Quote:BAGHDAD (AFP) ?- The number of Iraqis killed in insurgent and sectarian attacks rose in October, according to government figures obtained on Thursday, in a blow to a nine-month-old US troop surge policy.
At least 887 Iraqis were killed last month, compared to 840 in September, according to the data compiled by the interior, defence and health ministries.
As in previous months, the dead were overwhelmingly civilians, with 758 reported killed against 116 policemen and 13 soldiers.
The October death toll remained sharply down on the August figure of 1,770 but the increase on September dented boasts from both US and Iraqi leaders that the crackdown on insurgent and militia violence was leading to a significant fall in casualties.
Again on Thursday, Iraq's minister for security, Shirwan al-Waili, insisted that the situation was improving in Baghdad and other areas.
"Because of the security plan, the violence has reduced. Baghdad is much safer," Waili told state television.
And just last week, the Iraqi army commander for the Baghdad region, General Abud Qanbar, hailed what he said was mounting evidence of the success of Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (Imposing Law) launched in the capital and surrounding regions in February.
The operation has seen the deployment of 28,500 additional US troops ordered to Iraq as part of the "surge" policy of President George W. Bush.
"The level of the terrorist operations has reduced, and life has come to normality in many parts in Baghdad," Qanbar told reporters on October 24.
US second-in-command Lieutenant General Ray Odierno told the same news conference there was a "downward trend" in attacks.
"Improvised explosive device attacks, the extremists' preferred method of terror, have also been reduced, down well over 60 percent in the past four months, with notably reduced lethality," he said.
Iraqi casualties soared after a February 2006 attack on a revered Shiite shrine claimed by Al-Qaeda sparked an explosion of sectarian violence.
The bombing at the Al-Askari shrine in the central city of Samarra saw a sharp rise in monthly death tolls, peaking in January this year with 1,992 deaths reported by the three Iraqi ministries.
The ministry statistics are difficult to track as officals get reports of many attacks days later.
As recently as Sunday, preliminary figures floated by the three ministries had suggested the October death toll would total just 285.
The prime minister's office which used to release the data officially stopped doing so as the figures were widely disputed.
The United Nations, which used to review the statistics, has not been able to do so since earlier this year.
British website Iraqbodycount.net, which tracks Iraqi casualty figures, said 2007 could yet end up being the second deadliest year since the March 2003 invasion, after last year which saw 27,000 civilian deaths.
In new violence on Thursday, 16 Iraqis were killed, five of them in the capital, and 11 in the confessional mixed province of Diyala to its north.
The dead in Diyala, most of them security personnel, came after a suicide bombing against the province's police headquarters in the city of Baquba on Monday killed 28 policemen.
The five dead in the capital were would-be recruits to the Iraqi army from the Sunni district of Adhamiyah who had gathered at a recruitment centre in the nearby Al-Binouk neighbourhood, security officials said.
source
I guess the final figures rose after all the reports came in which must not have been in.
Iraqi deaths don't count: only American casualty numbers. When will you learn?
Cycloptichorn wrote:Quote:
I'll use future excerpts of Juan Cole as they are posted here to make my point that Juan Cole is bigoted against conservatives, who honor the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution as amended, and do not honor misquotes or misinterpretations of either.
This is a straight-up lie.
Bush's administration, a Conservative administration supported by the Conservative party here in America, is currently breaking the law. Specifically, they are breaking the FISA laws as well as the 4th amendment. This gives the lie to your claim that Conservatives 'honor' the Constitution; you only do so until it becomes inconvenient for you to do so.
The problem for you fellows is that
reality itself is bigoted against your position.
Cycloptichorn
Bush ain't no conservative.
That's funny; the republican congressional members still support Bush. Some 27 percent of "conservatives" still support Bush. Bush was supported by the conservatives for two presidential elections.
He's not a conservative?
cicerone imposter wrote:That's funny; the republican congressional members still support Bush. Some 27 percent of "conservatives" still support Bush. Bush was supported by the conservatives for two presidential elections.
He's not a conservative?
Correct! Bush is not a conservative. He, his admiinistration, and many Republican members of Congress recommend and/or authorize the exercise of government powers not delegated by the Constitution of the USA. Such Republicans are called RINOs (i.e., Republicans In Name Only) by Conservatives.
Many Democrats embrace the same behavior and then some. I call them DINOs (Democrats In Name Only).
Former envoy: U.S. driving Turkey, Iran together
By Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Friday, November 2, 2007
WASHINGTON ?- The retired general who served as President Bush's special envoy to deal with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) said the United States has failed to keep its promises to Turkey to confront the Kurdish terrorist group, and Turkey may feel that it has no choice but to attack the PKK's sanctuary in northern Iraq.
Retired Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, in a brief interview, declined to say why he stepped down several weeks ago. But published reports have said that he was frustrated by the Bush administration's failure to act against the PKK.
In his first extended comments since his departure, Ralston told McClatchy Newspapers that the United States is unwittingly "driving, strategically, the Turks and the Iranians together" because both nations share concerns about violent Kurdish separatist groups.
"The U.S. government should make good on the commitments they have made to the Turks," Ralston said.
Turkey is a NATO ally of the United States, while the United States and Iran are increasingly in confrontation across a range of issues.
The White House and the U.S. military have appeared leery about opening a new front in the war in Iraq ?- particularly in generally stable northern Iraq ?- by launching assaults against the PKK. Neither the U.S.-backed Iraqi government nor the semiautonomous Kurdish Regional Government has shown any inclination to go after the group.
The officer who commands U.S. forces in northern Iraq, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Nixon, last week said he planned to do "absolutely nothing" to curb PKK activities.
Ralston, a vice chairman of the Washington-based Cohen Group, a consulting firm, said the statement was "directly opposite" promises Bush has made to Turkey.
Asked whether the Turkish military would invade northern Iraq, which PKK fighters use to launch attacks into Turkey, Ralston said: "They're going to have to, in the absence of the U.S. doing anything."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/21032.html
I hope the Turks do invade northern Iraq and exterminate the PKK. If they do that, the Turks will be acting in our own interest as well as in theirs.
Iraqi weapons 'expert' unmasked as a fraud
The Iraqi defector whose claims regarding Saddam Hussein's biological warfare capabilities were central to the US government's case for the 2003 invasion, despite repeated warnings that they were dubious, has been unmasked by a television documentary.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3124366.ece
More from Juan Cole nonsense in Iraq.
The Bush administration is taking a hard line on dragooning civilian Foreign Service Officers into serving in the war zone of Iraq. The article contains a quote by Ambassador Ryan Crocker which says that the FSO's swear an oath to serve anywhere in the world. This is not true. They swear an oath to uphold the constitution. They sign a contract that allows them to be posted anywhere. There is a different, and the two documents may actually be in contradiction. For instance, what if the government did something unconstitutional and wanted to send you to support that action . . .?
Another retired US diplomat sent me this:
Quote:' I am also a retired Foreign Service Officer, and strongly second the view of the anonymous FSO (retired) whom you cited in your column today. The issue really is not the commitment to world-wide service undertaken by FSOs. The decision by the Bush Administration to not only keep an embassy open in a war zone, but INCREASE its size to make it one of the largest in the world, is simply testimony to the madness of the entire Iraq "adventure," and the fraudulent nature of the expressed rationale for our being there. Most of the staff in this "embassy" do not speak the language and cannot act effectively as diplomats, even if that were the purpose in sending them there. But that is not the purpose....
The willingness of Secretary Rice, or Dr. Ferragamo as she is known on one satirical website, to continue supporting this war of occupation through this "embassy" and more broadly through her declaration of a new order known as "transformational diplomacy" simply confirms that she is not a "moderate" voice for diplomacy against the likes of Dick Cheney. Diplomats do not "transform" other countries. They represent the interests of the US to the governments and citizens of other, independent, countries. '
Oh, what a tangled web they weave.....
What shall we call the very big, empty "embassy"? Fort Bush?
It's more like "prison Bush."
Chalabi back in action in Iraq
Chalabi back in action in Iraq
By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, October 28, 2007
BAGHDAD ?- Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial, ubiquitous Iraqi politician and one-time Bush administration favorite, has re-emerged as a central figure in the latest U.S. strategy for Iraq.
His latest job: To press Iraq's central government to use early security gains from the surge to deliver better electricity, health, education and local security services to Baghdad neighborhoods. That's the next phase of the surge plan. Until now, the U.S. military, various militias, insurgents and some U.S. backed groups have provided those services without great success.
That the U.S. and Iraqi officials are again turning to Chalabi, this time to restore life to Baghdad neighborhoods, speaks to his resiliency in this nascent government. It's also, some say, his latest effort to promote himself as a true national advocate for everyday Iraqis.
Chalabi, in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, provided White House and Pentagon officials and journalists with a stream of bogus or exaggerated intelligence about Iraq's weapons programs and ties to terrorism. He also suggested that he'd lead Iraq to make peace with Israel and welcome permanent U.S. military bases, which could apply pressure to Iran and Syria.
But Chalabi's proven a resilient politician since then and Iraqis yearn for someone who can make the government help them. In sermons in the holy Shiite city of Najaf and in Sunni newspapers alike, Iraqis here often reject their central government, saying it has done nothing for them since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Instead, the government's critics say, local tribal leaders and residents rejuvenated neighborhoods by pushing fighters out and securing the streets.
U.S. officials maintain that it's up to the central government to provide Iraqis with longer-term stability. Iraqis agree, especially when it comes to services beyond the capability of neighborhood councils, such as providing electricity, bringing doctors back into neighborhoods, establishing and paying a police force and building a school system, Traditionally, Iraq's central government delivered these services.
"The key is going to be getting the concerned local citizens ?- and all the citizens ?- feeling that this government is reconnected with them," Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander here, said Saturday. Chalabi "agrees with that."
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki named Chalabi as head of the services committee, a consortium of eight service ministries and two Baghdad municipal posts, that is tasked with bringing services to Baghdad, the heart of the surge plan.
Chalabi "is an important part of the process," said Col. Steven Boylan, Petraeus' spokesman. "He has a lot of energy."
Unless the government steps in, U.S. military commanders stationed in small outposts throughout Baghdad fear their rebuilding programs and other efforts to weaken one-time al Qaida and militia bastions will collapse as soon as troops leave. If that happens, those groups will dominate the neighborhoods again, they say.
Lt. Col. Ken Adgie, of National Park, N.J., commander of the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment out of Fort Stewart, Ga., is in charge of securing Arab Jabour, a southern Sunni Baghdad neighborhood long under al Qaida control.
With no U.S. or Iraqi forces in this almost exclusively Sunni neighborhood since the fall of Saddam's regime, al Qaida controlled it, in part, by rationing food and electricity to the residents.
Adgie's troops now are building a health care facility, securing water supplies and working with local concerned residents to secure the area's main street, which is lined with a handful of mud shack stores.
"Right now, it's a Band-Aid. ...But boy it would be nice if we got the government's help," Adgie said. "We refuse to let al Qaida creep back in. ...You can't let up. It's slow constant pressure."
So far, the central government has not been effective. On Saturday, Petraeus traveled to Arab Jabour with Chalabi, their first trip together to a Baghdad neighborhood since Chalabi's new posting. During the trip, Col. Terry Ferrell, 2nd brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division described where he wants to see a new health care facility. Chalabi chimed in: "Where is the Health Ministry in this?"
"That's your job," Petraeus replied.
And as Chalabi tried to assure the residents of Arab Jabour that the government would help, they told him they had heard it before. So far, the vice president, the governor of Baghdad and a top Iraqi police commander have traveled to Arab Jabour promising to deliver 200 police officers. None have shown up.
"We made life better here, not the government," said Abdul Raziq al Jabouri, a newly-named security officer in Arab Jabour. "If we had waited for the government we would have been gone by now. We are not waiting. We don't expect anything."
So Chalabi has his work cut out for him.
Iraqi politicians have used service ministries to promote themselves before, and some suspect that Chalabi took this post to reach a populace that rejected him in the 2006 election when he won no official seats in the government..
Since the fall of Saddam's regime, Chalabi has held several jobs including deputy prime minister, head of the de-Baathification committee and chairman of several investigative committees.
"I think Ahmad is trying to come back through this committee. But the reality is that there has been no action," said Mithal Alusi, a secular member of the parliament. "We Iraqi don't accept this."
But Chalabi's supporters reject that, saying he is the best suited to work with several ministries. And Hussein al Shaheen, a Chalabi advisor, said the government chose him because "everyone knows he can do it."
As he met with residents of Arab Jabour concerned about security and basic services, however, it was Chalabi the historian speaking, not Chalabi the ombudsman.
He reminded them that Alexander the Great once traveled through their neighborhood and that, at one point, 600,000 people lived in the area.
"We have a doctor among us," one resident remarked politely.
Minutes later, another muttered: "He cannot help us."
Let's look at this from the past experience of Bush choices for - anything; they've all been incompetents. Show us one choice Bush made that did a good job?
A Month by Month, Daily Average of IBC's Count of Violent Deaths in Iraq, After April 30, 2007:
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
______________________________________________________________________________
May = 3,755 / 31 =
.. 121 per day
..
Surge fully operational in June
..
June = 2,386 / 30 =
....... 80 per day.
July = 2,077 / 31 =
......... 67 per day.
August = 2,084 / 31 =
...
.... 67 per day.
September = 1,333 / 30 =
... 44 per day.
October = 678 / 20 =
...... 34 per day.* > [82,804 - 82,126 = 678; 678/20 = 34]
November = ----? / 30 = ----? per day.**
December = ----? / 31 = ----? per day.**
*Data currently available for only first 20 days of this month.
**Data not yet available.
Daily Average Violent Deaths in Iraq--PRE AND POST JANUARY 1, 2003:
PRE = 1/1/1979 - 12/31/2002 = 1,229,210/ 8,766 days =
140 per day;
POST = 1/1/2003 - 10/20/2007 = 82,804/1,754days =
..
.
47 per day;
PRE / POST = 140/47 =
2.97.
_____________________________________________________________________________
As of September 30, 2007, Total Iraq Violent Deaths since January 1, 2003 = 82,126
_____________________________________________________________________________
We must win and succeed in Iraq, because we Americans will suffer significant losses of our freedoms, if we do not win and succeed in Iraq.
The USA wins and succeeds in Iraq when the daily rate of violent deaths in Iraq decreases below 30, remains less than 30, while we are removing our troops, and remains less than 30 for at least a year after we have completed our departure.
cicerone imposter wrote:Let's look at this from the past experience of Bush choices for - anything; they've all been incompetents. Show us one choice Bush made that did a good job?
George Bush chose Laura to be his wife and Laura has done a good job being his wife.
Bush chose himself to run against Al Gore and did a good job winning the election over Al Gore.
Bush chose himself to run against John Kerry and did a good job winning the election over John Kerry.
Bush chose General Tommy Franks to command the invasion of Afghanistan, and General Franks did a good job commanding the invasion of Afghanistan.
Bush chose General Tommy Franks to command the invasion of Iraq, and General Franks did a good job commanding the invasion of Iraq.
Bush chose General David Petraeus to command the surge in Iraq, and General Petraeus is doing a good job commanding the surge in Iraq.
Bush chose Congress to reduce income tax rates, and Congress did a good job reducing income tax rates.
Bush's approval trend
Bush's job approval rating soared from 42%, just prior to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 to 74% immediately following. However, the favorable view that voters had of Bush began a steady decline beginning in 2003. His approval now stands at 27%, very similar to where it has been for the last six months.
Can always count on C.I. and his wonderful optimism.
