Victory in Iraq, the Iran connection, and only the facts

Than call a ******* spade a ******* spade and just say it "We went to war for oil". Don't try to sugar coat it with "oh but the iraqi people neeeeed , and deserve freeeeeedom!!!!" Just ******* say it.

I personally would much rather pay germanisque prices for fuel and NOT be dependent on any shithole middle eastern company than continue the BS charades we play in that region.

actually we destroyed their military and overthrew their government

I would say we do owe them, a functioning military and a government

your "pull out now" leaves a destroyed country which hasn't been rebuilt yet, and leaves us with nothing to show for our dead

Than Bush and his merry band of no-bid contractors, along with Blackwater can provide and pay to rebuild it if they want, NOT the American people who were lied to, and made to believe that Saddam and Iraq had something to do with terror attacks on America. The military industrial complex found a way to make billions and billions by suckering the American people into a war they knew had no bases.

that's right blame it all on Bush

remember the country elected him?

We're all in this together, you're not excused because you don't wanna play. It's called majority rule

Nope, that's why I did NOT vote for him, and why I NEVER vote lesser of two evils. I can sleep at night knowing I did NOT contribute to his BS. And I'll amend it from Bush, to, The Bush Administration.

your still obligated to go along with the country even when your guy get's elected

I did my part when I was obligated to the US Army, beyond that, I most certainly DO NOT have any obigation to "go along, get along" because some politicians put our country in a bad place. It is my RIGHT, and DUTY to dissent if I think our government is doing its people harm, and it is, and I am. And since most of my views are formed from PERSONAL EXPERIANCE, and things I have seen and heard while in the military, and in Iraq, posting articles and views on the internet is not going to change the way I see things.

well said :thumbup:

your obligation to be a productive member of society and contribute even when your guy isn't in office is never-ending. I'm a veteran and I wouldn't vote for Bush again but your idea that your above your country is asinine.

Sorry, but that is complete bullshit. If that were the attitude we should all take, we wouldn't live in America now, we'd be part of Britian. My contribution to America does NOT mean I have to agree with, or perptuate things I see as wrong, as a matter of fact, it is just the opposite.

Victory in Iraq, the Iran connection, and only the facts:
There seems to be alot of opinion floating around on this thread, which gets away from the threads intention of "and only the facts".

These are the facts as I see them with regard to Victory in Iraq and the Iran connection:
1. The original idea of what victory consisted of at the start of the Iraq war is no longer attainable. It will not be the democracy that we intended, if it is to be a democracy at all.
2. What is considered to be victory will have to be and is being
re-evaluated. Just attaining a stable environment and stopping a full blown civil war maybe considered victory. Aligning the tribal leaders to out the foreign insurgents may qualify also. What ever "victory" is it will have to be done diplomatically, military action only further divides the populace whom already have mixed allegances to begin with.
3. Iran is an obvious player in the power struggle / void that has become Iraq. They would be foolish not to exert their influence, It is in their self interest to control Iraq. The United States cannot deal with Iran in the same fashion as they have dealt with Iraq. A Military solution would be disasterous for the world economy. Russia for one, and possibly China would not sit idle and allow The US to gain control of Iran.
4. The Iraqi war was entered into without any plans to win the peace. The Bush administration (like them or hate them) made huge blunders at the start of the war. They proceeded without intelligence and without regard for obvious socio-political influences in the region. Bush allowed the likes of Rumsfeld and Wolfiwitz (sp?) to micro manage the war to the detriment of all. Never had there been so much disension in the defense department as when Rumsfled was secretary. Take as evidence the number of high ranking generals who retired then turned on him. Not the military's finest hour!
5. Iraq is America's responsibility to heal. We Americans tore it down now we have to rebuild it. We are paying a graver price then we were ever lead to believe we would, in human life and economically. Unfortunately the current administration has the worst foreign diplomacy record in the history of the US. Unfortunately diplomacy is the only thing that will extracate us from this quagmire. Military support is historically necessary to support and enforce diplomacy, but it is not what gets you out of wars, it is what gets you into them.

out of time...will post more on this later.

How billions in oil money spawned a global terror network - US News and World Report



But it's all good, because they "cleaned up their act". No need to actually hold them responsible for 3000+ dead and billions in damage, or the start of an unwinable Middle Eastern campaign, it's aaaaaaall good now.

Being that your name is in pink, I need not reply. Lap 24 engine blew, oiled the rear tires and wiped out the forth corner wall. Film at eleven.

Then you were not in Iraq? Why you rascal.

http://http//www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-saudi15jul15,0,3132262.story

Sunni extremists from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq, many suicide bombers, a U.S. official says.
By Ned Parker, Times Staff Writer
July 15, 2007



BAGHDAD — Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending extremists to commit attacks against U.S. forces, Iraqi civilians and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

The problem casts a spotlight on the tangled web of alliances and enmities that underlie the political relations between Muslim nations and the U.S.

Complicated past

In the 1980s, the Saudi intelligence service sponsored Sunni Muslim fighters for the U.S.-backed Afghan mujahedin battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan. At the time, Saudi intelligence cultivated another man helping the Afghan fighters, Osama bin Laden, the future leader of Al Qaeda who would one day turn against the Saudi royal family and mastermind the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has long been a source of a good portion of the money and manpower for Al Qaeda: 15 of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks were Saudi.

Now, a group that calls itself Al Qaeda in Iraq is the greatest short-term threat to Iraq's security, U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said Wednesday.

The group, one of several Sunni Muslim insurgent groups operating in Baghdad and beyond, relies on foreigners to carry out suicide attacks because Iraqis are less likely to undertake such strikes, which the movement hopes will provoke sectarian violence, Bergner said. Despite its name, the extent of the group's links to Bin Laden's network, based along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier, is unclear.

The Saudi government does not dispute that some of its youths are ending up as suicide bombers in Iraq, but says it has done everything it can to stop the bloodshed.

"Saudis are actually being misused. Someone is helping them come to Iraq. Someone is helping them inside Iraq. Someone is recruiting them to be suicide bombers. We have no idea who these people are. We aren't getting any formal information from the Iraqi government," said Gen. Mansour Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry.

"If we get good feedback from the Iraqi government about Saudis being arrested in Iraq, probably we can help," he said.

Defenders of Saudi Arabia pointed out that it has sought to control its lengthy border with Iraq and has fought a bruising domestic war against Al Qaeda since Sept. 11.

"To suggest they've done nothing to stem the flow of people into Iraq is wrong," said a U.S. intelligence official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "People do get across that border. You can always ask, 'Could more be done?' But what are they supposed to do, post a guard every 15 or 20 paces?"

Deep suspicions

Others contend that Saudi Arabia is allowing fighters sympathetic to Al Qaeda to go to Iraq so they won't create havoc at home.Iraqi Shiite lawmaker Sami Askari, an advisor to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, accused Saudi officials of a deliberate policy to sow chaos in Baghdad.

"The fact of the matter is that Saudi Arabia has strong intelligence resources, and it would be hard to think that they are not aware of what is going on," he said.

Other Iraqi officials said that though they believed Saudi Arabia, a Sunni fundamentalist regime, had no interest in helping Shiite-ruled Iraq, it was not helping militants either. But some Iraqi Shiite leaders say the Saudi royal family sees the Baghdad government as a proxy for its regional rival, Shiite-ruled Iran, and wants to unseat it.

With its own border with Iraq largely closed, Saudi fighters take what is now an established route by bus or plane to Syria, where they meet handlers who help them cross into Iraq's western deserts, the senior U.S. military officer said.

He suggested it was here that Saudi Arabia could do more, by implementing rigorous travel screenings for young Saudi males. Iraqi officials agreed.

"Are the Saudis using all means possible? Of course not…. And we think they need to do more, as does Syria, as does Iran, as does Jordan," the senior officer said. An estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters cross into Iraq each month, according to the U.S. military.

"It needs to be addressed by the government of Iraq head on. They have every right to stand up to a country like Saudi Arabia and say, 'Hey, you are killing thousands of people by allowing your young jihadists to come here and associate themselves with an illegal worldwide network called Al Qaeda."

Both the White House and State Department declined to comment for this article.

Turki, the Saudi spokesman, defended the right of his citizens to travel without restriction.

"If you leave Saudi Arabia and go to other places and find somebody who drags them to Iraq, that is a problem we can't do anything about," Turki said. He added that security officials could stop people from leaving the kingdom only if they had information on them.

U.S. officials had not shared with Iraqi officials information gleaned from Saudi detainees, but this has started to change, said an Iraqi source, who asked not to be identified. For example, U.S. officials provided information about Saudi fighters and suicide bombers to Iraqi security officials who traveled to Saudi Arabia last week.

Iraqi advisor Askari asserted that Vice President Dick Cheney, in a visit to Saudi Arabia in May, pressured officials to crack down on militant traffic to Iraq. But that message has not yet produced results, Askari said.

The close relationship between the U.S. and oil-rich Saudi Arabia has become increasingly difficult.

Saudi leaders in early February undercut U.S. diplomacy in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute by brokering, in Mecca, an agreement to form a Fatah-Hamas "unity" government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And King Abdullah took Americans by surprise by declaring at an Arab League gathering that the U.S. presence in Iraq was illegitimate.

U.S. officials remain sensitive about the relationship. Asked why U.S. officials in Iraq had not publicly criticized Saudi Arabia the way they had Iran or Syria, the senior military officer said, "Ask the State Department. This is a political juggernaut."

Last week when U.S. military spokesman Bergner declared Al Qaeda in Iraq the country's No. 1 threat, he released a profile of a thwarted suicide bomber, but said he had not received clearance to reveal his nationality. The bomber was a Saudi national, the senior military officer said Saturday.

Would-be suicide bomber

The fighter, a young college graduate whose mother was a teacher and father a professor, had been recruited in a mosque to join Al Qaeda in Iraq. He was given money for a bus ticket and a phone number to call in Syria to contact a handler who would smuggle him into Iraq.

Once the young Saudi made it in, he was under the care of Iraqis who gave him his final training and indoctrination. At the very last minute, the bomber decided he didn't want to blow himself up. He was supposed to have been one of two truck bombers on a bridge outside Ramadi. When the first truck exploded, he panicked and chose not to trigger his own detonator, and Iraqi police arrested him.

Al Qaeda in Iraq and its affiliate groups number anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 individuals, the senior U.S. military officer said. Iraqis make up the majority of members, facilitating attacks, indoctrinating, fighting, but generally not blowing themselves up. Iraqis account for roughly 10% of suicide bombers, according to the U.S. military.

[email][email protected][/email]

--

Times staff writers Paul Richter and Greg Miller in Washington contributed to this report.




Vice President Dick Cheney met with Saudi King Abdullah in May. An Iraqi lawmaker asserted that Cheney pressured the king to curb the flow of Saudi militants into Iraq.
(Gerald Herbert / AP)


May 12, 2007

Askari also alleged that imams at Saudi mosques call for jihad, or holy war, against Iraq's Shiites and that the government had funded groups causing unrest in Iraq's largely Shiite south. Sunni extremists regard Shiites as unbelievers.

Gotta love misinformation eh?

The thread topic is Iran, not Saudi? If you'd like one about Saudi, maybe you should make one?

Just shedding the light on some facts, like the title of the thread states. And the facts look to be that Saudi is causing more damage than Iran. I know we like our oil, but give me a ******* break all ready.


Khaleej Times Online - Iraq detains hundreds of Saudi militants

Iraq detains hundreds of Saudi militants
(AFP)

15 July 2007



RIYADH - About 160 Saudi militants have been tried in Iraq for taking part in its insurgency while hundreds others are in detention, a top Iraqi official told a local newspaper on Sunday.


‘Some 160 Saudi nationals arrested in Iraq have been put on trial while hundreds others await their trials,’ Iraq’s national security advisor Muwaffaq Al Rubaie told the Okaz newspaper.

‘There are hundreds of Saudis in Iraq. Many were killed in suicide attacks,’ he said, claiming that foreign militants infiltrate Iraq ‘from a neighbouring country,’ in an apparent reference to Syria.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday that 45 percent of all foreign militants targeting US troops and Iraqi security forces were from Saudi Arabia, according to an unnamed senior US military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

Official US military figures made available to The Times showed that nearly half of the 135 foreigners in US detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, the paper said.

Rubaie was part of a delegation of senior Iraqi security, defence and diplomatic officials that visited Saudi Arabia last week to seek increased cooperation in dealing with terrorism.

Saudi Arabia, a power among the Sunni states of the Middle East, has been suspicious of the Shia-led government in Baghdad, fearing it is under the influence of its Shia regional rival Iran.

As you know it is subject to some one else's opinion as to what you think it says. Get off the oil nipple and then maybe your point will be more poignant. "******* break" never.

Prior to 2003, Bush and Dick were caught personally leading raiding parties into Iraq, robbing it of oil and Arab women. They sold the oil to the Iranians, at outrageous prices, and the women, to Putin. They bagged millions.

You forgot to mention how it was all for Halliburton, LOL.