THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

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Now read this real carefully ican. Each incident, before it can be included in the IBC database must be reported by not one but two news agencies. Only incidents are reported. Morgue reports from the different morgues around the country are not reported.


Read again; INCIDENTS not MORGUE REPORTS.

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IBC's Count of Civilians Killed in Iraq since 1/1/2003
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

Code | Date | Time | Location | Target | Weapons | Minimum | Maximum | Sources ||
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k3046 | 17 May 2006 | - | Mosul | Muhammad Awdah and Sayyid Human, students at Mosul University | gunfire | 2 | 2 | REU 17 May, Al-Shar 18, May ||

x493a Notes | 01 Jan 2006 - 31 Jan 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 649 | 653 | REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493b Notes | 01 Feb 2006 - 28 Feb 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 691 | 715 | REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493c Notes | 01 Mar 2006 - 31 Mar 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 684 | 763| REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493d Notes | 01 Apr 2006 - 30 Apr 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 569 | 645 | REU 04 May, DT 05 May ||

k3045 | 17 May 2006 | - | Al-Mu'alimin, Baquba | bakery, owner and police killed | gunfire, bomb | 4 | 4 | REU 17 May, Al-Shar 17 May ||
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x096d | 01 Nov 2005 | - | Civilian deaths recorded in hospital(s) in Madain [newly disaggregated data] | - | - | 71 | 71 | AP 10 June, BG 11 June B]||[/B]
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Iraqi Parliament Speaker Says Invasion and Aftermath Are the ?'Work of Butchers'

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 22 ?- The speaker of the Iraqi Parliament criticized the American government's involvement in Iraq on Saturday, likening the invasion and its consequences to "the work of butchers" and demanding that the American authorities disentangle themselves from Iraq's political affairs.

The speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni Islamist who quickly developed a reputation for provocative public comments after his election in late April, also said the American government wanted Iraq "to stay under the American boot."

"We know there was a corrupt regime in Saddam, but a regime should be removed by surgery, not by butchering," he said during a speech at a United Nations-sponsored conference on transitional justice. "The U.S. occupation is butcher's work under the slogan of democracy and human rights and justice."

"Leave us to solve our problems," he continued. "We don't need an agenda from outside." He did not specifically call for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. Sunni Arab leaders have increasingly said they need American troops here to protect them from Shiite militias and Shiite-led government forces.

The comments by Mr. Mashhadani, one of the government's highest-ranking Sunni Arabs, could prove embarrassing for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who is scheduled to visit President Bush in Washington on Tuesday after meeting with Prime Minister Tony Blair in London on Monday.

The men are expected to discuss Iraq's national security and strategies to curtail the rampant sectarian violence, which is threatening to tear the country apart.

Mr. Mashhadani's candidacy for the speaker position worried many Shiite leaders who regarded him as too hard-line. He made his mark early by delivering a provocative acceptance speech that alarmed many legislators, in which he declared, "Any hand or tongue that harms this unity by wrongdoing or provocation deserves to be cut off."

His comments came shortly before political leaders met in a show of national unity and vowed to work to end the bloodshed.

Mr. Maliki hopes to broker solutions through a so-called national reconciliation plan that was announced last month and seeks to reduce violence through dialogue and an amnesty program for fighters. The government has not yet defined the terms of the amnesty component.

"Those who oppose reconciliation support the restoration of the dictatorship," Mr. Maliki said at a news conference on Saturday. "With this reconciliation, we want to say that we are all equal and that the Constitution is the tent that covers us all."

Violence continued at a low boil in Iraq on Saturday, with civilians and security forces coming under attack around the country.

In the most deadly attack on civilians, gunmen fired on workmen at a construction site in western Baghdad, killing seven of them, according to an Interior Ministry official.

The motivation for the attack was unclear, but Baghdad has turned into a battleground between Shiite and Sunni Arab militias in recent months.

The police have reported hundreds of killings in the past two weeks alone, mostly in Baghdad, though the number of dead is likely much higher. Iraqi government figures released by the United Nations this week showed that an average of about 100 people a day were killed in May and June.

An American soldier was killed Saturday morning when a bomb exploded near his vehicle, the American military command said. Another was killed at night when his patrol was attacked, the military said.

An American serviceman assigned to the 43rd Military Police Brigade in Baghdad died of "a noncombat related injury" on Thursday, the American military command said in a separate statement. The statement said the case was under investigation but offered no further information.

A mortar bomb attack in a Shiite neighborhood of western Baghdad killed five civilians and wounded three, according to an official at a Yarmouk hospital.

In Falluja, a bomb exploded near an Iraqi Army patrol, killing at least three soldiers, witnesses said.

In Baquba, north of the capital, a bomb exploded next to a police patrol, killing three officers and wounding five, a police official reported. In the Baladiyat neighborhood of Baghdad, a bomb blew up next to a civilian car, killing the driver, the Ministry of Interior said.

The American-led coalition said 15 militants and an Iraqi soldier were killed in a three-hour gun battle in Mussayib. The Associated Press reported that the battle appeared to be part of a campaign against the militia of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has been blamed for much of the sectarian violence.

Clashes also broke out between gunmen and the police in the northern city of Mosul, killing three of the gunmen, according to the police there. And according to Reuters, an improvised bomb killed a soldier and wounded four in the city of Kut, a policeman was shot dead in Amara and a soldier was killed when a bomb exploded at his house in Mussayib.

Quote:

Iraqi Parliament Speaker Says Invasion and Aftermath Are the "Work of Butchers".

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 22: The speaker of the Iraqi Parliament criticized the American government's involvement in Iraq on Saturday, likening the invasion and its consequences to "the work of butchers" and demanding that the American authorities disentangle themselves from Iraq's political affairs.
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xingu wrote:

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Now read this real carefully ican. Each incident, before it can be included in the IBC database must be reported by not one but two news agencies. Only incidents are reported. Morgue reports from the different morgues around the country are not reported.


Read again; INCIDENTS not MORGUE REPORTS.

...

emphasis added by ican

Quote:

IBC's Count of Civilians Killed in Iraq since 1/1/2003
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

Code | Date | Time | Location | Target | Weapons | Minimum | Maximum | Sources ||
...
k3046 | 17 May 2006 | - | Mosul | Muhammad Awdah and Sayyid Human, students at Mosul University | gunfire | 2 | 2 | REU 17 May, Al-Shar 18, May ||

x493a Notes | 01 Jan 2006 - 31 Jan 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 649 | 653 | REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493b Notes | 01 Feb 2006 - 28 Feb 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 691 | 715 | REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493c Notes | 01 Mar 2006 - 31 Mar 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 684 | 763| REU 04 May, LAT 07 May ||

x493d Notes | 01 Apr 2006 - 30 Apr 2006 | - | Baghdad (city and governorate) | additional violent deaths recorded at the Baghdad city morgue | some 90 percent by gunfire - may include some explosions but 'excludes trauma deaths from accidents' | 569 | 645 | REU 04 May, DT 05 May ||

k3045 | 17 May 2006 | - | Al-Mu'alimin, Baquba | bakery, owner and police killed | gunfire, bomb | 4 | 4 | REU 17 May, Al-Shar 17 May ||
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x096d | 01 Nov 2005 | - | Civilian deaths recorded in hospital(s) in Madain [newly disaggregated data] | - | - | 71 | 71 | AP 10 June, BG 11 June B]||[/B]
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Note: Hospitals often have their own morgues.

The problem is a large majority of the Iraqi people do not want Americans to leave. Why? Why in the world do they not insist that American butchers leave Iraq?

Supporting the Troops
The yearly cost of unemployment benefits for disabled military personnel has ballooned to $3 billion. Is the U.S. prepared for the oncoming wave of Iraq war vets?
By Martha Brant
Newsweek

June 18, 2006
June 14, 2006 - Ron Dickey wanted to make the Army his career. When he joined the service at 19 he traded Rienzi, Miss.?-a town with fewer than 500 residents?-for a world of opportunities. Ambitious, Dickey became a member of the elite special forces and fought in the first Persian Gulf War. But when he got back from the Middle East, he developed extensive skin abrasions. He still doesn't know if he was exposed to something during the war, but his health began to deteriorate quickly. In addition to the mysterious skin disease, he came down with diabetes and he already had some hearing loss. In 1993, he opted not to re-enlist.

Dickey first tried his hand at police work back home in Mississippi. But his health wasn't up to it. So he went on the job market only to find that with a resume strong on weaponry but weak on Microsoft Word he was bouncing from one low-paying job to another. "There were a thousand options to collect a [benefits] check," says Dickey, now 35. "But I wanted to be a functioning member of society. I had to come up with a new way to be productive."

Many former soldiers are finding it difficult to return to 9-to-5 America. The number of disabled vets from all wars deemed "unemployable" by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs tripled from 71,000 to 220,000 between 1996 and 2005. Unemployable vets receive about $2,393 a month, with the total cost of the program now $3.1 billion a year (up from $857 million in 1996). That staggering price tag doesn't include the bulk of recent vets from Iraq and Afghanistan who will enter the system over the next few decades.

Many of those now receiving benefits aren't able to work because of their disabilities, and a majority are over age 60. But some vets, like Ron Dickey, could and would work under the right circumstances. And, while it is easier than ever for disabled vets to go online and get information about receiving unemployment benefits, the options for those who want to get a job are more complicated.

In a much-anticipated report issued last month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) criticized the VA's unemployablity benefits for having unclear guidelines and weak follow-up. They found the big jump in those receiving benefits particularly troubling at a time when "advances in medicine and technology, along with labor market changes, have provided greater opportunity for people with disabilities to seek and maintain employment." Even the VA concurred with the criticism. "The VA should look at the program as an opportunity to return people to work if they can," says Cristina Chaplain, a GAO director and author of the May 30 report?-the first major review of veterans' disability benefits in 50 years. "The demands of a new generation of veterans are going to be incredible, and the VA needs to get a good system in place."

It's difficult to gauge how much of an impact the new generation of war vets will have on the VA's already strained system. More than 150,000 military personnel are now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the total number of troops who've rotated through either country at some point since September 2001 will definitely be much higher. About 18,000 military personnel have already been wounded in both conflicts. And many injuries like posttraumatic stress disorder may not surface until well after their homecomings.

No one wants to deprive injured vets of hard-earned benefits, but budgets are tight and the already overwhelming cost of "unemployable" benefits will only rise. The government, and increasingly the private sector, are starting to look for new ways to get vets jobs. "The system is broken," says Paul Rieckhoff, head of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which advocates more and better job training and reintegration before returning vets wind up unemployed. "The VA needs to evolve to the new needs of the new war. They should be worried. A wave is coming."

Ken Smith of the Military Order of the Purple Heart Service Foundation has come up with an innovative way to get ahead of the wave. He is willing to bet that at least 10 percent of those currently "unemployable" vets could work if given a chance. So last year, the foundation started a training program for disabled vets that would teach them how to be customer-service agents, emergency operators and telemarketers?-anything they can do by phone, preferably from home. The popular military Web site Military.com ran one paragraph about the training program and the foundation's phones wouldn't stop ringing. "Our position was overrun," says Smith, speaking like the Vietnam combat vet he is. He too was injured in that war but went on to a fruitful career in high tech.

Already, the training is changing people's lives. One man chosen to be among the first 20 trainees had been severely burned on his face. "He can walk, he can talk, he just scares the bejeezus out of everyone," says Smith, who is running the new Veterans' Business Training Center. After several uncomfortable job experiences with co-workers, he decided he needed to work at home. He went through the foundation's training and now works for the IT help desk of an Arizona company. He's never even met his employers face to face.

The foundation is currently selecting another 100 disabled vets for remote training with the goal of training 600 this year. But Smith has set his sights even higher. "I'm going after government contracts," he says. Legally, veterans get preference in federal hiring. But quotas for disabled vets are rarely filled. "Even if you look at all the laws and preferences, less than 1 percent are being hired [for government contracts]," explains Greg Bresser, executive director of the foundation. That's partly because many vets don't want to risk losing their benefits by trying out a job. So the foundation is trying to convince Congress not to touch veterans' disability rating and benefits (100 percent disabled vets make about $28,000 a year tax-free) for one year while he or she tries out working. "Otherwise you penalize the veteran for even trying," Smith says.

Meanwhile, the foundation hopes to play on private employers' patriotism. "Wouldn't you rather give your credit-card number to an American vet?" Bresser asks. He realizes that American salaries make vets uncompetitive with overseas workers. So he and the foundation have been pushing for tax credits for companies to make up the difference in salary.

For Ron Dickey, getting a job was about a lot more than the paycheck. He happened upon the Purple Heart training program online and was in the first wave of trainees. During his 15 weeks of remote training, Dickey not only learned how to type 30 words a minute but also how to use call-center computer software. This week, he starts a new job making $18.50 an hour at a large mortgage company in Virginia. He'll soon have health benefits, too. "If you go into the military you have to have some kind of drive," Dickey says. "You want to be part of the world." Helping American vets find gainful employment can be a big step to toward keeping that desire alive.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13319120/site/newsweek/

William O. Beeman

"The Journalism/Think Tank Merry-Go-Round
And the Dilemma of the Academic Public Intellectual"

' [I want to address] the question of the sad, sad state of American academics in policy formation in the United States today. Think tanks, where no one ever has to go through peer review before publishing the most questionable material, are in the ascendancy. Real scholars are derided as the academy is openly attacked by these quasi-intellectual bodies. No wonder! If the think-tankers' shoddy methods and ideological biases were subject to the scrutiny they deserve, 90% of the garbage that is self-published by their house organs and pushed by their publicity machinery would never see the light of day.

It is so sad now that governmental bodies are no longer calling on academic experts for public testimony in even the most crucial matters where they have unique knowledge. On no subject is this more true than in the Middle East area. If you are not in a think tank in Washington, apparently your expertise matters not at all. Never mind that that the think tank denizens were never in the region, don't know the languages, and never did any research in their lives. If their ideology is in line with the White House, that is good enough.

The media bears a great deal of responsibility in this matter. Lazy, news-cycle driven and subject to the pressure of ideology and publicity flackers, it is so much easier to just call the think tank down the street, or a PR firm like Benador Associates where someone is on call and already in suit and tie, or skirted suit to get to the studio within the next 20 minutes, than to spend the extra half-hour trying to locate an ISDN feed in . . . Minneapolis or Austin to get the best possible expertise on a subject at hand. For the print media a quote--any quote--is often good enough to anchor a story. No time to wait for someone to call back after a seminar! If the reporter can't get the quotable phrase on the first phone call, its on to the next, or once again, to the on-call quotables at the think-tank around the corner.

Even when someone with real expertise can be located, the media vitiates the message by making a fetish of "balance"--an odd feature of American public discourse, documented by my colleague Deborah Tannen in her classic book, The Argument Culture. This means that whatever the subject, a pro and con side must be represented--even if one of the positions is absurd, or representative of an extreme fringe opinion. This results in match-ups like Paul Krugman debating Bill O'Reilly on economic matters and other such ludicrous pairings. This situation has created careers for people like Anne Coulter, David Frum and Jonah Goldberg, who otherwise know very little--but they are reliable as "cons" (pun intended) on virtually any topic that requires an expansion of intellect. No wonder the public doesn't know which way is up.

Sadly, the academy has reacted badly to this state of affairs--not by encouraging its members to shine the light on the slime and mold generated by these propaganda machines, but by fomenting retreat into its own dark little corner where it can be safe and "uncontroversial." The better not to run afoul of its more vocal and ideologically driven alumni and trustees, who believe along with Bill O'Reilly that all knowledge is just opinion anyway, so why not just tell the professoriate what they should be teaching, and what positions they should be espousing? Writing for the public is not only unrewarded by the academy, it is absolutely detrimental to academic careers. Thus fine scholars who do decide to speak out are hit both ways--both by the ideological hacks for whom their truths are uncomfortable, and by their own institutions who see their public activities as controversial and undignified.

Contrast this with the situation in Japan, France, Brazil--in fact, anywhere else in the world--where academics are welcomed and respected in the field of public discourse, and move readily in and out of positions of public responsibility. Likewise, scholars of distinction, such as the incomparable Eric Rouleau, are prized and well-compensated members of the fourth estate.

Despite these stringencies, those of us who are tenured at institutions of higher learning have a special responsibility--a sacred duty--to speak out at every turn to defend free inquiry, and solid knowledge. We are privileged to be able to have careers in research, writing and teaching, and are in debt to society for this. We have the obligation as patriotic citizens and seekers of truth to use, as Juan has consistently, the fruits of our research and knowledge to inform not just the dozen or so colleagues who share our academic sub-specialization, but the public who is hungry for this material, and in the current intellectual desert in America, who desperately needs it. '

William O. Beeman
Professor, Anthropology; and Theatre, Speech and Dance
Brown University

Bush Deliberations: Need for Political Track in Counter-Insurgency

Paul Bremer says he hopes Bush's cabinet summit will develop an effective military plan for defeating the insurgency in Iraq. Bremer came to Iraq saying appalling things like "we will go on imposing our will on this country" or words to that effect, and appears to have learned nothing.

Counter-insurgency is tough. The best the hawks can usually do is cite the British in their colony of Malaya in the 1950s, when they curbed a communist movement. But 1960 was a long time ago. And, the British still got kicked out of Malaysia as a colonial power. And, the British had been there over a century, and had all kinds of linguistic and cultural knowledge. And, Communism mainly appealed to the Chinese minority, 1/3 of the coutnry.

Contemporary counter-insurgency requires not just a military plan but a successful political track, of negotiating with guerrilla leaders and bringing them in from the cold. That is what the US has never developed, and there are structural reasons for which it is difficult. A lot of the guerrilla leaders are Baathists or ex-Baathists, and served in the Iraqi military in ways that make them anathema to the Kurds and the Shiites. So it is very difficult for the US to buck its main allies and try to make up with the Baathis. And what could the US offer the Sunni Arab religious revivalists? The prospect of living under a government dominated by Shiite fundamentalists and Kurdish warlords, which they see as a puppet government of the United States? How could they live with that?

So, Mr. Bremer, the problem is not a military one. The US already has overwhelming fire power. The problem is a political one. And it is not a political problem even the best and brightest will easily resolve.

The Sunni Arabs of Iraq are opposed to the US presence almost to a person. They are 5 or 6 million strong, and probably have 60,000 or so fighters if we count weekend warriors (I know this is higher than US military estimates, but if US military estimates were correct there would not still be an insurgency. The US military tends to grossly underestimate the enemy; one general in spring of 2004 said he thought the Mahdi Army only had 1,000 fighters.) The Sunnis have the best educated managers in their ranks, the best trained strategicians and tacticians, and they probably know where tens or hundreds of thousands of tons of munitions are still hidden. They make enormous sums of money through petroleum and other smuggling, and can easily get big money from hard line Sunni Gulf millionaires. Moreover, the US cannot militarily concentrate all its forces on the Sunni Arab areas, since there is a (Shiite) Mahdi Army low-intensity guerrilla effort in Maysan Province in the South, and Sadr City can't be all that stable either.

The US simply does not and never will have enough fighting troops in Iraq to impose a purely military solution on the guerrilla movements. It must find a political solution. but that in turn would require the kind of willingness to compromise and approach national reconciliation coolly that the Shiites and the Kurds have so far vehemently rejected. The US is as hobbled by its allies as by its foes, in making a settlement.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - American troops are stepping up operations in the Baghdad area to combat death squads and dampen down the violence threatening the new unity government, a U.S. general said Monday.

Two more U.S. soldiers were killed Monday, the U.S. military said.

U.S. and Iraqi forces conducted 19 operations last week targeting death squads, U.S. spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell told reporters. All but two were in Baghdad, he said.

"Clearly Baghdad is the center that everybody is fighting for," Caldwell said. "We will do whatever it takes to bring security to Baghdad."

Security in the Iraqi capital is expected to figure prominently in talks Tuesday in Washington between President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Many of the death squads are believed to be associated with either Sunni or Shiite armed groups, targeting members of the rival sect as part of a struggle for power between the country's two major religious communities.

The killings accelerated after the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra and have steadily increased despite establishment of al-Maliki's national unity government last May.

On Monday, the city morgue in Kut, a mostly Shiite city southeast of Baghdad, reported receiving 19 bodies ?- blindfolded and some showing signs of torture. They were believed to be victims of sectarian death squads, city officials said.

U.S. officials have avoided identifying death squads and militias by sect, preferring instead to refer to them as criminals and thugs.

"We have not seen the death squads associated with any one particular sect," Caldwell said. "But they're not part of a larger organization that we can see."

He said "very extremist elements" from both sectarian communities were "using murder and assassination as their means by which to further their personal goals."

Many Iraqis believe they are operated by Shiite militias and Sunni extremist groups, some of which have ties to political parties. Combatting death squads runs the risk of armed confrontation with militias such as the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose movement is part of al-Maliki's government.

Last Saturday, U.S. and Iraqi troops fought a three-hour gunbattle with al-Sadr's militiamen in Musayyib. Fifteen militiamen and one Iraqi soldier were killed. The week before, British soldiers arrested al-Sadr's militia commander in the Basra area of southern Iraq.

The rise in sectarian violence has shifted attention away from the Sunni-led insurgency most active in western Anbar province to Baghdad, a city of 6 million people with large communities of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. The two soldiers killed Monday were from the 1st Armored Division and were killed in Anbar, the U.S. military said.

The Baghdad area recorded an average of 34 major bombings and shootings for the week ending July 13, the U.S. military said. That was up 40 percent from the daily average of 24 registered between June 14 and July 13.

U.S. officials believe control of Baghdad ?- the political, cultural, transport and economic hub of the country ?- will determine the future of Iraq. But the city's religiously mixed communities have become the focus of sectarian violence.

Iraq's army and police, which are heavily Shiite, have had trouble winning the trust of residents of majority Sunni neighborhoods.

As a result, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., has said more U.S. troops may take to the streets to bolster Iraqi forces, especially in mostly Sunni areas such as Dora, Amariya and Ghazaliyah.

However, that could lead to more U.S. casualties. As U.S. troops gradually pulled back and handed over security to the Iraqis, deaths among Iraqi soldiers and police have been rising while American losses ebbed.

Figures compiled by The Associated Press show that between Jan. 1 and July 24, at least 933 Iraqi soldiers and police were killed compared with 382 U.S. deaths for the same period. At least 33 American service members have died this month in Iraq ?- half the number in June and May.

Baghdad was relatively calm Monday.

Five civilians were killed and four others were wounded Monday evening when mortar shells crashed into a southern Baghdad neighborhood, police said.

Elsewhere, gunmen killed four men selling construction materials in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, police said. A policeman in Mosul and a Youth Ministry employee in Baghdad were also gunned down in drive-by shootings.

xingu, your poll numbers regarding whether or not the iraqi people want the USA to leave Iraq are pseudology (i.e., lying or falsifying; lies or falsities). If they weren't pseudology, the Iraqi government would have asked us to leave. No such request by the Iraq governent has been made yet.

Why read Clausewitz when Shock and Awe can make a clean sweep of things?
Andrew Bacevich
Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor [ Buy from the London Review Bookshop ] · Atlantic, 603 pp, £25.00

The events of 11 September 2001 killed thousands, left many thousands more bereft, and horrified countless millions who merely bore witness. But for a few, 9/11 suggested an opportunity. In the inner circles of the United States government men of ambition seized on that opportunity with alacrity. Far from fearing a ?'global war on terror', they welcomed it, certain of their ability to bend war to their purposes. Although the ensuing conflict has not by any means run its course, we are now in a position to begin evaluating the results of their handiwork.