This article is from the Washington Post, not Soros.
Shiite Clerics' Rivalry Deepens In Fragile Iraq
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 21, 2006; A01
BAGHDAD -- In the quest to create a new Iraq, two powerful clerics compete for domination, one from within the government, the other from its shadows.
Both wear the black turban signifying their descent from the prophet Muhammad. They have fought each other since the days their fathers vied to lead Iraq's majority Shiites. They hold no official positions, but their parties each control 30 seats in the parliament. And they both lead militias that are widely alleged to run death squads.
But in the view of the Bush administration, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim is a moderate and Moqtada al-Sadr is an extremist. As the U.S. president faces mounting pressure to reshape his Iraq policy, administration officials say they are pursuing a Hakim-led moderate coalition of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurdish parties in order to isolate extremists, in particular Sadr.
Hakim, who once verbally attacked U.S. policy, now senses a political opportunity and is softening his stance toward the Americans. Sadr's position is hardening. Young and aggressive, he has suspended his participation in Iraq's government and is intensifying his demands for U.S. troops to leave the country.
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cicerone imposter
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Sun 11 Mar, 2007 07:39 pm
The following article was not composed by Soros.
In Corruption, New Government of Iraq Faces a Tough Old Foe
By Solomon Moore Los Angeles Times
May 23, 2006
Each day hundreds of visitors fly into Baghdad aboard state-owned Iraqi Airways planes that Transportation Ministry officials say were purchased for $3 million apiece. Anti-corruption officials contend that they should not have cost more than $600,000 each and wonder where the rest of the money went. Inside the airport terminal, customs officials routinely hassle disembarking passengers for a "customs fee." The price is often negotiable. Outside, a passenger can find a ride with one of the waiting taxis, many of them fueled with smuggled gasoline. Beyond the airport, city streets teem with cars. A good portion of them ?- 17,000, according to anti-corruption officials ?- were stolen from the government after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Corruption is among the most critical problems facing Iraq's newly formed government, U.S. and Iraqi officials say. Moments after announcing most of his new Cabinet on Saturday, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki declared that fighting corruption would be one of his main priorities. U.S. and Iraqi officials say endemic graft and conflicts of interest await Maliki everywhere he turns. Iraqi government documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times reveal the breadth of corruption, including epic schemes involving hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts, as well as smaller-scale cases such as the purchase of better grades by university students and the distribution of U.S.-issue pistols as party favors by a former Justice Ministry official. "We are seeing corruption everywhere in Iraq ?- in every ministry, in every governorate," said Judge Radhi Radhi, head of the Commission on Public Integrity, Iraq's anti-corruption agency. An elderly judge who was disbarred, jailed and tortured under Saddam Hussein's government, Radhi bears scars on his face from acid burns during his brutal imprisonment. His eyes, damaged by lack of light during his captivity, squint from behind Coke-bottle glasses. "We are revealing the country's secrets," he said, perusing the thick binders of case files that line the walls of two commission offices. Defense Ministry officials spent $1 billion on questionable arms purchases, Radhi said. The Interior Ministry has at least 1,100 ghost employees, costing it $1.3 million a month, he added.
Corruption in Iraq is not new. Yet many experts believe that the situation has worsened dramatically since the war began. "Corruption thrives in a context of confusion and change," Transparency International, a nongovernmental anti-corruption monitoring group, said in a report last year. "In Iraq, public institutions are even struggling to find out how many employees they have on their payrolls," the report says. "Obvious institutional safeguards are yet to be put in place, and ministries and state companies lack proper inventory systems."
Corruption helps fuel the insurgency too, Radhi said. "The terrorists help the criminals, and the criminals help the terrorists," he said. "Without corruption, we would have been able to defeat the terrorists by now." Since 2003, hundreds of police officers and soldiers have abandoned their posts, and many took their weapons with them, U.S. officials say. Many of those weapons, along with millions of dollars' worth of arms that are unaccounted for, have probably ended up in insurgent hands, U.S. military sources and Iraqi anti-corruption officials say. Parliament member Mishaan Jaburi was implicated this year in a case in which pipeline sentries allegedly conspired with insurgents to hijack oil convoys and spirit them out of Iraq. There is a pervasive and growing black market in unregistered and smuggled cars, which U.S. and Iraqi military officials believe plays a part in the steady stream of car-bomb attacks. In addition, corruption has siphoned away resources that could have been used for reconstruction and security. Altogether, unaccountable weapons and equipment may total more than $500 million, U.S. military officials acknowledged this year. Unlike the insurgency, which is being vigorously challenged by U.S.-led forces, there appear to be few checks on government corruption.
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ican711nm
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Sun 11 Mar, 2007 07:46 pm
cicerone imposter wrote:
This article is from the Washington Post, not Soros.
Shiite Clerics' Rivalry Deepens In Fragile Iraq
...
Right! It's an article published by a news paper directed by the Soros gang.
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ican711nm
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Sun 11 Mar, 2007 07:49 pm
cicerone imposter wrote:
The following article was not composed by Soros.
In Corruption, New Government of Iraq Faces a Tough Old Foe
By Solomon Moore Los Angeles Times
...
Right! It's an article published by a newspaper directed by the Soros gang.
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ican711nm
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Sun 11 Mar, 2007 07:54 pm
al-Qaeda pimps are unusual in that they solicit clients for their people to screw, instead of soliciting clients to screw their people.
WASHINGTON ?- American military planners have begun plotting a fallback strategy for Iraq that includes a gradual withdrawal of forces and a renewed emphasis on training Iraqi fighters in case the current troop buildup fails or is derailed by Congress.
Such a strategy, based in part on the U.S. experience in El Salvador in the 1980s, is still in the early planning stages and would be adjusted to fit the outcome of the current surge in troop levels, according to military officials and Pentagon consultants who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing future plans.
But a drawdown of forces would be in line with comments to Congress by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last month that if the "surge" fails, the backup plan would include moving troops "out of harm's way." Such a plan also would be close to recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, of which Gates was a member before his appointment as Defense Department chief.
A strategy following the El Salvador model would be a dramatic break from President Bush's current policy of committing large numbers of U.S. troops to aggressive counterinsurgency tactics, but it has influential backers within the Pentagon.
"This part of the world has an allergy against foreign presence," said a senior Pentagon official, adding that chances of success with a large U.S. force may be diminishing. "You have a window of opportunity that is relatively short. Your ability to influence this with a large U.S. force eventually gets to the point that it is self-defeating."
The new round of planning is taking place in an atmosphere of extraordinary tension within the Pentagon, which is grappling with a war about to enter its fifth year and going poorly on the ground while straining U.S. forces worldwide.
Mar. 11, 2007 | "This is not right," said Master Sgt. Ronald Jenkins, who has been ordered to Iraq even though he has a spine problem that doctors say would be damaged further by heavy Army protective gear. "This whole thing is about taking care of soldiers," he said angrily. "If you are fit to fight you are fit to fight. If you are not fit to fight, then you are not fit to fight."
As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.
The 890th engineering battalion, headquartered in Gulfport, was in Fallujah in 2003 when the Iraqi town was at its bloodiest. As units began rotating back home a year later, they were required to leave their equipment in Iraq.
When Katrina slammed into the Coast in 2005, almost 4,000 of the state's guardsmen were still in Iraq, along with most of the Guard's equipment. The Mississippi Guard borrowed tools and manpower from units in other states to respond to the disaster.
"The 890th really rode to our rescue after the storm," said U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor. "They went to Iraq with the first part of the invasion and they were ordered to leave every bit of equipment, which was not necessarily a bad decision, but what was bad was not replenishing it when they returned."
Even with the equipment shortage, Powell said the Mississippi Guard is able to handle the hurricane crisis at home. Meantime, on Capitol Hill, Taylor is pushing the National Guard Empowerment Act, which seeks to remedy systemic problems and give the Guard a seat at the table of the Joint Chiefs.
Some political leaders ?- Democrats and a growing number of Republicans ?- have criticized the Pentagon for its relentless test of a theory that the war can be fought on the cheap. Taylor said military brass were likely urged to limit any talk of the sparse resources. Ironically, they were unable to speak freely about equipment needs among soldiers who defend American freedoms, which includes free speech.
With the potential of some of the 890th being deployed again soon as part of Bush's plan to increase by 21,500 the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, there's a growing concern for the condition of the equipment left there in 2003, most of which will have to be reused.
"A lot of that equipment has been used up to the point that it needs to be replaced, and that's the harsh reality," Taylor said. "I'm convinced the commanders at the very top were pressured into minimizing any talk of the cost of replacement to disguise the true cost of the war."
If Guard units are "not ready" from an equipment and manpower standpoint, then what about morale?
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blueflame1
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 08:49 am
"The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq". Damn Bushie and his unjust, unneeded war.
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cicerone imposter
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 09:49 am
For those who still hasn't figured out how Bush really feels about our troops have kept their blinders on. He's also cutting veteran's benefits beginning in 2009 when it is anticipated a higher number of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan will need medical care.
Bush's "support our troops" rhetoric is simply spoken by a psychopath.
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cicerone imposter
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 09:53 am
Cheney's forked tongue:
Cheney: Congress undermining U.S. troops
By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
40 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney challenged lawmakers Monday to prove their support for U.S. troops and the war on terrorism by approving the Bush administration's requests for financing military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that's been called 'slow bleeding,' they are not supporting the troops, they are undermining them," Cheney said in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Bush and Cheney has no problem sending them to war, but refuses to take care of them when they return with physical and mental injuries.
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cicerone imposter
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 10:00 am
From the NY Times:
March 12, 2007 For War's Gravely Injured, Challenge to Find Care
By DEBORAH SONTAG and LIZETTE ALVAREZ
When Staff Sgt. Jarod Behee was asked to select a paint color for the customized wheelchair that was going to be his future, his young wife seethed. The government, Marissa Behee believed, was giving up on her husband just five months after he took a sniper's bullet to the head during his second tour of duty in Iraq.
Ms. Behee, a sunny Californian who was just completing a degree in interior design, possessed a keen faith in her husband's potential to be rehabilitated from a severe brain injury. She refused to accept what she perceived to be the more limited expectations of the Veterans Affairs hospital in Palo Alto, Calif.
"The hospital continually told me that Jarod was not making adequate progress and that the next step was a nursing home," Ms. Behee said. "I just felt that it was unfair for them to throw in the towel on him. I said, ?'We're out of here.' "
Because Ms. Behee had successfully resisted the Army's efforts to retire her husband into the V.A. health care system, his military insurance policy, it turned out, covered private care. So she moved him to a community rehabilitation center, Casa Colina, near her parents' home in Southern California in late 2005.
Three months later, Sergeant Behee was walking unassisted and abandoned his government-provided wheelchair. Now 28, he works as a volunteer in the center's outpatient gym, wiping down equipment and handing out towels. It is not the police job that he aspired to; his cognitive impairments are serious. But it is not a nursing home, either.
Like the spouses of many other soldiers with severe brain injury, Ms. Behee, also 28, transformed herself into a kind of warrior wife to get her husband the care she thought he deserved. By now, there is a veritable battery of brain-injured-soldiers' relatives who have quit their jobs and, for some extended time, moved away from their homes to advocate for and care for these very wounded soldiers during long hospitalizations.
In the eyes of five such relatives interviewed, the military health care system, which is so advanced in its treatment of lost limbs, has been scrambling to deal with an unanticipated volume of traumatic brain-injury cases that it was ill equipped to handle. Largely because of the improvised explosive devices used by insurgents in Iraq, traumatic brain injury has become a signature wound of this war, with 1,882 cases treated to date, according to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.
In general, these caregivers said that their grievously wounded soldiers had either been written off prematurely or not given aggressive rehabilitation or options for care. From the beginning, they said, the government should have joined forces with civilian rehabilitation centers instead of trying to ramp up its limited brain-injury treatment program alone during a time of war. That way, soldiers would have had access to top-quality care at civilian institutions that were already operating at full throttle and might be closer to home.
In fact, many soldiers do have that access. But unlike Ms. Behee, many caregivers only belatedly come to understand how to negotiate the daunting military health care system.
Generally, after severely brain-injured soldiers are medically evacuated to the United States, they are treated first at Walter Reed Army Hospital or Bethesda Naval Hospital. Relatively quickly, the military, depending on the branch, initiates a medical retirement process that turns the soldiers' health care over to the V.A. If soldiers succeed in deferring retirement, they remain covered by a military insurance policy that, if pressed, pays for private care.
Still, the military hospitals tend to discharge seriously brain-injured soldiers to V.A. hospitals, regardless of their active or retired status. It is how the system works, and challenging it requires constant haggling, which often leaves the families of the severely wounded soldiers feeling abused, resentful and anxious for those soldiers without an advocate.
"We have been let down by a system that is so bungling and bureaucratic that it doesn't know what it can and cannot do and just says ?'No' as a matter of course," said Debra Schulz of Friendswood, Tex., whose son, Lance Cpl. Steven Schulz of the Marines, 22, suffered a severe brain injury during his second tour in Iraq.
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cicerone imposter
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 10:11 am
Bush keeps asking more money for war, but seems to ignore the plights of our veterans and citizens. That many Americans still fails to see this injustice shows the ignorance that is still pervasive in our country.
March 12, 2007 Citizens Who Lack Papers Lose Medicaid
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON, March 11 ?- A new federal rule intended to keep illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid has instead shut out tens of thousands of United States citizens who have had difficulty complying with requirements to show birth certificates and other documents proving their citizenship, state officials say.
Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Ohio and Virginia have all reported declines in enrollment and traced them to the new federal requirement, which comes just as state officials around the country are striving to expand coverage through Medicaid and other means.
Under a 2006 federal law, the Deficit Reduction Act, most people who say they are United States citizens and want Medicaid must provide "satisfactory documentary evidence of citizenship," which could include a passport or the combination of a birth certificate and a driver's license.
Some state officials say the Bush administration went beyond the law in some ways, for example, by requiring people to submit original documents or copies certified by the issuing agency.
"The largest adverse effect of this policy has been on people who are American citizens," said Kevin W. Concannon, director of the Department of Human Services in Iowa, where the number of Medicaid recipients dropped by 5,700 in the second half of 2006, to 92,880, after rising for five years. "We have not turned up many undocumented immigrants receiving Medicaid in Waterloo, Dubuque or anywhere else in Iowa," Mr. Concannon said.
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ican711nm
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 02:28 pm
WHEN TO STAY AND WHEN TO LEAVE IRAQ
We will probably lose in Iraq if we assume we will lose in Iraq.
We will probably win in Iraq if we assume we will win in Iraq.
I for one assume we will win in Iraq.
Who wants us to lose in Iraq?
George Soros in his 2003 edition of his book, page 15, The Alchemy of Finance
"My greatest fear is that the Bush Doctrine will succeed--that Bush will crush the terrorists, tame the rogue states of the axis of evil, and usher in a golden age of American supremacy. American supremacy is flawed and bound to fail in the long run."
George Soros In his 2004 book, page 159, The Bubble of American Supremacy
"The principles of the Declaration of Independence are not self-evident truths but arrangements necessitated by our inherently imperfect understanding."
When the Iraqis decide they can protect themselves without our help, and the Iraqi government asks us to leave, we must remove our military from Iraq as rapidly as we are able, but only after they ask us to leave.
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ican711nm
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 02:37 pm
cicerone imposter wrote:
Bush keeps asking more money for war, but seems to ignore the plights of our veterans and citizens. That many Americans still fails to see this injustice shows the ignorance that is still pervasive in our country.
March 12, 2007 Citizens Who Lack Papers Lose Medicaid
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON, March 11
...
The American people would have no problem seeing this injustice if they were to be convinced it were actually occuring. So many of the articles you post have been found to be malarkey that we don't believe them without a link to the article itself plus corroborating evidence that what the article says is true.
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cicerone imposter
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 02:46 pm
Cheney says "support our troops," but backstabs them when they come home with injuries. That's support? Bush and Cheney have no shame. What congress is attempting to do is to limit the war, and start bringing our soldiers home. Fighting in the middle of a civil war is a no-win situation.
Cheney challenges 'anti-war' lawmakers By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
15 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Anti-war lawmakers in Congress are "undermining" U.S. troops in Iraq by trying to limit President Bush's spending requests for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday.
Hitting out at lawmakers who profess to back the troops but oppose Bush's plans in Iraq, Cheney said proof of their commitment would come as they consider legislation to provide nearly $100 billion for the rest of this year's costs of the wars.
The House plans to begin considering a bill this week that would fully finance the administration's request. Senate action is expected to come later.
"When members of Congress pursue an anti-war strategy that's been called 'slow bleed,' they are not supporting the troops, they are undermining them," Cheney said in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
"Anyone can say they support the troops and we should take them at their word, but the proof will come when it's time to provide the money," he said.
No, the time already came and went when they failed to treat our veterans with the proper care they deserve.
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Cycloptichorn
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 02:52 pm
Quote:
We will probably win in Iraq if we assume we will win in Iraq.
Ah, the Green Lantern theory of diplomacy and warfare.
We can only fail, if we believe we can fail
Such hubris has been the end of more than one nation. I pray that we find humility before we suffer the same fate.
Cycloptichorn
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hamburger
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 03:44 pm
ican wrote :
Quote:
We will probably win in Iraq if we assume we will win in Iraq.
that sounds to me like it's coming from some guru who is making the rounds of TV shows lately peddling his book .
this fellow claims , that if wish for something strongly enough and have positive thoughts , success will come to us .
i think the book is for sale at $39.95 .
hbg
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cicerone imposter
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 03:48 pm
And most of us already understand that the $39.95 is way too much for a useless book.
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cicerone imposter
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Mon 12 Mar, 2007 04:02 pm
From AP:
Congressional committees and a slew of investigative boards are scrutinizing the treatment of wounded troops and veterans by the military's entire medical system, as well as by the Department of Veterans Affairs, headed by Jim Nicholson. The probes come with the administration already struggling to defend its widely unpopular war policies in Iraq, and the Democratic-led Congress citing poor care for troops as the latest instance of incompetent administration planning for the conflict.
