A majority of the public wants out of Iraq, no matter what conservatives say, they listen to the public. Even Bush as he is now talking about timelines. Of course the rest of his speech is the same recycled spin garbage.
Quote:President Bush vowed for the first time yesterday to turn over most of Iraq to newly trained Iraqi troops by the end of this year, setting a specific benchmark as he kicked off a fresh drive to reassure Americans alarmed by the recent burst of sectarian violence.
Bush, who until now has resisted concrete timelines as the Iraq war dragged on longer than he expected, outlined the target in the first of a series of speeches intended to lay out his strategy for victory. While acknowledging grim developments on the ground, Bush declared "real progress" in standing up Iraqi forces capable of defending their nation.
"As more capable Iraqi police and soldiers come on line, they will assume responsibility for more territory with the goal of having the Iraqis control more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006," he said in a speech to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "And as Iraqis take over more territory, this frees American and coalition forces to concentrate on training and on hunting down high-value targets like the terrorist [Abu Musab al-] Zarqawi and his associates."
The president made no commitments about withdrawing U.S. troops, but he repeated his general formula that Americans could come home as Iraqis eventually take over the fight. He also used the speech to urge Iraqis to form a unity government three months after parliamentary elections, and he accused Iran of providing explosives to Shiite militias attacking U.S. forces in Iraq.
The beginning of a new campaign to rally Americans behind the war effort nearly three years after the U.S.-led invasion comes at a time of deepening public misgivings about the campaign in Iraq and Bush's leadership of it. In a Washington Post-ABC News poll this month, 34 percent of Americans surveyed said they think the president has a plan for victory in Iraq, six percentage points lower than in December and the lowest level recorded by that poll. By contrast, 65 percent said Bush has no Iraq plan.
How meaningful or achievable the president's new goal is seems uncertain. In the speech, Bush said Iraqi units today have "primary responsibility" over 30,000 square miles of Iraqi territory, an increase of 20,000 square miles since the beginning of the year. As a country of nearly 169,000 square miles, Iraqi forces would need to control about 85,000 square miles to fulfill Bush's target.
What constitutes control, however, depends on the definition, since no Iraqi unit is currently rated capable of operating without U.S. assistance. And vast swaths of Iraq have never been contested by insurgents, meaning they could ultimately be turned over to local forces without directly affecting the conflict.
Bush said 130 Iraqi battalions are participating in the battle with radical guerrillas, with 60 units taking the lead, an increase from 120 battalions and 40 in the lead when he last delivered major speeches on Iraq at the end of 2005. But Democrats pointed out that a Pentagon report last month showed that the number of Iraqi units rated "Level 1," or fully independent of U.S. help, has fallen from one to zero.
Democratic leaders hammered away at the president's latest effort to win public support for the war. "Instead of launching yet another public relations campaign, President Bush should use his speeches this week to provide a strategy to bring our brave men and women home safely and soon," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said in a statement. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (N.J.) said: "It is time for President Bush to stop the spin and start telling the truth about the harsh realities we are confronting in Iraq."
Others praised Bush for committing to a specific target, if not a comprehensive timeline. "This was a step in the right direction," Rep. Dan Boren (Okla.), a centrist Democrat invited to the speech, said in an interview afterward. "Benchmarks set clear, defined goals, and if we see more and more Iraqis being trained and put on the ground, then that means we can bring more Americans home."
In his speech at George Washington University, Bush focused on the threat of improvised explosive devices, called IEDs by troops, and said his administration has increased funding to fight them from $150 million in 2004 to $3.3 billion this year. In stark language, he also accused Iran of helping the bomb makers. Just last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld also accused Iran of dispatching elements of its Revolutionary Guard to conduct unspecified operations.
"Some of the most powerful IEDs we're seeing in Iraq today include components that come from Iran," Bush said. Such actions, along with Iran's nuclear program, he said, "are increasingly isolating Iran, and America will continue to rally the world to confront these threats."
After a deadly spasm of sectarian conflict last month sparked by the bombing of a Shiite shrine, the president presented a dour forecast of continuing mayhem. "I wish I could tell you that the violence is waning and that the road ahead will be smooth," he said. "It will not. There will be more tough fighting and more days of struggle and we will see more images of chaos and carnage in the days and months to come."
But Bush said he saw hope in the fact that the country has not fallen into civil war, as some had forecast. "The Iraqi people made their choice," he said. "They looked into the abyss and did not like what they saw."
Bush vowed not to retreat in the face of violence, reading a letter from the mother of Sgt. William S. Kinzer Jr., who was killed last year. "Don't let my son have given his all for an unfinished job," she wrote, according to Bush. "I make this promise to Debbie and all the families of the fallen heroes," he said. "We will not let your loved ones' dying be in vain. We will finish what we started in Iraq. We will complete the mission."
source
US Army in Jeopardy in Iraq
US Army in Jeopardy in Iraq
by Gary Hart
03.12.2006
In 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia and, after success at the battle of Borodino, marched on and occupied Moscow. Napoleon and his generals took over the palaces of the court princes and great houses of the mighty boyars.
Sadly for Napoleon, the Russians had different plans for their nation. Within days after abandoning their city to the French army, they torched their own palaces, homes, enterprises, and cathedrals.
They burned Moscow down around Napoleon. Denied his last great triumph, the disappointed emperor abandoned Moscow and started home. Along the way, he lost the world's most powerful army.
Recently one of Islamic Shi'ites' most revered sites, the golden mosque at Samarra, was destroyed by sectarian enemies. By this act and the reprisals that followed, Iraq moved a substantial step closer to civil war. Though a remote, but real, possibility, an Iraqi civil war could cost the United States its army.
Hopefully, leaders are planning for this possibility. If sectarian violence escalates further, US troops must be withdrawn from patrol and confined to their barracks and garrisons. Mass transport must be mustered for rapid withdrawal of those troops from volatile cities in the explosive central region of Iraq. Intensive diplomatic efforts must be focused on preventing an Iraqi civil war from spreading to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Syria. Such a potential could make the greater Middle East a tinder box for years, if not decades, to come.
But the first concern must be the safety of US forces. It is strange to contemplate the possibility that the greatest army in world history could be slaughtered in a Middle East conflagration. But prudent commanders have no choice but to plan for this danger.
In greatest danger are the units in the Sunni central region cities. They are in real jeopardy if tens of thousands of angry Sunni and Shi'ite citizens, supported by their sectarian militias, surround and then overrun those units before they can be withdrawn.
The United States lost one war not too long ago in Vietnam. Conditions are taking shape that could result in the same outcome in Iraq. Not to plan now for this apocalyptic possibility would be tantamount to criminal neglect on the part of our political and military leadership.
A major part of the dilemma we have created is the result of failure to know the history and complex culture of Iraq. As we refused to learn from the French experience in Indochina, we also failed to learn from the British experience in Iraq. We are on the cusp of religion and antique hatred overtaking whatever latent instincts toward democracy we may have relied on or tried to instill. We face the reemergence of 11th-century Assassins and 17th-century ethnic fundamentalism arising to replace a century of ideology -- imperialism, fascism, and communism.
The character of warfare and violence is being transformed. The warfare of the future is not World War II, or even Korea or Vietnam. It is Mogadishu and Fallujah -- low-intensity conflict among tribes, clans, and gangs. We are not prepared for that kind of warfare.
The United States is in danger of finding combat forces trapped in a civil war that they cannot prevent, control, or win.
America's army is in danger, and that danger is possibly just around the corner.
Closer around the corner than we think:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/03/14/iraq.main/index.html
Quote:More than 80 dead in apparent reprisal killings
Bodies found around Baghdad in 30-hour period
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Authorities said at least 86 bodies were found in the Iraqi capital during a 30-hour period ending midday Tuesday, sparking fears that sectarian reprisal killings are continuing at a grisly pace.
With Iraq's newly elected parliament set to meet Thursday, officials announced a vehicle curfew. Authorities will stop any car or truck in Baghdad between 8 p.m. (noon ET) Wednesday and 4 p.m. (8 a.m.) Thursday.
Police found 29 bodies on the eastern side of the capital in a Shiite neighborhood. (Watch for how they died and where the bodies turned up -- 1:01)
Fifteen bodies also were found Tuesday morning in a truck in a Sunni neighborhood in western Baghdad, police said. The victims were all males between the ages of 25 and 40, authorities said.
Another two bodies were discovered in southern Baghdad.
Police counted the recovery of 40 bodies during the 24 hours that ended at 6 a.m. Tuesday (10 p.m. ET).
"The indications are, police won't say this, but the indications are that these are sectarian killings," CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson said. "... You talk to some people here in Baghdad and they talk in their neighborhoods, mixed neighborhoods, of tit-for-tat killings. Sunni one day, Shia the next day...
"That's the perception in the city at the moment." (Watch Robertson's account of killings gripping Baghdad -- 1:01)
Sectarian violence has gripped the capital, home to 6 million Iraqis, and flared in other cities since the February 22 bombing of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra.
The latest wave of killings follows Sunday's string of car bombs in Sadr City, Baghdad's huge Shiite slum, that killed at least 46 people and wounded more than 200 others.
Bush fights lowest rating
President Bush launched a new effort to shore up support for the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq on Monday and accused Iran of providing explosives used to attack American troops. (Full story)
The speech at George Washington University was the first of a series of planned appearances the White House is hoping will turn around a longstanding slide in support for the war, a week away from its third anniversary.
A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday found only 36 percent of Americans approved of Bush's performance in office -- a new low for his presidency in that poll -- and 57 percent said they considered the March 2003 invasion that toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein a mistake.
Only 32 percent of those polled from Friday through Sunday said they thought Bush had a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq, while 67 percent said he did not. (Full story)
But Monday, Bush said U.S. forces were "making progress" in the war, building up Iraqi troops and finding ways to counteract the roadside bombs behind a large proportion of U.S. casualties.
He also praised Iraqis for averting civil war despite the sectarian violence after the Samarra mosque bombing.
"The situation in Iraq is still tense, and we're still seeing acts of sectarian violence and reprisal," Bush said. "Yet out of this crisis, we've also seen signs of a hopeful future." (Full story)
That's a lot of bodies.
Cycloptichorn
US Postwar Iraq Strategy a Mess, Blair Was Told
US Postwar Iraq Strategy a Mess, Blair Was Told
By Ewen MacAskill
The Guardian UK
Tuesday 14 March 2006
Senior British diplomatic and military staff gave Tony Blair explicit warnings three years ago that the US was disastrously mishandling the occupation of Iraq, according to leaked memos.
John Sawers, Mr Blair's envoy in Baghdad in the aftermath of the invasion, sent a series of confidential memos to Downing Street in May and June 2003 cataloguing US failures. With unusual frankness, he described the US postwar administration, led by the retired general Jay Garner, as "an unbelievable mess" and said "Garner and his top team of 60-year-old retired generals" were "well-meaning but out of their depth".
That assessment is reinforced by Major General Albert Whitley, the most senior British officer with the US land forces. Gen Whitley, in another memo later that summer, expressed alarm that the US-British coalition was in danger of losing the peace. "We may have been seduced into something we might be inclined to regret. Is strategic failure a possibility? The answer has to be 'yes'," he concluded.
The memos were obtained by Michael Gordon, author, along with General Bernard Trainor, of Cobra II: the Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, published to coincide with the third anniversary of the invasion.
The British memos identified a series of US failures that contained the seeds of the present insurgency and anarchy.
The mistakes include:
A lack of interest by the US commander, General Tommy Franks, in the post-invasion phase.
The presence in the capital of the US Third Infantry Division, which took a heavyhanded approach to security.
Squandering the initial sympathy of Iraqis.
Bechtel, the main US civilian contractor, moving too slowly to reconnect basic services, such as electricity and water.
Failure to deal with health hazards, such as 40% of Baghdad's sewage pouring into the Tigris and rubbish piling up in the streets.
Sacking of many of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, even though many of them held relatively junior posts.
Mr Sawers, in a memo titled Iraq: What's Going Wrong, written on May 11, four days after he had arrived in Baghdad, is uncompromising about the US administration in Baghdad. He wrote: "No leadership, no strategy, no coordination, no structure and inaccessible to ordinary Iraqis."
He said the US needed to take action in Baghdad urgently. "The clock is ticking." Both Mr Sawers, who is now political director at the Foreign Office, and Gen Whitley see as one of the biggest errors a decision by Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, and General Tommy Franks, the overall US commander, to cut troops after the invasion.
Mr Sawers advocated sending a British battalion, the 16th Air Assault Brigade, to Baghdad to help fill the gap. Although the US supported the plan, Downing Street rejected it weeks later.
The British diplomat is particularly scathing about the US Third Infantry Division, which he describes as "a big part of the problem" in Baghdad. He accused its troops of being reluctant to leave their heavily armoured vehicles to carry out policing and cites an incident in which British Paras saw them fire three tank rounds into a building in response to harmless rifle fire.
Mr Sawers, who had been British ambassador to Egypt before being sent to Iraq and is at present on a shortlist to be the next ambassador to Washington, sent the memo to Mr Blair's key advisers, including Jonathan Powell, the No 10 chief of staff, and Alastair Campbell, head of the Downing Street press operation at the time.
Mr Sawers, in later memos, welcomed the replacement of Gen Garner with Paul Bremer, a US diplomat. But in a memo written in June 25, Mr Sawyer concluded that, despite Mr Bremer's arrival, the situation was getting worse.
In that memo, Mr Sawers expressed opposition to further troop reductions. "Bremer's main concern is that we must keep in-country sufficient military capability to ensure a security blanket across the country. He has twice said to President Bush that he is concerned that the drawdown of US/UK troops had gone too far, and we cannot afford further reductions," Mr Sawers said.
Throughout his time in Iraq, however, Mr Sawers remained optimistic Mr Bremer would make a difference.
His views in the memo are echoed in a note by Gen Whitley, who says that while Gen Franks took credit for the fall of Baghdad, he showed little interest in the postwar period. "I am quite sure Franks did not want to take ownership of Phase IV," Gen Whitley wrote.
He added that Phase IV "did not work well" because the concentration was on the invasion. "There was a blind faith that Phase IV would work. There was a failure to anticipate the extent of the backlash or mood of Iraqi society."
To solve the Iraq problem, the Bush administration must be willing to:
(1) Set a deadline for the newly elected Iraqi government to organize itself, that if not met will result in our ceasing to defend the Iraqi government; and,
(2) Openly direct that the American military proceed to exterminate Terrorist Malignancy in Iraq and Afghanistan, on site, on sight.
If the Bush administration is not willing to do both, then it better return our troops to America now, and prepare to defend America against the spread of Terrorist Malignancy right here at home.
Well, then we'd better start preparing back here at home, because I believe the chances of both of those happening - as well as the chances of those actions having the effects you desire - are slim to none.
Cycloptichorn
ican711nm wrote:(2) Openly direct that the American military proceed to exterminate Terrorist Malignancy in Iraq and Afghanistan, on site, on sight.
What?? You mean he's going to order the Military to commit mass suicide??
Anon
icant is one of the "extremists" that favors mass murder.
Anon-Voter wrote:ican711nm wrote:(2) Openly direct that the American military proceed to exterminate Terrorist Malignancy in Iraq and Afghanistan, on site, on sight.
What?? You mean he's going to order the Military to commit mass suicide?? Anon
Our military must be able to determine whether or not the answer to
any one or more of the following questions for any suspected individual or groups of individuals is YES:
Are they non-uniformed humanoids in possession of ordnance?
Are they shooting at soldiers?
Are they shooting at civilians?
Are they beheading prisoners?
Are they digging holes alongside roads?
Are they cohabiting with, or being transported with, or walking with, or otherwise traveling with humanoids for whom the answer to anyone of the previous questions is YES?
Our military already knows how to do this.
Then they must be able to exterminate that suspected individual or group of individuals for whom the answer to one or more of these questions is YES, while minimizing the number of non-combatants (i.e., civilians) unintentionally killed or wounded.
Our military already knows how to do this.
No risk of suicide for our military there!
However, there is definitely the risk of suicide for Americans, if we decide instead to limit our defense of ourselves against Terrorist Malignancy only at home here in America.
cicerone imposter wrote:icant is one of the "extremists" that favors mass murder.
I don't know about "icant", but ican advocates the extermination (e.g., mass murder) of Terrorist Malignancy.
The area of the USA is approximately 3,615,000 square miles or 2,313,600,000 acres. Let's see, at one soldier per acre to protect against Terrorist Malignancy, that is more than 2.313 billion soldiers. Bring back the draft? Naaa! Hell, the population of the USA is less than 300 million people.
I'll keep looking for a better solution.
The only way to get rid of the "Terrorist Malignancy" is to get rid of the American Military!!
Anon
Yeah, icant, let your imagination run wild. Just your speed.
Here's an example of how Bush lies constantly:
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2006/03/index.html#009429
Quote:WHITE HOUSE SMEARS. This is truly despicable. Yesterday in his speech at George Washington University, President Bush offered the latest chapter in the GOP's ongoing blame-the-press-for-Iraq narrative. Speaking of something called the Joint IED Neutralizer, which is meant to counter roadside bombs, Bush said this:
Quote:Earlier this year, a newspaper published details of a new anti-IED technology that was being developed. Within five days of the publication -- using details from that article -- the enemy had posted instructions for defeating this new technology on the Internet. We cannot let the enemy know how we're working to defeat him.
Bush didn't name the newspaper. But his aides subsequently leaked confirmation to the press that he was talking about the Los Angeles Times.
And guess what: It turns out that Bush left out a small detail about the offending article in question. Turns out it was about the fact that some military officials were angry that this potentially life saving technology still hasn't been shipped to Iraq, ten months after Pentagon officials recommended investing in research and sending prototypes to Iraq for testing.
Says the piece:
Quote:10 months later -- and after a prototype destroyed about 90% of the IEDs laid in its path during a battery of tests -- not a single JIN has been shipped to Iraq.
To many in the military, the delay in deploying the vehicles, which resemble souped-up, armor-plated golf carts, is a case study in the Pentagon's inability to bypass cumbersome peacetime procedures to meet the urgent demands of troops in the field. More than half of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq have been caused by roadside bombs, and the number of such attacks nearly doubled last year compared with 2004.
As for Bush's charge that the LA Times tipped off terrorists, a quick Google search shows that extensive information about the technology was all over the Internet well before the piece was published -- including at least one news
report six months earlier that provided many of the same technological details the Times did. What's more, in its story today about Bush's broadside, the LA Times said:
Quote:The Times spoke to several Defense Department officials before the article appeared. None expressed concern that publication could endanger U.S. troops...Before Bush mentioned the report Monday, no U.S. officials had contacted The Times to raise those concerns.
So is Bush's allegation even true to begin with? We'll never know, unless perhaps the White House releases the URLs of the sites where terrorists allegedly traded on the Times's info.
Right now, here's what we do know: the White House smeared a major American newspaper as anti-troops -- because they published an article saying that some in the military were upset over delays in shipping new technology to Iraq that could combat the roadside bombs that kill and maim American soldiers every day.
So who's really anti-troops here, again?
-- Greg Sargent
A complete falsehood uttered by Bush, in order to make those who criticize his numerous blunders look like traitors. Some of you must be shocked to read this, I'm sure.
Cycloptichorn
They're not shocked; this is one of his typical boners. Bush number of supporters are decreasing, but hard-core Bush supporters can't accept the facts that they're supporting an idiot of the first order.
Because, of course, it would mean admitting to themselves that they were wrong; and they would rather die and see America go down in flames before doing that!
Cycloptichorn
That's the same impression I get; they will not admit mistakes if their life depended on it.
George Bush -- -- George Bush
----vs.---------- ---------vs.------
Al Gore -------- --- John Kerry
For me it was twice a simple but lousy choice between
dumb and
dumber.
The way things are going lately it looks like we will be asked in 2008 to choose between a
sissy Republican and a
crazy Democrat. Relative dumbness doesn't even seem to be a relevant factor anymore.
I'd accept dumb over "dangerous" any day of the week.
