Nbadan
07-20-2006, 11:17 PM
Insurgents are poised for an all-out assault on the nation's capital...
BAGHDAD - Bombings and shootings soared by 40 percent in the Baghdad area in the past week, the U.S. command said Thursday. An American general said extremists were preparing "an all-out assault" on the capital in a decisive battle for the future of Iraq.
Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric issued his strongest call yet for an end to Shiite-Sunni bloodletting, urging all Iraqis to wake up to the "danger threatening the future of the country" and stand "side-by-side against it."
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief military spokesman, said there had been an average of 34 attacks a day involving U.S. and Iraqi forces in and around the capital since Friday -- up sharply from the daily average of 24 registered between June 14 and July 13.
"The only way we're going to be successful in Baghdad is to get the weapons off the streets," Caldwell said. He said insurgents were streaming into the capital for "an all-out assault against the Baghdad area."
"Clearly the death squad elements, the terrorist elements, know that Baghdad is a must-win for them," he said. "Whoever wins the Baghdad area, whoever is able to bring peace and security to that area, is going to set the conditions to stabilize this country."
Star Tribune (http://www.startribune.com/722/story/565464.html)
This is exactly what I meant in another thread, even if the NeoCons wanted to get out of Baghdad, which they don't, there is no way they could. Baghdad and the Allawi government would fall into immediate chaos, but yet the longer Americans stay in Baghdad, the more targets they will be as the security situaton detriorates on the ground and the insurgents who once targeted each other, turn more on their occupiers. It's a lose-lose proposition which every way the NeoCons go.
Unless the Americans are prepared to put more than 300,000 boots on the ground in Iraq its best to get out now and let the Iraqi form their own government. That is what this invasion was about anyway, no?
BAGHDAD - Bombings and shootings soared by 40 percent in the Baghdad area in the past week, the U.S. command said Thursday. An American general said extremists were preparing "an all-out assault" on the capital in a decisive battle for the future of Iraq.
Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric issued his strongest call yet for an end to Shiite-Sunni bloodletting, urging all Iraqis to wake up to the "danger threatening the future of the country" and stand "side-by-side against it."
Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief military spokesman, said there had been an average of 34 attacks a day involving U.S. and Iraqi forces in and around the capital since Friday -- up sharply from the daily average of 24 registered between June 14 and July 13.
"The only way we're going to be successful in Baghdad is to get the weapons off the streets," Caldwell said. He said insurgents were streaming into the capital for "an all-out assault against the Baghdad area."
"Clearly the death squad elements, the terrorist elements, know that Baghdad is a must-win for them," he said. "Whoever wins the Baghdad area, whoever is able to bring peace and security to that area, is going to set the conditions to stabilize this country."
Star Tribune (http://www.startribune.com/722/story/565464.html)
This is exactly what I meant in another thread, even if the NeoCons wanted to get out of Baghdad, which they don't, there is no way they could. Baghdad and the Allawi government would fall into immediate chaos, but yet the longer Americans stay in Baghdad, the more targets they will be as the security situaton detriorates on the ground and the insurgents who once targeted each other, turn more on their occupiers. It's a lose-lose proposition which every way the NeoCons go.
Unless the Americans are prepared to put more than 300,000 boots on the ground in Iraq its best to get out now and let the Iraqi form their own government. That is what this invasion was about anyway, no?