Today in Iraq

War News for September 3 and 4, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Two Fallujah Brigade members, two civilians killed in fighting with US troops near Fallujah. Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers wounded in patrol ambush near Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: Seven insurgents killed, 25 wounded in heavy fighting with US troops near Tall Afar. Bring ‘em on: Oil pipeline ablaze near Basra. Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers wounded in patrol ambush near Duluiyah. Bring ‘em on: “Dozens” of Iraqis killed by car bomb at police academy in Kirkuk. Bring ‘em on: Three Turkish hostages executed near Samarra. Bring ‘em on: Seven insurgents killed, seven Iraqi soldiers wounded in fighting near Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqi policeman kidnapped in Basra. Bring ‘em on: Oil pipeline ablaze near Kirkuk. Bring ‘em on: Green Zone mortared in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: US helicopter shot down near Tall Afar; two crewmen wounded. Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqis killed in fighting with US troops near Ramadi. Bring ‘em on: Associated Press driver assassinated near Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Bulgarian soldier wounded in patrol ambush near Karbala. Poland plans to withdraw troops from Karbala province. “Poland will hand over another part of the zone it administers in Iraq under a planned reduction of its forces next year, Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said in an interview published Friday. The key US ally, which heads a multinational force of 6,500 administering a swathe of south central Iraq to which it sent more than 2,500 of its own troops, will hand over control of the province of Karbala, he said.” Time to call up two more National Guard brigades. Insurgents control Samarra. “The insurgents have destroyed police stations and government buildings. The police chief and mayor still live in Samarra, but have lost all authority. The city council president resigned last week after insurgents blew up the council building. The guerrillas have also kidnapped and executed residents suspected of collaborating with the Americans. With the U.S. military on the city's outskirts, Samarra's insurgents slip out of the city to mount their attacks.” Iraqi police seal off Najaf and Kufa. Arrest techniques changed. “The U.S. military is avoiding once-common arrest techniques like bagging suspects' heads, the U.S. commander in charge of the Iraqi capital said, because such actions are considered humiliating by Iraqis and pushing new recruits into the insurgency. ‘You've got to see it from a force protection standpoint: You're making more enemies,’ U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli told The Associated Press. ‘When we mistreat one person I've got a net increase of nine enemies.’… Baghdad residents, asked Friday about the changes, loosed a litany of complaints about the unpopular U.S. presence in Iraq, from the blocking of roads and bridges to aggressive driving and capricious detentions. Halting humiliating arrest techniques is a positive development, they said, but too little, too late.” More on the CPA's reconstruction fiasco. “Publicly, the United States says the reconstruction is going well, but some top reconstruction officials said they are exasperated by inefficiency, corruption and missed deadlines. An examination by NBC of the work on one major sewage project shows a tangle of contracts and confusing lines of authority, clogging up the efforts at reconstruction.” Chalabi under FBI investigation. “FBI counterintelligence agents are investigating whether several Pentagon officials leaked classified information to Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, according to a law enforcement official and other people familiar with the case. Senior White House officials, including national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, have been apprised that Chalabi is part of the investigation, according to a senior U.S. official. The inquiry is part of the larger counterintelligence probe that was disclosed last week -- the scope of which is not yet clear.” This will make Allawi’s government as popular as a fart in church. “Iraq's new ambassador to Britain says a powerful lobby is developing in Baghdad, backing diplomatic ties with Israel, Haaretz reported Friday.” Sergeants call this "fucking up by the numbers."

1 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security issued between 20 January 2001 and 10 September 2001 that mentioned al-Qa'ida. 104 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned Iraq or Saddam Hussein. 101 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned missile defence. 65 Number of Bush administration public statements on National security and defence in the same period that mentioned weapons of mass destruction. 0 Number of times Bush mentioned Osama bin Laden in his three State of the Union addresses. 73 Number of times that Bush mentioned terrorism or terrorists in his three State of the Union addresses. 83 Number of times Bush mentioned Saddam, Iraq, or regime (as in change) in his three State of the Union addresses. $1m Estimated value of a painting the Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, received from Prince Bandar, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States and Bush family friend. 0 Number of times Bush mentioned Saudi Arabia in his three State of the Union addresses

Commentary Editorial: “One needn't deny Bush's appropriate firmness in attacking Al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan soon after 9/11 to assert that he almost immediately lost his way in the struggle against terrorism. He squandered international support and diverted the Pentagon's energies to a misplaced war against Iraq. He did so on poor advice from ideologues and frothy intelligence that utterly misjudged Saddam Hussein's capabilities. Iraq had no ties to 9/11. It had no weapons of mass destruction. In short, Saddam posed no terroristic threat to the United States. Meanwhile, Al-Qaida remained, and remains today, a menace whose leader is still at large. Americans receive vague ‘orange alerts’ attesting to its continued threat to homeland security. Ports, energy supplies and transportation systems remain vulnerable for lack of federal attention. And Iraq? Long after Bush declared ‘mission accomplished,’ U.S. forces face land mines and truck bombs, religious extremists and political assassins. It's far from clear that Iraq will soon become the Mideast beacon of democracy that he envisions. President Bush acknowledged none of this. How could he? To invade Iraq, he either misread or distorted intelligence; he rebuffed allies, weapons inspectors and other voices of caution. In his speech he posed that decision as being one of taking the word of a madman or defending his country. But it has been established that Bush decided to attack Iraq shortly after 9/11 -- well before going to the United Nations.” Analysis: “Today, Afghanistan and Iraq are places where the great industry is the mushrooming of global terrorism. Bush cannot escape responsibility for it. At the same time, he seems to be looking in the face of two new potential crises: Iran and North Korea, two potential targets for regime change, if he is re-elected. If the doctrines of preemption and regime change were to be implemented in those two countries, the world would face its largest fiasco ever. Even if North Korea were spared because of its presumed nuclear weapons, it would be escaping a major conflict only for now. There is no way a re-elected Bush would prolong this crisis endlessly without resolving it one way or another. Iran, on the other hand, is an obvious candidate, for it has not yet produced nuclear weapons.” Analysis: “As the drama of Beslan was entering its final hours, George Bush was bidding for re-election on the promise of security to the American people, a security premised on the willingness to use overwhelming military force. It was the same promise that Putin gave to the Russians and Ariel Sharon to the people of Israel. All three have used violence freely in pursuit of electoral reward: Sharon's provocative visit to the Temple of the Mount that triggered the second intifada, Putin's reckless adventurism in re-launching the Chechen war in 1999, and the Bush invasion of Iraq. None has produced the peace or security that was their justification; all have generated more violence and widened the circle of killing far beyond the formal engagement of armed men on both sides. Now the most likely victims are the poor and the helpless, as collateral damage, bombing casualties or hostages.” Analysis: “Whatever Washington thought it was doing - and there seems to have been little responsible thought about what it was doing - it made a basic error by declaring a ‘war on terror’ after the Sept. 11 attacks and then attacking the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and invading Iraq. It created the circumstances in which nationalism and ‘terrorism’ are now at war with the United States. The Iraq insurrection's essential motivation is nationalism. Thus, sooner or later, the United States will be forced out of Iraq. Nationalism has been the most important force in modern history, resisting and outlasting all totalitarianisms. It easily merges with religious fundamentalism, which is another way to affirm identity. It makes use of terrorism because this is the weapon of the weak. But nationalism is what it is all about. After all, what has driven U.S. policy since Sept. 11, 2001, if not outraged nationalism?” Casualty Reports Local story: Louisiana soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Arizona Marine wounded in Iraq. Local story: Montana Marine wounded in Iraq. 86-43-04. Pass it on.