THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

Short-lived exercise in construction.

BAGHDAD: A string of bomb attacks in Iraq on Monday killed more than 20 people and wounded dozens of others, as US and Iraqi officials defended the building of a wall around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad.

A car bomb near an office of a Kurdish political party in a mainly Christian village in northern Iraq killed at least 10 people and wounded 20, party spokesman Abdul Gani Ali said. The apparent target was the office of Kurdish leader Massud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party in the village of Tal Isquf, north of Mosul.

Witnesses said a car loaded with explosives was parked between the party.

BAGHDAD (AP) - A suicide car bomb struck a patrol base northeast of Baghdad on Monday, killing nine U.S. soldiers and wounding 20 in the single deadliest attack on American ground forces in more than a year, the military said.

An Iraqi civilian also was wounded in the attack on Task Force Lightning soldiers in Diyala province, a volatile area that has been the site of fierce fighting involving U.S. and Iraqi troops, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias.

At least 48 Iraqis were killed in seven other bombings, violence that has persisted despite a nearly 10-week-old U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown aimed at pacifying Baghdad.

Of the 20 wounded in the attack on the patrol base, 15 soldiers were treated and returned to duty while five others and the Iraqi were evacuated to a medical facility for further care, the military said.

Identities were not released pending notification of relatives.

It was the second bold attack against a U.S. base north of Baghdad in just over two months and was notable for its use of a suicide car bomber.

On Feb. 19, insurgents struck a U.S. combat post in Tarmiyah, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and wounding 17 in what the military called a ``coordinated attack.'' It began with a suicide car bombing followed by gunfire on soldiers pinned down in a former Iraqi police station where fuel storage tanks were set ablaze by the blast.

Militants have mostly used hit-and-run ambushes, roadside bombs or mortars on U.S. troops and stayed away from direct assaults on fortified military compounds to avoid U.S. firepower.

American troops are facing increasing danger as they step up their presence in the Baghdad area as part of the security crackdown to which President Bush has committed an extra 30,000 troops.

Sunni militants are believed to have withdrawn to surrounding areas such as Diyala province where they have safe haven. The U.S. command also deployed an extra 700 soldiers to the area last month.

The deaths raised to 85 the number of U.S. service members who died have in Iraq in April, making it the deadliest month for American troops since December, when 112 died.

It was the single deadliest attack on ground forces since Dec. 1, 2005, when a roadside bomb killed 10 Marines and wounded 11 on a foot patrol near Fallujah.

Twelve soldiers died when a Black Hawk helicopter crashed in Diyala on Jan. 20. The military said it might have been shot down but the investigation is still ongoing.

A U.S. soldier also was killed Monday in a roadside bombing in Muqdadiyah, about 60 miles north of Baghdad, the military said in an earlier statement. A British soldier was shot to death while on patrol in the southern city of Basra, officials said.

At least 70 Iraqis were killed or found dead Monday, including the 48 who died in seven bombings. A suicide car bombing struck a police station in the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba, killing 10 people and wounding 23.

With the U.S. casualty toll mounting, Democratic leaders in Washington agreed Monday on legislation that requires the first American combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later. Bush has promised to veto any such measure as the legislative confrontation intensifies.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, signaled that they might reconsider putting a three-mile concrete barrier around a Sunni Arab neighborhood in Baghdad after Iraq's struggling prime minister came under pressure from Sunnis and ordered the project halted.

Plans for the separation barrier to protect the Azamiyah neighborhood were in doubt after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki criticized the idea of creating ``gated communities'' to separate Baghdad's sectarian neighborhoods.

Speaking during a tour of Sunni-led Arab countries, the Shiite Muslim prime minister said he did not want the 12-foot-high wall to be seen as dividing the capital's sects.

Iraq's Sunni Arab minority dominated during Saddam Hussein's reign, and its members remain deeply distrustful of Shiite intentions and provide the backbone of the Iraqi insurgency.

Shiite militias, in turn, have been attacking Sunni neighborhoods in retaliation for insurgent attacks on their own communities.

Azamiyah's Sunni residents have been the target of frequent mortar attacks by Shiite militants, but hundreds of people in the district took to the streets to protest against the wall, saying it would make their neighborhood ``a big prison.''

The new American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, defended the barrier plan Monday, saying it was an effort to protect the Sunni community from surrounding Shiite areas, not to segregate it.

Holding his first news conference since taking his post, Crocker said security measures were implemented in coordination with the Iraqi government.

``Obviously, we will respect the wishes of the government and the prime minister,'' he said, although he did not say construction would halt.

Al-Maliki said he would not allow ``a separation wall,'' but then he said that the subject would be discussed and that he would not rule out all barriers, such as barbed wire.

Iraq's chief military spokesman indicated that some type of barrier would go up, saying al-Maliki was responding to exaggerated reports about the wall.

``We will continue to construct the security barriers in the Azamiyah neighborhood. This is a technical issue,'' Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said at a joint news conference with a U.S. military spokesman, Rear Adm. Mark Fox. ``Setting up barriers is one thing and building barriers is another. These are moveable barriers that can be removed.''

Al-Moussawi noted that similar walls made of sections of concrete are in place elsewhere in Baghdad, including in other residential neighborhoods.

The confusion over the barrier reflected a lack of coordination between al-Maliki's government and the U.S. military even as they have touted their partnership the nearly 10-week-old security operation in Baghdad.

Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a U.S. military spokesman, said there may have been miscommunication.

``Discussions on a local level may not have been conveyed to the highest levels of the Iraqi government,'' Garver said. ``Whether the prime minister saw this plan or not, I don't know. With him in Cairo, it complicates things.''

Al-Maliki's comments came as he faces heavy pressure to bring Sunnis into the political process and dampen support for the insurgency amid unrelenting violence despite the crackdown in the capital.

He had assured Washington that he would not allow political considerations to influence tactical decisions, but his criticism of the wall followed a wave of outrage from Azamiyah's residents and Sunni leaders after the U.S. military announced its plan last week.

Protesters in Azamiyah carried banners Monday with slogans such as ``No to the sectarian wall'' and ``Azamiyah children want to see Baghdad without walls'' as they marched from a mosque to a former police station that now houses an outpost of U.S. soldiers.

``The real reason behind this wall is to increase peoples' sufferings and complicate their daily lives,'' said one protester, engineer Khalil al-Obaidi.

Sheikh Sameer al-Sumaidaie, a preacher at the mosque where the protest started, said: ``We had a united country before the war, but now it is being divided into fragments.''

Al-Maliki has thwarted U.S. plans in the past. In October, U.S. troops pulled down roadblocks around Baghdad's Shiite slum of Sadr City on his order. At the time, the prime minister was said to have feared violence from the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia that is headquartered in Sadr City and loyal to the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Al-Maliki is under intense pressure from the Bush administration to show progress with security and national reconciliation efforts as the war grows increasingly unpopular in the United States.

IBC's Count of Civilians Killed in Iraq since 1/1/2003
iraq body count as of 3/31/2007

MONTHLY UPDATE OF IRAQ'S VIOLENT NON-COMBATANT DEATHS

............................... Monthly ........... Accumulated Total since
............................... Totals .............. January 1st 2003 ...........
December 2005 ............ ------ ..................... 36,859
January 2006 ............... 1,267 .................... 38,126
February 2006 .............. 1,287 .................... 39,413
March 2006 .................. 1,538 .................... 40,951
April 2006 .................... 1,287.................... 42,238
May 2006 ..................... 1,417 .................... 43,655
June 2006 ..................... 2,089 .................... 45,744
July 2006 ...................... 2,336 .................... 48,080
August 2006 ................ 1,195 .................... 49,275
September 2006 .......... 1,407..................... 50,682
October 2006 .............. 2,546 ..................... 53,228
November 2006 .......... 3,894 ..................... 57,122
December 2006 .......... 3,219 ..................... 60,341
January 2007 .............. 2,557 ..................... 62,898
February 2007 ............. 2,514 ..................... 65,412
March 2007 ................. 2,720 ...................... 68,132

The Iraqi government withheld recent casualty figures from the United Nations, fearing they would be used to present a grim picture of Iraq that would undermine the coalition's security efforts, U.N. officials said Wednesday.

April 25 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Iraq at 0600 GMT on Wednesday:

BASRA - A British soldier died after his patrol came under small arms fire in the al-Ashaar area of Basra on Monday, the British military said on Wednesday.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb near a petrol station killed two people and wounded eight others in Shaab district in northern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - One person was killed and five others were wounded when several mortar rounds landed in the Shi'ite neighbourhood of Abu Dshir in southern Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD - Five people were killed and 17 others wounded by mortar rounds which landed in the Zaafaraniya district of southern Baghdad on Tuesday, police said. Another police source put the death toll at four killed and 10 wounded.

HILLA - The body of a man was found shot near the Shi'ite city of Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm

"If you had to choose, which do you think is better for the U.S. -- to keep a significant number of troops in Iraq until the situation there gets better, even if that takes many years, or to set a timetable for removing troops from Iraq and to stick to that timetable regardless of what is going on in Iraq at the time?" ...

Wait Until Situation Gets Better

.....Stick to a Timetable

..........Unsure

....................... % % %
4/13-15/07 ..... 38 57 4
6/29-30/05 ..... 48 49 3
6/24-26/05 ..... 44 51 5

Since Harry Reid said that we lost the war in Iraq,exactly who won?

Also,since the President or a political party cant lose a war,only nations can,whats next?

Did AQ win the war?

If the US lost,what happens to the US now?

Since Harry Reid said that we lost the war in Iraq,exactly who won?

No one won. The situation has not stabilized because our presence prevent a solution. The only solution is a political solution. The Iraqis will have to work it out themselves without our interference.

Also,since the President or a political party cant lose a war,only nations can,whats next?
Did AQ win the war?

Because of Bush's invasion of Iraq AQ came out to the good. Bush had the chance to destroy AQ in Afghanistan but he felt Iraq was more important. So AQ regrouped and found a new and better training ground in Iraq, all courtesy of George Bush.

If the US lost,what happens to the US now?

mysteryman wrote:

Since Harry Reid said that we lost the war in Iraq,exactly who won?

How many of you right wingers are going to parade around the exact same talking points, on the same days? It's like a thought map, really.

The answer is, noone has won the war in Iraq.

Quote:

Also,since the President or a political party cant lose a war,only nations can,whats next?

Some people are responsible for losing this war, and the rest of us are merely dealing with the consequences. And those people are the President, the executive branch who worked for the prez, and the Republicans in congress who blocked any and all oversight. There is no possible way to blame anyone else.

Quote:

Did AQ win the war?

Um, no. Why would you think that they have, other than the fact that it is the talking point Du Jour amongst the Right Wing?

Quote:

If the US lost,what happens to the US now?

Nothing much, except that maybe we can start to work to fix the damage that we've caused.

Cycloptichorn

Since Harry Reid said that we lost the war in Iraq,exactly who won?

Dozens of right-wing pundits have been throwing around the exact same phrase:

Quote:

Since Harry Reid said that we lost the war in Iraq,exactly who won?

It's a Talking Point.

Noone has won in Iraq, but we certainly will not be the winners. The logical likely winners are Al Qaeda - the forces of Chaos. But nothing we will do will change that.

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Dozens of right-wing pundits have been throwing around the exact same phrase:

Quote:

Since Harry Reid said that we lost the war in Iraq,exactly who won?

It's a Talking Point.

Noone has won in Iraq, but we certainly will not be the winners. The logical likely winners are Al Qaeda - the forces of Chaos. But nothing we will do will change that.

Cycloptichorn

So,you have so little faith in the ability of the US military to fight that you also think we have lost?

How can that be?
If noone has won,then how can we have lost?

If there are no winners,then there cannot be any losers.