I ask ya, just what good are we doing? How much worse can it get if we leave? I am beginning to think the only reason we staying is because it will look bad if we leave. The longer we stay the more we are forced to pick sides in a internal fight between Sunni and Shiite, we may even end up picking the side of the insurgents (sunni) because of the violence from the government Shiite militias of which we helped put in power.
Dozens snatched in mass kidnap at Iraq ministry
Quote:BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen in Iraqi police uniforms rounded up dozens of men at a government building in central Baghdad on Tuesday and drove off, in what may be the biggest mass kidnapping seen in a city becoming used to such violence.
A witness who works in the building but had stepped out when the gunmen arrived said he returned to see police standing idly by as the kidnappers checked identity cards in a car park to sort Sunnis from Shi'ites and then drove off with Sunni men.
Senior officials, often keen to play down sectarian tension, insisted men from both Muslim sects were taken.
"It's a terrorist act. They kidnapped more than 100 employees and visitors," said Higher Education Minister Abd Dhiab, a member of the main Sunni Arab political bloc.
He said the gunmen headed eastwards -- into Shi'ite east Baghdad -- followed by police units which later said they lost the trail.
Elsewhere, Iraqi officials said U.S. raids in a Shi'ite district of Baghdad and in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi killed six and at least 30 people respectively overnight. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.
Unrelenting violence has added to the pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to crack down on militias, some of which are linked to his Shi'ite political allies.
President Bush has also said he is open to "fresh perspectives" to stem the violence in Iraq after his Republicans suffered a "thumping" at midterm elections last week, partly due to dismay over the war.
Numerous mass kidnappings have been blamed on sectarian militias operating either within the security forces or with the help of police in providing equipment.
Saddam Hussein's once dominant Sunni minority and U.S. officials have focused suspicion on militias from the Shi'ite Muslim parties, who control the Interior Ministry.
Washington, under mounting domestic political pressure to start pulling its 150,000 troops out of Iraq, has placed a heavy emphasis on recruiting and training Iraqi security forces, but their competence and sectarian loyalties remain in doubt.
Minister Dhiab said both Sunnis and Shi'ites were seized in the raid, which cleared the four-storey building of all staff and visitors, from directors to guards and teaboys. He said it was a well-planned operation that took no more than 15 minutes.
Women were separated from the men and locked in a room after having their mobile phones confiscated by the gunmen, who drove up to the ministry's Research Directorate in the commercial, religiously mixed district of Karrada, in government vehicles.
"All Interior Ministry forces are on alert, searching for this group. We don't know if it's terrorists, militias or even government forces," Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Abdul Kareem Khalaf said.
IDENTITY CARDS
The witness, who is well known to a Reuters employee but did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said when he returned to the building from the bank he saw around 40 pickup vehicles of the type used by police commandos at the building.
"They were checking identity cards in the car park. They picked only the Sunni employees. They even took the man who was just delivering tea," said the witness, who is a Sunni Arab.
"They gathered them all in the pick-ups. At the same time I saw two police patrols watching, doing nothing."
Dhiab told Iraqiya state television he had asked the Interior Ministry and Defense Ministry to provide more protection for his staff some time ago. He said the kidnappers clashed with guards but managed to overpower them.
"As far as we know this area is full of police and defense ministry check points and we know the police vehicles followed the kidnappers to a specific area and after that we don't know what happened," Dhiab said.
The Interior Ministry has repeatedly denied charges of links to Shi'ite militias blamed by Sunni Arabs and Washington for operating death squads and kidnapping cells.
The latest mass kidnapping recalled the abduction of about 30 sports officials and athletes, including the head of Iraq's national Olympic Committee, who were seized during a meeting in July by gunmen in uniform. Some were later freed but many, including the Olympics chief, have never been heard of again.
Last month, the 26-strong workforce of a meat-processing factory were seized in similar circumstances -- prompting the arrest of a police commander responsible for the area.
It's more than one hundred - perhaps up to 150 persons.
I wonder, if Blair's turn will reach Bush ....
Your right, Walter. My home page is yahoo so I just saw that first.
Up to 150 kidnapped from Baghdad institute
As for Blair, I don't know, maybe he is trying to save his job while trying to maintain his friendly partnership with Bush, he seems to be all over the place.
Blair to brief US Iraq inquiry
Yes, we should get our forces out of Iraq soon! Obviously the Iraqi forces are more then capable of enforcing the rules and laws in Iraq now.
obviously , the united states forces have little (no ?) control over what is going on in iraq .
i wonder what iraqi citizens are supposed to do if not even a basic level of security can be provided .
a number of newspaper articles have recently pointed out that many iraqi families that have the means of leaving , are indeed leaving the country .
mostly these are the the families of the well-educated , physicians , engineers , teachers etc that can easily find a job in another country .
what will be left of iraq if this trend continues , will be a shell filled with violence .
but i guess , that doesn't matter : as "someone" posted : "get over it " !
hbg
There are some things in this world that outsiders are helpless in changing; internal strife such as what we have in Iraq must be corrected by the Iraqi people. If they see their professionals leaving their country because it is unstable, it's up to the Iraqis to help to stabalize it. All the citizens of Iraq must get involved; otherwise, they will end up with no country with constant sectarian and insurgency problems. The only solution is political and citizen involvement.
From todays The Guardian (page 24):
McGentrix wrote:Yes, we should get our forces out of Iraq soon! Obviously the Iraqi forces are more then capable of enforcing the rules and laws in Iraq now.
This is a better or worse situation than before we invaded?
McGentrix wrote:Yes, we should get our forces out of Iraq soon! Obviously the Iraqi forces are more then capable of enforcing the rules and laws in Iraq now.
Neither are we capable of enforcing the rules and laws in Iraq now. Oh, I forgot, if we leave there will be a civil war and people will run all over the place killing and kidnapping each other.
Wait its already happening and we are right there to protect them.
Quote:Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Dozens Kidnapped at Higher Ed Ministry;
Other Killings leave 117 Dead
Western news organizations were able to identify 117 killings in Iraq's civil war on Monday, though one suspects they only scratched the surface. Reuters surveys the carnage.
' BAGHDAD - A car bomb ripped through a crowded market area in Rasheed Street in central Baghdad, killing 10 people and wounding 25, police said. . .
BAGHDAD - Mortars killed four people and wounded six in al-Zuhur, in Baghdad's northern outskirts.There was a significant battle in Ramadi between Marines and guerrillas that left 11 guerrillas dead and perhaps twice that many civilians.
MOSUL - Police found 11 bodies with gunshot wounds on Tuesday in the city of Mosul, north of Baghdad, police said. . .
BAQUBA - Iraqi police, backed by U.S. forces, discovered the bodies of 10 kidnap victims, bound, blindfolded and with gunshot wounds, inside a house in Baquba, 65 km (40 miles) north of Baghdad . . .'
Sudarsan Raghavan of WaPo reports that a highly organized band of 80 guerrillas dressed as policemen invaded the Ministry of Higher Education building in Karrada and kidnapped dozens of people inside-- from janitors to Ph.D.s, and of all religious backgrounds. Iraqi government spokesmen variously estimated the number of kidnapped at from 50 to 150. I saw on Aljazeera that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said when he heard about the episode he got on the phone to the ministers of defense and interior and had them intervene. Iraqi government spokesmen first claimed that everyone had been released, but that turned out to be mere spin. Then they said they got 30 released, but that is not clear either.
There was a lot of speculation as to who did this and why. The minister of higher education is a Sunni from the fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front. But the people kidnapped included all sorts, and Karrada is in a Shiite area. Some reports are blaming Shiites, saying it is a reprisal for the kidnapping of Shiites. But the operation does not fit the reprisal modus operandi.
Adb Dhiyab al-Ujaili, the Minister of Higher Education, initially threatened to suspend university classes as a result of the attack. Apparently in Baghdad, at least, nobody has been showing up for class for weeks, anyway. But then he backtracked and told Al-Sharq al-Awsat in Arabic that he would never close down the universities.
The facades of a normal society are gradually dropping in Iraq. It isn't a place where you can go to the book bazaar and buy a book anymore. It isn't a place where you can go to college like a normal student or professor. It is a dark, despairing, violent arena. People go about their lives, of course. But they never know when, abruptly, the Grim Reaper will grasp them as they shop for eggplants or fill up their tanks with gasoline or drop the kids off at school. And because they never know, the scope of these daily activities is curtailed more each day.
A big operation like this can only happen if the police are crooked or incredibly lazy. They couldn't notice all those careening cars with 80 commandos in them going for miles? 5 police commanders were arrested on suspicion of collaboration.
And this is another problem with Maliki's reaction, which was after the fact. If you have ministries in Iraq that are outside the Green Zone, wouldn't you give them security details from the new army? Did the minister asked for more than 17 guards? (The guards were kidnapped!) Didn't it occur to Maliki (it would to me)?
Iraq's health minister talks about the disaster that has struck his country in part because of American mistakes.
Links to information can found at the
source
Remember the reasons the Bush administration gave for invading Iraq? One of them was Saddam was protecting Zarqawi and the Al Qaeda base in northeast Iraq, a place out of bounds to Saddam.
Well has our invasion made things any better?
Quote:Posted on Sun, Nov. 12, 2006
Saudi Arabia: Iraq a major terror base
Associated Press
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabia's interior minister on Sunday called Iraq a major base for terrorism, a sign of growing alarm over the neighboring country where U.S. forces are struggling to prevent Sunni-Shiite violence from escalating into full-scale civil war.
Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif said the situation in Iraq is deteriorating daily and the country has become a threat to the whole region.
"There is no doubt that Iraq now forms a main base for terrorism," he told the pan-Arab Al-Arabiya television station in the capital Riyadh.
"The situation in Iraq is changing day after day, and this situation has numerous threats," he said before his departure to the United Arab Emirates to attend a meeting on security issues in the Gulf states.
The minister also said Saudi youth were being lured to fight in Iraq. U.S. and Iraqi officials have long complained about Saudi extremists crossing into Iraq to join the battle against American and coalition forces. U.S. officials announced last April that Saudis were one of the top five nationalities among foreign fighters captured by coalition forces in Iraq.
The oil-rich kingdom has been moving forward with plans to build a fence along its frontier with Iraq to prevent militants from crossing the border.
Who can we thank for this? Our president; for invading a country that was a threat to no one. Now it is a threat to the whole Middle East.
This is what happens when you have leaders who think in terms of ideology and not reality.
Simon Jenkins today is worth a read, even for the carpet-chewers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1948057,00.html
"In America last week I was shocked at how unaware even anti-war Americans are (like many Britons) of the depth of the predicament in Iraq. They compare it with Vietnam or the Balkans - but it is not the same. It is total anarchy. All sentences beginning, "What we should now do in Iraq ... " are devoid of meaning. We are in no position to do anything. We have no potency; that is the definition of anarchy."
CIA Acknowledges Two Bush Interrogation Memos
CIA Acknowledges Two Interrogation Memos: Papers Called Too Sensitive for Release
By Dan Eggen
The Washington Post
Tuesday 14 November 2006
After years of denials, the CIA has formally acknowledged the existence of two classified documents governing aggressive interrogation and detention policies for terrorism suspects, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
But CIA lawyers say the documents - memos from President Bush and the Justice Department - are still so sensitive that no portion can be released to the public.
The disclosures by the CIA general counsel's office came in a letter Friday to attorneys for the ACLU. The group had filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in New York two years ago under the Freedom of Information Act, seeking records related to U.S. interrogation and detention policies.
The lawsuit has resulted in the release of more than 100,000 pages of documents, including some that revealed internal debates over the policies governing prisoners held at the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Many other records have not been released and, in some cases, their existence has been revealed only in media reports.
Friday's letter from John L. McPherson, the CIA's associate general counsel, lists two documents that pertain to the ACLU's records request.
The ACLU describes the first as a "directive" signed by Bush governing CIA interrogation methods or allowing the agency to set up detention facilities outside the United States. McPherson describes it as a "memorandum." In September, Bush confirmed the existence of secret CIA prisons and transferred 14 remaining terrorism suspects from them to Guantanamo Bay.
The second document is an August 2002 legal memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel to the CIA general counsel. The ACLU describes it as "specifying interrogation methods that the CIA may use against top al-Qaeda members." (This document is separate from another widely publicized Justice memo, also issued in August 2002, that narrowed the definition of torture. The Justice Department has since rescinded the latter.)
The ACLU relied on media reports to identify and describe the two documents, but the CIA and other agencies had not previously confirmed their existence. McPherson wrote that neither document can be released to the public for reasons of security and attorney-client privilege.
"The documents are withheld in their entirety because there is no meaningful non-exempt information that can be reasonably segregated from the exempt information," McPherson wrote. A spokesman for the CIA declined to comment yesterday.
Amrit Singh, one of the ACLU's attorneys on the case, said the disclosures may make it easier for the group to argue in favor of releasing the documents.
"For more than three years, they've refused to even confirm or deny the existence of these records," Singh said, referring to the group's initial document request in October 2003. "The fact that they're now choosing to do so confirms that their position was unjustified from the start.... Now we can begin to actually litigate the release of these documents."
So, we really have two options in Iraq:
1, begin to leave, or
2, send lots more troops.
On the one hand, we know that leaving will help alleviate troop deaths. This isn't a prediction or assessment; it is a fact that troops who would have died in Iraq due to enemy action will not die due to enemy action back stateside.
On the other, there is the supposition that leaving will lead to many more deaths in the long run because of the vacuum left by our leaving. But I find it interesting that the same people who are claiming this, were wrong about pretty much everything else having to do with Iraq. So why should we trust them now?
Cycloptichorn
The three posts above mine by McT, BBB, and Cyclo are the correct analysis, Bush's responsibility on torture of our prisoners, and why we can't send more troops to Iraq; there are none.
Bush wants to stay the course to save his own skin. He doesn't give a shet about the lost Americans lives, because he has no solution for his war.
At least, it seems, Americans have finally woken up from their stupor, and voted most of the bums out.
I left a message for ya last night CI
Cycloptichorn
THe avowed answer to the problem is the training of Iraqi's so that they are able to provide adequate forces to maintain security. It strikes me however one can not distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys.. We could be and more than likely are training fighters for both sides.
au, The Iraqi forces are infiltrated by the same people perpetrating the sectarian violence. The Kurds are the only ones serving their own territory in the north that minimizes what's happening elsewhere in Iraq.
au1929 wrote:THe avowed answer to the problem is the training of Iraqi's so that they are able to provide adequate forces to maintain security. It strikes me however one can not distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys.. We could be and more than likely are training fighters for both sides.
And arming them too, and clothing them, and and....
Yeah, isn't it interesting that the pro-Iraq war-mongers are the ones that continue to support the idea that we need to stay until the Iraqis are able to stabilize their country by themselves. They can't see the simple truth, that sectarian and terrorist activities are increasing with that rhetoric.
