How can anyone still defend the Bush administration. They destroyed our standing in the world and left a world more dangerous than the one they found. Many members of this administration should be trading cigarettes for their lives in a maximum security prison. The mess these criminals left behind will be with us for a generation. We must as Americans demand they be held accountable and must look under every rock for the truth no matter what that truth tells us. Its time for the Obama Administration to make an example of these crooks.
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?
First we found out that the September report everyone has been waiting for will not be written by General Petraeus but by the White House now they have changed the date from 9/15 to 9/11 for his testimony before Congress.
This administration will do anything to avoid telling the truth to the American public including using the deaths of 3000 on 9/11 to justify the continuation of this debacle in Iraq. The problem is that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. People that still beleive that it did need to turn off Fox News and educate themselves.
This administration relies on the stupidity of the American population. Lets show them that we are not stupid and reject this blatant dog and pny show scheduled for 9/11.
Why is it that those who point to the lack of attack never mention that we were not attacked on American soil by radical Islam from February 1993 until 9/11/01. There is still two years to go to match that time frame but worldwide terrorist attacks have increased dramatically. You think the war in Iraq has nothing to do with that?
From the Sunday New York Times this op-ed from soldiers in Iraq: 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.
The women are too afraid and ashamed to show their faces or have their real names used. They have been driven to sell their bodies to put food on the table for their children -- for as little as $8 a day.
"People shouldn't criticize women, or talk badly about them," says 37-year-old Suha as she adjusts the light colored scarf she wears these days to avoid extremists who insist women cover themselves. "They all say we have lost our way, but they never ask why we had to take this path."
A mother of three, she wears light makeup, a gold pendant of Iraq around her neck, and an unexpected air of elegance about her.
"I don't have money to take my kid to the doctor. I have to do anything that I can to preserve my child, because I am a mother," she says, explaining why she prostitutes herself.
Violence, increased cost of living, and lack of any sort of government aid leave women like these with few other options, according to humanitarian workers.
These people were better off under Saddam Hussein. The American people need to understand what a catastrophe this war of choice has brought to the Iraqi people. When the average American finally realizes that the Iraqi people traded one prison for another even worse then they will understand why the insurgency will never end.
We have destroyed a country and its people, then we wonder why they want to kill our soldiers. It is time to draft the young Republicans.
The Bush administration will do anything it can to avoid telling the American people the truth about Iraq. First we learned that the anticipated report due out in September will not be written by General Petraeus but by the White House. What that says is that the report will be a political one and have no basis in truth. You can be guaranteed that the report will talk glowingly of the success of the surge while ignoring the daily bombings, political turmoil and lack of reconstruction.
Senior congressional aides said yesterday that the White House has proposed limiting the much-anticipated appearance on Capitol Hill next month of Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker to a private congressional briefing, suggesting instead that the Bush administration's progress report on the Iraq war should be delivered to Congress by the secretaries of state and defense.
White House officials did not deny making the proposal in informal talks with Congress, but they said yesterday that they will not shield the commanding general in Iraq and the senior U.S. diplomat there from public congressional testimony required by the war-funding legislation President Bush signed in May. "The administration plans to follow the requirements of the legislation," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in response to questions yesterday.
I really do not think the country can wait until 1/20/09 to get rid of these incompetent criminals.
More than one out of four soldiers who committed suicide did so while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, according to a report scheduled to be released Thursday. Iraq was the most common deployment location for U.S. soldiers who either attempted suicide or committed suicide.
The report, which The Associated Press obtained ahead of its public release, said the 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers compared to 88 in 2005 and was the highest raw number since the 102 suicides reported in 1991, the year of the Persian Gulf War, when there were more soldiers on active duty.
This is the result of constant and extended tours. How can anyone think that seeing all the death and destruction that our soldiers see on a daily basis would not have severe psychological consequences?
The psychological welfare of these men were never considered when the President CHOSE war. The treatment of these men is a national disgrace whether it is the lack of body armor or the cuts in veterans funding. How can anyone really say with a straight face that the Republicans support the troops.
Tuesday's four suicide truck bombers struck nearly simultaneously, killing more people than any other concerted attack since Nov. 23, when 215 people were killed by mortar fire and five car bombs in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim enclave of Sadr City.
Some 300 people were wounded in the attacks on the Yazidis, an ancient religious community, said Dakhil Qassim, the mayor of the nearby town of Sinjar.
The carnage dealt a serious blow to U.S. efforts to pacify the country with just weeks before top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker are to deliver a pivotal report to Congress amid a fierce debate over whether to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.
U.S. officials believe extremists are attempting to regroup across northern Iraq after being driven from strongholds in and around Baghdad, and commanders have warned they expected Sunni insurgents to step up attacks in a bid to upstage the report.
Is anyone surprised at this development other than the Bush administration? The "surge" does nothing to protect any other area than Baghdad. According to the counter insurgency manual written by General Petraeus you would need one soldier for every 40 residents. With a population of 22 million it would require a force of 550,000 in order to stabilize the country. The "surge" can not be successful with the current troop levels and General Petraeus understands this. The issue becomes how to get out without leaving a genocide in its place. I am not sure that is possible now.
The most tragic consequences of the Iraq War are yet to be felt. In the end more people will die as a result of this war than died at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Now that is what I call progress.
Four suicide bombers struck nearly simultaneously at communities of a small Kurdish sect in northwestern Iraq late Tuesday, killing at least 175 people and wounding 200 more, Iraqi military and local officials said.
The death toll was the highest in a concerted attack since Nov. 23, when 215 people were killed by mortar fire and five car bombs in Baghdad's Shiite Muslim enclave of Sadr City. And it was most vicious attack yet against the Yazidis, an ancient religious community in the region whose members are considered infidels by some Muslims.
The bombings came as extremists staged other bold attacks: leveling a key bridge outside Baghdad and abducting five officials from an Oil Ministry compound in the capital in a raid using gunmen dressed as security officers. Nine U.S. soldiers also were reported killed, including five in a helicopter crash.
The amount of death and destruction in Iraq is staggering and to think we chose this war. Idiot boy had a score to settle and our dead soldiers and the scores of dead Iraqis are collateral damage from his vendetta.
The United States has opened Pandora's Box in Iraq and it doesn't appear that box will be shut anytime soon. We poured the gasoline and lit the match and destroyed our standing in the world in the process. Unfortunately even if the U.S. was to end the occupation the civil strife would continue. Again I must reiterate that elections have consequences and electing this worthless fool as President will have reverberations long after he has left office and gone back to his ranch to ride his bike.
Cheney in 94: No Additional Casualties Were Worth Going To Baghdad
So what happened between 1994 and 2003 that made the additional casualties worth it? These talking head fools on the nightly news will be spouting their usual 9/11 garbage. The problem with that argument is that Iraq was not involved with 9/11 and that is a provable fact. Could it be that Dick Cheney was the head of Halliburton from 1995-2000 and still had a deferred compensation deal when the war started?
Now you should understand why additional deaths are necessary now but not then. No bid contracts for Halliburton resulted in higher stock prices and made the Vice President a very wealthy man. Now we should all understand why he chose himself as Vice President to this mental midget we call President Bush.
Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday.
``I think it makes sense to certainly consider it,'' Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview with National Public Radio's ``All Things Considered.''
``And I can tell you, this has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another,'' Lute added in his first interview since he was confirmed by the Senate in June.
President Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. Restoring it, Lute said, would be a ``major policy shift'' and Bush has made it clear that he doesn't think it's necessary.
The repeated deployments affect not only the troops but their families, who can influence whether a service member decides to stay in the military, Lute said.
``There's both a personal dimension of this, where this kind of stress plays out across dinner tables and in living room conversations within these families,'' he said. ``And ultimately, the health of the all-volunteer force is going to rest on those sorts of personal family decisions.''
The military conducted a draft during the Civil War and both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. The Selective Service System, re-established in 1980, maintains a registry of 18-year-old men.
Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., has called for reinstating the draft as a way to end the Iraq war.
Bush picked Lute in mid-May as a deputy national security adviser with responsibility for ensuring efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are coordinated with policymakers in Washington. Lute, an active-duty general, was chosen after several retired generals turned down the job.
I say lets do it but there can be no college deferrals, no marriage deferrals or any other excuses to avoid service.
If they do reinstate the draft will they change the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy or will gays finally be allowed to die in a worthless war like everyone else?
Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute didn't just make this statement without thinking. They are laying the groundwork for a return to the draft because they have destroyed our military. If you still feel safer after this disastrous war and the destruction of our military then you are truly living in a fool's paradise and nothing I could say or anyone else could say would change your very warped thinking.
All people who support this war and are under 42 years old should join to help us avoid the draft. Don't worry either if you have been convicted of a crime, that is no longer a reason to disallow your service. With the ever expanding age limit you may soon be able to retire from your present job and join the military. I have a feeling they are already designing the logos for the "Grandpa Brigades".
We were told that in order to judge the success of the surge we would need to wait until all troops were in place. That happened last month and there has been no let up in the violence or political upheaval. The only surge has been in the deaths of our soldiers.
Four more U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, the military said on Tuesday, raising the U.S. death toll for the first six days of the month to 21 as thousands of troops battle militants in intense summer heat.
Off the battlefield, Iraq's crumbling national unity government was in crisis after five secularist ministers said they would boycott cabinet meetings until Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki addressed demands they first gave him in February.
The move means that 17 ministers, nearly half the cabinet, have now quit or are boycotting government meetings. The main Sunni Arab bloc pulled out last week and ministers loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr withdrew in April.
Those responsible for this war need to be held accountable. You can bet that come Septmeber, when no progress can be shown, that the administration will throw General Petraeus under the bus and blame him for the lack of progress.
When will the American people have had enough of this daily death and destruction and demand an end to our involvement in Iraq but how can we just leave a country that we destroyed? We have been put into a no win situation and have brought the Iraqi people with us. This is by far the greatest foreign policy disaster in our nations history and we have President Bush to thank for it. This is his war and his mess but we will all be paying for it for the next generation. How about we send him a bill when he leaves office like they send our troops?
The author of the report from the Government Accountability Office says U.S. military officials do not know what happened to 30 percent of the weapons the United States distributed to Iraqi forces from 2004 through early this year as part of an effort to train and equip the troops. The highest previous estimate of unaccounted-for weapons was 14,000, in a report issued last year by the inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.
Is anyone surprised by this report? They also never secured the ammunitions dumps when they went into Iraq but they did secure the oil fields. Is there anyone that still believes our motives for going into Iraq were noble?
Isn't it good to know that 190,000 weapons are missing in a country that has not had steady electricity since the invasion. At some point you have to stop blaming incompetence and realize that this was planned chaos. No one group could possibly be this incompetent, not even the Bush administration! Was stealing the oil so all important that none of the other details were even discussed?
It is currently 115 degrees in Baghdad where they receive just a few hours of electricity per day. That means you can not keep food from spoiling and you can not run air conditioners. Then we wonder why they are shooting at our troops.
It has been four years since the invasion and the infrastructure has been decimated. The people of Iraq and our soldiers are paying the price while President Bush vacations at Camp David.
A suicide bomber slammed his truck into a densely populated residential area in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar on Monday, killing at least 28 people, including 19 children, local authorities said.
The attack occurred in a crowded Shiite neighborhood of the religiously mixed city, about 250 miles northwest of Baghdad.
The powerful blast caused houses to collapse in the morning as many families were getting ready for the day, and officials said the death toll could rise.
In other Iraq news more Sunni lawmakers have left the governement.
In Baghdad, lawmakers said that five Cabinet ministers loyal to Iraq's first post-Saddam leader will boycott government meetings, further deepening the political crisis that threatens to swamp the administration of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
The boycott of the Iraqiya List ministers loyal to former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi leaves the government, at least temporarily, with no Sunni participants. It was a deep blow to al-Maliki's attempts to reconcile the country's majority Shiites and minority Sunnis and Kurds.
Iraqiya List lawmaker Iyad Jamal-Aldin said the Allawi bloc decided to boycott because al-Maliki has failed to respond to demands for political reform issued five months ago. He said the boycott was not tied to the decision last week by the top Sunni political bloc to pull its six ministers out of the 40-member Cabinet.
Without political reconciliation nothing will change in Iraq. The carnage goes on unabated even though the surge is now fully in place. Iraq is like playing a game of whack a mole. You secure one spot and they just move somewhere else. How many of our soldiers and innocent Iraqis will die as a result of the incompetence of this administration?
The war in Iraq could ultimately cost well over a trillion dollars -- at least double what has already been spent -- including the long-term costs of replacing damaged equipment, caring for wounded troops, and aiding the Iraqi government, according to a new government analysis.
The United States has already allocated more than $500 billion on the day-to-day combat operations of what are now 190,000 troops and a variety of reconstruction efforts.
In a report to lawmakers yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that even under the rosiest scenario -- an immediate and substantial reduction of troops -- American taxpayers will feel the financial consequences of the war for at least a decade.
Nothing has been accomplished except to fuel more worldwide terrorism and grow our budget deficit. The next time you see crumbling infrastructure within the United States you need to remember that.
This war has been a disaster on every conceivable level. This report just points out the financial ramifications. Electing morons has consequences and we will be feeling those consequences for a generation.
The resignation move pushed the government into a new crisis undermining its efforts to reconcile Iraqis and end sectarian strife.
Fifty of Wednesday's dead were killed when a suicide bomber in a fuel truck packed with explosives targeted motorists at a petrol station.
The Sunni Accordance Front left Maliki's Shi'ite-led coalition over his failure to meet a list of about a dozen demands, including a greater say in security matters.
"The government was still ... closing the door on reforms which are needed to save Iraq," Accordance Front spokesman Rafei Issawi told a news conference, adding the government should have met its demands or "at least admit its failure".
Issawi said Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zobaie and five ministers would resign on Wednesday.
The Sunni Front's 44 members will remain in the 275-seat parliament. Its withdrawal will have little practical effect on the 15-month-old government, which is virtually paralysed by infighting but needs only a simple majority to keep functioning.
Four million Iraqis are in ``dire need'' of food, said Oxfam and a panel of non-governmental organizations working in Iraq. More than 2 million have been displaced inside Iraq, some before the fall of Saddam Hussein, and another 2 million have fled to neighboring countries, creating the world's ``fastest-growing refugee crisis,'' the groups said.
``The terrible violence in Iraq has masked the ongoing humanitarian crisis,'' Jeremy Hobbs, director of Oxfam International, said today in a statement on Oxfam's Web site. Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq jointly published their report today on their Web sites.
I often hear people say that the Iraqi people do not show any gratitude for freeing them from Saddam Hussein. The fact is that a vast majority of Iraqis were better off under Saddam Hussein.
Four million people are in dire need of food. That is nearly 17% of the pre-war population. In order to completely understand the severity of that number you need only think of it in terms of the population of the United States. It would be the equivalent of 51 million people in the United States being desperately hungry.
Two million people displaced within the country and two million have fled would be the same as the entire population of the state of NY having no place to live or the entire state of NY having fled to Canada or Mexico. Can you understand now why they hate us so much?
Two American civilian contractors who worked on a massive U.S. Embassy construction project in Baghdad told Congress yesterday that foreign laborers were deceptively recruited and trafficked to Iraq to toil at the site, where they experienced physical abuse and substandard working conditions.
Doesn't this just make you so proud to be an American? Wait it gets better. The company that the United States hired to build the embassy, First Kuwaiti, was engaged in what amounts to slavery.
Testifying before the committee yesterday, John Owens, an American who worked for First Kuwaiti at the embassy site as a construction foreman from November 2005 to June 2006, said he found living and working conditions for the foreign laborers there "deplorable." Because of difficulty hiring Iraqis for work inside the heavily fortified Green Zone, most of the laborers were from such countries as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Sierra Leone, the committee was told.
Foreign workers lived in tightly packed trailers and had "insufficient equipment and basic needs -- stuff like shoes and gloves," Owens said.
They worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and made as little as $240 a month, he said. They were "verbally and physically abused" and had their salaries docked for petty infractions, he added.
Rory J. Mayberry, an emergency medical technician who worked briefly at the embassy site under a subcontract, testified that he was asked by First Kuwaiti managers to escort 51 Filipinos through the Kuwait airport and onto a flight to Baghdad. However, "all of our tickets said we were going to Dubai," he said, adding that a First Kuwaiti manager instructed him not to tell any of the Filipinos that they were going to Baghdad.
He said the men were basically "kidnapped by First Kuwaiti to work on the U.S. Embassy." Their passports had been confiscated, and they were driven away on buses after landing in Baghdad, then were "smuggled into the Green Zone," he said.
Any wonder why our image in the world is ruined? It will take a generation to repair our image in the world. The Bush administration has done nearly irreparable harm to our place in the world.
The Guardian's award-winning photographer and filmmaker Sean Smith spent two months embedded with US troops in Baghdad and Anbar province. His harrowing documentary exposes the exhaustion and disillusionment of the soldiers.
This should be required viewing for every American that still supports this war. This video left me shaking and disturbed. This is war and there are no winners in war.
Today I hope most Americans finally realized that this war will never end as long as the Republicans can continue to stop the vote. Today we learned that an up or down vote on confirming conservative hacks for the Supreme Court is necessary but that doing everything humanly possible to avoid an up or down vote on ending this war is just another day at work for these freaks.
As more and more of our brave soldiers are killed in the endless quagmire called Iraq please remember that these Republicans and Joe Lieberman (just switch parties already Holy Joe and make it official)have the blood of every single additional soldier lost on their hands. Had they just followed their own stated principles of an up or down vote the end of the war could have been in sight. Instead more will die, our deficit will grow and we will be considered pariahs in the international community.
Finally the Democrats are showing some balls. It is being reported that Harry Reid has pulled the defense authirozation bill until the Republicans allow a vote on the Reed-Levin bill. I will post more details as they become available. Finally someone is following the will of the American people.
Sixty votes are required to end the Republican filibuster against the amendment sponsored by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), and Democrats are expected to fall short.
At most, Democrats are likely to muster about 52 votes with the help of three Republicans, Olympia Snowe of Maine, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon.
This filibuster to stop a vote on ending the war is being conducted by the same people who insisted and got an up or down vote on two Supreme Court nominees. The Republicans have one set of rules for themselves and a completely different set for everyone else.
The facts is that this war in Iraq is not winnable because no one knows what winning is. The Bush administration is responsible for the worst foreign policy disaster in our history. The effects of this war on the region will be felt for a generation long after this fool has left office to go back to doing what he is most qualified to do - nothing.
In 2008 we must all make our voices heard and hold to account those lawmakers who put party over country and special interests over the public interest. Only when lawmakers realize that we are paying attention and will hold them to account will the political situation in this country improve. There are no good options left in Iraq which is the result of a bad policy coming home to roost. The violence will increase no matter when we leave. The question is how many of our troops will die needlessly trying to prevent the inevitable.
The people of Iraq deserved better than a policy based on revenge. Saddam Hussein is dead as George W. Bush wanted but the people of his country will suffer for a generation. His people and our troops are now being used as pawns in a deadly game of chess where there can be no winner.
Republican leaders are using procedural tactics to block the measure from moving forward on the Senate floor.
Senators are debating a plan, proposed as an amendment to a defense bill, that calls for a U.S. troop pullout from Iraq to begin within 120 days and completed by next April.
Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, is a key sponsor.
"The Bush administration's current policy is straining our military, inhibiting our ability to fight the war on terrorism, diminishing our standing in the international community, and rapidly losing the support of the American public," he said. "In sum, it is a policy that cannot be sustained."
This will most likely not accomplish its stated goal but it will highlight for the American people the intractable Republican position. Hopefully people will finally relaize that this war can not end until there are 60 votes to get any proposal to the Senate floor and 2/3 of each house to override a sure presidential veto.
The republicans will use the argument that they need to stay to fight Al-Qaeda in Iraq. We must continually remind them that this terrorist group did not exist prior to our invasion of Iraq. The basis for the war was all lies and the execution of the war a complete disaster. How many more must die before the Republicans will do the right thing and end this disastrous war.
In the predominantly Kurdish city of Kirkuk, a bomb-laden truck blew up in a busy commercial part of the city, killing 65 people and injuring 170 others, CNN quoted police as saying.
So you completely understand what is happening in Iraq I want you to follow along in this little experiment. Close your eyes and ask yourself what you see? Nothing correct!! That is the number of car bombs that were in Iraq prior to the United States invasion.
We pushed this country into civil war and are responsible for the death and destruction that has resulted. It is exactly the same as if we threw gasoline on the floor and then lit a match. Do you still think they hate us for our freedom? We have wrought more death and destruction onto a people who we supposedly wanted to liberate than any one thought possible.
President Bush attempted to convince the nation that Saddam Hussein had WMD as justification for invading Iraq in 2003. In Oct. 2002, for example, he stated, “If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today — and we do — does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?”
But today on the progressive radio program The Cappy McGarr Show, host Cappy McGarr reveals through a conversation with former Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle that in private, Bush’s real motivation was a personal vendetta:
Of all the reasons used to justify this awful war, the one that stunned me the most…and will shock you…was the one I heard from a close friend of mine former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. Senator Daschle was Majority Leader at the time.
The Senate and The House Leadership were meeting with President Bush for a weekly breakfast back then, and as our country was leading up to the Iraq war. … Bush got to talking about why we needed this war, and here’s what he said to Senator Daschle “We need to get Saddam Hussein…that Mother _______ tried to take out my Dad.”
People have been saying that this was the reason for the war for some time. I could not believe that his advisers would allow our country to be taken into a war to satisfy a personal vendetta. Then all you need to do is remember that the Project For a New American Century wanted this war back in the 90's during the Clinton Administration. President Clinton had the good sense to reject this policy. When George W. Bush was elected they realized that they had someone of limited intellect that could be persuaded to start this war. They knew just what buttons to push. The result is a Middle East in turmoil, staggering loss of life and a generation of debt. Electing a fool has consequences.
Britain's most senior generals have issued a blunt warning to Downing Street that the military campaign in Afghanistan is facing a catastrophic failure, a development that could lead to an Islamist government seizing power in neighbouring Pakistan. Amid fears that London and Washington are taking their eye off Afghanistan as they grapple with Iraq, the generals have told Number 10 that the collapse of the government in Afghanistan, headed by Hamid Karzai, would present a grave threat to the security of Britain.
It is good to see a newspaper reporting what I have been saying since I started this site. This is due to a colossal failure of the Bush administration when they decided to participate in the biggest heist of natural resources in world history instead of actually destroying the real enemy.
When your Republican friends tell you that they feel safer now than before 9/11 please have them read this. I doubt it will do any good but you can try. They seem to live in a fantasy world of good and evil where good always triumphs. In the real world evil in the form of terrorism is evident but evil in the form of foreign policy is debated as people around the world die. I beleive that terrorism in any form is evil and that includes what we did to the people of Iraq. Is there anyone who still belives that our reason for the invasion of Iraq was actually nuclear weapons when Pakistan has always been a country that harbored terrorists and has had nuclear capabilities for some time? You can dress a pig up but its still a pig. That is our policy in Iraq and the consequences are being felt all the way to Pakistan.
