I believe that Bush's speech comparing the Wars in Iraq and Vietnam was done to lay the groundwork for a return to the draft. Military leaders must realize that our forces are broken and that we simply can not keep up deployments without a draft.
The issue is that they can not publicly say they support a draft for what that would do to Republicans in 2008. The next president will be left to clean up the mess in Iraq and restore our military. They are hoping the choices that will need to be made will be so unpopular that they would regain the Presidency in 2012. It is a gamble they seem willing to make but one I think they will lose in the end. Americans will understand that it was the ill advised war in Iraq that brought our military to the breaking point and they punish the Republican party for it.
The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February, according to data from two humanitarian groups, accelerating the partition of the country into sectarian enclaves.
Despite some evidence that the troop buildup has improved security in certain areas, sectarian violence continues and American-led operations have brought new fighting, driving fearful Iraqis from their homes at much higher rates than before the tens of thousands of additional troops arrived, the studies show.
The data track what are known as internally displaced Iraqis: those who have been driven from their neighborhoods and seek refuge elsewhere in the country rather than fleeing across the border. The effect of this vast migration is to drain religiously mixed areas in the center of Iraq, sending Shiite refugees toward the overwhelmingly Shiite areas to the south and Sunnis toward majority Sunni regions to the west and north.
Though most displaced Iraqis say they would like to return, there is little prospect of their doing so. One Sunni Arab who had been driven out of the Baghdad neighborhood of southern Dora by Shiite snipers said she doubted that her family would ever return, buildup or no buildup.
“There is no way we would go back,” said the woman, 26, who gave her name only as Aswaidi. “It is a city of ghosts. The only people left there are terrorists.”
Statistics collected by one of the two humanitarian groups, the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, indicate that the total number of internally displaced Iraqis has more than doubled, to 1.1 million from 499,000, since the buildup started in February.
To put that number into perspective that is roughly 4.5% of the population. If we were to have the same percentage of Americans flee their homes, we would empty the cities of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Iraq is a humanitarian nightmare. How can anyone think we can restore stability to a country with so much of its population displaced, many homeless and most without basic services. You can not completely understand the situation in Iraq until you know the real facts. What we have done to Iraq as a result of this ill advised invasion is criminal.
The report says that Iraqi Security Forces, working alongside the United States, have performed "adequately." However, it says they haven't shown enough improvement to conduct operations without U.S. and coalition forces and are still reliant on others for key support.
The findings could provide support for the Bush administration's argument that coalition forces need to stay in Iraq in order to avoid letting security lapse, should they withdraw from certain areas.
This report will embolden the Bush administration as it tries to gain support for a continued presence in Iraq. Although the assertions within this report are most likely true, when will there be an improvement in the situation within Iraq. At this rate we will be there forever, but I think that was the goal anyway. We set the fire now we must stay till the fire is out. Since the Sunni-Shiite conflict has lasted for hundreds of years that would mean this conflict will not end in my lifetime.
What we have set in motion in Iraq will reverberate for generations. It is not just a huge foreign policy blunder it is a human catastrophe started by a moronic President of the United States. The blood on his hands will never historically be washed off.
Freedom's Watch was formed by former White House and Bush administration officials and funded by Republican big-money donors. Today it began airing $15 million worth of ads -- featuring veterans and their families -- aimed at influencing wavering members of Congress.
"I know what I lost," says one of those in a TV ad, veteran John Kriesel, who lost both legs in a blast near Fallujah last December. "I also know if we pull out now, everything I've given and sacrificed will mean nothing."
Ari Fleischer was on MSNBC's Hardball yesterday and was asked the name of the soldier in the ad. he could not name that soldier. That should tell you all you need to know about this group. The soldiers are once again just props to spread propaganda and once again they try to tie 9/11 to Iraq. Its more lies. Please watch the video and judge for yourself. Ari Fleischer used to get up every moring, put on his suit and tie and go out and lie to the American public. He is doing that again. Lets call him on it.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the Defense Department expected defense contractors to produce 3,900 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles this year. But only 1,500 would make it to the war zone -- down from the Pentagon's previous shipment target of 2,500 to 3,000.
"If we could get 1,500 to theater by the end of this year, that would be a positive development," Morrell said.
Why is it that this administration constantly talks about supporting the troops yet its actions say something entirely different. They have had years to get these vehicles to the troops. If they cared as much about the soldiers as they do about tax cuts for the wealthy, our death toll in Iraq could be cut drastically. These people make me sick.
Nightmarish political realities in Baghdad are prompting American officials to curb their vision for democracy in Iraq. Instead, the officials now say they are willing to settle for a government that functions and can bring security.
A workable democratic and sovereign government in Iraq was one of the Bush administration's stated goals of the war.
But for the first time, exasperated front-line U.S. generals talk openly of non-democratic governmental alternatives, and while the two top U.S. officials in Iraq still talk about preserving the country's nascent democratic institutions, they say their ambitions aren't as "lofty" as they once had been.
"Democratic institutions are not necessarily the way ahead in the long-term future," said Brig. Gen. John "Mick" Bednarek, part of Task Force Lightning in Diyala province, one of the war's major battlegrounds.
So what does 3700 dead soldiers, countless dead Iraqis and $500 billion dollars get you? According to this report nothing since the new goal would be just a functioning secure society. Gee isn't that what they had under Saddam Hussein? When Cindy Sheehan asks for what noble cause her son died for she will have the serenity of knowing that her son died for absolutely nothing as did all the others.
In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bush drew parallels to U.S. experience in Asia, saying steadfastness against critics of U.S. policy in Japan and Korea in the post-war years led to blossoming democracies and thriving economies in both countries.
"The advance of freedom in these lands should give us confidence that the hard work we are doing in the Middle East can have the same results we have seen in Asia — if we show the same perseverance and sense of purpose," he said.
This is the latest attempt for the United States to keep up the game of whack a mole that we are playing in Iraq. This is also an attempt to focus the blame for loss of the war on the next President. The President is willing to sacrifice the lives of our soldiers to escape the ultimate blame for the disaster that is Iraq. That alone should be grounds for his impeachment.
Separately, at least 28 people were killed and 91 wounded when a suicide car bomb detonated outside a police building in the Iraqi town of Baiji, north of Baghdad, in Salaheddin province, police said. Since the start of the war, 3,714 U.S. troops have died in Iraq.
Do you still think the surge is working? How much more death and destruction must be tolerated before the American people will finally take to the streets and show that we will not tolerate one more death?
