Never - Ending War

Nearly 7,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in the past two months, according to a UN report just released - a record high that is far greater than initial estimates had suggested.
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With known Iraqi deaths running at more than 100 a day because of sectarian murders, al-Qaida and nationalist insurgent attacks, and fatalities inflicted by the multinational forces, the UN said its total was likely to be "on the low side" because of the difficulties of collecting accurate figures. In particular, it said that no deaths were reported from the violent region covering Ramadi and Falluja.
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Critically, the report states that the country's government, set up in 2006, is "facing a generalised breakdown of law and order which presents a serious challenge to the institutions of Iraq".
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According to the UN, which releases the figures every two months, violent civilian deaths in July reached an unprecedented high of 3,590 people, an average of more than 100 a day. The August toll was 3,009 people, the report said. In the previous period the UN had reported just under 6,000 deaths - 5,106 from Baghdad.
The Guardian

The United States is losing its fight against terrorism and the Iraq war is the main reason, more than 80 per cent of American terrorism and national security experts have said in a survey.

One expert, former CIA official Michael Scheuer, said the war in Iraq had provided global terrorist groups with a recruiting bonanza and a valuable training ground.

"The war in Iraq broke our back in the war on terror," said Mr Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris, a book highly critical of the Bush Administration's anti-terrorism efforts. "It has made everything more difficult and the threat more existential."

Mr Scheuer, a former CIA counter-terrorism expert, is one of more than 100 national security and terrorism analysts surveyed in the poll by Foreign Policy magazine and the Centre for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank headed by John Podesta, a White House chief of staff in the Clinton administration.

Of the experts surveyed, 45 identified themselves as liberals, 40 said they were moderates and 31 called themselves conservatives. The pollsters weighted the responses so that the percentage results reflected one-third participation by each group.

Asked whether the US was winning the war on terror, 84 per cent said no and 13 per cent answered yes. Asked whether the war in Iraq was helping or hurting the global anti-terrorism campaign, 87 per cent said it was undermining those efforts.

A similar number, 86 per cent, said the world was becoming more dangerous for the US.

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Iraqi Army soldier Ali Katham Hussein would have a Purple Heart if he were in the U.S. Army. But he's received no medals for valor. He can't even afford to have the shrapnel and bullet lodged in his chest removed.

Neither can the Iraqi army.

"In Saddam Hussein's time, if you got hurt, you received compensation," he said.

Three months ago, insurgents ambushed Ali Katham Hussein's unit near Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad. Hussein was shot nine times in the attack -- bullets pierced his chest, stomach, arm and leg.

Leaning on a crutch on a dusty, trash-littered Iraqi army base in west Baghdad, he pulled up his shirt to reveal two moist bandages taped to his chest.

"After I got shot, I didn't get treated in a military hospital," he said. "I paid from my own pocket to get treatment."

In fact, there are no Iraqi military hospitals. Like all injured Iraqi soldiers, Hussein had to pay for his own treatment at an Iraqi civilian hospital.

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"If laws were broken there will be punishment." Really? The war itself is a violation of international law, along with the abuse and torture of prisoners, the kidnapping of alleged terrorists, their rendition to torture regimes allied with Washington, the network of secret CIA prisons, and the denial of due process and Geneva Convention rights to those swept up in America's international dragnet.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, the military chiefs and others who plotted and launched a war based on lies are the prime law-breakers. And the Republican and Democratic leaders and media yes-men who promoted the war and continue to defend the occupation are their accomplices.

Haditha was a war crime, and of a particularly gruesome sort, because the perpetrators systematically cornered and executed men, women and children over a span of five hours. But what of the destruction of entire towns, such as Fallujah and Tall Afar, in which thousands of innocent civilians died? These are hailed by Bush and the media as great victories.

Such is the carnage inflicted by the American occupation upon the Iraqi people that, at least according to some US press reports, the horrors that occurred in Haditha have not yet made a major impact on the consciousness of the Iraqi population.

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Newsweek reported this week that the U.S. military, in fact, is no longer pursuing a strategy for "victory." "It is consolidating to several 'superbases' in hopes that its continued presence will prevent Iraq from succumbing to full-flown civil war and turning into a failed state. Pentagon strategists admit they have not figured out how to move to superbases, as a way of reducing the pressure -- and casualties -- inflicted on the U.S. Army, while at the same time remaining embedded with Iraqi police and military units. It is a circle no one has squared. But consolidation plans are moving ahead as a default position, and U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has talked frankly about containing the spillover from Iraq's chaos in the region."

Yet Bush continues to declare as his goal (with encouragement from his polling expert on the NSC) the victory that the U.S. military has given up on. And he continues to wave the banner of a military solution against "the enemy," although this "enemy" consists of a Sunni insurgency whose leadership must eventually be conciliated and brought into a federal Iraqi government and of which the criminal Abu Musab al-Zarqawi faction and foreign fighters are a small part. [the author is certainly excluding the untold number of Zarqawi lieutenants -- zig] (…)

salon.com ...

Bad stuff happened in Iraq, stuff Adam Reuter doesn't want to talk about. Not with his friends, not with the line cooks in the burger joint where he worked when he first came home or the tenants in the apartment complex he manages now.

He doesn't even want to talk about it with his wife, who worried because he was jumping out of bed in the middle of the night.

But when he agrees to talk about the war -- really talk about it -- he goes right to how the insurgent crumpled after he pulled the trigger. How later, during the firefight, he ended up just a few feet from the corpse. Bullets buzzed by, and he was supposed to keep an eye on the alley, but he couldn't help but glance over.

"He just lay there," Reuter remembers. His eyes and mouth open. His whiskers a few days old. The bullet had gone in his neck cleanly, just to the right of his Adam's apple, but had come out ugly from the back of his head. He was maybe 25, a little older than Reuter. And his blood was pooling, thick and almost black in the darkness.

How can you describe what that was like? Who would understand it?

washingtonpost.com

THE American military is planning a “second liberation of Baghdad” to be carried out with the Iraqi army when a new government is installed. Pacifying the lawless capital is regarded as essential to establishing the authority of the incoming government and preparing for a significant withdrawal of American troops. Strategic and tactical plans are being laid by US commanders in Iraq and at the US army base in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, under Lieutenant- General David Petraeus. He is regarded as an innovative officer and was formerly responsible for training Iraqi troops. The battle for Baghdad is expected to entail a “carrot-and-stick” approach, offering the beleaguered population protection from sectarian violence in exchange for rooting out insurgent groups and Al-Qaeda. Sources close to the Pentagon said Iraqi forces would take the lead, supported by American air power, special operations, intelligence, embedded officers and back-up troops. Helicopters suitable for urban warfare, such as the manoeuvrable AH-6 “Little Birds” used by the marines and special forces and armed with rocket launchers and machineguns, are likely to complement the ground attack. The sources said American and Iraqi troops would move from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, leaving behind Sweat teams — an acronym for “sewage, water, electricity and trash” — to improve living conditions by upgrading clinics, schools, rubbish collection, water and electricity supplies. Sunni insurgent strongholds are almost certain to be the first targets, although the Shi’ite militias such as the Mahdi army of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical cleric, and the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade would need to be contained. The operation is likely to take place towards the end of the summer, giving the newly appointed government time to establish itself. If all goes to plan, US troop withdrawals could take place before the end of the year. In the absence of progress by then, the war may come to be seen by the American public as a lost cause.

US Plots ‘New Liberation of Baghdad’

On the southern outskirts of Baghdad, a sewage treatment plant that was repaired with $13.5 million in U.S. funds sits idle while all of the raw waste from the western half of Baghdad is dumped into the Tigris River, where many of the capital's 7 million residents get their drinking water. Adjacent to the Karkh sewage plant is Iraq's most advanced sanitary landfill, a new, 20-acre, $32 million dump -- also paid for by the United States -- with a liner to prevent groundwater contamination. It has not had a load of garbage dropped off since the manager of the sewer plant was killed four months ago. Iraqis consider the access roads too dangerous, and Iraqi police rarely venture into the area, a haven for insurgents who regularly lob mortar shells across the city into the Green Zone less than six miles away. The mothballed projects highlight a growing concern among U.S. officials here: whether Iraqis have the capacity to maintain, operate and protect the more than 8,000 reconstruction projects, costing $18.4 billion, that the United States has completed or plans to finish in the next few years, which include digging roadside drainage ditches, refurbishing hospitals and schools, and constructing electric power plants. "The United States must ensure that the billions of dollars it has already invested in Iraq's infrastructure are not wasted," said an October report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, citing what it said were "limitations in the Iraqis' capacity to maintain and operate reconstructed facilities." (I guess they don’t realize yet that every last cent of the money was wasted – or worse. – Susan)

Billion-Dollar Start Falls Short in Iraq