The Bush gang may have planned the invasion of Iraq from before they came to power, but they clearly did not anticipate the major fall in their army of occupation's morale and desire to get home, once the war was officially declared over.
The poor living conditions, oppressive heat and continuing threats are becoming intolerable to those who are regularly promised a return to their families and it never happens.
Not sure Bush will get many votes from these disenchanted?
C.I.
Iraq toll equals 1991 war's
An American soldier was killed in an Iraqi attack on a convoy today, the war's 148th U.S. combat death, the same number as the 1991 Gulf War. Meanwhile, in an unsuccessful attack on U.S. forces, Pentagon officials said a U.S. military C-130 transport plane was the target of surface-to-air missile fire when it was flying into Baghdad International Airport.
Source CNN
Harris Whitbeck: Iraqis cheer U.S. death
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Major combat in Iraq was declared over more than two months ago, but U.S. troops in the country are being killed on an almost daily basis.
CNN Correspondent Harris Whitbeck in Baghdad has details of the latest attacks and measures under way to improve security.
WHITBECK: We have a couple of incidents to report. The first one occurred earlier [Wednesday] morning. One soldier was killed and three were wounded when the convoy they were traveling in, on Highway 1, west of Baghdad, was hit by an explosive device.
The convoy had just passed wreckage of an abandoned vehicle when an explosion was heard. One truck in that convoy was destroyed, and the soldier who was killed was in that truck. Those who were wounded were evacuated to a military hospital.
When that explosion was heard, a group of Iraqi civilians, who were nearby, gathered at the site of the aftermath [and] were watching what was going on.
And when they apparently realized that this was an attack on a U.S. military force, they erupted in cheers. And that cheering went on for several minutes.
Meanwhile, later [Wednesday] in western Baghdad, one U.S. soldier was injured when a grenade was thrown at his truck, which was parked in front of a bank in the Mansour district of western Baghdad. Again, that was another apparent attack on U.S. forces here.
The U.S. military authorities here are very concerned about what might happen over the next few hours.
Thursday is the anniversary of the Baath Party's rise to power in Iraq. That is Saddam Hussein's former political party. And people feel that Saddam Hussein's loyalists might try to launch more attacks on U.S. forces here as a way of commemorating that event
Millitary stating Guerrilla War in Iraq;Bush won't admit it
High ranking military are starting to characterize the attacks in Iraq as a guerrilla war for the first time, something Bush/Rumsfeld have not willing to admit. Are they stupid or just in denial?
BumbleBeeBoogie
Bush may turn out to be the worst president in American history. If you want to know the extent of and the reasons for the world-wide harm he is doing to America, I urge everyone to read "Rogue Nation: American Unilatersalism and the Failure of Good intentions." The author is not some fringe lefty. He was a government cabinet appointee of Reagan with respected credibility in foreign affairs.
A must-read for all Americans.
-----BumbleBeeBoogie
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
by Clyde Prestowitz, the president of the Economic Strategy Institute in Washington, D.C. His previous book is Trading Places (Basic Books, 1989). He lives in Potomac, Maryland.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465062792/qid=1058200972/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-6856153-3345537?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
US Turns to Arabs countries to help Keep the Peace
US Turns to Arabs to Keep the Peace
by Emad Mekay - IPS 7/15/03
CAIRO, Jul 16 (IPS) - The United States is turning to Arab regimes for support against increasing armed resistance in Iraq, official sources here say.
A source close to the Egyptian foreign ministry confirmed to IPS reports that surfaced in the Arab press late last week that the United States has sought the help of Egyptian peacekeeping forces.
"The Americans raised the issue," said the official who wished to remain unidentified. "They were testing our pulse." He declined to reveal what the Egyptian response would be.
A U.S. congressional delegation arrived in Cairo from Baghdad earlier this week for talks with Egyptian officials on the situation in Iraq. Chairman of the House intelligence committee, Florida Republican Porter Goss led the team.
"The escalation in attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq was at the centre of Goss's talks with Egyptian officials," the official source said.
The U.S. Senate called last week for North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and United Nations (UN) troops to be sent to Iraq. Spain, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary, the Baltic states and possibly the Philippines, Thailand and Mongolia may send peacekeeping forces.
The Lebanese newspaper al-Kifah al-Arabi reported Saturday that the United States is seeking troops also from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a regional grouping that includes Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.
Earlier this week, the London-based pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat reported that the United States was seeking Egyptian help also to "win the support of other Arab states." Al-Hayat reported that the U.S. wanted Egyptian support particularly to persuade other countries to accept ambassadors appointed by the new governing council in Iraq.
L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. governor of Iraq needs an Iraqi governing body to share responsibility -- or blame -- in establishing post-war order, and he needs Arab backing of these polices for the same reasons, Egyptian analysts say.
A 25-member transitory council in Iraq appointed by the U.S. held its inaugural session Sunday. One of its first decisions was to celebrate April 9, the date the U.S. troops entered Baghdad, as a national holiday, and to cancel holidays of the Saddam Hussein era.
"The problem with the recently appointed council is that it is not elected," Hafiz Hussein, former head of the Nasser Academy for Strategic Studies in Cairo told IPS. "It is not representative either. And it is the first council to celebrate the date of the start of an occupation. This is not a good start."
The council comprises officials representing several religious and ethnic groups. It has been asked to map the path towards elections, not planned for at least a year.
Most Arab regimes have publicly said they cannot accept U.S. forces ruling Iraq because this would legitimize U.S. occupation.
"The bitter fact is that the council would still be a cover for decisions made by the Anglo-American occupation authority," commentator Saeed Ahmedi wrote on al-Jazeera.net. "Definitely, an Arab face for security and peace-keeping would take the sting from any Iraqi resistance operations."
Analyst Anas Fouda wrote on the popular bab.com website that Egypt helped persuade Palestinian groups to stop resistance activities against Israel, and that Egyptian support to the U.S. presence in Iraq could be calculated to have a similar effect.
"But this time if Arab countries send troops to protect the Americans, the public will not look at this as effort to establish peace but as an effort to legitimize American occupation," he said.
On Tuesday, a previously unknown Iraqi resistance group warned foreign countries, including Arab nations, not to give in to U.S. demands to send troops to Iraq.
"We will resist with weapons any military intervention under the umbrella of the United Nations, the Security Council, NATO, or Islamic and Arab countries," the group calling itself the Iraq Liberation Army said in a statement broadcast on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya television.
Isn't it intresting that both Bush senior and Bush junior both declared the war over before it was 'really' over. c.i.
Worried about pr, not reality, they were, CI.
Is there another Bush in the wings to run for pres? c.i.
I already see Gulf War III in the future. After all, Saddam is still 'running' his country. c.i.
First woman President might be a Bush (no pun intended).
John Bolton's job is to keep Colin Powell in line with Bush
John Bolton vs. the world
By Nicholas Thompson - Salon.com
His job is to keep a hawk eye on dovish Colin Powell. And he's helped turn Bush foreign policy into an ideological hammer.
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(This is only the lead-in to the full article---BBB)
July 16, 2003 | When Jesse Helms, R-N.C., urged his fellow senators in March 2001 to confirm a longtime friend as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, he gave an endorsement that was, quite literally, out of this world.
"John Bolton," Helms said, "is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon, or what the Bible describes as the final battle between good and evil."
Bolton, who passed on a 57-43 vote, plays a much more important role than the flow charts suggest. He's a hard-line conservative whose intellectual and moral views are simpatico with those of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and most of the higher-ups in the National Security Council and Defense Department. Well before the accuracy of the president's rationale for waging a war in Iraq was questioned, Bolton was installed to help forge the administration's aggressive new foreign policy. His philosophy? To exaggerate slightly, Bolton believes the relationship between America and the rest of the world should resemble that between a hammer and a nail.
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To equate "exaggerate slightly" to a "hammer and a nail" can only be done by this administration. They hammered our economy into no man's land." They hammered our international reputation into the ground. They hammered our budget deficit into the grave. And they hammered honesty and ethics into new lows. c.i.
Beetle Bailey in Baghdad
Iraq exile Ahmad Chalabi conned the civilian "true believers" in the Whitehouse and the Pentagon with his illogical fantasy of an idealized post war Iraq.
The con continues. Following is a sample of how the Iraqi National Congress' "Savior of Baghdad" is helping to rebuilt Iraq:
---BumbleBeeBoogie
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US News and World Report - 8/5/03
Beetle Bailey in Baghdad
Not every part of the Pentagon's war plan to topple Saddam Hussein's regime is winning rave reviews, and one target of ridicule these days is the Defense Department's efforts to mold Iraqi exiles into a viable fighting force. In an initiative that morphed into a cross between a Monty Python sketch and the Keystone Kops, the Pentagon worked with two exile groups with maddeningly similar names, the Free Iraqi Freedom Fighters (FIFF) and the Free Iraqi Forces (FIF). The FIF were Iraqis trained in Hungary by the United States before the war. The Pentagon boasted that it would recruit 3,000 to 5,000 exiles to work with the U.S. invasion force. Volunteers were scarce, and by the time Baghdad fell, a mere 50 had been trained.
The FIFF, organized by the Iraqi National Congress, comprised some 1,000 exiles flown into southern Iraq by Central Command at the height of the war. Unfortunately, they became part of the problem. "The thing was sort of a disaster," a senior military official tells Whispers. "We had to detain some of them because they were looting."
