Didn't ya read John 6. . .uh. . .fifteen where he said "make an enemy and smite them" or something along those lines? Anyhoo, the reichwing Christian nutcases certainly loved the fact that a Jesus sign for peace was destroyed:
A new high of sixty-three percent of Americans either have buyers remorse or are objectively pro-Saddam, according to Gallup. Too bad that they are all just part of a focus group.
Abu Ghraib cover girl Lynndie England tells a German magazine that it's the media, not her actions, that inflamed the insurgency:
Lynndie England, the public face of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, told a German news magazine that she was sorry for appearing in photographs of detainees in the notorious Iraqi prison, and believes the scenes of torture and humiliation served as a powerful rallying point for anti-American insurgents.In an interview with the weekly magazine Stern conducted in English and posted on its Web site Tuesday, England was both remorseful and unrepentant — and conceded that the published photos surely incensed insurgents in Iraq.
"I guess after the picture came out the insurgency picked up and Iraqis attacked the Americans and the British and they attacked in return and they were just killing each other. I felt bad about it ... no, I felt pissed off. If the media hadn't exposed the pictures to that extent, then thousands of lives would have been saved," she was quoted as saying.
Asked how she could blame the media for the controversy, she said it wasn't her who leaked the photos.
"Yeah, I took the photos but I didn't make it worldwide. Yes, I was in five or six pictures and I took some pictures, and those pictures were shameful and degrading to the Iraqis and to our government," she said, according to the report.
Yep, it's not her fault, she wanted to keep the torture private. What a perfect Republican.
New headline in Shit We Already New In 2002 Weekly:
Exhaustive review finds no link between Saddam and al Qaida By Warren P. StrobelWASHINGTON — An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.
The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam's regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. However, his security services were directed primarily against Iraqi exiles, Shiite Muslims, Kurds and others he considered enemies of his regime.
The new study of the Iraqi regime's archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.
He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn't due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.
In this lengthy Rolling Stones article, Nir Rosen, probably the only Western reporter that could freely (as possible) navigate the dangerous streets of Baghdad, details how the relative calm was literally bought with taxpayer money by bribing those who had formerly attacked our soldiers, and how the calm is tenuous at best. Check it out.
The fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth is making the rounds telling anyone who's willing to listen that he didn't do it:
In the first insider account of Pentagon decision-making on Iraq, one of the key architects of the war blasts former secretary of state Colin Powell, the CIA, retired Gen. Tommy R. Franks and former Iraq occupation chief L. Paul Bremer for mishandling the run-up to the invasion and the subsequent occupation of the country.Douglas J. Feith, in a massive score-settling work, portrays an intelligence community and a State Department that repeatedly undermined plans he developed as undersecretary of defense for policy and conspired to undercut President Bush's policies.
Among the disclosures made by Feith in "War and Decision," scheduled for release next month by HarperCollins, is Bush's declaration, at a Dec. 18, 2002, National Security Council meeting, that "war is inevitable." The statement came weeks before U.N. weapons inspectors reported their initial findings on Iraq and months before Bush delivered an ultimatum to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Feith, who says he took notes at the meeting, registered it as a "momentous comment."
Although he acknowledges "serious errors" in intelligence, policy and operational plans surrounding the invasion, Feith blames them on others outside the Pentagon and notes that "even the best planning" cannot avoid all problems in wartime. While he says the decision to invade was correct, he judges that the task of creating a viable and stable Iraqi government was poorly executed and remains "grimly incomplete."
Powell, Feith argues, allowed himself to be publicly portrayed as a dove, but while Powell "downplayed" the degree and urgency of Iraq's threat, he never expressed opposition to the invasion. Bremer, meanwhile, is said to have done more harm than good in Iraq. Feith also accuses Franks of being uninterested in postwar planning, and writes that Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser during most of Feith's time in office, failed in her primary task of coordinating policy on the war.
So he's basically blaming everybody but the Pentagon. I think Mr. Stovepipe doth protest too much.
Bet the surge protectors didn't see this coming:
Iraq's Shiite-led government declared Saturday that after restive areas are calmed it will disband Sunni groups battling Islamic extremists because it does not want them to become a separate military force.In Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebel targets, the military said, in the third confirmed cross-border offensive by Turkish forces in less than a week.
The statement from Defense Minister Abdul-Qadir al-Obaidi was the government's most explicit declaration yet of its intent to eventually dismantle the groups backed and funded by the United States as a vital tool for reducing violence.
The militias, more than 70,000 strong and often made up of former insurgents, are known as Awakening Councils, or Concerned Local Citizens.
"We completely, absolutely reject the Awakening becoming a third military organization," al-Obaidi said at a news conference.
He added that the groups would also not be allowed to have any infrastructure, such as a headquarters building, that would give them long-term legitimacy.
"We absolutely reject that," al-Obaidi said.
Congress' approval Wednesday of $70 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan mean the twin conflicts are now more costly to American taxpayers than the war in Vietnam.According to a study by the Washington-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Congress has now approved nearly $700 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Using inflation-adjusted dollars, the total cost of those wars has now surpassed the total cost of the Vietnam war (which ran to $670 billion)," the group's Travis Sharp told OneWorld. "It's also more than seven times larger than the Persian Gulf War ($94 billion) and more than twice the cost of the Korean war ($295 billion)."
As a result of Wednesday's vote, Sharp said, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will become the second costliest conflict in American history, trailing only World War II.
Bush has to run interference on a previous disinformation campaign in order to catapult the new one:
Q But I’m concerned about the nations like Iraq, who now have nuclear weapons –THE PRESIDENT: Iran.
Q Iran and Iraq both.
THE PRESIDENT: Not Iraq. (Laughter.)
*cue Beavis chuckle* Of course, the new NIE says that he's still full of shit, still I love how the media still makes light of the situation.
Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Turkey bombed units of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq and sent troops across the border in pursuit of the militants, a lawmaker of Turkey's governing party said today.Turkish military jets and artillery pounded rebel positions inside the Kurdish-controlled region intermittently, said the lawmaker, who attended a briefing on the hostilities by government spokesman Cemil Cicek late yesterday in Ankara.
The army sent troops across the border with Iraq to hunt down PKK militants after 12 Turkish soldiers were killed by the group on Oct. 21 in Turkey, the official said. They later returned to the Turkish side of the border, he added.
Turkey's parliament on Oct. 17 passed a resolution authorizing the government to send troops into northern Iraq to attack PKK bases there. The U.S. opposes such action on concern it would destabilize the calmest part of Iraq.
Once again, the Israelis attacked Lebanon with U.S. backing for lesser reasons than this, and the U.S. attacked Eye-Rack for even less.
BAGHDAD - Turkey’s foreign minister rejected any cease-fire by Kurdish rebels Tuesday as he met with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad to press them to crack down on the guerrillas. Turkish forces massed on the border and tensions rose over a threatened military incursion.Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, himself a Kurd, said Iraq’s central government and authorities in its Kurdish autonomous region in the north would work together to deny the rebels freedom of movement, funds and representative offices. He said a high-level political and military delegation would travel soon to Turkey.
Iraqi officials have been saying that guerrillas with the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is known by its Kurdish acronym PKK, were based in inaccessible mountainous areas of northern Iraq.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said there are several ways to fight terrorism and Ankara would use them when appropriate. The buildup of troops along Turkey’s border with Iraq, meanwhile, continued with military helicopters airlifting commando units into the area overnight.
The mix of diplomatic and military activity followed Sunday’s rebel ambush near the Iraqi border that left 12 Turkish soldiers dead, 16 wounded and eight missing.
"We also don’t wish our historical and friendly ties with Iraq to be ruined because of a terrorist organization," Babacan said at a joint news conference after meeting with Zebari. "On the other hand, we are expecting support from international community and our neighbors in struggle against terrorism."
Babacan said rebel attacks this month alone left 42 people dead.
The Turkish government on Tuesday asked television and radio stations to curb broadcasts about Sunday’s ambush, saying they "have a negative impact on public order and people’s morale, spreading a flawed image of security forces," according to an official at the media watchdog. The official asked not to be named because she was not allowed to speak to the media.
Babacan, meanwhile, rejected any offer of a cease-fire by the PKK.
Cease-fires are "possible between states and regular forces," a stern-faced Babacan said. "The problem here is that we’re dealing with a terrorist organization."
The PKK has called on Turkey not to attack Iraq, claiming that a unilateral rebel cease-fire declared in June was still in place although it did not halt fighting.
"The position of the PKK is that we have agreed to a cease-fire but when we are attacked by the Turkish troops we will hit back," rebel spokesman Abdul-Rahman al-Chadarchi told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
He also confirmed that the rebels were holding eight Turkish soldiers captive and promised to treat them with respect, although he said it was "premature" to discuss conditions for their release.
"When they were attacking us, they were our enemies but now they are helpless captives whom we will take care of," al-Chadarchi said. "When the Turkish government asks for them, we can talk about conditions."
Hey, if the Bushies and Israelis can do it, why not Turkey?
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey will defy international pressure on Wednesday and grant its troops permission to enter northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels based there, though it has played down expectations of any imminent attack.Washington, Ankara's NATO ally, says it understands Turkey's desire to tackle rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), but fears a major incursion would wreck stability in the most peaceful part of Iraq and potentially in the wider region.
Turkey's stance has helped drive global oil prices to $88 a barrel, a new record, and has hit its lira currency as investors weigh the economic risks of any major military operation.
Parliamentary approval would create the legal basis for military action, essentially giving the army a free hand to act as and when it sees fit.
By law, Turkey's parliament must approve the deployment of Turkish troops abroad. Parliament is expected to approve the request from Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's cabinet by a large majority following an open debate.
The Washington Post editorial today:
A congressional study and several news stories in September questioned reports by the U.S. military that casualties were down. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), challenging the testimony of Gen. David H. Petraeus, asserted that "civilian deaths have risen" during this year's surge of American forces.A month later, there isn't much room for such debate, at least about the latest figures. In September, Iraqi civilian deaths were down 52 percent from August and 77 percent from September 2006, according to the Web site icasualties.org. The Iraqi Health Ministry and the Associated Press reported similar results. U.S. soldiers killed in action numbered 43 -- down 43 percent from August and 64 percent from May, which had the highest monthly figure so far this year. The American combat death total was the lowest since July 2006 and was one of the five lowest monthly counts since the insurgency in Iraq took off in April 2004.
During the first 12 days of October the death rates of Iraqis and Americans fell still further. So far during the Muslim month of Ramadan, which began Sept. 13 and ends this weekend, 36 U.S. soldiers have been reported as killed in hostile actions. That is remarkable given that the surge has deployed more American troops in more dangerous places and that in the past al-Qaeda has staged major offensives during Ramadan. Last year, at least 97 American troops died in combat during Ramadan. Al-Qaeda tried to step up attacks this year, U.S. commanders say -- so far, with stunningly little success.
. . .This doesn't necessarily mean the war is being won. U.S. military commanders have said that no reduction in violence will be sustainable unless Iraqis reach political solutions -- and there has been little progress on that front. Nevertheless, it's looking more and more as though those in and outside of Congress who last month were assailing Gen. Petraeus's credibility and insisting that there was no letup in Iraq's bloodshed were -- to put it simply -- wrong.
Iraq bombs and shootings kill at least 32BAGHDAD (AFP) - A wave of violence across Iraq, including the bombing of a minibus filled with Shiite worshippers and a suicide truck bomb attack on a police station, has killed 32 people, officials said Sunday.
Dozens of people were wounded in the attacks, which came as Muslims were celebrating the Eid al-Fitr festival that ends the holy fasting month of Ramadan, the officials said.
Ten people, including three women and two children, were killed on Sunday when a car bomb exploded next to their minibus as they were heading towards a Shiite shrine in northern Baghdad, Iraqi military officials told AFP.
Women and children were also among 18 wounded by the blast in Aden square, which was then sealed off to vehicles by the security forces.
Washington Post Correspondent Dies in Iraq By Joshua Partlow and Amit R. Paley Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, October 14, 2007; 2:54 PMBAGHDAD, Oct. 14 -- A veteran Washington Post special correspondent was shot to death Sunday in southwest Baghdad while on assignment, the first reporter for the newspaper to be killed during the Iraq war.
Salih Saif Aldin, 32, was reporting on the violence that has plagued Baghdad's Sadiyah neighborhood Sunday afternoon when he was shot in the forehead. According to residents of the neighborhood and the Iraqi military officers at the scene, he was taking photographs on a street where several houses had been burned when he was killed. His wounds appeared to indicate he was shot at close range.
God, save us from our librul media.
Another reason why I don't cry for the clowns that burned in Fallujah:
Oct. 15, 2007 issue - The colonel was furious. "Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers." He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad's Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company. Asked to address this and other allegations in this story, Blackwater spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, "This type of gossip has led to many soap operas in the press.". . .Responsible for guarding top U.S. officials in Iraq, Blackwater operatives are often accused of playing by their own rules. Unlike nearly everyone else who enters the Green Zone, said an American soldier who guards a gate, Blackwater gunmen refuse to stop and clear their weapons of live ammunition once inside. One military contractor, who spoke anonymously for fear of retribution in his industry, recounted the story of a Blackwater operative who answered a Marine officer's order to put his pistol on safety when entering a base post office by saying, "This is my safety," and wiggling his trigger finger in the air. "Their attitude was, 'We're f---ing security; we don't have to answer to anybody'."
Maybe they can send some Minute Men over there to protect our borders while they're at it:
Iran's role with the violence in Iraq remains a major preoccupation of the Bush administration, with the U.S. military now building a base, practically within shouting distance of Iran — an extraordinary step to curb what it says is the smuggling of advanced weapons into Iraq.It will be called Combat Outpost Shocker, and it will hardly come as a pleasant surprise to Iran that the United States will have a new base just 5 miles from their border. Col. Mark Mueller, of the 3rd Infantry Division, said it is the first time the U.S. military will be that close to Iran.
"Obviously, they probably won't be very happy about it," Mueller told ABC's Terry McCarthy.
. . .The Shocker base will be home to about 200 soldiers, as well as to agents from the U.S. Border Patrol
Can we call Betray-us a liar now?
BAGHDAD - The United States on Tuesday suspended all land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials in Iraq outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, amid mounting public outrage over the alleged killing of civilians by the U.S. Embassy's security provider Blackwater USA.The move came even as the Iraqi government appeared to back down from statements Monday that it had permanently revoked Blackwater's license and would order its 1,000 personnel to leave the country — depriving American diplomats of security protection essential to operating in Baghdad.
"We are not intending to stop them and revoke their license indefinitely but we do need them to respect the law and the regulation here in Iraq," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told CNN.
The U.S. order confines most American officials to a 3.5-square-mile area in the center of the city, meaning they cannot visit U.S.-funded construction sites or Iraqi officials elsewhere in the country except by helicopter. The notice did not say when the suspension would expire.
Today it's reported that two of the seven soldiers who wrote the New York Times op-ed piece, "The War As We Saw It", that criticized the rosy depiction of Eye-Rack by the war handlers and the media lapdogs have died in a vehicle accident.
As Greg Sargent has noted very well, the two schmucks Ken Pollack and Michael O'Hanlon, who have virtually nothing to lose in voicing their support for the surge have been given heavy media attention that was both misleading and undeserved for their NYT op-ed while these brave soldiers writing from a backdrop of a life-or-death situation had their NYT op-ed virtually ignored by the kneepad press. I certainly hope that more of what happened to Katie Couric happens to the rest of the whoring Emm Ess Emm morons.
Who are you gonna believe? Bush or those lying Eye-Rackees?
About 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military "surge" of the past six months, an opinion poll suggests.The survey by the BBC, ABC News and NHK of more than 2,000 people across Iraq also suggests that nearly 60% see attacks on US-led forces as justified.
This rises to 93% among Sunni Muslims compared to 50% for Shia.
So not only have we made the emnity towards the U.S. among the Sunnis nearly complete, we have also recruited a whole bunch of Shiites as well.
And, oh, those "positive indicators" that the surge protectors keep going on about? Yeah, those are all a pack of lies too:
According to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior, 984 people were killed across Iraq in February, and 1,011 died in violence in August. No July numbers were released because the ministry said the numbers weren't clear.But an official in the ministry who spoke anonymously because he wasn't authorized to release numbers said those numbers were heavily manipulated.
The official said 1,980 Iraqis had been killed in July and that violent deaths soared in August, to 2,890.
Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis obliterates the rhetoric and bullshit surrounding the chimperor's visit to Eye-Rack today:
It is unbelievable that for four years, the White House has been able to spin secret visits to Iraq as happy happy fun fun "surprise" visits, when in fact, they have secret trips because Iraq is too dangerous for normal visits.Smell the progress.
The only way they get away with this is that we no longer have a free press.
(via Daily Kos)
The real question is, why should anyone be surprised anymore?
BAGHDAD — Iraq's deadly insurgent groups have financed their war against U.S. troops in part with hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. rebuilding funds that they've extorted from Iraqi contractors in Anbar province.The payments, in return for the insurgents' allowing supplies to move and construction work to begin, have taken place since the earliest projects in 2003, Iraqi contractors, politicians and interpreters involved with reconstruction efforts said.
A fresh round of rebuilding spurred by the U.S. military's recent alliance with some Anbar tribes — 200 new projects are scheduled — provides another opportunity for militant groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq to siphon off more U.S. money, contractors and politicians warn.
"Now we're back to the same old story in Anbar. The Americans are handing out contracts and jobs to terrorists, bandits and gangsters," said Sheik Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, the deputy leader of the Dulaim, the largest and most powerful tribe in Anbar. He was involved in several U.S. rebuilding contracts in the early days of the war, but is now a harsh critic of the U.S. presence.
The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad declined to provide anyone to discuss the allegations. An embassy spokesman, Noah Miller, said in an e-mailed statement that, "in terms of contracting practices, we have checks and balances in our contract awarding system to prevent any irregularities from occurring. Each contracted company is responsible for providing security for the project."
Providing that security is the source of the extortion, Iraqi contractors say. A U.S. company with a reconstruction contract hires an Iraqi sub-contractor to haul supplies along insurgent-ridden roads. The Iraqi contractor sets his price at up to four times the going rate because he'll be forced to give 50 percent or more to gun-toting insurgents who demand cash payments in exchange for the supply convoys' safe passage.
One Iraqi official said the arrangement makes sense for insurgents. By granting safe passage to a truck loaded with $10,000 in goods, they receive a "protection fee" that can buy more weapons and vehicles. Sometimes the insurgents take the goods, too.
"The violence in Iraq has developed a political economy of its own that sustains it and keeps some of these terrorist groups afloat," said Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh, who recently asked the U.S.-led coalition to match the Iraqi government's pledge of $230 million for Anbar projects.
Despite several devastating U.S. military offensives to rout insurgents, the militants - or, in some cases, tribes with insurgent connections - still control the supply routes of the province, making reconstruction all but impossible without their protection.
One senior Iraqi politician with personal knowledge of the contracting system said the insurgents also use their cuts to pay border police in Syria "to look the other way" as they smuggle weapons and foot soldiers into Iraq.
"Every contractor in Anbar who works for the U.S. military and survives for more than a month is paying the insurgency," the politician said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. "The contracts are inflated, all of them. The insurgents get half."
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said he was aware of the "insurgent tax" that U.S.-allied contractors are forced to pay in Anbar, though he said it wasn't clear how much money was going to militant groups and how much to opportunistic tribesmen operating on their own.
"It's part of a taxation they put on trucks through all these territories, but it's very difficult to establish if it's going directly to insurgents," Zebari said.
Yeah Bush is right: our withdrawal from Vietnam and abandoning that country to the communists was so devastating that we now need to normalize trade with them.
Dumbass.
Crooks and Liars has a rare footage of Fox Nooze doing some (quote, unquote) reporting in a Baghdad market where the words of the spokesmodel saying how the Surge is working is completely contradicted the sights and sounds caught on camera. You really must see this to believe it.
(Via the stalinists at Daily Kos)
While certain Democrats seem to be falling over themselves to throw a bone to the neocon warmongers by praising certain parts of the military operations, the number of roadside bombs have reached an all-time high in Eye-Rack:
Although coalition forces have claimed a number of successes in discovering caches of the bombs, the number of attacks in July, stated as 99, shows the insurgency has had no problem in obtaining supplies.In recent weeks, US forces have focused operations on Sunni militants and, in particular, al-Qa'ida.
One of the initial aims of the "surge" was to combat Shia militias which, often in collusion with government forces, have been running death squads. However, the alleged use of the roadside devices shows the threat from the Shias, with many of the groups sponsored by Tehran, has not diminished despite numerous American missions.
Oh and here's this lovely little nugget:
Lieutenant General Raymond Odiarno, the deputy US commander in Iraq, said there had been an "all-time high" in July of attacks using the devices and that Shia militants were responsible for 73 per cent of the attacks that killed or wounded American troops in Baghdad.
So Ray "mock execution" Odierno admitted that his pet surge has sparked a full-blown shiite insurgency? Well hot dawg, we just have no choice but to stay in that sandbox, don't we?
morons.
While the army announced that 26 soldiers have died in the past week, this is apparently what the Maliki government is up to:
The U.S. military says it believes that the Shia-led government in Baghdad is trying to cleanse the city of all Sunnis.Sectarian violence has pushed most Sunnis into west Baghdad, and the Iraqi government is suspected of limiting basic services to the Sunnis in hopes of causing them to leave.
That would leave Sunnis even further unrepresented in the city, and it has cast a whole different light on the delay of provincial elections.
A government official claims, however, that Sunni politicians, fearful of losing to other Sunnis in the elections, are to blame.
The Bushies, cons and contractors could teach Henry James himself a thing or two about irony:
An upstart airline operating weekly flights between Baghdad and Amman, Jordan, is billing itself as the first no-frills airline to operate out of Iraq, but the company is restricting more than just food and booze on its flights.The airline is also banning Iraqis, Indians, Pakistanis and other non-Westerners from traveling.
Expat Airways said it is only accepting U.S. and Western citizens on its flights as it tries to capitalize on the thousands of U.S. contractors traveling in and out of the Iraqi capital each month. The airline, which landed its first 42-seat Russian Antonov turboprop at Baghdad International Airport Monday, is thought to be the first to bar passengers based on nationality.
U.S. and European carriers are restricted from the practice, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Ahmed al Musawi, a spokesman for the Iraqi Transportation Ministry, called Expat's flight restrictions ''immoral'' but said there are no federal laws in Iraq banning such actions.
Icasualties.org puts the July total at 81, which ties it for two previous months this year. But give the MSM credit for catapulting the propoganda.
BAGHDAD: Three U.S. soldiers were killed in fighting west of Baghdad, the military said Monday.The soldiers assigned to Multi-National Force — West died
Thursday while conducting combat operations in Anbar
province, according to a brief statement.
Big Bad Terra-ist Jihadist Leader turned out to have never existed:
Leader of Al Qaeda group in Iraq was fictional, U.S. military says
By Michael R. Gordon Published: July 18, 2007
BAGHDAD: For more than a year, the leader of one the most notorious insurgent groups in Iraq was said to be a mysterious Iraqi named Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi.As the titular head of the Islamic State in Iraq, an organization publicly backed by Al Qaeda, Baghdadi issued a steady stream of incendiary pronouncements. Despite claims by Iraqi officials that he had been killed in May, Baghdadi appeared to have persevered unscathed.
On Wednesday, a senior American military spokesman provided a new explanation for Baghdadi's ability to escape attack: He never existed.
Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, the chief American military spokesman, said the elusive Baghdadi was actually a fictional character whose audio-taped declarations were provided by an elderly actor named Abu Adullah al-Naima.
The royalists who brought us into Eye-Rack truly live in a different world than, well, the rest of the world. The sad thing is that the UN itself seems to be complicit in the swindling:
IRAQ'S ambassador to the United Nations, Hamid al Bayati, likes the high life. Bayati, who's been on the job for just over a year, is said to be living in a $22,000-a-month apartment at Trump World Tower on First Avenue. He's renting while the Iraqi U.N. Mission and official ambassador's residence on East 79th Street undergo a $40 million renovation. Where did the Iraqis get the cash? Newsmax.com reports the U.N. Security Council is paying with funds it once used to finance the now-terminated U.N. Iraq arms inspectors. When asked about the lavish use of the cash, Bayati refused comment. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Zalmay Khalilzad shrugged off the Iraqis' lush lifestyle by telling reporters, "$40 million is not a lot of money."
Matt Stoller may be right when he said that Hillary Clinton is so popular among Democrats despite her prowar vote and, up until recently, pro-war stance because there were a lot of Democrats who were also hoodwinked by Bush's push into Eye-Rack. Forgiveness of Hillary will in fact be forgiveness of themselves.
If that's true, then it's all the more reason to oppose her in the first place. I remember the debate back then, and it doesn't take a lot of evidence or knowledge of Eye-Rack to know that an invasion was going to be disastrous. I mean the first Bush didn't invade Eye-Rack because he says it will only result in a quagmire which will eliminate any support he had for the original Persian Gulf campaign. Saddam Hussein's army was only a third of what it what it was back before the Persian Gulf war. The UN inspectors weren't finding any weapons, ESPECIALLY after Colin Powell's "convincing" speech before the Security Council. And let us not forget the ethnic and sectarian divide that would rear its head in the event of a power vacuum. If they couldn't get a grasp of those geopolitical realities back then, how can we trust them to govern the world in the future?
(via Atrios)
Bush and his enablers won't stop until our armed forces have been run into the ground:
WASHINGTON -- Nearly 12 percent of Army recruits who entered basic training this year needed a special waiver for those with criminal records, a dramatic increase over last year and 2 1/2 times the percentage four years ago, according to new Army statisticsWith less than three months left in the fiscal year, 11.6 percent of new active-duty and Army Reserve troops in 2007 have received a so-called "moral waiver," up from 7.9 percent in fiscal year 2006, according to figures from the US Army Recruiting Command. In fiscal 2003 and 2004, soldiers granted waivers accounted for 4.6 percent of new recruits; in 2005, it was 6.2 percent.
Army officials acknowledge privately that the increase in moral waivers reflects the difficulty of signing up sufficient numbers of recruits to sustain an increasingly unpopular war in Iraq; the Army fell short of its monthly recruiting goals in May and June.
Since Oct. 1, 2006, when the fiscal year began, more than 8,000 of the roughly 69,000 recruits have been granted waivers for offenses ranging in seriousness from misdemeanors such as vandalism to felonies such as burglary and aggravated assault.
Geez, the people of St. Cloud and the sixth district picked this woman over Patty Wetterling? Is there something in the water up there?
U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann continued to stand by President Bush's military surge in Iraq, two days after returning from a congressional trip that put her in the line of fire while visiting Baghdad."It hasn't had a chance to be in place long enough to offer a critique of how it's working," said Bachmann, R-Minn.
. . .The delegation's visit was harrowing at times. While visiting with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker at the U.S. Embassy inside Baghdad's walled, high-security Green Zone on Friday, mortar blasts landed inside the American-controlled territory.
"This recorded message played four times while we were there, asking us to move away from any windows, to get on the ground and move to the center of the building," Bachmann said. "(Crocker) stayed in his seat and kept talking with us the whole time. He never moved."
. . .Security conditions in Iraq prevented Bachmann from meeting any Iraqis, leaving the Green Zone or staying in Iraq overnight. She and other congressional members were required to wear full body armor, including Kevlar helmets, during the entire trip, she said.
But she said she was encouraged by reports of progress from Crocker, Gen. David Petraeus and other personnel in Iraq linked to the surge.
A comprehensive report on military progress and whether the Iraqi government is meeting a series of political benchmarks Bush has set is expected.
"(Gen. Petraeus) said al-Qaida in Iraq is off its plan and we want to keep it that way," she said. "The surge has only been fully in place for a week or so."
Only thirteen more months, only thirteen more months. . .
(via Americablog)
And the chimp is at 29 percent, beating only Carter (by one percent), Nixon and Truman for below-freezing popularity.
Looks like the bushies are forced to move the goalposts again:
The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals or timelines President Bush set for it in January when he announced a major shift in U.S. policy, according to senior administration officials closely involved in the matter. As they prepare an interim report due next week, officials are marshaling alternative evidence of progress to persuade Congress to continue supporting the war.In a preview of the assessment it must deliver to Congress in September, the administration will report that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province are turning against the group al-Qaeda in Iraq in growing numbers; that sectarian killings were down in June; and that Iraqi political leaders managed last month to agree on a unified response to the bombing of a major religious shrine, officials said.
Those achievements are markedly different from the benchmarks Bush set when he announced his decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq. More troops, Bush said, would enable the Iraqis to proceed with provincial elections this year and pass a raft of power-sharing legislation. In addition, he said, the government of President Nouri al-Maliki planned to "take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November."
This is not going to help their case:
BAGHDAD, July 8 -- Suicide attacks and other explosions across Iraq killed at least 170 people and injured scores over the last couple of days, including a massive truck bombing in a northern Shiite village that ripped through a crowded market, burying dozens in the rubble of shops and mud houses, Iraqi officials said.At least 144 were killed Saturday, and at least another 26 people were killed Sunday when two car bombs exploded within five minutes of each other in the city's mostly Shiite Karrada district and a bomb hit a truck of newly recruited Iraqi soldiers traveling to Baghdad to aid in the crackdown on the violence, according to the Associated Press.
Shattering a relative lull in Iraq's violence, the attacks raised questions about whether insurgents who have fled an ongoing military offensive in Baghdad and Diyala province are regrouping and assaulting soft targets elsewhere, in less-secure areas with fewer troops.
The violence came as the U.S. military reported that 10 American soldiers had been killed over the last couple of days, all in combat or by roadside bombs in Baghdad and the western province of Anbar. The fatalities underscored the mounting death toll during the five-month security offensive, reinforced by thousands of U.S. troops, that is meant to help Iraq meet political and security goals set by the Bush administration.
Gee, can't the spinmeisters make up their minds?
Earlier last week we had this:
Iraqi officials today attributed a sharp drop in civilian deaths to a US-led security crackdown that began in February. At least 1,227 Iraqi civilians were killed in June - the lowest total since February - along with 190 policemen and 31 soldiers, an officer from the interior ministry operations room told the Associated Press.The numbers were a 36% drop from the ministry's May figures - 1,949 civilian deaths along with 127 policemen and 47 soldiers.
But the figures could not be verified independently, and many deaths are believed to go unreported. The Iraqi government recently decided to withhold civilian casualty numbers from the UN.
Nearly five months into a security strategy that involves thousands of additional U.S. and Iraqi troops patrolling Baghdad, the number of unidentified bodies found on the streets of the capital was 41 percent higher in June than in January, according to unofficial Health Ministry statistics.During the month of June, 453 unidentified corpses, some bound, blindfolded, and bearing signs of torture, were found in Baghdad, according to morgue data provided by a Health Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. In January, 321 corpses were discovered in the capital, a total that fell steadily until April but then rose sharply over the last two months, the statistics show.
Overall, the level of violent civilian deaths in Iraq is declining, according to the U.S. military and Health Ministry statistics, and there has been a steady drop in fatalities from mass-casualty bombings that have torn through outdoor markets, university bus stops and crowds assembled to collect food rations.
But the number of unidentified bodies found on the streets is considered a key indicator of the malignancy of sectarian strife. While the declining number of bombing victims suggests that efforts to control violence are showing some success, the daily slayings of individuals, in aggregate, speak to an enduring level of aggression.
So which is it? Is the surge creating slightly less bodies, or is it a resounding failure?
Those freedom-loving Kurds are acting up again:
IRBIL, Iraq: Security forces in northern Iraq's Kurdistan, the heartland of the Kurdish minority long tormented by Saddam Hussein, routinely torture detainees with beatings and electric shocks and hold hundreds of prisoners for long periods without charge, a human rights group said Tuesday.The Human Rights Watch report — based on interviews conducted from April to October 2006 with more than 150 detainees — demanded a comprehensive overhaul of detention practices in the Kurdish region and urged an independent body to investigate torture claims.
"We are surprised that the Kurds are practicing such violations after they were victims of torture during the Saddam era," Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for Human Rights Watch, said, referring to the ousted Iraqi leader's oppression of the Kurds.
"We appreciate the efforts by Kurdistan government to combat terrorism and secure Kurdistan, but we see that such violations against prisoners are not a good thing," she told a press conference in the northern city of Irbil.
MSM dutifully reports, in the words of a commentator, a "horrific massacre of Iraqi civilians" as another victory against Al-Qaeda when prompted by the military. Glenn Greenwald details the atrocity.
Hmm, is this just another token opposition from an administration obsessed with secrecy, or is this the real deal, the shitstorm we've been waiting for?
WASHINGTON (Map, News) - The White House is resisting a move by both Republicans and Democrats to fully declassify a Senate report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.Republicans say the public disclosure would help show that the CIA made honest mistakes in its 2002 assessment that Iraq owned stockpiles of WMDs, when in fact it no longer did.
But the White House believes the declassification would trigger another round of negative news media coverage and Democratic-led congressional hearings, said a Senate Republican, who asked to remain anonymous because of ongoing private discussions.
The dispute revolves around an obscure federal panel, the nine-member Public Interest Declassification Board.
Last November, incoming Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and the outgoing chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., signed a letter to the board asking for a review of two committee reports.
This is part of the reason why I don't trust the public NOT to turn against Democrats if and when they pull the plug on the war:
Even today, more than four years into the war in Iraq, as many as four in ten Americans (41 percent) still believe Saddam Hussein’s regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection. A majority of Americans were similarly unable to pick Saudi Arabia in a multiple-choice question about the country where most of the 9/11 hijackers were born. Just 43 percent got it right — and a full 20 percent thought most came from Iraq.
As Steve Benen says, the number of people who thought Saddam was directly involved in the September 11 attacks has actually gone up in three years. So even though now most of the people think the war is wrong and unwinnable, how long do you think they are going to change their minds and blame the assortments of Democrats, liberals and dirty, fucking hippies for denying this great nation victory over the Arab scum?
BAGHDAD, June 20 -- U.S. and Iraqi troops discovered an orphanage with "24 severely malnourished and abused boys" 10 days ago in the al-Fajr neighborhood of northern Baghdad, the U.S. military said Wednesday. The boys, ages 3 to 15, "were found naked in a darkened room without any windows," the military said in a statement.Photographs obtained by CBS News, which broke the story Monday, showed emaciated children lying naked on concrete floors in their own waste, some tied to their beds. Nearby, soldiers discovered a locked room with food and clothing.
. . .Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has ordered an investigation, state television reported. The children have been taken to an orphanage where they are being better cared for, CBS said.
Video found here, however long it lasts. Transcript here.
Anybody versed in Bushian kremlinology couldn't interpret General David Petraeus's recent pronouncements on FAUX Nooze any other way:
June 17 (Bloomberg) -- The odds of building a stable Iraqi government by September are slim, even with the addition of 30,000 U.S. troops to give lawmakers in Baghdad security, said the top U.S. general in the Middle East country.The ``aggregate level'' of violence has not diminished since the troop increase began five months ago, General David Petraeus said in an interview on ``Fox News Sunday.'' Asked whether he thought the strategy could succeed by early September when he's due to report to Congress, Petraeus was negative.
``I do not, no. I think we have a lot of heavy lifting to do,'' he said. ``This is a tough effort.''
So much for the "September deadline" failure at that time is just another excuse to continue the war. To the bushtards, trying something over and over again and expecting different results is not a sign of insanity, it is a practice that exceeds brilliance. Political brilliance, maybe.
Fear not American taxpayers, you're NOT being as hosed as you think you are:
WASHINGTON - Fraud committed by government contractors in Iraq is a problem but isn't as severe as some critics have suggested, federal officials said Tuesday.Some House Judiciary Committee Democrats questioned the assertions, saying they felt the Justice Department is dragging its feet in pursuing some cases of alleged fraud. They also said some federal judges appear too willing to seal records in such cases, making it impossible for the public to assess the merits of whistleblowers' accusations.
Stuart W. Bowen Jr., an inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, told lawmakers that anti-fraud efforts should be better coordinated, but they nonetheless have had an impact.
"Losses to American taxpayers from fraud within reconstruction programs will likely amount to relatively small components of the overall investments in Iraq, totaling in the tens of millions" of dollars and not in the "hundreds of millions or billions as is sometimes imagined," Bowen told the Judiciary subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland security.
That wouldn't be this Stuart Bowen who is under investigation himself, is it? Actually, it was launched by the Bushies, so it appears that Bowen has gotten the message: stop sniffing around, stop snitchin', stop lyin'.
The blog "Danger Room" hosted by Wired webstite has a bombshell of a preview from the upcoming Frontline piece "Endgame" in which retired General Jack Keane, nobodys liberal, nobody's pacifist, nobody's defeatist, says this about the Eye-Rack war:
"We never even considered an insurgency as a reasonable option. We took down the regime, and we thought what we had to do then was occupy then country, stabilize it, and in the mater of a few months we could reduce the force," says Keane, the former Army Vice Chief of Staff and intellectual co-author of the current troop "surge."And while the President may have been "us terms like 'win,' 'we're going to defeat the insurgents,' 'victory,'" Keane adds, "we never had that as a mission in Iraq."
Keane later added that he was involved in a briefing with defense analysts who picked up intelligence showing that the Sunni insurgents believe they are winning the war, and the analysts said that the insurgents were "probably right."
That's right, kiddies. We aren't fighting in Eye-Rack to defeat the "terra-ists", oh no. We are fighting to save Bush's ego from being deflated, and to pass on this disaster to the next (Democratic) president.
To be fair to Matthew Yglesias, Kevin Drum pointed out how full of shit "drawing down" the troops in Eye-Rack to around 50,000 way before Atrios did.
Bile O'Reilly placed in his two cents on the fact that FAUX Nooze is the number one network when it comes to NOT reporting the Eye-Rack war. Sure, his commentary is, per usual, over the top and demeaning, but it reflects a larger illness infecting most of the media. It's always mystifying that the news organization feels pressured to only report the good news coming from a war zone and not "embolden the enemy" or "undermine morale". If they think they are helping the republic by underreporting the war or sanitizing the coverage, they are dead wrong. If there are victories, then report the victories. But if there are losses - especially if there are losses - the media has a singular duty to expose those losses and why they occured, warts and all. The public has the right to know how the armed forces that is designed to protect them is performing so that they can pressure their elected officials to change tactics if things do not go well.
Imagine if we are in a real war and we are losing a lot of battles to the enemy, would our nation be served by a media that only spouts propaganda? The Germans who were able to flee the invasion of the Red Army knew they were losing because the "victories" they've heard on the propaganda broadcasts kept coming "closer and closer". The unfortunate Germans who swallowed the propaganda whole were left to fend for themselves while they were raped and pillaged. For now, we don't have to worry about an invasion by a foreign power, but just the same we are not well served by a media that refuses to report and detail the truth. The only time soldiers' lives are in danger is if we broadcast sensitive information like an army's position or battle plan. Nobody' gets killed by reporting the outcome, and in the end we might even learn from any mistakes that may have resulted. So that is why people like Bill Oh'Really are not reporters, just television personalities. They may be good for clownish entertainment, but when it comes to news that really matters, it is best to look for more honest sources.
Violence in Eye-Rack rising, despite Surge™:
WASHINGTON, June 13 — Violence increased throughout much of Iraq in recent months, despite a security crackdown in Baghdad that at least temporarily reduced sectarian killings there, according to a quarterly assessment of security conditions issued Wednesday by the Pentagon.The report, which analyzed data from February through early May, said it was too early to say whether the security effort in Baghdad would achieve lasting security gains. And it described in more detail than officials had until now how security conditions in other parts of the country had worsened when American and Iraqi forces shifted in large numbers into the capital.
“The aggregate level of violence in Iraq remained relatively unchanged during this reporting period,” the report said. “Violence has decreased” in Baghdad and in Anbar Province, which have long been the country’s most violent areas, “but has increased in most provinces, particularly in outlying areas around Baghdad and in Nineva and Diyala Provinces.” Attacks have also increased in Basra Province in the south, because of fighting between rival Shiite militants, some of whom fled Baghdad because of the security crackdown, it added.
Although precise data are not included in the report, attacks on civilians and Iraqi and American troops increased by 2 percent from the previous quarter, the report said. The average number of attacks has exceeded 1,000 per week since the beginning of this year through early May, the highest level since the American invasion in 2003, it said.
Blast at revered Shi'ite shrine in Iraq's Samarra
13 Jun 2007 06:54:07 GMTBAGHDAD, June 13 (Reuters) - Militants blew up two minarets of a revered Shi'ite mosque in the Iraqi city of Samarra on Wednesday, targeting a shrine that had already been badly damaged in a 2006 attack, Shi'ite officials said.
One witness said the minarets at Samarra's Golden Mosque had been largely destroyed. The attack on the mosque last year was a turning point in Iraq, sparking a wave of sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed the country to the brink of all-out civil war.
"The explosion targeted the two golden minarets. They have been damaged ... This is a criminal act which aims at creating sectarian strife," Saleh al-Haidari, the head of the Shi'ite endowment in Iraq, a major religious body, told Reuters.
He blamed "extremists" for the attack. It was unclear exactly how the minarets had been blown up, but residents said there had been clashes between gunmen and police in the area before the explosion.
A senior Iraqi government official said the attack was "very bad news for Iraq".
Sunni mosque south of Baghdad blown up -police 13 Jun 2007 15:40:14 GMT Source: ReutersBAGHDAD, June 13 (Reuters) - Gunmen blew up a major Sunni mosque in the Iraqi town of Iskandariya on Wednesday, police said, following an attack on a revered Shi'ite shrine that has stirred fears of a surge in sectarian bloodshed.
Police said Iskandariya's Grand Mosque had been totally destroyed. Witnesses said the town, which lies south of Baghdad, was tense in the wake of the bombing.
Paul Waldman is right. Given the administration track record for fuckups upon fuckups upon spectactular fuckups in Eye-Rack, those who think this plan is NOT going to bite us in our collective asses needs to be locked up in rubber rooms:
BAGHDAD, June 10 — With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.American commanders say they have successfully tested the strategy in Anbar Province west of Baghdad and have held talks with Sunni groups in at least four areas of central and north-central Iraq where the insurgency has been strong. In some cases, the American commanders say, the Sunni groups are suspected of involvement in past attacks on American troops or of having links to such groups. Some of these groups, they say, have been provided, usually through Iraqi military units allied with the Americans, with arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and supplies.
American officers who have engaged in what they call outreach to the Sunni groups say many of them have had past links to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia but grew disillusioned with the Islamic militants’ extremist tactics, particularly suicide bombings that have killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. In exchange for American backing, these officials say, the Sunni groups have agreed to fight Al Qaeda and halt attacks on American units. Commanders who have undertaken these negotiations say that in some cases, Sunni groups have agreed to alert American troops to the location of roadside bombs and other lethal booby traps.
But critics of the strategy, including some American officers, say it could amount to the Americans’ arming both sides in a future civil war. The United States has spent more than $15 billion in building up Iraq’s army and police force, whose manpower of 350,000 is heavily Shiite. With an American troop drawdown increasingly likely in the next year, and little sign of a political accommodation between Shiite and Sunni politicians in Baghdad, the critics say, there is a risk that any weapons given to Sunni groups will eventually be used against Shiites. There is also the possibility the weapons could be used against the Americans themselves.
This new policy coming in the wake of a splintering in the so-called Anbar coalition, this screams giant fuck-up in the near future.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, under pressure from the United States to expand the U.N.'s role in Iraq, said Monday he would consider it but cited deteriorating security that has forced the U.N. to leave the southern city of Basra and temporarily move out of its living quarters in Baghdad's U.S.-protected Green Zone.In a report to the U.N. Security Council, Ban said the United Nations is a major promoter of electoral, constitutional and political efforts to build a united, democratic Iraq but because of the "precarious" security situation it needs the speedy construction of a new residential compound in Baghdad that can withstand the impact of rockets and other high-caliber weapons.
"The security situation in Iraq remains complex and unpredictable and is a major limiting factor for the United Nations presence and activities in Iraq," Ban said in the report covering the period from early March to early June.
. . .Ban said "the overall security environment presents a major challenge for the United Nations, particularly for its staff in the International Zone in Baghdad," also known as the Green Zone. He said an increase in mortar and rocket attacks in the Green Zone — from 17 in March to 30 in April and 39 by May 22 — was exacerbated by the increase in car bombings at entry checkpoints.
Hmm, he don't say?
It was great for the coupla months that it lasted:
BAGHDAD, June 10 -- A tribal coalition formed to oppose the extremist group al-Qaeda in Iraq, a development that U.S. officials say has reduced violence in Iraq's troubled Anbar province, is beginning to splinter, according to an Anbar tribal leader and a U.S. military official familiar with tribal politics.In an interview in his Baghdad office, Ali Hatem Ali Suleiman, 35, a leader of the Dulaim confederation, the largest tribal organization in Anbar, said that the Anbar Salvation Council would be dissolved because of growing internal dissatisfaction over its cooperation with U.S. soldiers and the behavior of the council's most prominent member, Abdul Sattar Abu Risha. Suleiman called Abu Risha a "traitor" who "sells his beliefs, his religion and his people for money."
Abu Risha, who enjoys the support of U.S. military commanders, denied the allegations and said the council is not at risk of breaking apart. "There is no such thing going on," he said in a telephone interview from Jordan.
Lt. Col. Richard D. Welch, a U.S. military official who works closely with the tribal leaders in Iraq, said that relations inside the group were strained and that he expected a complete overhaul of the coalition in coming days.
U.S. military leaders hailed the creation of the nearly nine-month-old Anbar Salvation Council, first known as the Awakening, as one of the most important developments in the four-year war, signaling that insurgents and the local population in Anbar, which is overwhelmingly Sunni, have begun to see al-Qaeda in Iraq as their worst enemy, rather than the United States and its allies.
Again via First Draft, it seems like Turkey is expanding their Waronterra into our backyard:
ANKARA, Turkey - Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who operate from bases there, Turkish security officials told The Associated Press.Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the raid was limited in scope and that it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks.
“It is not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands,” one of the officials told the AP by telephone. The official is based in southeast Turkey, where the military has been battling separatist Kurdish rebels since they took up arms in 1984.
Like Holden says, shit meet fan.
The real question is, are they safer yet?
Construction of a controversial, three-mile blast wall in one of Baghdad’s most troubled neighb
