"Endgame" in Iraq

[ChumpDumper]

A free do entary you can see legally on the internets:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/endgame/

All kinds of information Yoni thinks you shouldn't know.

I condone watching it.

[boutons_]

US Military Cites Green Zone Attacks

By Lauren Frayer
The Associated Press

Wednesday 20 June 2007

The U.S. military acknowledged "an increasing pattern of attacks" against the Green Zone, a day after a mortar barrage against the heavily fortified area sent soldiers and contractors scrambling for cover.

Militants fired a volley of mortar rounds into the Green Zone, which houses the U.S. and British embassies, as well as the Iraqi government on the west bank of the Tigris River, officials said. The U.S. Embassy said no casualties were reported, but the attack was the latest in what has become a nearly daily occurrence despite stringent security measures aimed at protecting the area.

Rear Adm. Mark Fox, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, declined to provide details on the number of attacks against the Green Zone, which is also known as the International Zone, but said they were increasing.

"It's clear that there is an attempt to get lucky shots, and there is unquestionably an increasing pattern of attacks here against the International Zone. There's no doubt about that," Fox said at a joint news conference with Iraqi military spokesman Qassim al-Moussawi.

Al-Moussawi said the attacks were coming from inside residential areas, causing difficulties in responding to them because of concern about civilian casualties.

"They are fired from mobile launchers from inside residential areas. The multinational forces, through satellites and aerial pictures, have the abilities to directly respond to the places from which these rockets are being fired," he said. "The main obstacle is that they are being launched from residential areas. This exposes the citizens to big casualties and leaves great material damage."

He said security forces were receiving daily information about the location of the launching pads.

The U.S. Embassy said there were about a dozen explosions, although it could not confirm whether they were rockets or mortars. An embassy spokesman, Armand Cucciniello, said no casualties were reported but he could not provide any information about damage.

U.S. soldiers and contractors in the vicinity of the PX said a building near the store was hit.

A security official working in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office also said a s landed in the garden of the home of Human Rights Minister Wijdan Mikaeil. Two s s fell short of their Green Zone target, with one hitting Abu Nwas Street near the Jumhuriya Bridge, and a second fell into the Tigris. One s landed near the home of Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh.

A June 5 U.N. report said insurgents had bombarded the Green Zone with rockets and mortar fire more than 80 times since March, reportedly killing at least 26 people.

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

"We are winining, absolutely"

you're doing a heckuva job, dubya


The "oilco security services" , aka the permanent US military bases, will be sitting ducks for daily attacks for as long as those bases are there.

[RobinsontoDuncan]

wow that was an amazing do entary, i wish they had touched on de baathification though

[clambake]

wow that was an amazing do entary, i wish they had touched on de baathification though

Agreed. Unfortunately, that is the one thing they planned on.

[ChumpDumper]

i wish they had touched on de baathification though

Ask and ye shall receive. This episode covers the de-Baathification and disbanding of the army:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/yeariniraq/

Really all the Frontline programs about Iraq/Afghanistan/terra are worth watching:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/terror/

[DarkReign]

This is the post of the year.

You dont have 3 reporters running roughshod over gathered intel and purporting it as "Facts about Iraq".

You have 12-20 (if not more) people who are either A) High Ranking Military Officers, B) Personal Aides to High Office Holders, C) Professional Military Strategists that were ASKED to attend and contribute to meetings with none other the President himself and D) Reporters from ALL spectrums who were imbedded in Iraq for loooong stretches of time.

Want to know why this program is so weird, to me?

Because they are ALL saying the same damn things! Ever notice how ing odd that is? Maybe, just maybe, its because theyre just telling the Truth which is the easiest thing to do, which is why their stories all add up.

Every member of this board should be watching this. Even those got Club-Only members without an opinion worth a .

Post of the Year, Chump. My vote anyway.

[clambake]

That completely explains why we find ourselves here, over four years later.

It gave me this sick feeling, you know, like handing your son the keys to your Bentley on prom night. No matter how much you want to trust them. Thats what we did as a nation. We handed them the keys to our Bentley.

Thanks for posting that, Chump. Now we know why we're still stuck in this failure.

[boutons_]

The US has been to and lost this kind of , under equally ish leaders, before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uemtj...elated&search=

Of course, yellow-bellied, privileged, string-pulling, draft-evading chicken s like dubya and head wouldn't know anything about Viet Nam and its lessons.

[Nbadan]

A free do entary you can see legally on the internets:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/endgame/

All kinds of information Yoni thinks you shouldn't know.

I condone watching it.

Nothing against PBS, but leaving in the quote that Rummy was liberal's highest ranking administration member is just en stupid.

[ChumpDumper]

Inasmuch as getting troopes out of Iraq is concerned, it was true.

[Nbadan]

Inasmuch as getting troopes out of Iraq is concerned, it was true.

No, it's not.

[Nbadan]

Whatever plans Rummy is rumored to have had on the table concerning doubts about his plan and future withdrawal, here's what he was saying in Jun 2005...

Wait for 2017

Fresh from being invited last week by Senator Ted Kennedy to graciously step down, Rumsfeld is back on his usual attack-dog mode - but now with a downbeat twist. In May, Vice President Cheney said the "insurgency was in its last throes". Now - without even appealing to semantic contortionism of the "unknown unknowns" kind - Rumsfeld in fact has clarified to American and world public opinion that the "throes" will go on until 2017. He said, "We're not going to win against the insurgency. The Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency. That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, seven, eight, 10, 12 years."

ATimes

Near the end, Rummy becomes concerned about what the war would do to his legacy, but he knows the war is going to be Lebonized no mattter what he says, the State Department is in charge now.

[UV Ray]

Excellent do entary.

[ChumpDumper]

Right, he wanted the Iraqis to finish off the insurgency. Not us. Sure it was pie in the sky, but that was his plan.

[boutons_]

"Iraqis to finish off the insurgency."

The Iraqis ARE the insurgents. Yet another major point that escaped Rummy's fantasy for Iraq.

[ChumpDumper]

Of course. His planning never allowed for the large-scale insurgency. That's why he thought he could get the US forces out quickly.

[Nbadan]

Whatever Rummmy was saying publicly, two of Paul Bremer's CPA first acts were the debathification of the Iraqi military and police. Under Saddam, the Iraqi Baath ran the military and police, so when the CPA desolved the Baath, they desolved the Iraqi military and Iraqi police.

Does this sound like a plan to let the Iraqi military and police deal with insurgents?

[ChumpDumper]

Dan, there wasn't an insurgency until after the army disbandment and de-Baathification orders.

Does this sound like a plan to let the Iraqi military and police deal with insurgents?

They didn't plan for an insurgency, period.

[clambake]

Do not be desirous of having things done quickly. Do not look at small advantages. Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly. Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.

[boutons_]

June 24, 2007

General’s Iraq Progress Report Has Compe ion

By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER, NYTIMES

WASHINGTON, June 23 — Last month, Congress set a deadline for the American commander in Iraq, declaring that by Sept. 15 he would have to assess progress there before billions more dollars are approved to finance the military effort to stabilize the country. The commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, said in recent days that his report would be only a snapshot of trends, strongly suggesting he will be asking for more time.

But even before he composes the first sentences of the report, to be written with the new American ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan C. Crocker, the administration is commissioning other assessments that could dilute its findings about the impact of the current troop increase. The intent appears to be to give President Bush, who publicly puts great emphasis on listening to his field commanders, a wide range of options.

The assessments are likely to conclude that the Iraqi government has failed to use the troop increase for the purpose the president intended, to strike the political accommodations that he said would stabilize the country. That and other views expected in the various reports could also provide some rationale for beginning a reduction of troops in Iraq under conditions far short of the “victory” Mr. Bush, for the past four years, has said was his ultimate goal. He has used that word with far less frequency recently.

American intelligence agencies, according to senior administration and intelligence officials, are already preparing to submit their own assessment of Iraq’s progress. That is expected to include a judgment about whether Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is willing or capable of striking the kind of Shiite-Sunni political balance Mr. Bush said was the ultimate objective of the American strategy, and whether the passage of political compromises, none of which have yet cleared Parliament, have any hope of reducing the violence. That report will begin circulating, officials said, around the time that General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker arrive in Washington to testify about what the troop increase has accomplished.

Congress has also asked for an independent commission to report on whether the Iraqi security forces are ready to take on the greater role in stabilizing the country that Mr. Bush has talked about since soon after the 2003 invasion. But lawmakers did not mandate who would conduct the assessment, and tellingly, the Pentagon assigned that task to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan Washington policy ins ute that has regularly published some scholars’ stinging evaluations of strategic blunders in the administration’s strategy.

The commission will be led by Gen. James L. Jones, the retired former supreme allied commander in Europe, who has made little secret of his doubts about whether the current course will succeed, and John J. Hamre, a former deputy defense secretary who led a study mission to Iraq four years ago that offered recommendations that were largely ignored by the White House.

Little doubt remains that General Petraeus will argue for continuing the troop increase. His deputy, Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, told reporters on Friday that Iraqi forces were “getting better,” “staying and fighting,” “taking casualties” and adding to their numbers.

“If you ask me today, I think by the spring, or earlier, they will be able to take on a larger portion of their security, which means I think potentially we could have a decision to reduce our forces,” General Odierno said. But he also acknowledged that such claims have been made many times in this war, only to be reversed as chaos spread.

Several officials around Mr. Bush, none of whom would speak on the record about internal White House deliberations, said they wanted to make sure the president was given dissenting viewpoints as he made decisions that would determine whether troop withdrawals began in his last year in office.

“The issue now is when do we start withdrawing troops and at what pace,” one senior administration official said. “Petraeus wants as much time as he can get,” the official said, but added that “the president may not have the leeway” to give him that time.

The reality, officials said, is that starting around April the military will simply run out of troops to maintain the current effort. By then, officials said, Mr. Bush would either have to withdraw roughly one brigade a month, or extend the tours of troops now in Iraq and shorten their time back home before redeployment. The latter, said one White House official, “is not something the president wants to do” and would likely become a centerpiece of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Advisers to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and senior members of Congress who have discussed the issue with Mr. Gates have described one of his central goals as trying to turn down the heat in Iraq, transforming the war from the central national security crisis confronting the nation to an important but manageable long-term foreign policy and military issue. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has expressed similar views, but it is unclear whether Vice President Cheney or President Bush will try to squeeze every possible month out of the troop increase.

( what bull . Iraq will be the "central national security crisis" strictly because dubya created the crisis. Iraq/Saddam wasn't a threat in Feb 2003. Iraq now is a huge threat, and will be for years. Thank you, dubya, you stupid, ignorant, lying mother ing stooge of head )

It is difficult to predict how the assessments will play out in the next three months. Congressional Democrats, who wrote the Sept. 15 deadline into war-financing legislation, envisioned General Petraeus’s report as the moment they would have enough solid information to decide whether to continue financing for the so-called surge. They say that it could provide the opportunity to peel away enough nervous Republicans to create a veto-proof majority in favor of a withdrawal. An earlier report, due next month, is expected to be less significant.

But with the proliferation of assessments, there may also be a proliferation of contradictory views. That is exactly what the White House sought to create last December, when it ordered other studies to offset the findings of the Iraq Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Representative Lee H. Hamilton. Mr. Bush rejected much of the group’s advice — until recently, when he declared that it was his intention to get back to the group’s plan. He did not say which parts, but the plan includes a call, filled with caveats, for gradual withdrawal of all combat brigades by the end of March 2008.

Within Mr. Bush’s inner circle of advisers, Mr. Gates and Gen. Peter Pace, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this week that they intended to use the report from General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker as just the foundation for their own, formal recommendations to the president.

Already, Mr. Bush’s aides are anticipating that General Petraeus’s report will be met with anger in Congress from Democrats and some Republicans who have expressed skepticism that Iraq can achieve real political progress.

In recent days, General Petraeus has sought to manage expectations in Congress and among the American public by emphasizing that his September report should be viewed as a snapshot of trends for an offensive that has recently gotten under way.

A range of officials have said that the military operations in Iraq are operating on a different clock than the effort at reaching political reconciliation under Prime Minister Maliki, and that both of those are on a different clock than the one marking time on Capitol Hill. But a series of deadlines loom.

The first, preliminary report demanded by Congress is due from the administration on July 15, just as Congress is in the midst of further debate on a bill that would authorize military spending for Iraq for the fiscal year that begins in October. The main benchmarks assessment, due on Sept. 15, will arrive on Capitol Hill as Congress is debating legislation to appropriate that money, the second part of the budgeting process. Any of those bills could serve as vehicles for members to try to legislate troop levels or timetables for the Iraq mission.

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

"The American people" have voted and polled, they want our soldiers to quit wastefully, pointlessly dying in Iraq. The endgame is near. dubya and head will be inarguabley smeared with forever for their Iraq debacle.