THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

this news item from iraq is almost hilarious .
this office actually pointed out earlier in the year , that corruption and mismanagement in Iraq amounted to a "second insurgency".
i hope that it's not some other government department trying to get even with them for having been so outspoken .

Quote:

US Iraq fraud office investigated

The office which investigates cases of waste and fraud surrounding reconstruction efforts in Iraq is being investigated itself, reports say.
Stuart Bowen, special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, and his team are the focus of four probes, among them one by the FBI, US media reports.

His office has been accused of waste and overspending, allegations now being presented to a US grand jury.

Mr Bowen said no current member of his team was accused of acting illegally.

The investigations focused on allegations of overspending and mismanagement, and claims that staff's e-mails had been monitored, the Washington Post reported, citing law enforcement sources and staff members from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR).

Both Mr Bowen and a spokeswoman for SIGIR sought to play down reports.

"No current SIGIR official has been notified that he or she is the subject or target of any such investigation," Mr Bowen told the Post by e-mail.

Mr Bowen's agency has been at the forefront of efforts to highlight inefficiencies and fraud in the $22bn (£11bn) project to rebuild Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003.

The office has been widely praised for its work.

Among its key findings was a verdict, delivered in July, asserting that corruption and mismanagement in Iraq amounted to a "second insurgency".

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/7144081.stm

Published: 2007/12/14 12:17:01 GMT

source :
FRAUD INVESTIGATION

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It just goes to show when incompetence is run amuck within the US administration, it follows them everywhere.

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To conclude a thought, Cyclo, on the last paragraph of your post above. I will roll over and concede that I am pissing in the wind on this (to mix metaphors).
I was taught in grad school to summarize the argument in the first paragraph and then present evidence supported by sources.
I am fighting a losing battle on that, so I pledge to not raise the issue again.

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realjohnboy wrote:

To conclude a thought, Cyclo, on the last paragraph of your post above. I will roll over and concede that I am pissing in the wind on this (to mix metaphors).
I was taught in grad school to summarize the argument in the first paragraph and then present evidence supported by sources.
I am fighting a losing battle on that, so I pledge to not raise the issue again.

That's a good point, and true. I used to harp on BBB for doing the same thing, so I should take some of my own advice. I'm afraid that I've gotten a little lazy on that.

Cycloptichorn

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Fatalities in Iraq remain on a downward trend. I hope it continues.

http://icasualties.org/oif/US_chart.aspx

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Turkish planes hit rebel targets in Iraq

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkish warplanes hit Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq early Sunday, Turkey's military said, the first such attack since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. An Iraqi official said the planes attacked several villages, killing one woman.

Round-up of Daily Violence in Iraq-Sunday 16 December 2007

We should all want it to continue; after all, Bush's Iraq is a model of prosperity and democracy coming to the middle east the whole world is proud of.

(I know the arguement; save time by saving it; no offense just tired of the merry-go-round.)

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http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/
A Month by Month, Daily Average of IBC's Count of Violent Deaths in Iraq, After April 30, 2007:

May = 3,755 / 31 = .... 121 per day[/size]
.. 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 = 1,962 / 31 = ....... 63 per day.
November = 1,587 / 21 = 76 per day.*{1,587 = 85,675 - 84,088}
December = ----? / ? = .... ? per day.**
January= ----? / 31 = ----? per day.**

*Data currently available for only first 21 days of this month.
**Data not yet available.
_____________________________________________________________________________

As of October 31, 2007, Total Iraq Violent Deaths since January 1, 2003 = 84,088
_____________________________________________________________________________

Daily Average Violent Deaths in Iraq--PRE and POST January 1, 2003:[/u]

PRE = 1/1/1979 - 12/31/2002 = 1,229,210/ 8,766 days = 140 per day;

POST = 1/1/2003 - 11/21/2007 = 85,675/1,785 days = .. 48 per day;

PRE / POST = 140/48 = 2.92.
_____________________________________________________________________________

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.

============================================================

http://www.icasualties.org
MILITARY FATALITIES IN IRAQ BY MONTH:

As of December 6, 2007 = 1723 days in Iraq.

Month .... Totals . US .. UK . OCC . DA
12-2007 ..... 13 . 12. 1 .. 0 0.81{0.81=13/16}
11-2007 ...... 40 .. 37.. 2 .. 1 . 1
10-2007 ...... 40 .. 38 ... 1 .. 1 . 1
9-2007 ........ 69 .. 65 . 2 .. 2 . 2
8-2007 ........ 88 .. 84 . 4 .. 0 . 3
7-2007 ........ 87 .. 78 . 8 .. 1 . 3
6-2007 .... 108 . 101 . 7 .. 0 . 4
5-2007 ....... 131 126 ... 3 .. 2 . 4
4-2007 ....... 117 .. 104 12 .. 1 . 4
3-2007 ........ 82 .. 81 . 1 0 . 3
2-2007 ........ 84 .. 81 . 3 1 . 3
1-2007 ........ 86 .. 83 . 3 0 . 3

...

3-2003 .... 92 ....... 65 .... 27 .... 0 . 3
Total .... 4200 . 3893 . 174 ..... 133 2.42{2.42=4200/1733}

US=United States
UK=United Kingdom
OCC=Other Coalition Countries
DA=Daily Average (for the month)

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cicerone imposter wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:
From the Economist:

Alas, there has so far been no sign that the government of Nuri al-Maliki is poised to grab this opportunity. Indeed, as an adviser to General Petraeus glumly describes it, "The politics is going nowhere."

ican, General Petraeus said "it's going nowhere." You got better info?

No! General Petraeus did not say, "it's going nowhere." An unnamed advisor to General Petraeus said, "the politics is going nowhere."

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

I've stopped bothering. You don't seem to be very interested in logic or rationality.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

When AQ starts taking over non-muslim nations, or takes over muslim nations and uses them to attack us, give me a call and share your alarmism. Not before.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I don't plan on curtailing sh*t. That's not what America is about, jack. If it hurts the cause of a war that I don't support in the slightest - good.

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ican711nm wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I've stopped bothering. You don't seem to be very interested in logic or rationality.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:
When AQ starts taking over non-muslim nations, or takes over muslim nations and uses them to attack us, give me a call and share your alarmism. Not before.

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I don't plan on curtailing sh*t. That's not what America is about, jack. If it hurts the cause of a war that I don't support in the slightest - good.

Yes, those are three of my statements. Grouping them together neither adds nor subtracts validity from any of them.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

ican711nm wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
I've stopped bothering. You don't seem to be very interested in logic or rationality.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:
When AQ starts taking over non-muslim nations, or takes over muslim nations and uses them to attack us, give me a call and share your alarmism. Not before.

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I don't plan on curtailing sh*t. That's not what America is about, jack. If it hurts the cause of a war that I don't support in the slightest - good.

Yes, those are three of my statements. Grouping them together neither adds nor subtracts validity from any of them.

Cycloptichorn

Yes, those are three of your statements. True, "grouping them together neither adds or subtracts validity from any of them."

Also true, none of those statements are valid.

The first falsely states my interest. The second, truly states when you are willing to be alarmed (e.g., warned), but falsely implies when any rational person would be willing to be alarmed. The third, states your rotten position for you a citizen of America's democratic republic when you do not personally support a war America's troops are fighting: if it hurts the cause of a war America is fighting that you do not support - good. That is, you think it is good that America's troops lose that war.

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Not good, but inevitable. I seek to cut our losses, you seek to go all in.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Not good, but inevitable. I seek to cut our losses, you seek to go all in.

Cycloptichorn

You seek to cut our short term loses. I seek to cut our long term losses.

Trouble is none of what you advocate to cut our loses will accomplish cutting either the short term ones or the long term ones. Your position seems to me to be, if it ain't happening now, it won't ever happen, and doing nothing now to make it happen, will cost us less than the cost of doing something now to make it happen.

Too many Americans were raised to believe that what they want now must be given to them now no matter the cost later. How ever one arrived at it, that's a fools belief.

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ican's position: If it ain't happening now, we can continue until all hell freezes over or our country goes bankrupt. Don't matter none we are sacrificing men and women for a cause that's all but created a war longer than WWII with no end in sight.

ican, If you are so supportive of this war, why not volunteer yourself and your family menbers for this "iimportant" cause?

Most Americans now realize our involvement was wrong, and want our soldiers home within the year.

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Has anyone read reports of a superbug threat, brought back from Uraq and Afghanistan by wounded military personnel?

(quote)
The UK, the United States and Canada are facing growing fears over a drug-resistant 'superbug' being brought back by wounded soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq that threatens to contaminate civilian hospitals.

.Although the Ministry of Defence tried to play down fears of the infection when the first suspected British cases were reported last year in the Lancet, its increasingly rampant progress through America's military hospital system has been causing intense alarm elsewhere.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2228205,00.html

(end quote)

Beyond irony.

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Never mind that Bush cut veteran's benefits, and many are now walking our streets with mental illness.

As Bush says, we must "support our troops."

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Quote:

Quote:
a civilian candy truck tried to merge with a column of our armored vehicles, only to get run over and squashed. The occupants were smashed beyond recognition. Our first sight of death was a man and his wife both ripped open and dismembered, their intestines strewn across shattered boxes of candy bars. The entire platoon hadn't eaten for twenty-four hours. We stopped, and as we stood guard around the wreckage, we grew increasingly hungry. Finally, I stole a few nibbles from one of the cleaner candy bars. Others wiped away the gore and fuel from the wrappers and joined me.

This incident is notable mainly for the fact that the platoon stopped; from the many accounts I have read of the Iraq war, when a US convoy runs over a car, it usually just keeps going.

Entering the city with the Marines, Wright gets to see just how devastating the impact has been. Smoke curls from collapsed structures, and houses facing the road are pockmarked and cratered. The corpses of Iraqi attackers are scattered on the road leading out of the city. Run over repeatedly by tracked vehicles, "they are flattened, with their entrails squished out," Wright notes, adding:

Quote:
We pass a bus, smashed and burned, with charred human remains sitting upright in some windows. There's a man in the road with no head and a dead little girl, too, about three or four, lying on her back. She's wearing a dress and has no legs.

The morale of Fick's men continues to erode as they press northward. A new source of tension is added by the need to set up roadblocks to counter the unanticipated threat of suicide attacks. Because these sites tend to be poorly marked, many Iraqi drivers fail to stop at them. When US soldiers fire warning shots, the Iraqis often speed up. As a result, many are killed. After one car has been shot at, a Marine named Graves goes to help a little girl cowering in the back seat, her eyes wide open. As he goes to pick her up, "thinking about what medical supplies he might need to treat her...the top of her head slides off and her brains fall out," Wright writes. As Graves steps back in horror, his boot slips in the girl's brains. "This is the event that is going to get to me when I go home," he says.

With the battlefield growing ever more dangerous, the Marines' initial inhibitions about firing fades, and even relatively minor threats are met with fierce bursts of gunfire. Civilians bear the brunt, to the consternation of many of the Marines. "I think it's bullshit how these ******* civilians are dying!" rages Jeffrey Carazales, a lance corporal from Texas, after he shoots at a building that clearly has civilians in it:

Quote:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20906

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According a general assigned in Iraq, he claims violence is down to 2004 levels, and more Iraqis are taking over security for their country.

That's all fine and good, but their government is nowhere near consensus on the important issues for their own country.

Is 50 percent progress good enough? That's not what general Petreaus told congress before he took over command in Iraq. Maybe he was wrong too!

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cicerone imposter wrote:

ican's position: If it ain't happening now, we can continue until all hell freezes over or our country goes bankrupt. Don't matter none we are sacrificing men and women for a cause that's all but created a war longer than WWII with no end in sight.

ican, If you are so supportive of this war, why not volunteer yourself and your family menbers for this "iimportant" cause?

Most Americans now realize our involvement was wrong, and want our soldiers home within the year.

(1) You do not know what most Americans want!
(2) A majority in Congress acts like they think their re-election is in great doubt if they vote for the US to pulll out of either Iraq or Afghanistan before we win and succeed.
(3) It is much better for our troops effectiveness that we and the rest of you who think the same as you do, all actively and openly support our troops' efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq with our resources here at home, than if an old buzzard like me and my family go fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. My grandkids are too young, my kids are too old, and my wife and I way too old to do it effectively.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

...
Is 50 percent progress good enough? That's not what general Petreaus told congress before he took over command in Iraq. Maybe he was wrong too!

Of course it's not good enough. What we need are people in both our government and theirs who can do a better job. Whinning or strident pessimism will accomplish nothing worth accomplishing.

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

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