Background to Petraeus' report.

[boutons_]

Some asshole moderator deleted my thread of similar title.

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

Iraq Far From U.S. Goals for Energy

$50 Billion Needed To Meet Demand
By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 2, 2007; A01


Iraq's (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/iraq.html?nav=el) crucial oil and electricity sectors still need roughly $50 billion to meet demand, analysts and officials say, even after the United States has poured more than $6 billion into them over more than four years.

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration has focused much of its $44.5 billion reconstruction plan on oil and electricity. Now, with the U.S.-led reconstruction phase nearing its close, Iraq will need to spend $27 billion more for its electrical system and $20 billion to $30 billion for oil infrastructure, according to estimates the Government Accountability Office (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Government+Accountability+Office?tid=informli ne) collected from Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Even with the funding, the GAO notes that it could take until 2015 for Iraq to produce 6 million barrels of oil a day and have enough electricity to meet demand. A commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/U.S.+Army+Corps+of+Engineers?tid=informline) says it could have enough electricity sooner -- 2010 to 2013.

"The U.S. money was intended to get those industries started on recovery," said Stuart W. Bowen Jr. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Stuart+W.+Bowen+Jr.?tid=informline), the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, who is charged with finding waste, fraud and abuse in the multibillion-dollar effort. "We were working with a dilapidated, run-down system. It still has a long, long way to go."

A former top-level Pentagon official who was involved in rebuilding the oil and electricity sectors put it more bluntly. "People said the money was to rebuild the country, but it was just a down payment," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he still works for the government. "The money was never enough to handle all that was there. It was merely a Band-Aid."

If the problems aren't fixed, it will be difficult to establish a strong economy and improve the standards of living, and could cause people to lose confidence in the government.

Oil and electricity are two of Iraq's most important industries, each depending heavily on the other. Iraq imports about $2.6 billion worth of petroleum products a year. Oil exports account for 90 percent of the Iraqi government's revenue, but oil production is crippled without enough electricity for refineries and pipelines. Electricity, in turn, cannot be generated without the fuel that powers most of Iraq's power plants.

U.S. officials say they found the country's infrastructure in worse shape than they expected, hit hard by the Persian Gulf (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Persian+Gulf?tid=informline) War of 1990-91 and a decade of economic sanctions. Oil wells hadn't been cleaned. Power plants had antiquated equipment and no parts available for repairs. One U.S. auditor said he spent a day with 22 Iraqi electrical engineers who proudly showed him how they jury-rigged a generator using the sawed-off bottom of a Pepsi (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Pepsi-Cola?tid=informline) can.

The Americans put $4.6 billion into more than 2,600 projects to repair electricity-generation facilities, transmission lines and distribution networks. They put $1.75 billion into improving the country's oil infrastructure.

Another huge problem: Armed groups regularly attack oil and electricity facilities.

Analysts say Iraq needs to invest money to improve its infrastructure for pumping and processing oil, upgrade and maintain equipment, and train workers at power plants and refineries. One U.S. adviser said, "They need more of everything."

"Our piece was to jump-start the infrastructure here," Brig. Gen. Michael J. Walsh, commanding general of the Army Corps of Engineers' Gulf Region Division, said in a telephone interview from Baghdad (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Baghdad?tid=informline). "Everything we've been doing in the last four years was just enough to start it. Now the Iraqi government needs to continue."

Distribution of Power
Iraq does not have enough electricity partly because Iraqis now consume more of it.

After the fall of Saddam Hussein (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Saddam+Hussein?tid=informline), electricity demand soared 70 percent, as more Iraqis bought computers, televisions, refrigerators and air conditioners. Officials say the country now needs about 10,000 megawatts per day but it is producing only 4,110 megawatts -- although some days in August it has reached nearly 5,000 megawatts.

Although Hussein supplied Baghdad with nearly 24 hours of electricity a day and starved the provinces, the U.S.-led reconstruction has aimed to spread power more evenly throughout the country. Baghdad has six to eight hours of electricity, while the rest of Iraq gets about 13 hours a day.

Electricity Ministry officials control the flow of electricity from huge power plants in the north and south, often using cellphones to call regional officials and order them to manually flip switches. Local officials often refuse to follow orders because their lives have been threatened by armed groups, Electricity Minister Karim Wahid said at a recent news briefing in Baghdad. At night, he said, when power stations in rural areas are empty, armed groups take over the switches.

Nor is everyone sharing power. "Some provinces only supply the power to their citizens and isolate Baghdad," he said. "This greatly affected the equal distribution of power throughout Iraq."

Another problem is that insurgents regularly blow up the towers that support transmission lines. On one major line between Kirkuk (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Kirkuk?tid=informline) and Diyala (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Diyala+Province?tid=informline), U.S. officials say, damaged towers have been down for more than a year.

Attacks have taken a huge toll on people as well as infrastructure. Wahid said he lost more than 1,000 Electricity Ministry employees this year, mostly engineers working on repair teams. Four hundred were kidnapped and killed; 300 were injured and 300 were kidnapped, he said.

The lack of security has pushed many U.S. contractors off the job. Bechtel (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Bechtel+Corporation?tid=informline), a California (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/California?tid=informline) contractor that was paid $1.5 billion to take on electricity projects, said it pulled its workers off jobs repairing electrical substations near Baghdad last year.

"The risk was just too high," said Bill Shoaf, program director of Bechtel's work in Iraq. "The insurgents and militia activity there just didn't allow us to do it."

Infrastructure Obstacles
Even if security improved enough to make infrastructure advances possible, Wahid says another big problem is that Iraq's oil refineries don't make enough fuel to run the country's power plants. Imported fuel has not been enough because power plants are competing with average Iraqis trying to run at-home generators.

U.S. officials say about 1,500 megawatts of power -- enough for well over a half-million homes and businesses -- are down at power plants across the country simply because they don't have enough fuel.

That problem stems partly from the unintended consequences of a U.S. reconstruction policy aimed at updating Iraq's aging infrastructure.

The United States spent millions of dollars on 35 turbines built to run on natural gas, replacing older thermal units that burned heavy fuel oil. Turbines are used to help generate electricity. Natural gas is cleaner and the gas-powered were easier to get and could be installed faster.

But while natural gas is an abundant by-product of Iraqi oil drilling, very little of it is captured. Instead, at Iraq's 52 gas-oil separation plants, the valuable gas is treated as a waste product -- ignited and allowed to burn off. ( http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif dubya's incompence is reliable! )

"The Americans came in and looked at their 1970s power plants and said, 'Throw it all out. Let's start over,' " said Joseph A. Christoff, director of the GAO's international affairs and trade teams who spent time recently with a group of two-dozen Iraqi engineers who talked about their experiences. "The Iraqi engineers were just shocked. . . . They felt they had no input in dealing with the electricity problems."

With little access to natural gas, Iraqis turned to running some of the newly installed gas turbines on diesel, crude or heavy fuel, causing them to break down faster and need more maintenance.

"It's like putting regular gas in a car that needs high-test," said Walsh, the commanding general for the Army Corps. "It's still going to run, but not as efficiently."

These days, inspectors say, 16 of the gas turbines the United States put in are running on crude oil or diesel, which could reduce their output by half. At the Qudas power plant, four of the eight gas turbines are down because they haven't been well-maintained and there's a lack of fuel to run them.

The electricity minister said he is developing a long-term plan to improve the electricity situation -- the first time in 30 years there has been any strategic planning for the sector. Wahid said the Planning Ministry has agreed to spend $40 million a year over the next four years to increase the electricity generated at major power plants, including crucial ones in the northern town of Baiji and Baghdad's Dora district -- where the United States has already spent millions.

But U.S. officials say there needs to be more coordination between the electricity and oil ministries and that the oil ministry lacks clear plans. Without a long-term program for turning around the oil industry and legislation that determines how Iraq's oil revenue would be divided, overseas companies won't invest in Iraq, and that could cost it substantial investment dollars.

"We've tried to help them, but we didn't," said Robert E. Ebel, energy expert and senior adviser at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Center+for+Strategic+and+International+Studies?tid =informline). "We thought they'd quickly take over and get production back up, but it hasn't happened."



what a shit hole

you're doing a heckuva job, dubya

[boutons_]

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/printer_friendly/news_logo.gif

Fresh UK attack on US Iraq policy

A second key British general has criticised US post-war policy in Iraq.

Maj Gen Tim Cross, who was the most senior UK officer involved in post-war planning, told the Sunday Mirror US policy was "fatally flawed".

His comments came after Gen Sir Mike Jackson, head of the Army during the invasion, told the Daily Telegraph US policy was "intellectually bankrupt".

John Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN, dismissed Sir Mike's criticism as "way off the mark".

The Ministry of Defence played down the comments by Sir Mike, now retired, saying he was entitled to express his opinion on his former job.

'Lack of detail'

Maj Gen Cross, also retired, said he had raised serious concerns about potential post-war problems in Iraq with the then US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

But he said Mr Rumsfeld "dismissed" or "ignored" the warnings.

"Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the post-war plan and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process," he said.

"I had lunch with Rumsfeld in February in Washington - before the invasion in March 2003 - and raised concerns about the need to internationalise the reconstruction of Iraq and work closely with the United Nations."

Maj Gen Cross, 59, who was deputy head of the coalition's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, said he also raised concerns over the number of troops available to maintain security in Iraq.

"He didn't want to hear that message," he said. "The US had already convinced themselves that following the invasion Iraq would emerge reasonably quickly as a stable democracy."

He added: "There is no doubt that with hindsight the US post-war plan was fatally flawed and many of us sensed that at the time."

'Short-sighted'

In an interview published on Saturday, Sir Mike told the Telegraph that a claim by Mr Rumsfeld's that US forces "don't do nation-building" was "nonsensical".

He criticised the decision to hand control of planning the administration of Iraq after the war to the Pentagon.


He also described the disbanding of the Iraqi army and security forces after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as "very short-sighted".

"We should have kept the Iraqi security services in being and put them under the command of the coalition," he said.

Politicians from across the spectrum have come out in support of Sir Mike's comments, made ahead of the serialisation of his autobiography in the Telegraph.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Conservative former foreign secretary and defence secretary, told the BBC that Mr Rumsfeld was "incompetent".

'Extraordinary decision'

However, Mr Bolton told BBC Radio 4's PM programme that Sir Mike had "read into a version of history that simply is not supported by the evidence".

"And I can see where he'd have a parochial view from the military perspective. I don't think he saw some of the larger political debates.

"I'm not saying that we got it right in Washington because I've made my own criticisms. His just happen to be way off the mark, very simplistic, I think in a sense limited by the role that he had."

He said it was important to know whether Sir Mike had raised his concerns when he first had them.

The Telegraph also reports that, in his autobiography, Sir Mike says the US approach to fighting global terrorism was "inadequate" as it focused on military power rather than diplomacy and nation-building.

The US Department of Defence said: "Divergent viewpoints are a hallmark of open, democratic societies."

A spokeswoman for the US State Department said she would not comment on Sir Mike's views.

His comments follow a series of critical remarks from US officials about the British attitude towards Iraq.

BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood said Sir Mike's comments may put further strain on the British-US operation in Iraq.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/6974611.stm

Published: 2007/09/01 23:45:09 GMT

© BBC MMVII

[PixelPusher]

Is there "political thread" mod anymore?

[boutons_]

"ethnic cleansing" of Bagdad is effectively completed.

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


As Sunnis Flee, Shiites Now Dominate Baghdad

By Babak Dehghanpisheh and Larry Kaplow
Newsweek

10 September 2007 Issue

Shiites now dominate the once mixed capital, and there is little chance of reversing the process.

It was their last stand. Kamal and a handful of his neighbors were hunkered down on the roof of a dun-colored house in southwest Baghdad two weeks ago as bullets zinged overhead. In the streets below, fighters from Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army fanned out and blasted away with AK-47s and PKC heavy machine guns. Kamal is a chubby 44-year-old with two young sons, and he and his friends, all Sunnis, had been fighting similar battles against Shiite militiamen in the Amel neighborhood for months. They jumped awkwardly from rooftop to rooftop, returning fire. Within minutes, however, dozens of uniformed Iraqi policemen poured into the street to support the militiamen. Kamal ditched his AK on a rooftop and snuck away through nearby alleys. He left Amel the next day. "I lost my house, my documents and my future," says Kamal, whose name and that of other Iraqis in this story have been changed for their safety. "I'm never going back."

Thousands of other Sunnis like Kamal have been cleared out of the western half of Baghdad, which they once dominated, in recent months. The surge of U.S. troops - meant in part to halt the sectarian cleansing of the Iraqi capital - has hardly stemmed the problem.

The number of Iraqi civilians killed in July was slightly higher than in February, when the surge began.

According to the Iraqi Red Crescent, the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) has more than doubled to 1.1 million since the beginning of the year, nearly 200,000 of those in Baghdad governorate alone.

Rafiq Tschannen, chief of the Iraq mission for the International Organization for Migration, says that the fighting that accompanied the influx of U.S. troops actually "has increased the IDPs to some extent."

When Gen. David Petraeus goes before Congress next week to report on the progress of the surge, he may cite a decline in insurgent attacks in Baghdad as one marker of success. In fact, part of the reason behind the decline is how far the Shiite militias' cleansing of Baghdad has progressed: they've essentially won. "If you look at pre-February 2006, there were only a couple of areas in the city that were unambiguously Shia," says a U.S. official in Baghdad who is familiar with the issue but is not authorized to speak on the record. "That's definitely not the case anymore." The official says that "the majority, more than half" of Baghdad's neighborhoods are now Shiite-dominated, a judgment echoed in the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq: "And very few are mixed." In places like Amel, pockets of Sunnis live in fear, surrounded by a sea of Shiites. In most of the remaining Sunni neighborhoods, residents are trapped behind great concrete barricades for their own protection.

Amel's transformation is one of the most dramatic in the city. Under Saddam Hussein the area was a bedroom community for regime apparatchiks - generals and officers like Kamal, who worked for one of Saddam's secret services. Spacious houses were arranged in grids around schools and recreation centers, fronted by palm trees and wide sidewalks. Saddam trusted the community: houses nestle up against the strategic highway that leads to the airport, and are only a short distance away from the Republican Palace complex that dominates the Green Zone. Now Amel's Sunnis are crowded into a strip that's less than a quarter-mile square, surrounded on all sides by concertina wire and scrap-metal barricades. City power cables have been cut, and the streets are strewn with trash and broken glass. There is only one access road not under Shiite control, leading to the airport highway. The enclave houses perhaps 5,000 Sunnis; nearly all the rest of Amel's estimated 100,000 population is now Shiite. With the agreement of locals, U.S. troops plan to replace the Sunnis' makeshift roadblocks with concrete barriers.

The Americans increased their presence in the neighborhood in March, when they set up Combat Outpost Attack in a large local sports club. At that point the sectarian cleansing of Amel was already well advanced. Kamal says the process began after the bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra in February 2006, when the Mahdi Army and Sunni fighters clashed openly in the streets. Soon envelopes were spread along Kamal's block; each had a bullet inside. Threatening graffiti appeared on nearby houses: LEAVE or WANTED, or sometimes just a red "X." (Shiite residents in west Amel say they were equally threatened.) Thanks in part to the support of the Iraqi police, Shiites gained the upper hand. By this March, Amel's Sunnis had been pushed back to the other side of 7th of Nissan Street, a large commercial thoroughfare known to locals as the "street of death."

COP Attack is surrounded by rings of blast barriers. Troops are shot at regularly when they leave, so there are no frivolous supply runs or token patrols to show the flag - only targeted daily missions like raids to detain suspects or meetings with informants. Despite their presence, the violence has continued to rage. In May, after Sunni insurgents hit a Shiite mosque with a car bomb, Shiite militants executed 24 young Sunni men and dumped their bodies in the bomb crater. According to an official at the Ministry of Interior, who isn't authorized to speak on the record, 103 bodies were found in Amel in July, the highest body count of any Baghdad neighborhood.

Citywide, Sunnis complain that in the early phases of the surge, as Shiite militias refrained from attacks on U.S. troops, the Americans focused their firepower on Sunni insurgents. The implicit trade-off - pushed by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and others - was that the Shiites would scale back their sectarian attacks once they felt safer. Instead militias like the Mahdi Army have become emboldened. Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top ground commander in Iraq, recently noted that 73 percent of American fatalities and injuries in Baghdad in July were caused by Shiite fighters. That same month, for the first time since 2003, Shiite militants carried out as many attacks on Coalition forces as Sunni insurgents did nationwide.

Last week, after clashes at a religious festival in Karbala between Sadr loyalists and local police dominated by another Shiite faction, Sadr ordered his forces to refrain from all military activities for six months. In Baghdad, U.S. commanders aren't expecting to see much change on the ground. "Who knows what that means?" says Lt. Col. Steve Miska, a commander in northwest Baghdad who frequently deals with the Mahdi Army. The militia's sectarian-cleansing campaign is far too lucrative to be given up easily. When Sunni homeowners flee, say U.S. soldiers, their furniture is often locked up and their houses listed at local Sadr offices. Shiite families - many of them displaced earlier from Sunni neighborhoods - can peruse the listings, sometimes even photos of the property. For around 110,000 Iraqi dinars (about $88) per month, they can rent a furnished home and receive deliveries of cooking oil from the Mahdi Army. The militiamen earn even more money by controlling the gas stations in various neighborhoods, and by carjacking the nicest vehicles - usually, but not always, driven by Sunnis - at the checkpoints they set up.

Shiites present their creeping takeover of Baghdad as part of a narrative of liberation - American officers have dubbed it Shiite "Manifest Destiny." "This area represents everything [Shiites] hated before - Sunni generals, security officers, Baathists, some of them who probably personally knew Saddam Hussein," says Capt. Brian Ducote, who tries to intercept Shiite militants based in Amel who raid his neighboring Jihad neighborhood. "They say, 'You have self-defense in America. My brother was killed; my father was killed. I have a right to do this'."

The west side of Amel, which is now almost entirely Shiite, is thriving by Baghdad standards. Shops are open and taxis ferry passengers around. Residents can move in and out of the area through several access points. It's clear who wants to take credit for their security: Mahdi Army fighters have set up checkpoints throughout the neighborhood to screen vehicles. In return, the militiamen brook little criticism. When one Shiite family recently refused to allow a Mahdi sniper up onto their roof, the man went to their neighbor's house and jumped across to use their house anyway. They didn't protest. Abbas, a clerk who lives in west Amel, says he doesn't approve of the Mahdi Army's activities but he's not entirely ungrateful for their protection. "This is not a game," he says.

A few blocks away, COP Attack's commander, Capt. Sean Lyons of the First Infantry Division, estimates that his men spend about three quarters of their time defending the small Sunni enclave in east Amel. "It's a desert," says Mahmoud, a 37-year-old with a slight build and small mustache. Mortars frequently fall around his house. Mahmoud occasionally lets his young son ride his bike in their small yard or in the garage, but worries about snipers constantly. What should be an ordinary stroll to buy meat or ice, he says, is a nerve-racking ordeal. "It makes you crazy," he says with a nervous giggle. "I bend and hide when I walk. I stay close to the high walls and never walk in the open street." He shakes his head for a few seconds and adds, "This is not life."

The Shiite campaign has pushed the Americans closer to the Sunni population. Nightly, local Sunnis come sit with Lyons near the wall-size aerial photo of the neighborhood pinned up in his outpost. "We cyclically plan our operations off the intelligence they give us," he says. As in other Baghdad neighborhoods, the Americans have formed Amel's Sunnis into a "neighborhood watch" group whose members are allowed to carry their own weapons. Although they're given ID cards and rules of engagement, they have wide latitude on the ground. "We have a kind of relationship with the Sunnis around here - they don't mess with us and we don't mess with them," says Staff Sgt. Michael Green, 32.

Much of the information that Sunni informants pass along to the Americans originates in calls from Shiite friends who secretly oppose the young Mahdi toughs, many of whom have arrived from other parts of Baghdad. They'll pass on the locations of wanted men or, when they see a Shiite mortar team set up in a nearby schoolyard, call Sunni friends and tell them to take cover. Even some militiamen are ashamed of their compatriots: "Many people joined [the Mahdi Army] because they are running after money," says Ibrahim Ali, a Mahdi fighter based in Amel. "These are gangs of young, uneducated, emotional and armed men who are carrying out kidnappings, extortion and a variety of other violent actions in an effort to gain money, basically, and then also a degree of power," General Petraeus said on a recent trip to west Baghdad. Sadr aides claim their internal purge is meant to clear the ranks of such opportunists.

Neither American support nor Shiite disillusionment, however, is likely to reverse the dwindling position of Baghdad's Sunnis. Officially, the Iraqi government is asking residents to return to their old neighborhoods as the massive troop presence enforces a degree of calm; those who do are offered a million-dinar reward (approximately $800). But, says the U.S. official familiar with refugee issues, "Sunnis are reluctant to go back to areas when it's only Iraqi security forces there managing their safety. In a lot of cases security forces participated in their displacement." A humanitarian worker focused on IDPs and a U.S. military official both say that often families only return to their houses long enough to grab a suitcase and pocket the reward money before leaving again.

Of course, with Sunnis cleaned out of many Baghdad neighborhoods, Shiites may turn on each other. The fighting in Karbala was only an extension of battles that have been raging in the south for months now. (In the past two weeks, two provincial governors from a rival faction were assassinated, possibly by Sadr loyalists.) Could this be the start of a civil war within Iraq's civil war? Kamal isn't waiting around to find out. He's moving to Syria.

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

The spin that Petraeus and Crocker spew in a few days will be amusing.

dubya is now show-boating in Bagdad, the motherfucker.

[xrayzebra]

Is there "political thread" mod anymore?

Nope! Just have ethnic cleansing now.

You know anyone with the name boutons or his associates.
They are next in line.

[boutons_]

Second Retired British General Slams US

By Tariq Panja
The Associated Press

Sunday 02 September 2007

London - A second retired British general slammed the United States over its Iraq policy, saying in a newspaper interview published Sunday that it had been "fatally flawed."

Maj. Gen. Tim Cross, the most senior British officer involved in the postwar planning, said he had raised serious concerns about the possibility of Iraq falling into chaos but said former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the warnings.

"Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the postwar plan and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process," Cross said in the Sunday Mirror newspaper.

The comments come a day after the release of critical comments made by the general who led the British army during the Iraq invasion.

Retired Gen. Sir Mike Jackson also singled out Rumsfeld for criticism, saying his approach to the invasion was "intellectually bankrupt," according to quotes excerpted from his autobiography and published by The Daily Telegraph Saturday.

Rumsfeld stepped down as defense secretary in November, one day after midterm elections in which opposition to the war in Iraq contributed to heavy Republican losses.

In December, President Bush praised Rumsfeld for his service and made no mention of the often-harsh criticism of Rumsfeld.

"Every decision Don Rumsfeld made over the past six years, he always put the troops first, and the troops knew it," Bush said.

( http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif Rummy put neo-cunt fantasies and oil grabbing first, troop welfare nowhere )


The comments from the two retired British generals come in the wake of criticism of British military performance in Basra made by U.S. officials and Washington's fears that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is poised to sanction a British troop withdrawal.

Former U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane, who was vice chief of staff at the time the Iraq war was launched in 2003, said in an interview last week that London had never deployed enough troops to properly stabilize the region around the southern city and allowed a bad security situation to deteriorate further.

But Cross said the current problems were predicted in 2003.

"Right from the very beginning we were all very concerned about the lack of detail that had gone into the postwar plan and there is no doubt that Rumsfeld was at the heart of that process," he said.

Gen. Cross, 59, who was deputy head of the coalition's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in 2003, said he had raised concerns about the number of troops on the ground in Iraq but was ignored.

"There is no doubt that with hindsight the U.S. postwar plan was fatally flawed and many of us sensed that at the time," Cross said.

[boutons_]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/09/03/opinion/Iraq.jpg
(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/09/03/opinion/Iraq.jpg)

..

[boutons_]

Jones Report: Iraqi Security Forces Not Ready

Logistical Self-Sufficiency Is at Least Two Years Away

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 5, 2007; 1:56 PM

Iraq's Interior Ministry is "dysfunctional," filled with sectarianism and corruption, according to an independent assessment of the Iraqi security forces to be published tomorrow. The report said that Iraq's national police force, controlled by that ministry, is "operationally ineffective" and should be disbanded and reorganized.

The report, by a congressionally-named commission of retired senior military officers, cites progress in the operation and training of the Iraqi army. But it estimates that "they will not be ready to independently fulfill their security role within the next 12 to 18 months" without a substantial U.S. military presence. Logistical self-sufficiency, which it describes as key to independent Iraqi operations, is at least two years away, the report says.

Iraqi security forces "have the potential to help reduce sectarian violence," the report says. But the report, which emphasizes the failure of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government to achieve key political benchmarks, says that violence will not end without political reconciliation. In addition to the failings of the Interior Ministry and police, it says that Maliki is perceived as bypassing the Ministry of Defense and the chain of command to create "a second, and politically motivated" command structure in the army.

The Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, headed by retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, is the latest of a series of progress reports of the political and military situation in Iraq in advance of the Bush administration's own scorecard to be delivered next week. A report by the Government Accountability Office, released yesterday, said that Iraq had met only three of 18 congressional benchmarks for progress.

The 152-page document, obtained by The Washington Post, agrees with the administration's assessment that the security situation has improved dramatically in Anbar province and cites "signs of encouraging tactical successes in the Baghdad capital region."

It says those "circumstances of the moment" may provide an opportunity for beginning to transition U.S. forces to a "strategic overwatch posture" in early 2008, re-tasking them to concentrate on border defense and infrastructure defense.

Although it was required only to assess the condition of Iraq's security forces, the commission report also cites divergences between perceptions and reality in Iraq, particularly in the image of U.S. forces. The massive U.S. "footprint," it says, conveys the image of "an occupying force" when "what is needed is the opposite impression." It proposes significant consolidation and reduction of U.S. installations and the establishment of a U.S.-Iraqi "Transition Headquarters."

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

Petraeus and Crocker will have a huge job to convince anybody that Iraq is worth more dying and paying for, but I'm sure they are up to the spinning and lying job.

[xrayzebra]

Persistent little cuss aren't you boutons. Like posting to
yourself, do you?

[boutons_]

Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq

Military Statistics Called Into Question

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 6, 2007; A16

The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.

( ah, come on, we know from VN that the military would NEVER lie to us to just to keep their career-padding war going and NEVER take spin dictates from the WH http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif )

Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration's claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

( cherry-picking is BAAACK! Wonder whose idea that was? http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif )

Senior U.S. officers in Baghdad disputed the accuracy and conclusions of the largely negative GAO report, which they said had adopted a flawed counting methodology used by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Many of those conclusions were also reflected in last month's pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

"Depending on which numbers you pick," he said, "you get a different outcome." Analysts found "trend lines . . . going in different directions" compared with previous years, when numbers in different categories varied widely but trended in the same direction. "It began to look like spaghetti."

Among the most worrisome trends cited by the NIE was escalating warfare between rival Shiite militias in southern Iraq that has consumed the port city of Basra and resulted last month in the assassination of two southern provincial governors. According to a spokesman for the Baghdad headquarters of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), those attacks are not included in the military's statistics. "Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence, except in certain instances," the spokesman said, "we do not track this data to any significant degree."

Attacks by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen -- recruited to battle Iraqis allied with al-Qaeda -- are also excluded from the U.S. military's calculation of violence levels. http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif

The administration has not given up trying to demonstrate that Iraq is moving toward political reconciliation. Testifying with Petraeus next week, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker is expected to report that top Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders agreed last month to work together on key legislation demanded by Congress. If all goes as U.S. officials hope, Crocker will also be able to point to a visit today to the Sunni stronghold of Anbar province by ministers in the Shiite-dominated government ( pure dog and pony show, part of the WH spin campaign http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif )-- perhaps including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq policy. The ministers plan to hand Anbar's governor $70 million in new development funds, the official said.

But most of the administration's case will rest on security data, according to military, intelligence and diplomatic officials who would not speak on the record before the Petraeus-Crocker testimony. Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers who were offered military statistics during Baghdad visits in August said they had been convinced that Bush's new strategy, and the 162,000 troops carrying it out, has produced enough results to merit more time.

( produce more time for what? the political progress is totally absent so far )

Challenges to how military and intelligence statistics are tallied and used have been a staple of the Iraq war. In its December 2006 report, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group identified "significant underreporting of violence," noting that "a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the sources of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the data base." The report concluded that "good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals."

Recent estimates by the media, outside groups and some government agencies have called the military's findings into question. The Associated Press last week counted 1,809 civilian deaths in August, making it the highest monthly total this year, with 27,564 civilians killed overall since the AP began collecting data in April 2005.

The GAO report found that "average number of daily attacks against civilians have remained unchanged from February to July 2007," a conclusion that the military said was skewed because it did not include dramatic, up-to-date information from August.

( as was noted earlier, the Shiite ethnic cleansing of Sunnis out of Bagdad is effectively complete, so that is a major reason Bagdad violence would be down, totally independent of the Bagdad surge )

Juan R.I. Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan who is critical of U.S. policy, said that most independent counts "do not agree with Pentagon estimates about drops in civilian deaths."

In a letter last week to the leadership of both parties, a group of influential academics and former Clinton administration officials called on Congress to examine "the exact nature and methodology that is being used to track the security situation in Iraq and specifically the assertions that sectarian violence is down."

The controversy centers as much on what is counted -- attacks on civilians vs. attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops, numbers of attacks vs. numbers of casualties, sectarian vs. intra-sect battles, daily numbers vs. monthly averages -- as on the numbers themselves.

The military stopped releasing statistics on civilian deaths in late 2005, http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif saying the news media were taking them out of context. In an e-mailed response to questions last weekend, an MNF-I spokesman said that while trends were favorable, "exact monthly figures cannot be provided" for attacks against civilians or other categories of violence in 2006 or 2007, either in Baghdad or for the country overall. "MNF-I makes every attempt to ensure it captures the most comprehensive, accurate, and valid data on civilian and sectarian deaths," the spokesman wrote. "However, there is not one central place for data or information. . . . This means there can be variations when different organizations examine this information."

In a follow-up message yesterday, the spokesman said that the non-release policy had been changed this week but that the numbers were still being put "in the right context." http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif

Attacks labeled "sectarian" are among the few statistics the military has consistently published in recent years, although the totals are regularly recalculated. The number of monthly "sectarian murders and incidents" in the last six months of 2006, listed in the Pentagon's quarterly Iraq report published in June, was substantially higher each month than in the Pentagon's March report. MNF-I said that "reports from un-reported/not-yet-reported past incidences as well as clarification/corrections on reports already received" are "likely to contribute to changes."

When Petraeus told an Australian newspaper last week that sectarian attacks had decreased 75 percent "since last year," the statistic was quickly e-mailed to U.S. journalists in a White House fact sheet. Asked for detail, MNF-I said that "last year" referred to December 2006, when attacks spiked to more than 1,600. http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif

( Petraeus just LOVES them cherries!! )
By March, however -- before U.S. troop strength was increased under Bush's strategy -- the number had dropped to 600, only slightly less than in the same month last year. That is about where it has remained in 2007, with what MNF-I said was a slight increase in April and May "but trending back down in June-July."

Petraeus's spokesman, Col. Steven A. Boylan, said he was certain that Petraeus had made a comparison with December in the interview with the Australian paper, which did not publish a direct Petraeus quote. No qualifier appeared in the White House fact sheet.

( the WH just LOVES them cherries! http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif )

When a member of the National Intelligence Council visited Baghdad this summer to review a draft of the intelligence estimate on Iraq, Petraeus argued that its negative judgments did not reflect recent improvements. At least one new sentence was added to the final version, noting that "overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks."

A senior military intelligence official in Baghdad deemed it "odd" that "marginal" security improvements were reflected in an estimate assessing the previous seven months and projecting the next six to 12 months. He attributed the change to a desire to provide Petraeus with ammunition for his congressional testimony.

The intelligence official in Washington, however, described the Baghdad consultation as standard in the NIE drafting process and said that the "new information" did not change the estimate's conclusions. The overall assessment was that the security situation in Iraq since January "was still getting worse," he said, "but not as fast."

Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson contributed to this report.

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

Petraeus and Crocker and WH will spin like whirling dervishes, and the Dems won't have enough votes to do anything.

dubya and dickhead will make absolutely sure their very own Iraqi shithole drags on past 20 Jan 2009, so they will be able to claim "We were winning, absolutely" after they leave office.

[xrayzebra]

No sweat boutons, Chuckie baby Schumer is already putting out
your line for you. He is discrediting the report even before it is
put out. I love his little line, violence is down "despite" the surge.
God how stupid does he think people are.

[smeagol]

Does anybody read these threads with a zillion articles copy pasted by boutons?

[Yonivore]

Here's the only background you need.

Petraeus was unanimously confirmed for his current position by the Senate -- Democrats included.

Petraeus was highly respected on both sides of the aisle (up until it became apparent he was being successful in Iraq)

Petraeus is kicking ass in Iraq and that's scaring the living crap out of Democrats.

[Yonivore]

The Democrats have gone from Iraq being a hopelessly lost quagmire, to now entertaining a compromise on continuing our presence without a timeline.

President Bush has maintained his position and confidence in our success in Iraq throughout.

Who's the fucking idiot?

[ChumpDumper]

Actually here's the only background you need.

Petraeus is the best commander we've had in Iraq, which could be damning him with faint praise since the others sucked to varying degrees. He could very well be "kicking ass in Iraq" but it doesn't matter since the political process remains stagnant.

Barring a political breakthrough, it looks like we're just keeping the ethnic cleansing on a slow burn. Eventually we'll have a de facto partition and someone will come up with the bright idea to make it official.

[Yonivore]

After a month-long vacation, Democrats returned to the nation’s capital this week, an army in disarray. They left in August confident that Republicans would go home, get chewed out about the war, and raise the white flag. Instead, the Surge worked and the Democrats are losing it.

S.A. Miller at the Washington Times reported (http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070907/NATION/109070088/1001&template=printart):


Rank-and-file Democrats in Congress are criticizing the party’s leaders for allowing the White House to sap momentum from the antiwar movement during the August recess.

“The White House is taking great advantage of the Democrats not pushing back,” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, California Democrat and co-founder of the antiwar Out of Iraq Caucus.

“We need bolder steps from the Democrats,” she said. “The people of this country are waiting for some leadership — some bold leadership — from the people that they elected to be the majority of the House and the Senate.”
Yes, how dare Speaker Pelosi allow the American army to win the Surge while Congress was on vacation?

John Bresnahan and Martin Kady II at Politico reported (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5679.html):


In a strategic shift designed to win over Republican critics of the Iraq war, congressional Democrats are backing off demands for a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops and instead are seeking a new bipartisan deal to end the military campaign.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are calculating that it is futile to continue their months-long campaign to force an immediate end to the war, particularly after Republicans and a few Democrats returned from the summer recess intent on opposing legislation mandating a strict timetable for pulling out U.S. troops.
Even the more Democratic-friendly newspapers are noticing the wheels as they go off the bus.

Noam Levey at the LA Times reported (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-iraqdebate6sep06,1,3875125,full.story?coll=la-headlines-nation&ctrack=3&cset=true):


WASHINGTON — – Frustrated with the fierce partisanship of the war debate, moderate lawmakers on Capitol Hill are intensifying their drive to craft compromise measures to break the congressional impasse over U.S. policy in Iraq.

Democrats and Republicans involved in the efforts say they want to pressure the White House to change course so American troops can start coming home. But their proposals stop short of setting a withdrawal deadline, the centerpiece of the Democratic legislative campaign to force an end to U.S. involvement in the war.

“There is a lot of frustration out there. People want us to end the war,” said Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.). “But what people also want in my state is they want Congress to do something.”
Not a lot of happy campers in the Democratic camp. And, the disarray is spilling over to other issues. In fact, if the Republican had planned to divide and conquer, they may be too late; Democrats seem to be splitting on their own.

Eric Pfeiffer at the Washington Times reported (http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070906/NATION/109060070/1002&template=printart):


Congressional Democrats, who criticized Republicans for not fixing the alternative minimum tax when they were in power, have been unable to unify behind a plan to protect the growing number of middle-class families hit by the tax.

House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel says he wants a permanent fix for the AMT, but the influential New York Democrat faces opposition from lawmakers in his own party and from Republicans as he convenes hearings on the issue today.

Several Democratic congressional sources say Mr. Rangel’s counterpart, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, who is up for re-election next year, does not want to be tagged as raising taxes to permanently fix the AMT. Analysts say eliminating it requires other taxes to replace the $100 billion AMT generates annually.

House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn, South Carolina Democrat, said this week fixing the AMT is not a priority and is unlikely to happen this year.
The bickering among House leaders continues.

Mike Soraghan and Jackie Kucinich at the Hill reported (http://thehill.com/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68277&pop=1&page=0&Itemid=70):


The House Rules Committee, known as “the Speaker’s Committee,” is considered an arm of leadership. So when two panel members — including the chairwoman — balk at a Democratic bill, minority members are quick to chortle that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is losing control of her top lieutenants.

“It’s a rebuke of the Speaker,” a Republican leadership aide said. “The real question is, Will Pelosi fire or replace [Chairwoman Louise] Slaughter [D-N.Y.]?”

Wednesday afternoon, the Rules Committee took up an election reform bill by Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.). The bill would amend the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) by requiring states to use voting machines that provide a “paper trail” or verifiable paper ballot.

Slaughter quickly indicated she didn’t like the bill, and raised questions about the quality of the new paper ballot machines.

“I am very much concerned that we are passing this law that you have to have it by a certain date,” Slaughter said during the hearing, “when experts tell us there is not a machine that will do this right.”

In an interview, Slaughter said New York election authorities would have trouble getting equipment to replace their lever-pull machines in time for the deadline mandated in the bill.

She wasn’t the only one to express concerns. Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Democrat from Florida, said the bill didn’t go far enough.
I won’t do the rats fleeing the sinking ship line. Why insult rats?

Democrats were swept into power by the election of Blue Dog conservatives. Rather than follow that up with reasonable legislation, Pelosi and Reid made opposing the Iraq War their sole issue going 24/7 on it. They misread the public, the military and their own members.

Which is why this may be a long September for the Democratic Congress.

Oh and yes, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, James Clyburn, was absolutely right when he said good news from Iraq would be “a very real problem for us.” Nice corner Pelosi and company painted the Democrats in.

:lmao

[ChumpDumper]

Everybody will be able to declare victory in April when troop levels start coming down out of necessity. It's just a matter of spinning it until then.

[boutons_]

Petraeus is a Westmoreland-style career-coddling suckup, making inflated, misleading career-enhancing speeches about Iraq success a few weeks before the 2004 election.

dubya will dump Petraeus as soon as convenient, like all of dubya's other generals.

Military "victory" in Iraq means nothing. dubya broke the country.

After 100s of US taxpayer $Bs, it remains broken.

dubya's fraudulent invasion enabled the civil war, and sectarian ethnic cleansing.

No matter what the results of the surge (independent numbers show the surge has had little effect vs 2006), Iraqis are not going to fix their sectarian differences now, or ever.

iow, the surge may be militarily successful, but the (stated) objective of allowing the Iraqis to reconcile has not been achieved.

The REAL objective of the surge is dubya and dickhead "playing" for time, stalling until 20 Jan 2009.

Any reductions in force will be because the Army, by its own admission, is also breaking and reductions are necessary to keep the Army somewhat in tact.

[Yonivore]

Yet another example of Democrat fraying on Iraq...

Yeah, I know it's a few days old but, I've been out killing rats...and, it's still worth linking just in case no one posted it here before today.


The violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda, said to these tribes: "We have to fight al Qaeda ourselves."
Liberals try, with varying degrees of success, to impugn the president and Pentagon and every single general and colonel while claiming to "support the troops" (the grunts, the people who didn't do well in school and ended up stuck in Iraq, as John Kerry says). Here Schumer lets the mask fall -- or perhaps just doesn't have the skill to play to both imperatives -- and simply "blames" the lessening of violence upon American fighters' incompetence.

This doesn't even make sense as a political complaint -- if Bush's "Failed Policies" have been so disastrous as to compel Sunnis to begin killing Al Qaeda and lower sectarian violence and cooperate more with the American military, isn't that incompetence disguising a great success?

In fact, it is that very cooperation Democrats vowed could never occur in Iraq.

Either way he's saying that what we've done in Iraq has caused this-- but he childishly decides to claim it was our failures that caused this success.

Here's the preening little ballsucker in action.

Schumer shooting himself in the foot (http://s190.photobucket.com/albums/z100/generalissimodp/radioblogger/?action=view&current=09-05schumer.flv)

You fucking truther Democrats on this board must be absolutely livid that your paid heroes in Congress can't keep on message.

[DarkReign]

Petraeus is kicking ass in Iraq and that's scaring the living crap out of Democrats.

WTF?!

Why would a general kicking-ass scare anyone but the people getting their ass kicked?

Or are you still convinced that the entire Democratic party is only interested in the ruin of America?

[Yonivore]

WTF?!

Why would a general kicking-ass scare anyone but the people getting their ass kicked?
I haven't the foggiest; you might want to ask James "good-news-in-Iraq-is-bad-for-Democrats" Clyburn.


Or are you still convinced that the entire Democratic party is only interested in the ruin of America?
Just the Democratic leadership that has painted themselves into a corner pandering to the nutroots "truthers."

I don't believe Joe Lieberman is interested in the ruin of America.

[DarkReign]

So, you seriously think the Demo leadership's goal is the failure of Iraqi policy?

Why? Because its Bush Co's plan, therefore it needs to fail?

[Yonivore]

So, you seriously think the Demo leadership's goal is the failure of Iraqi policy?
Yep.


Why? Because its Bush Co's plan, therefore it needs to fail?
Yep. Success in Iraq will ruin their chances in '08.

[xrayzebra]

Actually here's the only background you need.

......... but it doesn't matter since the political process remains stagnant.



Hey Chump, got to congratulate you. You got the
dimm-o-crap line down pat. Just keep attending those
on-line classes and remember what the dimms tell you.
:donkey

[DarkReign]

Yep. Success in Iraq will ruin their chances in '08.

Why would it ruin their chances in 08?

The way the polls show (very early, I admit), the Repubs are lagging in every major....everything. Opinion, money, economy, etc.

[xrayzebra]

Corso :lol s at "the surge worked"

Corso says no more violence in Iraq! Corsos won! the Iraqi Corso government is stabilized! and the country is united under one Corso!

as usual Corso whoever Corso is makes no sense. But he
makes boutons look like an intellect.

[xrayzebra]

WTF?!

Why would a general kicking-ass scare anyone but the people getting their ass kicked?

Or are you still convinced that the entire Democratic party is only interested in the ruin of America?

Well aren't they?

[DarkReign]

Well aren't they?

Lets play theory-world for a moment....

If the Dems plans were ultimately the ruin of America, then that plan would obviously encompass nearly every aspect of their foreign and domestic policy, yes?

So, since youre convinced of the above, and feel strongly that the essence of that sentiment is being pushed onto Iraq making it a fore gone conclusion...

Name 3 other policies outside of Iraq that declare to everyone looking in that the Dems are out for American failure.

[Yonivore]

Why would it ruin their chances in 08?
Because they are invested, lock, stock, and barrell in an Iraqi defeat being the underpinning of their future political success. Republicans took us into a losing war...vote Democrat!


The way the polls show (very early, I admit), the Repubs are lagging in every major....everything. Opinion, money, economy, etc.
As you said, very early...and, meaningless.

[Yonivore]

Lets play theory-world for a moment....

If the Dems plans were ultimately the ruin of America, then that plan would obviously encompass nearly every aspect of their foreign and domestic policy, yes?

So, since youre convinced of the above, and feel strongly that the essence of that sentiment is being pushed onto Iraq making it a fore gone conclusion...

Name 3 other policies outside of Iraq that declare to everyone looking in that the Dems are out for American failure.
Soclialized Medicine.

Punitive Tax Structure.

Ruinous Global War...uh, Climate Change policies.

Kalifornia-style oppressive regulation and government for all!!!

[xrayzebra]

Lets play theory-world for a moment....

If the Dems plans were ultimately the ruin of America, then that plan would obviously encompass nearly every aspect of their foreign and domestic policy, yes?

So, since youre convinced of the above, and feel strongly that the essence of that sentiment is being pushed onto Iraq making it a fore gone conclusion...

Name 3 other policies outside of Iraq that declare to everyone looking in that the Dems are out for American failure.

You are going to have to be more clear on what you are
trying to say. It makes no sense to me at all.

I think you are trying to ask about the dimms other
policies that are ruining America. If that is your
contention then let me say they have not given any
foreign policy plans other than Iraq. And that plan is
simply: Surrender.

[DarkReign]

Soclialized Medicine.

Works everywhere in the world except in the US. Controversial, yes. Game breaking, no. Next.


Punitive Tax Structure.

Please explain. Meaning the rich pay more than they already do? ???


Ruinous Global War...uh, Climate Change policies.

Ruinous Climate Policies....hmm, meaning making cars emit "X" percentage less harmful emissions? Restrictions on oil companies? Might want to clarify this. Because the only car companies crying about these changes are the American companies. Thats because theyre losing their ass and have no more money for R&D. Dont see Mercedes, Toyota or Honda crying.


Kalifornia-style oppressive regulation and government for all!!!

California is an exception. It always has been since its inception. If youre looking for a more realistic example, you might want to head east about 2500 miles. New England area. Big opressive government there.

Did Dems pass the patriot act? I forget sometimes....

So, the only one I cant say is hogwash, political rhetoric is the Punitive Tax Structure.

[Yonivore]

Works everywhere in the world except in the US. Controversial, yes. Game breaking, no. Next.
Where does it work? You need to read more scholarly reports on socialized medicine and less Michael Moore.


Please explain. Meaning the rich pay more than they already do? ???
Well, we're fast approaching the point where less than 50% of the population will be paying 100% of the taxes and that more than 50% of the population will be receiving some form of monetary benefit from the government.

That can't be sustained.


Ruinous Climate Policies....hmm, meaning making cars emit "X" percentage less harmful emissions? Restrictions on oil companies? Might want to clarify this. Because the only car companies crying about these changes are the American companies. Thats because theyre losing their ass and have no more money for R&D. Dont see Mercedes, Toyota or Honda crying.
No, meaning they will stifle free enterprise and the markets with their silly environmental nonsense. You will see our GDP tank.


California is an exception. It always has been since its inception. If youre looking for a more realistic example, you might want to head east about 2500 miles. New England area. Big opressive government there.
But, Kalifornia is what you'll get if you let the Democrats control Congress and the White House.


Did Dems pass the patriot act? I forget sometimes....
No, but they renewed and enhanced it.


So, the only one I cant say is hogwash, political rhetoric is the Punitive Tax Structure.
That's because you're an ignoramus.

[DarkReign]

You are going to have to be more clear on what you are
trying to say. It makes no sense to me at all.

I think you are trying to ask about the dimms other
policies that are ruining America. If that is your
contention then let me say they have not given any
foreign policy plans other than Iraq. And that plan is
simply: Surrender.

I meant in theory-world. Lets remove Dem and Repub from the equation and put in some place-holders...

By your ascertation, The Eagles want to destroy America.

The Eagles, by virtue of holding such an idea, must obviously pursue this goal in a multifaceted fashion. Nobody has taken over the world or fell a country on a direct route.

If the Eagles hold such a policy and want to ruin America, then they must be pursuing that goal in numerous ways.

You claimed Iraq to be one of those ways. Ive asked you to cite others.

[DarkReign]

That's because you're an ignoramus.

Fair enough. /debate

[boutons_]

Petraeus: U.S. Forces Have Achieved 'Uneven' Results

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090701435.html?hpid=topnews

If Petraeus is calling the his baby's results "eneven", some bad, some good, you know without any doubt there is much more bad than he will admit and not as much good as he will claim. "damning with faint praise"

Bagdad has less violence now because the Shiites have mostly ethnically cleansed it of Sunnis, not because Petraeus has been kicking ass. And we have all noted the increase of violence outside of Bagdad, as well as the relentlessly deteriorating infrastructure.

But the surge has failed because the Iraqis have not achieved, nor anywhere near achieving, like years away, if ever, political/sectarian accomodation.

So, fuck you, Yoni, keep your tongue slurping up dubya's ass.

[Oh, Gee!!]

Because they are invested, lock, stock, and barrell in an Iraqi defeat being the underpinning of their future political success!

I see the subscription to Sean Hannity's newsletter is paying for itself already.

[boutons_]

Yoni's is will be part of the choir that sings the song that opposition to the LOST Iraq war caused dubya to fuck it up and lose it.

[xrayzebra]

Petraeus: U.S. Forces Have Achieved 'Uneven' Results

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/07/AR2007090701435.html?hpid=topnews

If Petraeus is calling the his baby's results "eneven", some bad, some good, you know without any doubt there is much more bad than he will admit and not as much good as he will claim. "damning with faint praise"

Bagdad has less violence now because the Shiites have mostly ethnically cleansed it of Sunnis, not because Petraeus has been kicking ass. And we have all noted the increase of violence outside of Bagdad, as well as the relentlessly deteriorating infrastructure.

But the surge has failed because the Iraqis have not achieved, nor anywhere near achieving, like years away, if ever, political/sectarian accomodation.

So, fuck you, Yoni, keep your tongue slurping up dubya's ass.


boutons, you can rest easy. You have UBL in your
corner chastising the dimms for not following through
on their promises. I know you must feel better.
And when are you going to embrace Islam? Or have
you already?

[Yonivore]

I see the subscription to Sean Hannity's newsletter is paying for itself already.
Never listen to the guy.

[clambake]

It must be incredibly embarrassing to get assfucked (with the entire world watching) by a guy without a country.

[xrayzebra]

It must be incredibly embarrassing to get assfucked (with the entire world watching) by a guy without a country.

Well you should know. You carry his water for him.
:smokin

[ChumpDumper]

Hey Chump, got to congratulate you. You got the
dimm-o-crap line down pat. Just keep attending those
on-line classes and remember what the dimms tell you.
:donkeyNah, I listen to what Petraeus and the GAO tell me.

[xrayzebra]

Nah, I listen to what Petraeus and the GAO tell me.

You have the GAO version, which is what you like. But
you haven't heard Petraeus report yet.

Of course you like your leaders, Reid, Durbin and Pelosi
are already disputing a report which has not been made.
Typical of you type. :donkey :donkey :donkey :reading :reading :reading

[ChumpDumper]

You have the GAO version, which is what you like.It's the closet thing to an unbiased accounting, so yes -- I like it very much.
But
you haven't heard Petraeus report yet. It's pretty easy to predict he'll say in his testimony that the military component of the surge is working but will take more time. And it's not his report -- the White House is going to write it.
Of course you like your leaders, Reid, Durbin and Pelosi
are already disputing a report which has not been made.Hey, Yoni has already decided the surge is an unqualified success, an he hasn't read the report either.

Since it will be written by the White House, I imagine some numbers about violence will be cooked or made up to make things especially rosy. It's all academic at this point though -- troops will start coming home in April no matter what.

[Wild Cobra]

I wonder if once the report comes out, if the under-reported agreements being made by clerics of different factions will be reported as well, or still be hidden in the news? They are planning to issue fatwa's to stop the religious strife in Iraq. That’s right. It’s been happening. They are working together at the religious level. That is where the real progress will be made. They are looking for ways to respect each other, and end the sectarian violence.

Once this happens, we can probably start returning troops home. Of course, the media ignores these developments so that they can claim democrat pressure returns the troops when they start coming home.

[Yonivore]

this is what happens when you go to "war" without defining who you're going to war against

weren't we supposed to be fighting: 1)saddam and his army?
Over in 3 weeks.


2)iraqis?
No.


3)insurgents whom we bring into being by our very presence?
Zarqawi and many other insurgents were in country prior to our invasion in March of '03.

[Yonivore]

so then they're not insurgents
Who?

There was a period where al Qaeda tried -- with some success -- to foment sectarian violence. But, it appears now, the Iraqis have banded together to help defeat al Qaeda. Just ask Chuck Schumer.

[boutons_]

Treasonous Terrist-huggers at the GAO

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

US Auditor Queries Military Iraq Casualty Figures

Agence France-Presse

Friday 07 September 2007

Washington - An independent US government auditor on Friday cast doubt on US military statistics expected to show a huge dip in sectarian violence in Iraq under the current troop surge strategy.

Comptroller General David Walker said there was a "significant difference" of approach between the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which he heads, and Pentagon evaluations of violence in Iraq.

"The primary difference between us and the military is whether or not violence has been reduced with regard to sectarian violence," Walker told the Senate Armed Services committee.

A GAO report published this week on 18 benchmarks for progress for the Iraqi government set down in law by Congress, found that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's administration had failed to reach targets for cutting violence.

"It is unclear whether sectarian violence in Iraq has decreased - a key security benchmark," the report said, pointing to the difficulty in judging whether a killing was sectarian or criminal in nature.

In long-awaited testimony on Monday to Congress on the progress of the surge, Walker said war commander General David Petraeus will cite a large decrease in sectarian violence.

"I think you need to ask him how he defines sectarian violence," Walker told senators.

"The other thing you have to look at is if it's sustainable."

Some reports say Petraeus will argue that sectarian violence in Iraq has fallen by up to 75 percent under the surge.

"We could not get comfortable with (the military's) methodology for determining what's sectarian versus nonsectarian violence," Walker told senators.

"You know, it's extremely difficult to know who did it, what their intent was."

Walker was unable to go into further details, as the rest of the GAO's conclusions in the report on sectarian violence have been declared secret by the Pentagon, and urged senators to read the classified version of the study.

Democratic Senator Jack Reed asked why such vital information to assessing the state of US policy in Iraq was such a closely guarded secret.

"This may seem like a dumb question - why is this classified? I mean, who are we trying to keep this information from: the American people?" Reed said.

Democratic committee chairman Carl Levin meanwhile said he would make a request by the end of Friday for relevant portions of the report to be declassified, so senators could discuss them in a public setting.

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

Cherry-pick and inflate the desired evidence, and classify the contrary evidence. Sound familiar?

you're doing a heckuva job, dubaiya

[boutons_]

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September 10, 2007

Military Seen as Best Able to Guide War

By STEVEN LEE MYERS (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/steven_lee_myers/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and MEGAN THEE

Americans trust military commanders far more than the Bush administration or Congress to bring the war in Iraq to a successful end, and while most favor a withdrawal of American troops beginning next year, they suggested they were open to doing so at a measured pace, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll.

On the eve of what is sure to be a contentious debate on Iraq, the results underscored the benefits to the White House of entrusting the top American commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petraeus/index.html?inline=nyt-per), to make the case that an increase in American forces this year had been successful enough to continue into next year.

Today, General Petraeus will appear on Capitol Hill along with the American ambassador to Iraq, Ryan C. Crocker (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/ryan_c_crocker/index.html?inline=nyt-per), in what has become the most anticipated testimony from a military commander in decades.

Only 5 percent of Americans — a strikingly low number for a sitting president’s handling of such a dominant issue — said they most trusted the Bush administration to resolve the war, http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif the poll found. Asked to choose among the administration, Congress and military commanders, 21 percent said they would most trust Congress and 68 percent expressed most trust in military commanders.

That is almost certainly why the White House has presented General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker as unbiased professionals, not Bush partisans. President Bush has said for years that decisions about force levels should be left to military commanders, although the decision to send an additional 20,000 troops to Iraq this year and keep them there was not uniformly supported by military leaders. It was primarily made in the White House, and specifically by the president in his role as commander in chief.

Some Democrats took issue with the characterization of General Petraeus as operating free of influence from the administration.

“I don’t think he’s an independent evaluator,” Senator Dianne Feinstein (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/dianne_feinstein/index.html?inline=nyt-per), Democrat of California, said on “Fox News Sunday.” A White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, responded sharply, saying, “Attacking him in this way is reprehensible.”

( what is reprehensible is dubya saying he listens to his Generals, while he continues to fire them when he doesn't like what he hears. If Petraeus isn't fired, then we know he's sucking dubya, rather than Doing the Right Thing. )

Still, the poll showed how difficult the White House’s task of sustaining support for an unpopular war had become. There is a deepening disillusion over the war’s course and its purpose, with the highest numbers of Americans, 62 percent, saying that the war was a mistake, and 59 percent saying that it was not worth the loss of American lives and other costs.

A majority, 53 percent, said they did not think that Iraq would ever become a stable democracy. Still more, 70 percent, said they did not think the Iraqi government, led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/nuri_kamal_al-maliki/index.html?inline=nyt-per), was doing all it could to bring stability.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans said the United States should reduce its troops in Iraq now or withdraw them. Asked if a timetable should be established for a 2008 withdrawal, a position many Democrats in Congress have advocated, 64 percent favored doing so.

The Democrat-led Congress also enters the debate in a weakened position. The popularity of the current Congress reached a new low, the poll found, less than a year after the Democrats regained control of the House and Senate. Only 23 percent of Americans approved of the job lawmakers were doing.

While Congress has rarely scored highly in the public mind, the current Congress’s rating is now lower than that of its predecessor in the months before the election swept the Republican Party (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/r/republican_party/index.html?inline=nyt-org) from power.

“I think both parties will make the wrong decisions,” one of those polled, John Cross, a lawyer and a Democrat from Greensboro, N.C., said in a follow-up telephone interview yesterday. “I just think they’ll make them differently.” http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif

The poll’s results encapsulated sentiments that at times seemed contradictory, highlighting the complexity of a debate over how to win a war that has had few easy answers. As a result, Americans reflected a nuanced concern about the consequences of a withdrawal, even as they fervently expressed hope for one. The consequences of leaving Iraq hastily or prematurely has been one of the administration’s recurrent themes of late.

Presented with three possible plans, the poll found that Americans favored a measured approach, with 56 percent supporting reducing troops in Iraq, but leaving some in place to train Iraqi forces, fight terrorists and protect American diplomats.

( now that's a useless tasks, since those diplomants are appointed by dubya to work on the oil grab )

Twenty-two percent favored a complete withdrawal in the next year, and 20 percent favored keeping the same number of troops “until there is a stable democracy in Iraq.”

Just under half favored a decrease or withdrawal of all troops even if the result was “more mass killings” among Iraq’s ethnic groups. The proportion favoring reductions or a withdrawal dropped to 30 percent if Iraq would become a base of operations for terrorists as a result.

The poll was conducted nationwide by telephone from Tuesday through Saturday and included 1,035 adults. The margin of sampling error for all adults is plus or minus three percentage points.

The findings suggested that both parties were paying a price for the way they have handled the war. Six in 10 Americans said in the poll that administration officials deliberately misled the public in making a case for the war;

33 percent of all Americans, including 40 percent of Republicans and 27 percent of Democrats, say Saddam Hussein (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/saddam_hussein/index.html?inline=nyt-per) was personally involved in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

( holy shit! dickhead is an extremely effective liar, at least for the sheeple and rabble and Repugs http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif )

The poll found that the edge held by the Democrats this year on the issue had diminished, perhaps because of the inability of the party’s leadership in Congress to push through measures that would restrain Mr. Bush or mandate any steps toward ending the war.

What was an 18-point advantage in May for the Democrats on the question of which party is more likely to make the right decisions about the war has fallen to a 10-point advantage, 42 percent to 32 percent for the Republicans.

With barely 16 months to go in his presidency, Mr. Bush has a popularity rating that hovers nears its historic lows, with only 30 percent approving of his handling of the job and 64 percent disapproving. That level — essentially the reverse of his ratings when the war began in 2003 — has remained roughly the same since Mr. Bush announced in January the increase in American troops that became known as the surge.

Only 26 percent approved of Mr. Bush’s handling of Iraq and of foreign policy generally, while only one in four Americans think the country is generally on the right track.

Politically speaking, the poll indicated that Americans favored a flexible approach to Iraq as opposed to unbending positions.

That could prove significant in this month’s debate in Washington and in next year’s presidential election. A vast majority, 94 percent, said that sharing a candidate’s view on the war was important or very important.

And 71 percent said that flexibility in deciding on a withdrawal was more important than demanding either an unqualified victory (Mr. Bush’s position) or an immediate withdrawal (that of much of the antiwar Democratic base).

Over the summer, perhaps with such sentiment in mind, Democratic candidates and lawmakers in Congress have softened their demands for a hard and fast schedule for pulling out.

The White House’s strategy of portraying “the surge” of troops as a success could have an unintended effect.

( OOPS! http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif )

The poll found that if General Petraeus were to report that the situation in Iraq was improving, 56 percent thought the United States should then decrease or remove all troops, while 38 percent would favor increasing or keeping the number the same.

If he reports that the situation is getting worse, the number supporting a reduction or withdrawal drops to 47 percent, with 43 percent favoring staying on.

Marjorie Connelly, Marina Stefan and Dalia Sussman contributed reporting.

[boutons_]

http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ssi/globalnav/wpdotcom_190x30.gif (http://www.washingtonpost.com/?nav=pf)

Wide Skepticism Ahead of Assessment

Poll Respondents Doubt Petraeus Will Give True Picture of Situation in Iraq

By Jon Cohen and Jennifer Agiesta
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 9, 2007; A18


Most Americans think this week's report from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/David+Petraeus?tid=informline)Iraq (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/countries/iraq.html?nav=el), and few expect it to result in a major shift in President Bush (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/George+W.+Bush?tid=informline)'s policy. will exaggerate progress in But despite skepticism about the Petraeus testimony and majority support for a U.S. troop reduction in Iraq, there has also been a slight increase in the number who see the situation there as improving.

The findings, from a new Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/The+Washington+Post+Company?tid=informline)-ABC News (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/ABC+Inc.?tid=informline) poll, underscore the depth of public antipathy toward the Iraq war, the doubts about the administration's policies and the limited confidence in the Iraqi government to meet its commitments to restore civil order.

Fifty-eight percent, a new high, said they want to decrease the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. And most of those who advocated a troop reduction said they want the drawdown to begin either right away or by the end of the year.

A majority, 55 percent, supported legislation that would set a deadline of next spring for the withdrawal of American combat forces. That figure is unchanged from July.

Only about a third believed the United States is making significant progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq, most said the buildup has not made much difference, and a majority said they do not expect the troop increase to improve the security situation over the next few months. Just one-third were confident the Iraqi government can meet its political and security goals.

At the same time, however, there has been a six-point increase since July in the percentage of those who said the additional U.S. forces have improved the situation in Iraq (up to 28 percent) and a nine-point jump in the proportion of those who think the buildup will make things better (up to 43 percent). When Bush announced the troop increase in January, 57 percent said the United States was losing the war in Iraq. Now, 48 percent have said so. About a third said the United States is winning the war.

( Even if dubya's ass-kissing lap dog Petraeus "kicks ass" and "wins" the war, but the Iraqi govt remains still-born, ineffective, corrupt, and divided irretrievable along sectarian/ethnic lines. There is no Iraq there, thans to dubya's fraudulent invasion and murderous occupation. )

The public's baseline judgment on the war is little changed -- more than six in 10 said the war is not worth fighting, a sentiment that has been a majority view for nearly three years.

But though the public assessment of progress in Iraq remains largely negative, most expected Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, to express a rosier view when he begins his congressional testimony tomorrow. Only about four in 10 said they expect the general to give an accurate accounting of the situation in Iraq. A majority, 53 percent, said they think his report will try to make the situation in Iraq look better than it really is.

As on many issues involving Iraq, Democrats and Republicans have decidedly divergent views, with independents largely tilting toward the Democratic vantage point. Just 23 percent of Democrats and 39 percent of independents expected an honest depiction of conditions in Iraq. By contrast, two-thirds of Republicans anticipated a straightforward accounting.

Most Democrats and independents also agreed that, regardless of the report's findings, Bush will not adjust his administration's Iraq policy. Even Republicans were closely divided about whether the president will use the occasion to make a shift (47 percent) or stick with his policies (44 percent).

Overall, two-thirds of Americans said they believe Bush will hold to his current course no matter what. In a July Post-ABC News poll, nearly eight in 10 Americans, including a majority of Republicans, said the president was too intransigent on the war.

There remains only limited support for key elements of the administration's rationale for continuing the fight. Two-thirds said the risk of a terrorist attack occurring in the United States would be about the same whether U.S. forces stay in Iraq or withdraw, 54 percent said anti-terrorism efforts can succeed without winning in Iraq, and 52 percent said the Iraq war has not contributed to the long-term security of the United States.

Bush's general approval rating remained at 33 percent in this poll, equaling his career low. On Iraq, 34 percent approved of how he is handling the situation; 65 percent disapproved.

Though about three-quarters of Republicans continued to approve of the president's performance on Iraq, 36 percent now say they "strongly" approve, the lowest percentage and a 12-point drop since January.

Going forward, the public trusts Democrats over Republicans to handle Iraq by an 11-point margin, but two in 10 now trust "neither" party on the issue. In previous polls, congressional Democrats had wider advantages over President Bush on Iraq, with that gap as high as 27 points in January.

Beyond current policy, the war has clear implications for the 2008 presidential race. More than a third identified Iraq as the campaign's single most important issue. The war received nearly three times as many mentions as the next most frequently cited issue, health care, at 13 percent. Nearly half of Democrats called Iraq the single most important issue, as did a third of independents and 28 percent of Republicans.

This Post-ABC News poll, conducted by telephone Sept. 4 to 7 among a random national sample of 1,002 adults, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

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

Where's Washington (Moonie) Times/Fox poll that totally contradicts the NYT/CBS and WP/ABC polls? http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif

[boutons_]

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September 9, 2007

At Street Level, Unmet Goals of Troop Buildup

By DAMIEN CAVE (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/damien_cave/index.html?inline=nyt-per) and STEPHEN FARRELL (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/stephen_farrell/index.html?inline=nyt-per)

BAGHDAD, Sept. 8 — Seven months after the American-led troop “surge” began, Baghdad has experienced modest security gains that have neither reversed the city’s underlying sectarian dynamic nor created a unified and trusted national government.

Improvements have been made. American military figures show that sectarian killings in Baghdad have decreased substantially.

( yep, no more Sunnis left in Bagdad for Shiites to cleanse ethnically.)

In many of Baghdad’s most battle-scarred areas, including Mansour in the west and Ur in the east, markets and parks that were practically abandoned last year have begun to revive.

( bribed by Petraeus wihth $2500 per shop to appear to look truly "revived" and operating )

The surge has also coincided with and benefited from a dramatic turnaround in many Sunni areas where former insurgents and tribes have defected from supporting violent extremism, delivering reliable tips and helping the Americans find and eliminate car bomb factories. An average of 23 car bombs a month struck Baghdad in June, July and August, down from an average of 42 over the same period a year earlier. But the overall impact of those developments, so far, has been limited. And in some cases the good news is a consequence of bad news: people in neighborhoods have been “takhalasu” — an Iraqi word for purged, meaning killed or driven away. More than 35,000 Iraqis have left their homes in Baghdad since the American troop buildup began, aid groups reported.

The hulking blast walls that the Americans have set up around many neighborhoods have only intensified the city’s sense of balkanization. Merchants must now hire a different driver for individual areas, lest gunmen kill a stranger from another sect to steal a truckload of T-shirts.

To study the full effects of the troop increase at ground level, reporters for The New York Times repeatedly visited at least 20 neighborhoods in Baghdad and its surrounding belts, interviewing more than 150 residents, in addition to members of sectarian militias, Americans patrolling the city and Iraqi officials.

( and what about the teams from Washtington Moonie Times and Fox News? http://spurstalk.com/forums/images/smilies/smilol.gif )

They found that the additional troops had slowed, but far from stopped, Iraq (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/iraq/index.html?inline=nyt-geo)’s still-burning civil war. Baghdad remains a city where sectarian violence can flare at any moment, and where the central government is becoming less reliable and relevant as Shiite or Sunni vigilantes demand submission to their own brand of law. “These improvements in the face of the general devastation look small and insignificant because the devastation is so much bigger,” said Haidar Minathar, an Iraqi author, actor and director. He added that the security gains “have no great influence.”

The troop increase was meant to create conditions that could lead from improved security in Baghdad to national reconciliation to a strong central government to American military withdrawal. In recent weeks, President Bush and his commanders have shifted their emphasis to new alliances with tribal leaders that have improved security in Diyala Province, the Sunni Triangle and other Sunni areas, most notably Anbar Province.

That area, not Baghdad, was the one Mr. Bush conspicuously chose to visit this week.

But when he announced on Jan. 10 his plan to add 20,000 to 30,000 troops to Iraq, Mr. Bush emphasized that Baghdad was the linchpin for creating a stable Iraq. With less fear of death in the capital, “Iraqis will gain confidence in their leaders and the government will have the breathing space it needs to make progress in other critical areas,” he said.

That has not happened. More than 160,000 American troops are now in Iraq to help secure 25 million people. Across Baghdad — which undoubtedly remains a crucial barometer — American and Iraqi forces have moved closer to the population, out of giant bases and into 29 joint security stations. But even as some neighborhoods have improved, others have worsened as fighters moved to areas with fewer American troops.

Lt. Col. Steven M. Miska, deputy commander of a brigade of the First Infantry Division that is charged with controlling northwest Baghdad, said, “We’ve done everything we can militarily.”

He added, “I think we have essentially stalled the sectarian conflict without addressing the underlying grievances.”

Sunnis and Shiites still fear each other. At the top levels of the government and in the sweltering neighborhoods of Baghdad, hatreds are festering, not healing.

The political standoff identified by this week’s Government Accountability Office (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/g/government_accountability_office/index.html?inline=nyt-org) report can be found not just in the halls of Parliament. The distrust and obstinacy start in the streets.

Dealing with intermittent electricity, few jobs, widespread corruption and fresh memories of unspeakable horrors, Iraqis of all sects are scrambling for power, for control.

Iraq’s mixed neighborhoods are sliding toward extinction. During the troop increase, Shiite militias have continued to drive Sunnis out of at least seven neighborhoods of Baghdad. The Mahdi Army, loyal to the radical cleric Moktada al-Sadr (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/moktada_al_sadr/index.html?inline=nyt-per), is turning into what many describe as a shadow government, while desperate Sunnis have come to rely almost exclusively on American troops for their protection — a remarkable turnaround from four years ago when the Americans arrived.

In the minds of many, the fight is for survival. For others, the moment of calm has raised disconcerting questions about Iraq’s societal breakdown and where to go from here. The past seven months have crystallized a sense that the Americans are no longer the primary issue: Sunnis most fear Shiite Iran; Shiites are terrified of Sunni extremists and Baathists.

What Congress must now decide, based on extensive data and testimony from Gen. David H. Petraeus (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/david_h_petraeus/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the top commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/c/ryan_c_crocker/index.html?inline=nyt-per), the American ambassador, is to what extent an American presence can define Iraq’s future. The fifth and final brigade of the troop buildup arrived only in June. General Petraeus has focused on “tactical momentum,” citing the so-called Sunni awakening as proof of success and cause for a continued and expansive American investment of lives and money.


.....

Few are convinced. First Sgt. Timothy Johnson’s experience of the National Police is particularly stark.

....

“I don’t trust them,” he said. “They will smile in your face and stab you in the back. They were just too close to that E.F.P. not to have known.”

Asked if things have improved since then, he shook his head emphatically.

“No, they are the same,” he said. “It’s bad and it’s not going to get better. We’re not going to make a difference, not in the short term. Maybe if we stayed here forever.”

Reporting was contributed by Ahmad Fadam, Karim Hilmi, Ali Hamdani, Mudhafer al-Husaini, Wisam A. Habeeb, Sabrina Tavernise, Diana Oliva Cave, Johan Spanner, James Glanz, Michael R. Gordon, Khalid al-Ansary, Ali Fahim, Ali Adeeb, Qais Mizher, Hosham Hussein and Sahar Najeeb.

Read it all here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/world/middleeast/09surge.html?pagewanted=print

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

The Shiites and Sunnis are going to have their sectarian bloodbath of a civil war, later if the US occupation continues indefinitely, or sooner if the occupation is ended. The bloodbath will be totally enabled by dubya's fradulent invasion (as were the slaughters caused by the US's fraudulent VN war), and dubya/dickhead/neo-cunts will be 100% responsible for the Iraqi bloodbath.

[boutons_]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3571504&page=1


Iraqis Say Surge Is Not Working

By Gary Langer
ABC News

Monday 10 September 2007

Barely a quarter of Iraqis say their security has improved in the past six months, a negative assessment of the surge in U.S. forces that reflects worsening public attitudes across a range of measures, even as authorities report some progress curtailing violence.

Apart from a few scattered gains, a new national survey by ABC News, the BBC and the Japanese broadcaster NHK finds deepening dissatisfaction with conditions in Iraq, lower ratings for the national government and growing rejection of the U.S. role there.

More Iraqis say security in their local area has gotten worse in the last six months than say it's gotten better, 31 percent to 24 percent, with the rest reporting no change. Far more, six in 10, say security in the country overall has worsened since the surge began, while just one in 10 sees improvement.

More directly assessing the surge itself - a measure that necessarily includes views of the United States, which are highly negative - 65 to 70 percent of Iraqis say it's worsened rather than improved security, political stability and the pace of redevelopment alike.

There are some improvements, but they're sparse and inconsistent. Thirty-eight percent in Anbar province, a focal point of the surge, now rate local security positively; none did so six months ago. In Baghdad fewer now describe themselves as feeling completely unsafe in their own neighborhoods - 58 percent, down from 84 percent. Yet other assessments of security in these locales have not improved, nor has the view nationally.

Overall, 41 percent report security as their greatest personal problem, down seven points from 48 percent in March. But there's been essentially no change in the number who call it the nation's top problem (56 percent, with an additional 28 percent citing political or military issues). And there are other problems aplenty to sour the public's outlook - lack of jobs, poor power and fuel supply, poor medical services and many more.

Big Picture

The big picture remains bleak. Six in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going badly, and even more, 78 percent, say things are going badly for the country overall - up 13 points from last winter. Expectations have crumbled; just 23 percent see improvement for Iraq in the year ahead, down from 40 percent last winter and 69 percent in November 2005.




More than six in 10 now call the U.S.-led invasion of their country wrong, up from 52 percent last winter. Fifty-seven percent call violence against U.S. forces acceptable, up six points. And despite the uncertainties of what might follow, 47 percent now favor the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq - a 12-point rise.

... etc, etc.


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

you're doing a heckuva job, dubaya, "playing" for time until you can just walk away from your Iraqi shithole on 20 Jan 2009 and start making those $100K speeches to the dubya-sucking MIC choir who profited immensely from your fraudulent war.

[clambake]

it's too bad Orson Welles couldn't be the storyteller of the report. everybody loved that guys delivery.

[ChumpDumper]

Someone tell him to turn off his cell phone.

[ChumpDumper]

Very polite of the two protesters to wait until Petraeus was done. I don't know what the third one was waiting for.

[xrayzebra]

Very polite of the two protesters to wait until Petraeus was done. I don't know what the third one was waiting for.

They waited? I didn't notice that.

[ChumpDumper]

Two of them did.

[clambake]

I liked the pink paper crown one was sporting.

[ChumpDumper]

Right, I guess it was some kind of Statue of Liberty thing.

Pretty pointless, though her shrieking when the security guard touched her was humorous.

[ChumpDumper]

So if I heard right, Petraeus is calling for following the Warner strategy in the next few months then just let the troop level draw down next spring to pre-surge levels.

The former is a mild surprise, the latter is no surprise at all since that's the only thing that could happen.