THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

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June 18, 2006

Democrat Assails Rove's Remarks on Iraq
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ

WASHINGTON, June 18
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In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Mr. Snow also pressed the administration's case against setting a deadline for bringing troops home, contending that such an approach would undermine the nation's fight against global terrorism.

"You've got to keep in mind the situation in Iraq is critical in a lot of ways," he said. "It is one of many places in the larger war on terror. If we succeed in Iraq and we establish a democratic benchmark, that has a ripple effect not only through the region, but throughout the world. And the people who are opposing the United States know it. Now, if the United States says we're going to get out by some certain date, what does it do? No. 1, it emboldens the people who have been fighting against democracy."

Last week, the House approved a resolution vowing there will be "completion of the mission" in Iraq and rejecting any "arbitrary" deadline for an American troop withdrawal.

The debate continues this week in the Senate, where a number of Democrats are trying to come up with a plan that does not call for an immediate pullout but rather puts in place goals or a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops.

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DAILY WAR NEWS FOR MONDAY, June 19, 2006

Photo: U.S. Army soldiers and U.S. Marines rest in a house in Ramadi, 115 kilometers (70 miles) west of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, June 19, 2006. Hundreds of U.S. and Iraqi troops pushed into an eastern section of Ramadi, one of Iraq's most violent cities, the latest step in a campaign to gradually bolster their presence in city neighborhoods that for months have largely been under insurgent control. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg) (See below under "Ramadi")

Iraqi rebels 'holding US troops': An insurgent group in Iraq says it is holding two missing United States soldiers. In an internet statement, the group said it had abducted the soldiers during an attack on a checkpoint near Yusufiya, south of Baghdad, on Friday.

Within minutes the group issued a second statement saying it had kidnapped four Russian diplomats and killed a fifth on 3 June. The claims, on a site linked to militants, have not been confirmed.

They were posted by the Mujahideen Shura Council - a grouping of insurgents that includes al-Qaeda in Iraq. The first message read: "Your brothers in the military wing of the Mujahideen Shura Council kidnapped the two American soldiers near Yusufiya."

One US soldier was killed during Friday's incident, but nothing had been heard of his two colleagues. They were named by the US military as Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker, both from the 101st Airborne Division.

In the second message, the group said it had carried out an attack on a convoy carrying Russian diplomats in the Mansour area of Baghdad, where many embassies are based. "God has enabled the lions of monotheism to arrest four Russian diplomats in Iraq and kill the fifth," the statement read.

The message urged Moscow to withdraw its troops from Chechnya within 48 hours or "face the consequences".

Bring 'em on: Spc. Jeremiah S. Santos, 21, of Minot, N.D., died in Baghdad, Iraq, on June 15 of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV during combat operations. Santos was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. (DefenseLink)

Bring 'em on: Spc. Brent W. Koch, 22, of Morton, Minn., died on June 16, in Ad Diwaniyah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV. Koch was assigned to Company E, 2nd Battalion, 136th Infantry Combined Arms Battalion, Hutchinson, Minn. (DefenseLink)

Bring 'em on: Cpl. Michael A. Estrella, 20, of Hemet, Calif., died June 14 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Marine Corps Base Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. (DefenseLink)

OTHER SECURITY INCIDENTS

Baghdad:

A parked car bomb struck an Iraqi army convoy on Monday, killing five people and wounding nine. The explosion occurred at 10 a.m. on Mustansiriyah Square in eastern Baghdad, Lt. Ahmed Muhammad Ali said. He said three soldiers and two civilians were killed and nine passers-by were wounded.

A car bomb targeting a police checkpoint in southern Baghdad killed three people and wounded three.

A car bomb struck a patrol in western Baghdad killing four commandos and wounding six.

(25M. West of) An insurgent sniper killed an Iraqi soldier some 25 miles west of Baghdad. An Iraqi convoy fired back at the attacker and two civilians were wounded.

Najaf:

One person was killed and five wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in Kifil town near Najaf.

Al Madain:

Police said gunmen stormed a house in Al-Madain town, south of the capital, and shot dead a woman, her son and daughter, who had been asleep inside.

Fallujah/Hillah:

Roadside bombs in Fallujah and Hillah killed four civilians.

Karbala:

(Near) Police Lieutenant Colonel Shahid Salah Hammud from Ain al-Tamur police station was killed, along with his three bodyguards, when gunmen ambushed his convoy on a highway between Al-Tamur and the southern city of Karbala.

(West of) Gunmen killed police Col. Abdel-Shahid Saleh as he was heading to work west of Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad.

Amarah:

An electrical worker identified as Saadoun Abdul-Hussein Radi, a former member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, was gunned down as he was going to work in downtown Amarah, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad.

An armed group shot dead four policemen in a residential area in central Amarah.

Gunmen killed an army officer during a raid on his house in Amarah.

A soldier was injured when gunmen opened fire on him as he was leaving his house in Amarah.

Ramadi:

Hundreds of American and Iraqi troops backed by a U.S. gunship pushed into eastern Ramadi. No U.S. casualties were reported but six insurgents were thought to have been killed by fire from the AC-130 Spectre gunship in the initial hours of the operation, U.S. commanders on the ground said. Sporadic gunfire between U.S. troops and insurgent snipers echoed throughout the neighborhood.

Helicopters flew over the Iraqi town of Ramadi and warplanes could be heard screaming overhead as U.S. troops hunted down insurgents in the rebel stronghold on Monday, a Reuters witness said. He said seven tanks moved along Masarif Street and July 17 Street. Two explosions were heard but the cause was not clear.
Mosul:

Gunmen trying to kill a former army major in the northern city of Mosul missed their target but killed a civilian. The army major was injured.

A car bomb detonated near an American convoy, which rolled through the blast apparently unscathed.. The explosion killed a high school girl and wounded 19 other civilians.

Latifiya:

A family of four Iraqis were killed in al-Latifiya, south of Baghdad, a police source said. The source said that gunmen raided the house of a Shiite Iraqi, assembled the house's residents and shot them dead.

Gunmen killed three civilians Monday when they opened fire on their vehicle in Baquba, north-east of Baghdad.

Basra:

An Iraqi translator working for the British armed forces in the country was shot dead in Basra, security sources said on Monday. The Iraqi security sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that gunmen stormed the home of the translator in central Basra on Sunday night. The sources said the gunmen had opened fire, killing the translator and wounding his wife.

Baqubah:

Insurgents shot three Iranian men to death near the Diyala province travel office in Baqubah. A police source said that when they searched the bodies, they found Iranian national documents and forged Iraqi credentials. Police also said the men had U.S. and Iranian currency and a small video.

Mahmoudiya:

A bomb exploded in a market in Mahmoudiya, about 30km south of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 10.

The problem with our current War on Terror and our War with Iraq is They're Not Wars. All quibbling about force authorization aside, there's no victory condition in common between our current military actions and war. We can't achieve an armistice because there's no one to negotiate with. Our technological superiority has killed anyone we could have negotiated with.

Further, if this was a war, killing the leaders should have ended it. The as much as Bush is maligned for saying "Mission Accomplished" he was, to some degree right. If our invasion of Iraq was ever a war, we won it hands down. Our country is without equal in fighting and winning wars. We knocked over Iraq's government in several weeks. The fact that we have yet to win in Iraq is only further evidence that we are not fighting a war, but some other sort of struggle.

Why would any timeline be arbitrary? We have the ability to tell the Iraqis that if they can't get their **** together in a certain time, then we will stop doing it for them.

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I am so tired of people bringing up past democrats who said that saddam had WMD. They were not in full possession of dissenting views of Iraq like Bush was nor did they say definitive statements such as knowing where the weapons were when they were told those weapons were not WMD in the first place. The Bush administration told lies because they made such definitive statements without the qualifiers and other dissenting views when making their case for the war which is dishonest when you are debating about the decision to go to war.
I can no more prove that Clinton did truly believe Saddam possessed WMD than I can prove that Bush did not truly believe that Saddam possessed WMD. I bet you cannot either.

There are usually dissenting views among presidential advisers, and particularly among federal intelligence sources and analyzers. Both presidents analyzed and judged their contradictory inputs and came to the same conclusion: Saddam possessed WMD. Saddam fooled them both. They were both wrong.

It is a stinking lie to say that either one knew that what they said was false, because they had inputs that disagreed with what they said. Presidents are rarely blessed with unanimity of opinion among their subordinates that supports their own beliefs, and the liebral psuedologists know that to be true because they have previously written about that.

Those who have access to classified information have to sign a contract saying they will not reveal classified information. Valerie Plame's name was marked (S) meaning her name was classified. Fitzerold just can not prove that anyone knew Valerie Plame was classified when they talked about her.
Fitzgerald cannot prove that "outing" (i.e., revealing) Valerie Plame was an employee of the CIA was a crime. The problem for him was that such "outing" would have legally been a crime only if she either was a covert agent at the time she was "outed," or she was "outed" less than five years after she had been a covert agent. Neither was true and the liebral pseudologists in the news media knew that when they decided to publish that Valerie Plame was a CIA employee.

If we didn't rush into an unjustified war then those that are being killed by the insurgency and each other would not be killing each other, it's as simple as that.
First, Yes they would be killing each other if we had not invaded. Had we not invaded both countries the governments of both countries would have continued murdering those of their civilians who did not share their government's belief systems.

Second, the war in Iraq was as justifiable as the war in Afghanistan. Both wars were justified by the simple fact that the governments of both of these countries continued to allow al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of 9/11, sanctuary in their countries despite our repeated requests and warnings to remove al-Qaeda from their countries.

Third, Congress on October 16, 2002 gave 23 reasons "To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq". Ten of those reasons subsequently proved false. Thirteen subsequently proved true. Of the thirteen that proved true, either one of two was sufficient reason all by itself: "al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq"; and "Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations".

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What are the victory conditions for Iraq?

The cessation of violence? A small and determined group could keep the violence going indefinately, even in the face of determined opposition from a unified government. This is the nature of terrorism...

Cycloptichorn

And what would that "certain time" or date be? It would be a date we pull out of our ass, not tied to objective criteria ... and thus, arbitrary.

Quote:

And what would that "certain time" or date be? It would be a date we pull out of our ass, not tied to objective criteria ... and thus, arbitrary.

Okay, so you are saying that there is no possible objective criteria for a withdrawl date for Iraq?

Really?

Cycloptichorn

Quote:

And what would that "certain time" or date be? It would be a date we pull out of our ass, not tied to objective criteria ... and thus, arbitrary.

Okay, so you are saying that there is no possible objective criteria for a withdrawl date for Iraq?

Really?

Cycloptichorn

And I'll ask you the same question as I asked Ican: when those criteria aren't met, when is enough, enough?

Cycloptichorn

I haven't seen any recent numbers on how many Iraqi divisions are able to operate independently of the US, have you?

Why not?

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

And I'll ask you the same question as I asked Ican: when those criteria aren't met, when is enough, enough?

Cycloptichorn

I suppose the simplest answer is: When the powers that be cave in to those who believe our best course of action is to "cut and run."

Biased liberal media?

Just a guess.

Ticomaya wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:

And I'll ask you the same question as I asked Ican: when those criteria aren't met, when is enough, enough?

Cycloptichorn

I suppose the simplest answer is: When the powers that be cave in to those who believe our best course of action is to "cut and run."

No, I'm asking you what your opinion is: when is enough, enough? I'd like a definate answer, and not a bunch of dancing around, please.

Quote:

Biased liberal media?

Just a guess.

Yeah, right. It should be relatively easy for this information to be found, if it exists. I've noticed that you often resort to being flip when you don't have a good answer for questions offered to you.

Cycloptichorn

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noone is setting any metrics at all about how it will happen, at what point we will have judged it will happen, and what criteria will be used to do that judging.
I think you mean no one in the Bush administration has stated "what criteria will be used to do that judging." I have repeatedly stated that the USA will leave when the newly elected Iraq government asks us to leave. I state that with conviction, despite the failure of the Bush administration to explicitly announce that criterion, because I am convinced (1) American voters (including me) would demand Bush be impeached if we didn't leave Iraq were that condition to be met, (2) a large majority of the House would vote for such impeachment under that condition, and (3) Bush is also convinced of both.


Now, your 2nd to last post laid out some criteria, and I appreciate that, though I am skeptical that these will come out to be.
I think a good backup (to a chicken Iraq government's possible reluctance to see us ever leave) is the USA will leave when the violent death rate in Iraq = less than 0.02%, or currently less than 5,600 per year (or some such specific rate). But you are right to be skeptical in that no such explicit criteria have been offered by either Democrats or Republicans. Nonetheless, I still hope such an explicit criterion is soon passed in a joint Congressional resolution.


I think the fact that neither of you is willing to put any sort of time limit whatsoever on the occupation of Iraq belies a real truth about this conflict: we don't plan on leaving, ever. We plan on having strategic bases in Iraq in perpetuity. This isn't going to go over well with Iraqis or other Muslims in the area, I guarantee.
That's a bit of paranoia you are showing. I don't want a time limit specified for leaving Iraq; I want an explicit accomplishment(s) specified for leaving Iraq, because I think the problem must be solved according to an explicit criterion or explicit criteria.

You say that a 'majority of Iraqi voters' must sign a resolution to get us to leave. But why is that? Why shouldn't the government be able to make the decision? After all, a majority of Americans didn't decide to attack Iraq in the first place, our government did.
Replace must sign in your statement with could sign and I would agree with your statement. It is after all only one more sufficient criterion.

And it's a he, by the way, none of that s/he junk.
Sorry about that. I misjudged a comment from you about something could cause your panties to be knotted. That made me unsure.

Can you show any sort of metric offered by the military or the administration? Is anyone with an official post judging how things are going in Iraq? Or is Bush just waiting to leave office so someone else can clean up his mess?
I cannot show that anyone in the administration has as yet offered a metric. I know that many in the administration profess to be judging how things are going, but none so far as I know are judging by a metric or metrics ... except how many Iraqi troops are and must be battle ready to take over from USA troops. I too think that kind of metric unsatisfactory because it measures capability and not results.

Cycloptichorn