Today in Iraq

Friday Night Cat Blogging

War News for Friday, December 31, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi border guards assassinated in Baquba. Bring ‘em on: Thirty insurgents attack police checkpoint in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Four Baghdad police stations attacked with small arms, RPG fire. Bring ‘em on: Gas pipeline destroyed near Basra. Bring ‘em on: ING soldier killed by insurgents near Fallujah. Bring ‘em on: Mortar attack ignites blaze at Baghdad refinery. Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqi civilians killed in ambush near Shorgat. Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, 15 wounded in yesterday’s fighting in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: One ING soldier killed, four wounded in Samarra ambush. Bring ‘em on: British troops ambushed by roadside bomb near Amarah. Bring ‘em on: US patrol ambushed near ad Duluiyah. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents destroy Mosul telephone exchange. All 700 election workers in Mosul resign after insurgent threats. Bush’ Folly. “Key measures of the level of insurgent violence against American forces in Iraq, numbers of dead, wounded and insurgent attacks, show the situation has gotten worse since the summer. While those numbers don't tell the full story of the conflict in Iraq, they suggest insurgents are growing more proficient, even as the size of the U.S. force increases and U.S. commanders succeed in soliciting more help from ordinary Iraqis.” All sorts of interesting indicators in this article. Graphic display of failure. Rummy’s Army. “More than 100 members of the 571st Medical Company left Fort Carson Thursday morning as their unit headed back to Iraq for a second one-year tour of duty. The helicopter medical evacuation unit suffered the most casualties of any Fort Carson company in Iraq last year, losing seven soldiers in two crashes of its helicopters.” Dickhead can’t take a joke. “A Lake Elsinore man allegedly chased down and shot a soldier home on leave from Iraq early Thursday, after catching him with a group toilet-papering his yard and other homes in the neighborhood. Aubrey Weldon, 34, a construction worker, was so angry about his Riverside County neighborhood being festooned with toilet paper that he chased down the group in his truck on the 29000 block of 3rd Street, started fighting with them and then pulled out a handgun and opened fire at 12:30 a.m., said Sgt. Earl Quinata of the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.” Casualty Reports Local story: Virginia soldier dies in Iraq. Local story: California soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Oklahoma soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Alabama soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Illinois Guardsman wounded in Iraq. Local story: Three Maine Guardsmen wounded in Iraq. Awards and Decorations Local story: Arkansas soldier decorated for valor in Iraq. Note to Readers I intended to post a rant about Lieutenant AWOL’s reaction to the tsunami disaster in Asia, but Helena and Rude Pundit both expressed the outrage I feel better than I could. Instead, I want to thank matt for picking up my slack and running this blog on days when I can’t post. I like the Discussion Topic threads matt posted, and judging from reader responses I think most readers liked them, too. In fact, I should have the comments thread from the last Discussion Topic bronzed and mounted on a plaque due to all the thoughtful and well-reasoned posts from readers. As matt once observed in an email to me, a world-wide community of thoughtful, informed and intelligent readers has developed around this blog. The site gets an average of about 1,500 visitors every day, with a little over a half-million visits since I started. Last month I created a new blog called Reader Contributions. I suspect most of you have noticed it already. My original intention was to solicit original material from readers in order to tap into the pool of talent that reads this blog every day and give you a forum to express your opinions and observations to a wider audience. I’m not sure how I’ll manage the Reader Contribution page, but if you want to send in material or suggestions for Discussion Topics, email me. I’ve only got two editorial rules: 1. Don’t be an asshole, and 2. Spell check your material before you send it. (I work for a living.) I started a new Discussion Topic on the RC page this morning: Where are you from? YD

War News for Thursday, December 30, 2004 Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, 14 wounded in heavy fighting in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: ING soldier killed in Baquba ambush. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents overrun Iraqi police station near Tikrit, execute 12 policemen. Bring ‘em on: Five ING and one US soldier wounded in fighting in Samarra. Bring ‘em on: British soldiers ambushed in southern Iraq. CJTF-7 reports a US soldier wounded in Mosul mess hall bombing has died of wounds. CJTF-7 reports a C-130 crashed on landing in northern Iraq. Fallujah. “Lakes of sewage in the streets. The smell of corpses inside charred buildings. No water or electricity. Long waits and thorough searches by U.S. troops at checkpoints. Warnings to watch out for land mines and booby traps. Occasional gunfire between troops and insurgents. ‘I thought, “This is not my town,”’ Atiya said Tuesday after going back to the abandoned Baghdad clinic his family shares with nearly 100 other displaced Falloujans. ‘How can I take my family to live there?’” ING to merge with Iraqi Army. Rummy Roulette. “But a comparative analysis of U.S. casualty statistics from Iraq tells a different story. After factoring in medical, doctrinal, and technological improvements, infantry duty in Iraq circa 2004 comes out just as intense as infantry duty in Vietnam circa 1966—and in some cases more lethal. Even discrete engagements, such as the battle of Hue City in 1968 and the battles for Fallujah in 2004, tell a similar tale: Today's grunts are patrolling a battlefield every bit as deadly as the crucible their fathers faced in Southeast Asia.” Medical support. “One key constraint for planners has been the limited number of medical personnel available in a voluntary force to support the 130,000 to 150,000 troops fighting in Iraq. The Army is estimated to have only 120 general surgeons on active duty and a similar number in the reserves. It has therefore sought to keep no more than 30 to 50 general surgeons and 10 to 15 orthopedic surgeons in Iraq. Most have served in Forward Surgical Teams (FSTs) — small teams, consisting of just 20 people: 3 general surgeons, 1 orthopedic surgeon, 2 nurse anesthetists, 3 nurses, plus medics and other support personnel. In Vietnam, only 2.6 percent of the wounded soldiers who arrived at a surgical field hospital died, which meant that, despite helicopter evacuation, most deaths occurred before the injured made it to surgical care. The recent emphasis on leaner, faster-moving military units added to the imperative to push surgical teams farther forward, closer to battle. So they, too, were made leaner and more mobile — and that is their fundamental departure from previous wars.” Thanks to alert reader jgrego for sending in this interesting article from the New England Journal of Medicine. Frivolous lawsuit. “Six members of the Navy Seals and two of their wives sued The Associated Press and one of its reporters yesterday for distributing photos of the Seals that apparently show them treating Iraqi prisoners harshly.” Commentary Editorial: “Even the spinning instincts of the US administration are faltering in the face of such stark realities. In the week before Christmas 24 people died in a bomb attack inside a US army base in the northern town of Mosul while 60 others were killed in car bomb attacks in the Shia holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. George Bush, who foolishly proclaimed ‘mission accomplished’ over 18 bloody months ago, was forced to admit that the thousands of Iraqis he had hoped would take over basic security tasks from the US were simply not ready to do so. Hundreds of police and national guard recruits and serving officers have died in the past year. Many are so frightened they now routinely wear masks.” Editorial: “As thousands of wounded and injured troops return from Afghanistan and Iraq to add to a patient load of aging veterans from previous wars, overall VA funding hasn't kept pace, even as it's been increased by $10 billion. The VA in eastern Colorado got $245 million - $1 million less than in 2002.” Analysis: “This upheaval has been particularly vivid at the Pentagon, where the usual balance between civilian and military authority has been stood on its head. The American system of civilian control of the military recognizes that soldiers' attention must be fixed on winning battles and staying alive, and that the fog of war can sometimes obscure the rule of law. The civilian bosses are supposed to provide coolheaded restraint. Now America has to count on the military to step up when the civilians get out of control.” Analysis: “He has in considerable measure imposed himself on the uniformed military, but in a way they now hate. Following his ideas about a small, light and ‘agile’ force, he has made one bad tactical and organizational choice after another, with particularly devastating consequences for the army, its reserve forces, the national guard, and the marines. Their manpower resources are being exploited and wasted in a manner that could leave the services damaged and their officers alienated for a generation. This has been the result of the Bush government's total misjudgment of the Iraq situation; its refusal to enlarge the regular army; its reliance on mobilized reserve forces on extended service in what amounts to the draft of specialist veterans from civilian life; and, since the Iraq occupation turned very unpleasant, ‘stop-loss’ refusal to let people go at the end of their contracts…Iraq is now destroying the professional army the United States recruited to take the place of its citizen army. The new army was intended to serve as the unquestioning instrument of the policies of the elected administration. This administration's refusal to supply the manpower and means necessary for its vast military and political ambitions is now having its effect on that army. Its politically inspired fear of conscription, the merciless combat rotation policy and systematic use of involuntary extensions of duty its policies impose, are devastating to troops. The incoherence of its policy in the Middle East, and lack of clearly defined objectives, is deeply disquieting to the military leadership. America's military leaders once again find themselves victims of the policies of appointed ideologues and elected amateurs. As in Vietnam, they have no alternative to propose, except Dresden.” Opinion: “The transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots and pathologies, would make for an excellent chapter of I, Claudius. To begin with, Bush has unceremoniously and without public acknowledgement dumped Brent Scowcroft, his father's closest associate and friend, as chairman of the foreign intelligence advisory board. The elder Bush's national security adviser was the last remnant of traditional Republican realism permitted to exist within the administration.” Opinion: “If Bush succeeds in perpetuating a legacy of preemptive war and right-wing domestic policies, America will never be the same again.” Opinion: “The truth no one really wants to deal with is that this war could very easily be lost by the United States. All the insurgents have to do is hang on another year. All we have to do is what the French and the British did in their colonies: Let themselves be exhausted and finally destroyed by their hubris, their delusions and their arrogant lack of understanding of the local people.” Thanks to alert reader zig for providing this link in yesterday’s comments. Casualty Reports Local story: Louisiana Guardsman dies from wounds received in Iraq. Local story: Oklahoma soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Maine Guardsman wounded in Iraq. Local story: Alabama soldier wounded in Iraq.

<>War News for Wednesday, December 29, 2004 Bring ‘em on: At least 29 people killed, including seven Iraqi policemen, in bombing ambush in Baghdad. About three quarters of a ton of explosives were detonated when the house was raided by police responding to an anonymous tip. Bring ‘em on: Turkish truck driver killed near Biddiyah. Female engineer and another person working for the US Army killed near Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: In addition to many deaths reported in yesterday’s post, this article lists: One US soldier and five Iraqi interior ministry commandoes wounded in bomb attack in Samarra. ING casualties in Baquba bombing increased to six killed. Two policemen killed in Shorgat. Iraqi interpreter for the US army killed and an Iraqi businessman with him kidnapped in the same area. Three Iraqi businessmen killed in Suleyman Beg. Iraqi policeman shot and wounded in Ad Dawr. Another policeman killed in Balad. Deputy provincial governor kidnapped and shot to death in Ramadi. Bring ‘em on: Renewed fighting between insurgents and US forces in Mosul, including air strikes, after a fuel truck driven by a suicide bomber exploded near an American position, no casualties reported yet. New clashes reported in Samarra. Four policemen and ING soldiers killed in Sufiyah. ING soldier killed in Siniya, where more than 100 Guardsmen walked out after their commander was killed by a car bomb along with several Guards this month. The continuing failure of the US media: The role of the media in the siege of Falluja has been nearly as extraordinary as the battle itself. The siege began on November 8, but by Nov. 15 the military had declared “victory” and the story disappeared from all the major media. It was as if the Pentagon had simply issued an edict forbidding any further coverage of the conflict, and the press left without protest. The fact is, the siege is ongoing and the final results are far from certain. A city of 250,000 has been evacuated; as many as 20,000 American servicemen have been engaged in the operation with “the largest concentration of heavy armor in one place, since the fall of Berlin”. The military is proceeding with house-to-house searches and bombing raids are still being conducted on a regular basis. The siege of Falluja continues to be a huge story, despite the fact that the establishment media is nowhere to be found. How do we explain the sudden and complete desertion of the media from the largest operation since the fall of Baghdad? Did Rumsfeld simply tell them to pack their cameras and go home? Apples to apples: In the three-week battle for Hue, 147 Marines were killed and 857 wounded. In the twin battles for Fallujah, more than 104 soldiers and Marines have been killed and more than 1,100 wounded in a battle that will continue to take lives, like the three Marines who encountered yet another pocket of fighters last week. Hue and Fallujah provide one of the best generational comparisons of combat because both battles unfolded similarly. Without controlling for any of the advances in medical technology, medical evacuation, body armor, or military technology, U.S. losses in Fallujah almost equal those of Hue. If you factor in the improvements in medical technology alone, then the fight for Fallujah was just as costly (or maybe more so) as that for Hue, as measured by the number of mortal wounds sustained by U.S. troops. The less visible toll: The psychological toll from the war in Iraq is climbing, according to new research and experts who cite the severe stress of fighting a deadly insurgency. Though the Pentagon says mental health care, including battlefield counseling, is expanding, critics counter that military suicides and post-traumatic stress disorder cases have exposed gaps in how treatment is delivered to soldiers. "There have been improvements. We have now combat stress teams in Iraq, we have programs for soldiers when they come back," said Stephen Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans advocacy group. "But it's still the military's dirty little secret that lives are shattered and often we don't do enough when the war is over and these people have to deal with the consequences of what they saw and did." The ever less grand Coalition: All the Ukrainian contingent will be withdrawn from Iraq before the end of 2005, Ukrainian Defence Minister Alexander Kuzmuk stated in the course of his working visit to the Nikolayev garrison. "We are planning to reduce our contingent by one battalion in 2005. One battalion was already withdrawn in the course of the latest rotation. Next April we shall send to Iraq a reinforced battalion instead of a brigade, and the withdrawal of the entire contingent will be completed before the end of the year,” the minister stated. "Detainees”: Over 350 foreigners are among about 10,000 detainees being held in US-run prisons in Iraq, Iraq's Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin Over says. Mr Amin says 4,691 prisoners were being held in Camp Bucca near the southern port city of Umm Qasr, 3,411 in Abu Ghraib west of Baghdad and 818 in Al-Shuaiba British controlled Basra. He also says that 104 are being held in Camp Cropper, near Baghdad's airport, where Saddam and other so-called "high-value" detainees are located<>. Syria: Syria is responding with a mixture of bravado and denial to mounting accusations by the United States and Iraq that it's a staging ground for the Iraqi insurgency with key support coming from a half brother of Saddam Hussein and Baath Party leaders here. The United States succeeded in occupying Iraq, "but it has failed at everything else," Al-Sharaa said Monday. "The problem is that the United States had thought it was making progress in Iraq. But it started to see a change in the past two months and therefore the campaign against Syria comes within the framework of the pressure the occupation forces in Iraq feel." Other neighbors weigh in: Meanwhile, the Sunni-dominated governments of Iraq's Arab neighbors have expressed deep unease at elections expected to usher in the first Arab Shiite government. In an editorial Tuesday, the pro-government Egyptian daily Al Ahram echoed concerns Sunni Arab Iraqis would be disenfranchised, which it said would lead to more sectarian violence. Hossam Zeki, spokesman for the Cairo-based Arab League, has spoken of the potential for a "melting down of the Arab identity in Iraq." Jordan's King Abdullah II, in an interview earlier this month with The Washington Post, accused Shiite and Persian Iran of trying to influence the elections, saying Iranians were pouring into Iraq to vote. But Iran also has concerns. Iran's supreme leader has said the elections will be a sham meant to cement U.S. and British control of Iraq's resources. About two months too late: In a historic shift, a majority of Americans express the view that the U.S. made a mistake in going to war against Iraq, according to a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll. The poll, released on Tuesday, shows that 51% now hold this view, with 48% supporting the decision to go to war. In November those numbers were virtually reversed. In January, 63% approved of the war and 35% disapproved. Casualty Reports Local story: Plant City, FL, Marine killed in Al Anbar province. Local story: Three Virginia soldiers and one Virginia sailor killed in Mosul. Local story: Minnesota soldier recovers from wounds suffered near Abu Ghraib. Local story: Gulfport, LA, Seabee killed in Mosul. Local story: Mount Clemons, MI, Marine killed in ‘non-hostile incident’ in Al Anbar province. .

Discussion Topic for Tuesday, December 28, 2004 Does The Bush Administration Want An Iraqi Civil War? If you start with the premise that the Busheviks invaded Iraq in order to, one, control its resources, and two, have a base to project power throughout the Middle East, then from a pure power politics perspective there are several reasons why they might think a low intensity civil war in Iraq could be advantageous. First, in a violently divided society, the small but powerful US force can tip the balance one way or another as it suits them. Second, a population fighting with itself is distracted from fighting directly against the occupiers. Third, it gives a continual excuse for intervention. So what do you think? Even for this crowd of Mayberry Machiavellis, does that idea exceed the bounds of cynicism? No, strike that, nothing is too cynical for this bunch. But does it exceed the bounds of competence? That's a tougher call. I mean, everything that has gone wrong in Iraq, everything that has increased the strains in the social fabric, that has cut the connections between different Iraqi groups, could result from ineptitude rather than from deliberate strategy. And these guys have demonstrated a magnificent, almost sublime, incompetence in everything they've tried with the exception of stealing stuff, whether resources, elections, whatever. So what do you think? Usual rules - comment on the topic here, use the comments from the news thread for news. Thanks! .

<>War News for Tuesday, December 28, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Twelve Iraqi police executed in attack in Dijla. Three policemen shot dead outside of Tikrit. Four police and an ING soldier killed in Ishaki. Local police commander assassinated in Baquba. Three ING soldiers and three civilians killed in bombing in Samarra. B<>ring ‘em on: Militants claim to have executed eight Iraqi employees of American company The Sandi Group. Five ING soldiers killed and twenty six wounded in bombing in Baquba. Five civilians killed and dozens wounded in car bombing in Muradiya. One policeman killed when gunmen attack a station in Mosul. Ten people, including three children, wounded in car bombing in Samarra. Three policemen injured in mortar attack in Mufriq. Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqi police killed and three wounded in four separate attacks on police checkpoints in Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: Six wounded in car bombing attack on ING general in Baghdad. Unfortunate message: For the military personnel on the front lines — and their families and friends — the war is exacting bitter costs. For all other Americans, even for the officials whose decisions sent the troops into battle and shaped the conditions under which they are fighting and dying, the war is imposing no discernible consequences. Like the Civil War, when a rich draftee in the North could hire a poor man to take his place, and Vietnam with its loophole-ridden draft, the Iraq war risks being stained by systemic inequity. Soldiers tend to salute not complain, but this war is straining the military so much that "volunteer service" may no longer precisely describe it. Ordinarily, the Pentagon limits each soldier to one overseas deployment every four or five years. But nearly one-third of the roughly 1 million U.S. troops who have fought in Afghanistan and Iraq have been forced to serve more than one tour of combat duty, the Boston Globe reported last month. Like his tax cuts, Bush's personnel decisions are sending the unfortunate message that no one apart from the soldiers on the ground and their families should pay any price for this war. If the cause in Iraq is as vital as Bush insists, all Americans should contribute. A pity: What puzzled many of us who had listened to Shinseki was the contrast between his emphasis on careful military planning and how shortsighted the administration was in preparing for the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. Before the war, Shinseki's Army planners were not once consulted by Rumsfeld's office. The State Department's planning proposal for postwar Iraq was similarly ignored by the administration. It was a case of an outside group of civilian neoconservatives moving into the Pentagon and arrogantly taking over the military. Heedless of any advice to the contrary, Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" attack gained an apparent quick victory at the cost of postwar policy. Some 20 months after the fall of Baghdad, Iraq remains in pieces, with anti-American fervor strong and our military victory tarnished by a stubborn insurgency and the needless brutalities at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. If this is what Rumsfeld's idea of "transformation" has brought us, it's a pity we didn't try Shinseki's. Love this first line: U.S. President George W. Bush claims his policy is to promote democracy because democratic countries do not wage aggressive wars. Most observers think it very unlikely that democracy can be imposed on Iraq, which has no democratic traditions and is, in any case, deeply divided among the Shiite majority, a Sunni minority and a large Kurdish population. It seems improbable that full, free and fair elections can be held in Iraq on Jan. 30, as planned, even if security in the main centers of population can be assured. The best that can be hoped for is the emergence of an Iraqi regime that can claim a reasonable element of legitimacy. After all that has happened in Iraq since March 2003, it is inevitable that the new regime will be judged according to how it stands up for Iraqi rights and brings together the various elements in Iraq. It will have to be nationalist in its policies, if it is to win the backing of the Iraqi people. Above all it must not be viewed as an American puppet. It must be prepared to criticize and oppose U.S. policies if it considers them not in Iraq's national interes<>t. The Iraq you have: The Wasington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIC) said on Wednesday that the US is facing increasingly deadly attacks in Iraq because it has failed to honestly assess facts on the ground. And in a report published on the same day, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said Iraqi hostility towards the US-led "occupation" means that Washington can no longer achieve its pre-war goals. The US said its initial objective was to turn Iraq into a model for the region - a democratic, secular and free-market oriented government, sympathetic to US interests, not openly hostile towards Israel, and possibly home to long-term American military bases. "Washington has to realise - you occupy the Iraq you have, not the Iraq you might wish to have later," said Robert Malley, director of the IGC's Middle East/North Africa Programme. The Iraq Civil War Black hordes: It is unsettling that even some of Allawi's supporters are contributing to heightened tensions. They have been inciting Iraqis to a level of hatred that had previously been preached only by extremist fringe groups, and are being backed by politicians ranging well into the ranks of moderate groups. Allawi's defense minister, Hazem Shaalan, has demonized the election alliance headed by Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim. "Iran is Iraq's and the Arab world's most dangerous enemy," Shaalan told a group of American and military personnel and NATO officers in Baghdad. "We must focus all of our efforts on stopping these advancing black hordes," he said. Shaalan's words may have reminded some in his audience of Saddam's anti-Persian propaganda during the Iraq/Iran war. But the central message in Shaalan's election campaign - that the black-turbaned Shiite mullahs plan to establish a "dictatorship of Islam" -- has long been a standard argument of Washington's foreign policy hawks. Triple setback: The drive to hold nationwide elections in Iraq on Jan. 30 may have suffered a triple setback yesterday with the suicide car bombing of a major Shiite leader's residence, the withdrawal from the race by the main Sunni party and a call to boycott the elections apparently by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. U.S. and Iraqi officials hope the elections to create a new government will cool the country's simmering political passions and stanch a violent rebellion by Sunni Arabs resentful of their diminished status following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. But the six-week official campaign season appears to have raised sectarian tensions, with recent violence apparently aimed at driving the country's two Muslim sects into civil war. The ethnic card: Iraq faces the prospect of civil war as Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's government loses credibility and violence against U.S. forces increases, according to almost a half dozen former and serving administration officials. Upcoming January elections will not improve the deteriorating security situation, these sources said, all speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitiveness of the topic. Plus a new threat has arisen. "We are starting to play the ethnic card in Iraq, just as the Soviets played it in Afghanistan," said former CIA chief of Afghanistan operation Milt Bearden. "You only play it when you're losing and by playing it, you simply speed up the process of losing," he said. These Are The Real Americans Families of US troops killed in the offensive on the Iraqi city of Fallujah are to travel to Jordan next week with $600,000 worth of humanitarian aid for refugees. The November assault on Fallujah left 71 US military dead, according to the families, and the Iraqi government said more than 2 000 Iraqis had been killed. "This delegation is a way for me to express my sympathy and support for the Iraqi people," said Rosa Suarez of Escondido in California. "The Iraqi war took away my son's life, and it has taken away the lives of so many innocent Iraqis. It is time to stop the killing and to help the children of Iraq" Regardless of their religious affiliations, these people have more of the true spirit of Christianity in their eyelashes than you can find in the entire so-called religious right. Casualty Reports Local story: Oklahoma soldier wounded in Mosul. Local story: Lincoln County, MT, Marine killed in Al Anbar province. Local story: Loyal, WI, National Guardsman killed in Samarra. Local story: Camp Marez bids farewell to four soldiers killed in mess hall bombing. .

<>War News for Monday, December 27, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Fifteen Iraqis killed and at least 50 wounded by car bomb outside the home of the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's most powerful Shiite political group. One US soldier killed and another wounded in roadside bomb explosion in Samarra. Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqi officials killed in three separate assassination attacks. Three US soldiers injured in roadside bombing of a military convoy in Mosul. (scroll down). <>Bring ‘em on: One of Turkey’s richest businessmen and an employee kidnapped in vicinity of Basra. Professor at Baghdad University's medical school shot dead on Haifa street. Governor of eastern Diyala province attacked by roadside bomb, four wounded. Bring ‘em on: Twenty one ING soldiers abducted between Haditha and Qaim. Five policemen found shot dead in Ramadi. Let’s hope it never goes badly: Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, made a surprise visit to a small group of soldiers here at Forward Operating Base Danger and said in an interview that the war in Iraq was "going pretty well." Schoomaker was the third top Pentagon official to visit troops here in recent days. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld stopped in Tikrit during his whirlwind Christmas Eve tour on Friday, and Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ushered a USO troupe through Iraq earlier this month. A Brief Pause to Shake Our Heads in Amazement: So…the war in Iraq is “going pretty well.” Uh…ok. I guess the only question that needs to be asked is, ‘For who?’ We can probably rule out the 27 dead, 58 wounded and 23 kidnapped people in the ‘Bring ‘em on’ section... So who’s it going so 'pretty well' for? Let’s look at the news and find out! Probably not these guys: "Adam" is supposed to be the Iraqi face at a key U.S. military checkpoint south of Baghdad, but he is so fearful for his life that he wears a black ski mask to hide his identity. Dressed in camouflage fatigues, he is part of an army of translators that serves as a vital link for occupiers short on Arab speakers needed for manning roadblocks, mounting patrols and interrogating suspects<>. But because of their highly visible jobs, they also face an especially high risk from Iraqi insurgents who have branded them traitors and collaborators and marked them for death. These guys might not see it that way either: Members of the fledgling Iraqi army and the Iraqi National Guard, who are stationed with U.S. soldiers at this heavily fortified outpost in western Mosul, have come under new suspicion after a man apparently dressed in an Iraqi security forces uniform detonated a bomb in a crowded dining hall Tuesday, killing 22 people and wounding dozens. As difficult as it is for the Americans who work with them, the Iraqis clearly face even more danger from insurgents. While the U.S. military scrambles to make sure all its vehicles in Iraq are armored, no such plan is in place for Iraqi security forces, who drive soft-skinned Jeeps or crowd into the backs of small pickups. Americans use high-tech weapons, while the Iraqis are armed with old-school Russian AK-47s, some held together with duct tape. Iraqi troops were on patrols last month when the first of many bodies of their own security forces began turning up along major roadways. Dozens of Iraqi soldiers quit that first day, according to their commander, and many have since fled. Iraqi soldiers in Mosul said they had friends who were killed by insurgents and had been threatened themselves. One said he disguises himself on patrols and when he goes home; others don't go home at all anymore. National Guard Sgt. Mahday Khalil has seen bodies of his comrades in the streets. Still, he and his friends stay in the national guard, he said, "because we have nothing else to do." <>Or these: While many Texas families spent Sunday snapping up post-Christmas bargains, nearly 500 soldiers on this post enjoyed a last meal with their loved ones before shipping out for a year in Iraq<>. Most of the soldiers are Army reservists assigned to the 228th Combat Support Hospital. Their ranks include doctors, nurses, X-ray technicians and other medical support specialists<>. They are ultimately heading to two of Iraq's most dangerous areas: the northern city of Mosul and Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown in the so-called Sunni Triangle. <> Maybe Schoomaker just, you know, redefined ‘going pretty well’: In a week that saw the deadliest single attack on Americans in Iraq - and the first major US contractor to pull out - more and more military experts are warning that drastic changes are needed to both US strategy and American public expectations if there's to be success there. Steps once potentially capable of turning the situation around "in all likelihood" would now fail, the ICG says in its new report. "If the [Bush] administration does not take the measure of what has changed ... it may well meet its desired end-date, but at the cost of a highly dangerous end-state." The US hopes Iraq will adopt a new constitution and elect a full legislature by the end of 2005<>. "Part of the effort has to be to redefine what success means,'' says Malley at ICG. "The original notion that Iraq was going to be a model for the region, of open government, of a liberal, free-market economy, isn't an achievable goal anymore."<> Or maybe this made him feel more confident: The only country in the Western Hemisphere besides the United States still fielding soldiers in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq may extend its troop deployment beyond a scheduled return early next year, El Salvador's president said Saturday<>. Salvadoran forces have been in Iraq since August 2003, with 380 troops currently serving there. The contingent is scheduled to come home in February after a six-month tour.<> Now, these guys might agree with him: The deadly suicide attack on a US military base in Mosul this week was an "inside job" carried out by insurgents who are part of the Iraqi armed forces, Asia Times Online has been told.<> Sources said a strong nexus between Iraqi forces and the resistance is what allowed them to carry out the most devastating attack on US troops since the beginning of the invasion. US forces have imposed a curfew in Mosul and have launched a military operation in the city, but, the sources say, this will have little effect on the problem, for the simple reason that the US-trained Iraqi military is heavily infected with people loyal to the resistance groups.<> But wait! I found it! Hey, it is going pretty well after all!: The United States is helping the interim Iraqi government continue to make major economic changes, including cuts to social subsidies, full access for U.S. companies to the nation's oil reserves and reconsideration of oil deals that the previous regime signed with France and Russia. During a visit here this week, officials of the U.S.-backed administration detailed some of the economic moves planned for Iraq, many of them appearing to give U.S. corporations greater reach into the occupied nation's economy. For example, the current leadership is looking at privatizing the Iraqi National Oil Company, said Finance Minister Adil Abdel Mahdi<>. The government, which is supposed to be replaced after elections scheduled for January, will also pass a new law that will further open Iraq's huge oil reserves to foreign companies. U.S. firms are expected to gain the lion's share of access in a process estimated to be worth billions of dollars.<> That would explain the ‘explosions of joy and relief’…well, explosions, at least: Meanwhile, the words of the Bush regime's third wise man, Paul Wolfowitz, resonate. Set the Wayback Machine to March 24, 2003: Wolfowitz is being interviewed by the BBC during the invasion of Iraq. Asked about the U.S. "preparation for what comes after," Wolfowitz replies: "The focus has got to be on removing this criminal regime. Until the regime is gone it's going to be very hard to do anything. Even in cities that are liberated. I think when the people of Basra no longer feel the threat of that regime, you are going to see an explosion of joy and relief." Fast forward to April 21, 2004, when five car bombs exploded simultaneously in Basra during rush-hour traffic, killing dozens of people, including 20 children. Exactly how many Iraq civilians died isn't known because, as General Tommy Franks noted, "We don't do body counts." Some Polling Related Item<>s Shi'a opinion: Iraq's election body rejected a suggestion in Washington it adjust the results of next month's vote to benefit the Sunni minority if low turnout in Sunni areas means Shi'ites win an exaggerated majority in the new assembly. Speaking of "unacceptable" interference, Electoral Commission spokesman Farid Ayar said: "Who wins, wins. That is the way it is. That is the way it will be in the election." Kurdish opinion: M<>ore than 1.7 million Iraqi Kurds have signed a petition calling for a referendum on independence<>. A Referendum Movement in Kurdistan spokesman says a delegation from their organisation has travelled to the United Nations headquarters in New York to hand over the petition.<> Australian opinion: Amid continuing carnage in strife-torn Iraq – and just days after a suicide bomber killed 22 people, including 19 US soldiers, near Mosul – a clear majority of Australians now believe last year's invasion was not worth the effort<>. Just 32 per cent of the community believe John Howard's decision to send troops into Iraq was justified, according to a Newspoll conducted exclusively for The Australian. This represents a steep fall from the 46 per cent surveyed in February who believed Australia's war effort was justified. <>Commentar<>y Opinion: So let's be absolutely clear: the US, having broken Iraq, is not in the process of fixing it. It is merely continuing to break the country and its people by other means, using not only F-16s and Bradleys, but now the less flashy weaponry of WTO and IMF conditions, followed by elections designed to transfer as little power to Iraqis as possible. This is what Argentinian writer Rodolfo Walsh, writing before his assassination in 1977 by the military junta, described as "planned misery". And the longer the US stays in Iraq, the more misery it will plan.<> Opinion: A great deal has been written about the failure of military strategy in Iraq, but an even more important reason for the failure of the occupation has barely been discussed: the coalition's economic strategy. Following the Second World War, the Allied forces understood that fascism arose in conditions of unemployment, poverty and desperation. That's why there was a massive effort to reflate the German economy; by early 1947, unemployment was down to 10 per cent. In Iraq today, unemployment stands at an incredible 60 per cent. For young Sunni men - the main recruiting pool for the insurgency - it has soared to 80 per cent. This is a recipe for rage and rebellion<>. It would be bad enough if the coalition had simply done nothing to reflate and re-energize the Iraqi economy. Incredibly, the truth is even worse: they have imposed on Iraq a program of ultra-neoliberal reforms that have brought economic collapse to every country they have been inflicted upon. Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize-winning economist and dissident former chief economist at the World Bank, describes the economic policies of the coalition as "a proven and predictable catastrophe". They imposed a form of capitalism more extreme than anything tried in a democratic country: immediate privatization of almost all services (without any debate), non-competitive contracts, and a 15 per cent flat tax. This is not democracy. It is market fundamentalism.<> Opinion: The war in Iraq was the result of powerful government figures imposing their dangerous fantasies on the world. The fantasies notably included the weapons of mass destruction, the links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, the throngs of Iraqis hurling kisses and garlands at the invading Americans, and the spread of American-style democracy throughout the Middle East. All voices of caution were ignored and the fantasies were allowed to prevail<>. The world is not a video game, although it must seem like it at times to the hubristic, hermetically sealed powerbrokers in Washington who manipulate the forces that affect the lives of so many millions of people in every region of the planet. That kind of power calls for humility, not arrogance, and should be wielded wisely, not thoughtlessly and impulsively<>. This latest overreach by Mr. Rumsfeld is a sign that the administration, like a hardheaded adolescent, has learned little or nothing from the tragic consequences of its wrongheaded policies. The second term is coming, so buckle up. It promises to be a very dangerous four years.<> Casualty Report<>s Local story: Three Maine soldiers wounded in insurgent attack in Mosul. Local story: Denham Springs, LA, National Guardsman killed in Baghdad. Local story: Two Maine Army National Guard soldiers killed in Mosul.<> Local story: Porstmouth, ME, soldier survives blast in Mosul. .

War News for Sunday, December 26, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Iraqi police colonel assassinated in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqis killed in car bomb attack against US convoy in Najaf. Bring ‘em on: Five Iraqis killed by roadside bomb near Samarra. Bring ‘em on: Muslim scholar killed in US raid in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: ING convoy ambushed in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: US troops wounded in car bomb attack near Beiji. Commentary Editorial: “If Rumsfeld's assessment of the war's duration is correct, all Americans must accept the reality of their husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers and mothers not coming home. At the very least, the president and Rumsfeld, the chief architect of this war, need to be more truthful about what's going on in Iraq. A war that had overwhelming support among Americans just a year ago is now widely unpopular. A majority of those surveyed think it was a mistake, and that number is growing with each casualty report. No, there isn't an easy way out. This is going to be very painful, for a long time.” Opinion: “In a war against insurgents, you cannot always tell a combatant from a noncombatant, which is one reason for the confusion about the number of civilian victims in Iraq. Most guesses range between 10,000 and 20,000, though other estimates run much higher. The British medical journal Lancet recently suggested the total may be close to 100,000. Remember, though, that almost half the population of Iraq is 18 years old or younger. Whatever the overall number of civilian casualties turns out to be, it will include an awful lot of children.” Opinion: “We have made a disaster in Iraq. We cannot escape from all of its consequences. But the human consequences of staying—the Iraqi civilians we will kill, the young American men and women alive this minute who will die or be maimed in body or mind—are worse than the political consequences of withdrawing. In any case, the political consequences are notional, as weighed against the certainty of death, suffering, and grief. In our own eyes, our prestige diminished after we withdrew from Vietnam, but our international position was not weakened. Asked for the hundredth time why we were in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson, according to Arthur Goldberg, his U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, "unzipped his fly, drew out his substantial organ, and declared, 'This is why!'" In Iraq as in Vietnam, at risk is not America's prestige but the President's. No one should have to die to save George W. Bush's face.” Opinion: “One must support the troops, I am told. I certainly support the troops the best way possible: Bring them home, get them out of a war for which the planning was inadequate, the training nonexistent, the goal obscure, and the equipment and especially the armor for their vehicles inferior. They are brave men and women who believe they are fighting to defend their country and have become sitting ducks for fanatics. Those who die are the victims of the big lie. They believe that they are fighting to prevent another terror attack on the United States. They are not the war criminals. The ‘Vulcans,’ as the Bush foreign policy team calls itself, are the criminals, and they ought to face indictment as war criminals.” Thanks to alert reader bob for posting this link. Analysis: “What puzzled many of us who had listened to Shinseki was the contrast between his emphasis on careful military planning and how shortsighted the administration was in preparing for the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. Before the war, Shinseki's Army planners were not once consulted by Rumsfeld's office. The State Department's planning proposal for postwar Iraq was similarly ignored by the administration. It was a case of an outside group of civilian neoconservatives moving into the Pentagon and arrogantly taking over the military. Heedless of any advice to the contrary, Rumsfeld's ‘shock and awe’ attack gained an apparent quick victory at the cost of postwar policy. Some 20 months after the fall of Baghdad, Iraq remains in pieces, with anti-American fervor strong and our military victory tarnished by a stubborn insurgency and the needless brutalities at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. If this is what Rumsfeld's idea of ‘transformation’ has brought us, it's a pity we didn't try Shinseki's.” Casualty Reports Local story: Virginia soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Wyoming soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Florida airman wounded in Iraq. Rant of the Day I’ve never heard of this writer before I read this piece in today’s LA Times. The author, Mark Kramer of Harvard University, argues that the Soviets almost “won” the Soviet-Afghan War, and a decisive military victory was within reach of the Red Army but for the Gorbachev’s lack of will to pursue the war.

“The announcement in 1988 by then-Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev that forces would be withdrawn from Afghanistan within a year was a political and diplomatic decision, not a military one. The ‘bleeding wound’ that Gorbachev described was not primarily Russian but Afghan. During the nine years of fighting, more than 2.5 million Afghans (mostly civilians) were killed or maimed; millions more were displaced or forced into exile. By contrast, 14,453 Soviet troops were killed, an average of 1,600 a year. This was not a trivial number, but certainly sustainable for the Soviet army, which numbered more than 4 million.”

Sound familiar? To me, this sounds remarkably similar to the revisionist historians at conservative think tanks who crunch numbers and conclude that Vietnam was a “winnable” conflict but for the lack of will on the part of American political leaders. Worse, there’s something morally bankrupt when you compare combatant and non-combatant casualty rates and conclude this kind of attrition was “sustainable.” And it only gets worse.

“When Soviet generals shifted, in mid-1983, to a counterinsurgency strategy of scorched-earth tactics and the use of heavily armed special operations forces, their progress against the guerrillas accelerated. Over the next few years, the Soviets increased their control of Afghanistan, inflicting many casualties — guerrilla and civilian. Had it not been for the immense support — weapons, training, materials — provided to the Afghan guerrillas by the United States, Saudi Arabia, China and Pakistan, Soviet troops would have achieved outright victory.”

“Scorched earth” is a viable counterinsurgency strategy? Well, I suppose that’s how the Romans nipped that nasty Carthaginian insurgency in the bud. But isn’t this policy counter-productive if your objective is something other than a semi-genocidal suppression of a hostile population? The author certainly suggests America has a loftier purpose in Iraq as he applies the lessons of the Soviet-Afghan War to the American occupation of Iraq:

“What relevance does the Soviet-Afghan war have for U.S. military operations in Iraq? Very little. Soviet troops did not invade and occupy Afghanistan to oust a brutal dictator or promote democratic elections. They simply aimed to install a friendly communist regime in Kabul. The number of Soviet troops never exceeded 120,000 at any time, but they eventually laid waste to the entire country.”

First he says the Soviet experience in Afghanistan has “very little” relevance, but then he tells us:

“The Soviet-Afghan war's main relevance to the U.S. campaign in Iraq is operational. The Soviet experience underscored the crucial importance of intelligence in fighting an insurgency, an advantage the U.S. continues to lack in Iraq. It also highlighted the enormous potential of attack and transport helicopters that can strike deep in enemy territory, and it reaffirmed the value of small, flexible units of heavily armed special operations forces that are capable of carrying out rapid strikes. Most important, the Soviet war demonstrated that the Afghan guerrillas were not invincible and that well-designed counterinsurgency operations can inflict grave damage on, and spread turmoil among, the enemy.”

It seems to me that the Soviets inflicted far more damage and turmoil on the civilian population than on the Afghan mujahadeen. This next piece also seems misleading:

“When the last Soviet troops left Afghanistan in February 1989, the situation on the ground was relatively favorable to Moscow, in part because the Soviet air force conducted sustained bombing raids to cover the withdrawal. Aided by huge inflows of Soviet weaponry, Kabul's staunchly pro-Soviet regime led by President Najibullah remained in power for the next three years. The regime's durability represented a notable success for the Soviet war effort. Only after the Soviet Union collapsed and the new Russian government cut off military aid to Afghanistan did Najibullah fall.”

Until the Kabul fell to the Taliban, Najibullah’s regime controlled a steadily shrinking perimeter of Afghan territory until only Kabul remained in government hands. The rest of the country was controlled by insurgents, Taliban forces or murderous warlords. I hope I’m confused. I hope I’ve misread the author’s intent. I hope he isn’t suggesting that a noble end justifies a dastardly means. Because if that’s his point, the man’s a fool teaching foolishness to a generation of America’s future leaders. Any enterprise, however noble, will end in disaster if you hope to achieve it with evil means.

War News for Christmas Day, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Twelve Iraqis killed, 15 wounded by exploding fuel truck in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Tribal sheik assassinated near Sadiyah. Bring ‘em on: Police station and governor’s mansion mortared near Baquba. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents storm and demolish mayor’s office in Ramadi. Bring ‘em on: Provincial governor survives assassination attempt between Baquba and Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Professor of medicine assassinated in Baghdad. Disposition and composition of wounded from attack at FOB Marez. It's no fun if you have a plan. “As a result of the failure to produce a plan, Wilson asserts, the U.S. military lost the dominant position in Iraq in the summer of 2003 and has been scrambling to recover ever since. ‘In the two to three months of ambiguous transition, U.S. forces slowly lost the momentum and the initiative . . . gained over an off-balanced enemy,’ he writes. ‘The United States, its Army and its coalition of the willing have been playing catch-up ever since.’” Rummy. “Although a Pentagon spokesman said Rumsfeld's trip had been planned ‘for some time’ and holiday visits to troops in conflict zones are customary, one Capitol Hill aide, who asked not to be named, said that Rumsfeld seemed to regard the visit as ‘Image Rehab 101.’ He noted that Rumsfeld also went to Iraq after the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse scandal broke in May.” Help is on the way. “Armenia's parliament voted Friday to send 46 non-combat troops to Iraq, a move that was backed by President Robert Kocharian but drew sharp criticism from many Armenians and opposition groups.” Consolation prize. “Contrack International Inc., which this week became the first major American company to withdraw from Iraq reconstruction work because of violence there, was awarded a $63.9 million Army construction contract in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced late Thursday.” More progress. “One of the oldest U.S. overseas relief organizations has called for the United States to immediately withdraw from Iraq in light of the continuing carnage and Washington's failure to restore basic services or revive the country's economy.” Commentary Editorial: “On this traditional day of joy, please pause to meditate, if for just a few moments, on the many young Americans who have given so much, and continue to give, in service to our nation -- to us. And then send a prayer or thought of thanksgiving for their sacrifice. It is such a great sacrifice.” Opinion: “Shortly after the horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we as a nation channeled a righteous rage into a firm resolve to take the fight to our enemies. Regrettably, rage and resolve now appear to be turning, ever so surely, to blind hate -- in its typically irrational and self-destructive form. This transformation deepens and widens with the death of every U.S. servicemember in battle -- or in a mess tent in Mosul. You can see it in comments on the petition I mentioned (‘This Marine deserves a medal, not the boot! Nice head shot!’ read one.). You can hear it on talk radio; you likely sense it in fragments of passing conversation as you go through your day. And when we nod our heads in approval, make no mistake, we dehumanize ourselves.” Casualty Reports Local story: Louisiana soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: California soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Virginia soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Tennessee soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Maryland soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: New Hampshire soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Colorado Marine wounded in Iraq. Monkey Mail! From: TIMinPHOENIX@aol.com To: yankeedoodle@gmail.com You are a happy little pornographer who loves trafficking in the images and stories of men and women killed in this war. Oh, you may do it under some faux concern about them, but at heart it's obvious you delight at each death. I have had the honor of leading Marines. The lowest ranking private understands the concept of honor and sacrifice. You wouldn't be worthy of filling his canteen. Like any good liberal, it's all about you, the world revolves around you. And from this elitist viewpoint all you do is bitch and moan. You never show true support, you only seek to demoralize and demean a mission, that if successful could change the face of the Middle East forever. You are a petty small little bitch in the scheme of things. I'll let you go jerk off now to whatever pictures you have gotten today of our war dead. You are filth. Tim Estes Phoenix Timmy can’t handle the truth about his hero Lieutenant AWOL so he calls me a ”pornographer.” I’m surprised the stupid fucker didn’t call me an “abortionist,” too. Obviously this right-wing dildo never read this blog before he opened his cake-hole, because I've never posted a picture of an American or Iraqi casualty. I wouldn't be surprised if he's lying about his military service, too. Run along and play with your Dubya doll, toe cheese. YD CW4, USA (Ret.)

War News for Friday, December 24, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Three US Marines killed fighting in al-Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, two wounded by roadside bomb in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting resumes in Fallujah. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad mortar attack. Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi policeman killed, one wounded in Baghdad mortar attack. Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi policeman assassinated near Baquba. Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi killed by IED in Basra. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents attack two police stations in Baquba. Bring ‘em on: Tribal chief assassinated, ING soldier killed by roadside bomb in two incidents near Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: Oil pipeline sabotaged near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: Three ING soldiers killed by suicide bomber near Latifiyah. Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqis killed in RPG attack on fuel tanker near Mahmoudiyah. One US Marine killed in vehicle accident in al-Anbar province. Al-Anbar police chief resigns, Ramadi “effectively” under insurgent control. Mosul. “Insurgents have been able to ‘operate at will’ in Mosul, where 22 people died in a bomb attack this week, because the US forces and the Iraqi authorities have failed to tackle them, an intelligence assessment by senior US officials in northern Iraq concludes. The report, seen by the Guardian yesterday, was drafted before this week's suicide attack on the mess tent at Camp Merez.” Fallujah. “Families of US troops killed in the offensive on the Iraqi city of Fallujah are to travel to Jordan next week with 600,000 dollars worth of humanitarian aid for refugees of the attack. The November assault on Fallujah left 71 US military dead, according to the families, and the Iraqi government said more than 2,000 Iraqis were killed. ‘This delegation is a way for me to express my sympathy and support for the Iraqi people,’ said Rosa Suarez of Escondido in California.” The American media. “I was watching an American TV channel yesterday, while a discussion was on about the killings in Mosul and elsewhere in Iraq, in which several Americans were killed in recent days. I was amazed that the analysts who participated in the discussion were talking without having any knowledge about the ground realities in Iraq. Then, what’s the analysis, after all?” Hungary completes troop withdrawal from Iraq. Progress report. “Energy shortages of every stripe bedevil this country, which sits atop the world's second-largest petroleum reserves. Electricity shuts off for whole days. Prices of scarce cooking fuel have risen nine-fold. And gas lines this month reached new lengths, creating yet another venue for violence. At least two men have been killed in Baghdad over places in line or allegations of watering down the goods.” Rummy’s Army. “Members of a second National Guard unit that prepared for duty in Iraq at the Army's Fort Bliss compound have come forward with allegations that they were not adequately trained. The soldiers said in interviews, e-mails and official documents that they were sent to war earlier this year with chronic illness, broken guns and trucks with blown transmissions. The unit's M-60 machine guns reportedly were in such bad condition when the soldiers deployed in February that one sergeant -- in a section of a post-training summary sent to his commanders that was titled ‘gun maintenance’ -- wrote: ‘Perhaps we should throw stones?’ … The document in which the sergeant summarized his unit's training is known as an After-Action Review -- or AAR -- and is fairly common in the military. This one was widely disseminated among Company F soldiers, five of whom said it accurately outlined concerns shared by the entire unit. The soldiers said the document was sent to commanders at Fort Bliss and the Pentagon.” Commentary Editorial: “Thanks to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false.” This WaPo editorial is entitled “War Crimes.” Editorial: “If Bush is determined to see U.S. military personnel is sufficiently equipped, that priority must be tied to ensuring the Jan. 30 election goes on. Rumsfeld has become a liability in that effort. He should either resign or be fired.” Analysis: “The culture of lies that Rumsfeld has developed in the Dept of Defense reflects his belief that the people should be left in the dark when it comes to matters of state. (Choreographed incidents, like the Jessica Lynch story or the toppling of Saddam’s statue in Fidros Square, fall under the psy-ops rubric) It’s not difficult to find proof that the Pentagon is intentionally lying to the public. An article by Mark Mazzetti of the LA Times states that, ‘the decision by commanders in Iraq in mid-September to combine public affairs, psychological operations and information operations into a "strategic communications" office.’ Psy-ops and information operations? In other words, the military has integrated public affairs (PA) which includes the daily briefings from Iraq, with information operations (IO).” Analysis: “While insurgents in Iraq have placed informants inside the Iraqi government, the U.S. and Iraqi militaries, coalition contractors, and international news organizations, the United States is having serious intelligence problems in Iraq, according to sources inside and outside the U.S. government. The CIA and the U.S. military were slow to start creating intelligence networks in Iraq and have had trouble developing informants because of death threats to Iraqis and their families should they get involved, the sources said.” Opinion: “When you ask these soldiers what they're fighting for, they don't give very complicated answers. Some mention Iraqis they've met and say they want to give them a chance to rebuild the country. Others talk about the ‘bad guys’ who are attacking U.S. and Iraqi troops. A few are openly skeptical about the war. Among troops in Baghdad in July, bootleg copies of Michael Moore's antiwar film, ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ were making the rounds. But the most common sentiment you hear, which is probably the core motivation for soldiers in every war, is that they're fighting for their buddies so they'll all get through alive.” Opinion: “Archbishop Romero was murdered on March 24, 1980, because he chose to stand with El Salvador's poor against a repressive regime. ‘Brothers, you came from our own people,’ Romero told soldiers in El Salvador's army. ‘You are killing your own brothers. . . . In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: Stop the repression.’ How many among the cardinals and bishops and pastors and preachers and televangelists who now enjoy favor in high places would have the courage to do what Archbishop Romero did? In fairness, how many of the rest of us would? Isn't that a question of values?” Opinion: “We have completely lost our way with this fiasco in Iraq. The president seems almost perversely out of touch. ‘The idea of democracy taking hold in what was a place of tyranny and hatred and destruction is such a hopeful moment in the history of the world,’ he said this week. The truth, of course, is that we can't even secure the road to the Baghdad airport, or protect our own troops lining up for lunch inside a military compound. The coming elections are a slapstick version of democracy. International observers won't even go to Iraq to monitor the elections because it's too dangerous. They'll be watching, as if through binoculars, from Jordan.” Terrorism 101, from dKos. Alert reader pedro provided this link in yesterday's comments. Casualty Reports Local story: California soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Virginia Guardsman killed in Iraq. Local story: Louisiana soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: West Virginia soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Mississippi sailor killed in Iraq. Local story: Pennsylvania Guardsman killed in Iraq. Local story: Illinois Marine dies in Iraq. Local story: Six Maine Guardsmen wounded in Iraq. Local story: Oregon soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Oregon contractor killed in Iraq. Local story: Alabama contractor killed in Iraq. Local story: Texas contractor killed in Iraq. Local story: Two Filipino contractors wounded in Iraq.

Discussion Thread for Friday, December 24, 2004 Here's a new thread to keep you all going till we get a post up. Keep the news coming, there sure is a lot going on. And if you need a talk topic, how about them elections? Are they going to happen? Should they be delayed? Is there any possibility they will be considered legitimate by the Iraqi people? And what happens afterward? Speculate away... .

War News for Wednesday, December 22, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Nineteen US soldiers and seven contractors killed, at least 60 wounded in attack on Camp Marez southwest of Mosul. Camp Marez: For days all over this barren base, red ribbons, artificial Christmas trees and cutouts of smiling Santas have sprouted like tiny oases among the dust-covered Humvees and drab concrete bomb shelters. Now, as soldiers wait anxiously for the Internet servers to go back on so they can assure loved ones they're sound if not safe, Christmas looms more as a hurdle than a holiday. With one cruel blow, the insurgents who prowl outside the perimeter of this godforsaken place hijacked a rare chance for true celebration and set it on a collision course with yet another round of tearful eulogies, another set of gut-wrenching final roll calls. Fallujah: What the images of Phantom Fury did not convey is that this assault was the largest concentration of heavy armor in one place, since the fall of Berlin. This was the first time since World War II that "an American armored task force" has been turned "loose in a city with no restrictions". The assault has left as many as 10,000 civilian dead--perhaps much much more . The Red Cross/Red Crescent estimate was upwards of 6000 as of November 25th. Till date no formal Red Cross/Red Crescent operation has been allowed in the city. Many thanks to alert reader ClonedPoster for finding this story. Camp Marez: The dining hall, a large tent which was shielded by towering concrete walls but had no protected roof, should have been replaced by a fortified building in time for Christmas. The BBC's James Reynolds, who was embedded with US troops at the base last month, says the dining hall has always been seen as vulnerable. A US army colonel had told him he feared what would happen if insurgents managed to fire rockets into it. Fallujah: For example, the military unit I was with, I mean, the operation in Fallujah involved largely Marines, but also some army elements. I was with one of those elements. The way they proceeded through the city, given that there was booby-traps, improvised explosive devices, riddling the streets everywhere. Entire houses were rigged to blow. The way they proceeded was what they call “Reconnaissance by Fire.” If you’re going to go down a street first you scour it for any potential danger. How do you do that? You do it with a 25mm cannon on an armoured Bradley fighting vehicle. Or you do it with one 20mm tank round. Just blow up everything that looks vaguely suspicious. Then if someone shoots at you from a building, or there’s an explosion near a vehicle, don’t mess with it. Don’t go into the building looking for the guy… just level the building. And then go through the rubble afterwards. This is from an interview with Michael Ware, the Baghdad Bureau Chief for Time Magazine. It’s an eye opener. Thanks to alert reader Zig for the catch. Camp Marez: As of yesterday, it was unclear what caused the mess-tent explosion. Mortar and rocket attacks, though frequent, are notoriously inaccurate. They also are hard to stop, since they often are launched by insurgents who never stay in one place for long and operate in the thick of civilian populations, according to soldiers who have served at the base. Another possibility is that an explosive device was somehow set off inside the base, which also is used by Iraqi troops. Throughout the past year, the reliability of Iraqi forces has been a frequent source of concern for U.S. commanders in the Mosul area. Fallujah: A lot of the time the houses were severely damaged in that process because one of the cardinal rules of the American occupation of Iraq is called “force protection”. The whole idea is that you limit the number of casualties that you take and the number of casualties that you make is immaterial. I think what you’ll find the assault on Fallujah did was broaden the insurrection, not necessarily in terms of getting people who lived in other places to become more angry about the occupation, I don’t think that’s possible at the moment - there’s a level of disagreement with the occupation that cannot be improved upon - but what it did was disperse a lot of people who were actively involved in the insurgency to other places and I think that as we’ve seen recently the number of incidents as we progress towards the elections of which of course the assault on Fallujah was the start of the pacification process for those elections. What has happened is that the number of incidents has risen dramatically as a result of displacing the insurgents from Fallujah into other parts of the country as far north as Mosul, which is some 4 hours drive away. Another excellent interview with an embedded reporter. Thanks to alert reader sonofhades for finding it. Fort Lewis: A pall seemed to descend, like the gray, drizzling rain, over this Army post, home to 6,700 soldiers deployed to Iraq, as the wait began yesterday to identify those killed and wounded in the most deadly attack of the war for U.S. troops. "It doesn't hurt any more or less than any other time of the year," Lt. Col. Bill Costello, the post's spokesman, said yesterday of the Christmastime attack on a tent full of troops and civilian workers eating lunch in Mosul, which is temporary home to thousands of Fort Lewis soldiers. And a Merry Christmas to you, Lt. Col. Bill Costello, and all those whom you love. Somewhere in the Green Zone: On the day of a deadly attack against US troops, Iraq’s finance minister said he saw signs of improvement in his country’s security. Adil Abdel-Mahdi, a leading Shiite politician, said the provisional Iraqi government was trying to improve security for foreign investors and workers. He said conditions are ”much better than before” as a result of the US-led mission last month to drive insurgents out of the Sunni-dominated city of Fallujah. Iraq: Just before the November election, the British medical journal The Lancet released the results of an on-the-ground survey that produced an extremely rough estimate of as many as 100,000 Iraqis killed since the beginning of the Iraq war, mostly by U.S. military action. In the U.S. press, it was a two- or three-day story, much of that coverage devoted to skepticism about the researchers' methodology. In the Texas press, the estimate didn't merit even that much coverage – no need to debunk the study if you avoid all mention of it. Nothing much has changed since Nov. 3 – the matter of Iraqi deaths, except insofar as they can be directly blamed on insurgents, is presumed to be of little U.S. public interest. Iraq: Lack of security and fear of kidnapping make Iraqi women prisoners in their own homes. They witness the looting of their country by Halliburton, Bechtel, US NGOs, missionaries, mercenaries and local subcontractors, while they are denied clean water and electricity. In the land of oil, they have to queue five hours a day to get kerosene or petrol. Acute malnutrition has doubled among children. Unemployment at 70% is exacerbating poverty, prostitution, backstreet abortion and honour killing. Corruption and nepotism are rampant in the interim government. Al-Naqib, minister of interior admitted that he had appointed 49 of his relatives to high-ranking jobs, but only because they were qualified. Tony Blair, acknowledged yesterday in Baghdad that violence would continue both before and after the January 30 elections, but added: "On the other hand we will have a very clear expression of democratic will." Does he not know that "democracy" is what Iraqi women use nowadays to frighten their naughty children, by shouting: "Quiet, or I'll call democracy." American Moral Leadership Urgent report: The FBI memos were made public by the ACLU on Monday. One heavily redacted June 25 FBI memo, titled "URGENT REPORT" to the FBI director, provided details from someone "who observed serious physical abuses of civilian detainees" in Iraq. "He described that such abuses included strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings, and unauthorized interrogations," the document stated. The memo also mentioned "cover-up of these abuses." More horror stories: In July, Army criminal investigators were reviewing "the alleged rape of a juvenile male detainee at Abu Ghraib prison." It was not clear whether the incident was related to a previous report of a boy who was raped by a contractor. Other agents gave more details of alleged abuses. In a June instance, an agent from the Washington field office reported that an Abu Ghraib detainee complained he was cuffed and placed into an uncomfortable physical position that the military called "the Scorpion" hold. Then, the prisoner told the FBI, he was doused with cold water, dropped onto barbed wire, dragged by his feet and punched in the stomach. Good News Hostages released: A shadowy Iraqi group has released two French news reporters, who have spent almost four months in captivity. France reacted with joy Tuesday at the news that reporters Christian Chesnot and George Malbrunot had finally been released. A new strategy: An activist group is hoping to get a resolution on Town Meeting Day ballots that calls on the state to recall Vermont National Guard troops from Iraq. The premise of the resolution is that the war in Iraq is unjustified and illegal. It asks the state to pursue two avenues to recall Vermont Guard troops already deployed. It calls for Vermont's congressional delegation to urge congress to return power over the National Guard to the individual states the Guard was designed to protect. It also asks the Legislature to form a committee to investigate how the Guard's deployment has affected the state's readiness for emergencies at home. But the primary intent of the resolution is to foster dialogue and expose what organizers say is an illegal war. Commentary Comment: The Sabbath gasbags, as The Nation's Calvin Trillin calls our Sunday TV news commentators, distinguished themselves yet again. They're trying to gang up on Donald Rumsfeld on the theory that the entire Iraq war would have worked out just dandy if it hadn't been for Rumsfeld's mistakes. For those now waxing indignant about Rumsfeld and the whole situation concerning armor, I remind you that when "60 Minutes" carried exactly this story in October, as did other news outlets, the right wing promptly pounced on it as further evidence of supposed liberal bias in the media. Opinion: With a few keystrokes, you can print out the Pentagon's list of military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Like the crosses in Flanders fields, the names stretch out row on row, 16 pages of tiny type, from Abad, Roberto, to Zurheide, Robert Paul Jr. Nowhere in the rows upon rows of names is there anyone with the title "ambassador" or "general" or "director." And yet last week, President George W. Bush chose to honor Ambassador Paul Bremer, retired Gen. Tommy Franks, and former CIA Director George Tenet each with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their contributions to the Iraq war effort. So desperate is the president to paint Iraq as a success - a "catastrophic success," as he puts it - that he shamelessly debases not only words, not only the Medal of Freedom, but also the final sacrifice made by everyone on the list from Abad to Zurheide. Those guys all got medals, too. Posthumously. No $4 million book deals for them. No $25,000 speaking fees. Their families got death benefits worth about $12,000. Plus a free flag, neatly folded. And the thanks of a grateful nation whose president has now given its highest civilian honor to Bremer, Tenet and Franks. Editorial: The fact that terrorists can strike with devastating effect on the mess tent of an American military base at lunchtime is a sign of just how bad things are in parts of Iraq. If U.S. forces, who were supposed to have broken the back of the resistance in the battle of Fallujah, cannot secure their own quarters, how can they promise Iraqis security for 9,000 polling places in next month's election? The interim Iraqi government, held in place by the U.S. military, says the insurgents are determined to plunge the country into civil war before the Jan. 30 elections. Leaders of the decidedly undemocratic Arab world must be secretly pleased at the bad model on display in Iraq, where the prospect for meaningful voting in less than six weeks seems fainter with each new atrocity. A civil war may not happen, but, at this grim point, democracy doesn't seem like much of a bet, either. Casualty Reports Local story: Baton Rouge, LA, Marine killed in Al Anbar province Local story: Georgia Marine killed in Fallujah Local story: Two South Carolina National Guardsmen killed in helicopter crash in Mosul Local story: League City, TX, soldier killed in accident in Kuwait while beginning his third (involuntary) tour in Iraq .

War News for Tuesday, December 21, 2004 Happy Solstice Edition Bring ‘em on: In addition to several deaths already covered in yesterday’s post, this article notes that the bodies of three Iraqi National Guardsmen, kidnapped on Sunday, were discovered in Yethrib. A Turkish truck driver was killed by a bomb near Tikrit. Two members of the National Salvation party were shot dead in Samarra. The Ahmed Ismail mosque in northern Mosul was raided by joint US/Iraqi forces and its main cleric, Sheikh Bashar Awad, was detained, according to a mosque spokesman. Bring ‘em on: Five US soldiers and an Iraqi civilian wounded by IED near Hiwaja Bring ‘em on: Iraqi government official shot dead in Baquba. Child kidnapped in Siniya, near Baiji, to pressure the mother to quit her job working for the US army. Bring ‘em on: Six Iraqi civilians killed, nine wounded, in US airstrikes on Hiyt, Al Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: More attacks against oil pipeline complex near Baiji Hope the consensus holds: Iraqi Shia leaders appealed to their supporters to show restraint yesterday after two deadly blasts targeted their religious centres in an apparent attempt to trigger civil war. "They are trying to ignite a sectarian civil war and prevent elections from going ahead on time," one prominent Shia cleric, Mohammad Bahr al-Uloum, told Reuters news agency. "They have failed before and they will fail again. The Shia are committed not to respond with violence, which will only lead to violence." Even the volatile Sadr Movement, led by the firebrand Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, cautioned against reprisals. "A civil war will be hell. The consensus is against revenge," said his political liaison officer, Ali al-Yassiri. Fallujah: Fallujans are to begin trickling back this week, but a month after the battle for the city, devastation is everywhere. Burned out cars block streets, even homes that still stand are missing roofs or walls, dead dogs litter narrow alleys. Iraq's interim government said yesterday each family will be compensated for property damaged during the fighting between U.S. troops and insurgents. On the outskirts, Marines man checkpoints with low concrete walls, covered with gravel and ringed by barbed wire, where Iraqis will be checked in, getting a badge they must wear at all times. Each family will be given a one-time payment of 150,000 Iraqi dinars, about $100, when they return. "Given my druthers, I'd love to have two more months to rebuild the city to turn it into one of those things that you see about a model city, about trees with a little sign and 'Welcome back to Fallujah' -- but we never intended to do that," said Marine Col. John Ballard. "I believe 100 percent when you liberate a city you've got to give it back to the people," the commander of the Marines' 4th Civil Affairs Group added. Where the fuck do they find these guys? Mosul: Mosul, a city on the Tigris river with a population of 1.2 million, is largely populated by Sunni Muslims but has a large Kurdish minority. It has increasingly fallen into the hands of Sunni insurgents over the past six weeks. Insurgents launched an uprising on 10 November, two days after the US Marines started their attack on Mosul, and stormed 10 police stations. Out of a local police force of 8,000, all but 1,000 have deserted and only 400 of those remaining are considered reliable. No question: In a sobering assessment of the Iraq war, President Bush acknowledged Monday that Americans' resolve has been shaken by grisly scenes of death and destruction and he pointedly criticized the performance of U.S.-trained Iraqi troops. "No question about it," he said. "The bombers are having an effect." The president also offered a warm testimonial for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in the face of spreading expressions of no-confidence by GOP senators. Rumsfeld appears "rough and gruff," Bush said, but "he's a good, decent man. He's a caring fellow." He said he understands why Americans have doubts about Iraq's ability. "They're looking on your TV screen and seeing indiscriminate bombings, where thousands of innocent — or hundreds of innocent Iraqis are getting killed ..." But Bush said those pictures do not reflect that 15 of Iraq's 18 provinces are relatively stable and that small businesses are starting up. "Life is better now than it was under Saddam Hussein." Relative Stability: A Brief Examination Dahuk Province, Capital Dahuk: On December 5 the governor of Dohuk province escaped a second assassination attempt, in a bomb attack claimed by the Islamist Ansar al-Sunna group. The same group claimed another attempt on Nishervan Ahmed's life on September 14. Doesn’t sound too stable. Erbil Province, Capital Erbil: A Kurdish province effectively outside of Iraqi governmental control for the last 15 years, it has been relatively stable throughout the war. We’ll give him this one. However, let’s not forget that over 100 people died in Erbil last February in suicide bombings directed at the offices of two main Kurdish factions. Stability is, after all, relative. Ninevah Province, Capital Mosul: December 19 - One Iraqi eighth-grader was killed and six others wounded Saturday morning in Mosul when insurgents trying to detonate a roadside bomb in the path of a routine American patrol misfired and hit a school bus full of children, the military said. Also see the article on Mosul cited above. Definitely not stable. Sulaimaniya Province, Capital Sulaimaniya: Another comparatively peaceful Kurdish province. Relatively stable. Tamim Province, Capital Kirkuk: See ‘Bring ‘em on’ second entry. There are also numerous reports of recent attacks on oil pipelines in the vicinity of Kirkuk. Four Kurds were shot to death in Hiwiya on Sunday. Not very stable, nope. Salahuddin Province, Capital Samarra: See the first ‘Bring ‘em on’ entry. On Saturday one Iraqi was killed and eight wounded in an attack on an election center. A woman official was kidnapped from here on December 2 and her bullet riddled body was discovered three days later. Oh, yes, the Turkish truck driver killed in Tikrit yesterday goes here too, right? Can’t call this one too stable. Al Anbar Province, Capital Ramadi: Ramadi? Fallujah? Say no more. Definitely not stable, not even relatively. Diyala Province, Capital Baquba: Well, an official was just shot dead in Baquba, see ‘Bring ‘em on’ entry three above. Got some dead ING soldiers and police in Baquba last Friday, some US soldiers killed there this month too…nah. Not stable. Baghdad Province, Capital Baghdad: We don’t really need to discuss this one either, do we? Not stable. Karbala Province, Capital Karbala: Even if you overlook the dozens of people who got blown up Sunday in Karbala, it would still be a stretch to call this one stable. And we aren’t going to overlook those people. Babil Province, Capital Al Hillah: Two Marines died December 13 in explosions in Babil Province. Not a sign of stability. Wasit Province, Capital Al Kut: On December 16, the British Foreign Office issued an advisory against any travel to Baghdad and its five adjacent provinces, including Wasit. They probably wouldn’t do that if they thought it was stable. We’ll defer to their judgment here and call it not stable. Najaf Province, Capital Najaf: Hmm. Day before yesterday 49 people were killed and 90 wounded in a car bombing here. Let’s call this one unstable too. Qadisiyah Province, Capital Diwaniyah: Bulgarian troops based in Diwaniyah reported being under mortar fire on December 14. They probably didn’t feel like things were too stable when that happened. But all in all, this province is less unstable than some of its neighbors. Maybe call this one a wash. Dhi-Qar Province, Capital Nasiriyah: This one looks to be pretty quiet lately. So have Muthana and Maysan Provinces. The Shi’ite south is not as bad as other parts of Iraq, so we can call all three of these provinces relatively stable. Basra Province, Capital Basra: Last April five suicide bombings near police stations and a police academy in Basra killed 74 people and wounded 160 others but it’s been quiet since then, I think. How long after a major attack until a province is considered relatively stable? Ah, let’s be generous and give it to George. So, based on a Google search that took maybe two hours and which I know is nothing like comprehensive for any of these provinces, plus the maps I’m using suck and I’m not even sure what towns are in what provinces, not to mention all the different ways you can spell the names of places in Iraq, I can still conclude that out of eighteen provinces only six can be considered even relatively stable and at least a couple of those suffered major violence less than a year ago. Therefore it is Mr. Bush who is hallucinating, not me. But we already knew that. And as to whether the average Iraqi would agree that life is better now than it was under Hussein…let's leave that for another time. The Grand Coalition Another plastic turkey in Baghdad: British Prime Minister Tony Blair held talks with Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi Tuesday during surprise visit to Iraq that comes ahead of national elections and amid a fierce insurgency. Blair flew into the Iraqi capital at about 11 a.m. aboard a British military transport aircraft from Jordan. Wearing a dark suit, he walked briskly across the airport tarmac and boarded a Royal Air Force helicopter that flew him to Baghdad's center, escorted by U.S. Black Hawk helicopters. His visit had not been disclosed beforehand for security reasons. Sinking ship, meet rat: The last of Hungary's troops in the US-led coalition left Iraq, completing the new EU member's withdrawal from the conflict-torn country, a defence official said. "The last Hungarian soldier left Iraq this afternoon and all 300 troops will be back home before Christmas," defence ministry spokesman Istvan Bocskai told AFP. American Moral Leadership Executive order?: A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as "torture" and a June 2004 "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up. The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and "sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from "On Scene Commander--Baghdad" to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized. Or no executive order?: Harsh interrogation methods of Iraqi prisoners went "beyond the bounds of standard FBI practice," the FBI's top official in Iraq said in a memo released yesterday. While the memo doesn't directly say who authorized the practices, two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the methods were approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The memo includes several references to an "executive order" signed by President Bush, but the two government officials said that was an error and that the reference was to Defense Department directives. Now, how many officials was it that outed Valerie Plame? Hmmm.... Either way the mindset was there: Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’ office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force “preemptively” against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them—regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon. The memo, written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, argues that there are effectively “no limits” on the president’s authority to wage war—a sweeping assertion of executive power that some constitutional scholars say goes considerably beyond any that had previously been articulated by the department. That Allawi sure is a quick learner: Human rights advocates and lawyers say Iraq's hush-hush legal proceedings against Saddam Hussein's ousted regime and the secrecy leading up to the investigative hearings that began late last week threaten to undermine the legitimacy of the trial process. Under Iraqi law the investigative hearings are the first step toward a trial. But the timing of the court appearances just ahead of Jan. 30 general elections has prompted accusations the legal proceedings were being expedited to boost Allawi's political standing. This should win some hearts and minds: A North Carolina National Guard member thought to be the first U.S. soldier convicted of murdering an Iraqi said he "snapped" and shot the 17-year-old boy after they had consensual sex, according to court-martial records released this week. Pvt. Federico Daniel Merida, 21, of Biscoe, a tiny town south of Asheboro, pleaded guilty during a court-martial in Iraq to shooting the Iraqi national guard private, whose name the Army withheld. Merida was sentenced Sept. 25 to 25 years in prison and reduced in rank. He will be dishonorably discharged. Positive News A real American hero: ''Being against the war is the only way to be for the troops,'' said Hoffman. ''We're doing them no good by sending them over there. ''The 25-year-old Marine veteran is a co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War, a 5-month-old organization that claims 150 members, including some on active duty in Iraq. It wants the immediate withdrawal of all occupation forces from Iraq, ''real'' reconstruction aid for that country and properly funded and administered veterans' benefits. ''I need to make sure this stops,'' he said. ''The honest truth needs to be told in order for this war to end. We've got to get these guys home now before another guy is killed on either side." ''This war would be over right now if people really understood the horror of it.'' Like Vietnam, said Hoffman, the only way to end the war will be for millions of Americans to get out on the streets every week and demand that it end. A hopeful sign: A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that, for the first, a majority of America have concluded that, given its costs, the conflict in Iraq is "not worth fighting."This total of 56% is eight points higher than last summer. While a slight majority believe the invasion of Iraq war contributed to the long-term security of the United States, 70 percent of Americans think these gains have come at an "unacceptable" cost in military casualties. The Human Cost My love and emotions: "We arrived to the place where the dead is washed before they are buried," Razak wrote later in a report of the events. "I opened the coffin and was shocked, it was my mom with bullets all over her body. A bullet in her right eye and another bullet entered her cheek and exited from the upper neck, another one in the upper thigh and leg, right hand and arms, these are gun bullets.... Her right hand was lifted and open in passion of trying to protect her face." "When I saw all that, I became crazy, screaming as loud as possible, I took hold of her body and started talking to her, I asked her why she came out (of the house), why did she leave me alone, who do I have after her, I shook her strongly, she did not answer, I was unable to take it any longer, I left the room of washing and went outside screaming loudly why? why? I lost everything, the protective mother, my helper, my love and emotions." Lost last words: Justin M. Ellsworth's family clung to every word that slipped from the 20-year-old Marine's fingertips into e-mails from the battlefront in Iraq. The messages were brief and optimistic, eager for news from home and written to reassure loved ones that Justin was alive and well. Ellsworth's father John read each one again and again. John Ellsworth last spoke on the telephone to his son Nov. 3, 10 days before Justin was killed by a roadside bomb during a foot patrol with other Marines in Al Anbar province. Justin's body has been returned home to his family, but those e-mails -- once a lifeline between the Marine and the dozens of loved ones he left behind -- are being held hostage in an unusual cyberspace legal limbo that has pitted the Oakland County family against Internet giant Yahoo! The case raises significant legal questions for which there appear to be no clear answers. Commentary Comment: All the official transcripts of White House signing ceremonies for every defense spending bill, all the presidential proclamations for Veterans Day and every prepared statement by the secretary of defense before a congressional committee include the same stock phrase. U.S. troops are invariably referred to as "the best trained, best equipped" ever. Best equipped? To call today's American troops in Iraq the "best equipped" is more than an exaggeration; it is bilge, baloney and cruel. An America coming out of the Great Depression somehow found the leadership and the will to build and deploy around the globe 2.5 million trucks in the same period of time that the incumbent U.S. government has failed to get 30,000 fully armored vehicles to Iraq. Editorial: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stated recently that the nation goes to war with the Army it has, not the one it wants. But that begs the question: Why doesn't the United States have the Army it wants on the ground in Iraq? Granted, wars are notoriously unpredictable. Generals throughout history have made the mistake of fighting the last war -- in other words, calculating troop and equipment needs and strategy based on past experience, only to find that calculations don't fit the current engagement. Rumsfeld, however, was guilty not so much of fighting the last war as of not listening to his generals and of failing utterly to anticipate the aftermath of a successful invasion of Iraq. Casualty Report Local story: Modesto, CA, Marine killed in Fallujah A Worthy Cause Here is a link to a blog that is running a campaign to get phone cards to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed. Apparently the armed forces do not supply a way for these servicemen and women to call home. So here’s a way you can brighten someone’s life over the holidays or any time. Please contribute if you can. And a very happy solstice to you all. .

War News for Monday, December 20, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Sixty two Iraqis killed, 129 wounded in bombing attacks in Karbala and Najaf Bring ‘em on: Four Kurds shot dead in Hawija Bring ‘em on: Four men, three believed to be foreigners, killed in ambush north of Baghdad. Iraqi truck driver shot dead near Yethrub. Iraqi translator for the US military shot dead near Salman Pak. Iraqi woman killed and three civilians wounded by roadside bomb between Samarra and Baghdad. Fallujah: Virtually all of Fallujah's estimated 200,000 people displaced by the fighting are also still living in temporary conditions in places such as Saklawiya, Habbaniya and Germa near Fallujah. Most of those areas are considered too dangerous for foreigners to go without being embedded with the US Marines in the area. "The situation is still unstable. Security is still fluctuating all the time," Jamal al-Karbuli, secretary general of the IRCS, told IRIN. "It can be calm one minute but 15 minutes later you have to run and hide because of gunfire and worse." If heads of households go home, they'll just be arrested anyway, the sheikh told IRIN, declining to be named. "This is dreaming, if they think we can go back," the sheikh said. "They detained all of the men from 15 to 50 - how can people like me go back?" Building Democracy Dangerous jobs: By targeting election workers in Baghdad and Shia Muslims in southern Iraq, insurgents yesterday struck at the two pillars of next month's national elections: the logistical planners and the religious group most likely to vote in large numbers. The bold ambush in central Baghdad of a car carrying employees of the Iraqi agency that is organizing the Jan. 30 vote highlighted the vulnerability of election workers. The attack, which was carried out by about 30 gunmen using grenades and machine guns, will make it difficult for the elections agency to hire thousands of additional workers it needs to man polling stations. One result of yesterday's attacks is that it could become virtually impossible to carry off the balloting in 40 days. Although public attention has been focused on how to secure many parts of Iraq ahead of the election, problems in logistical planning could undermine the vote just as seriously as the lack of security. Preparations are stalled on many levels, ranging from delays in hiring and training thousands of election workers to deciding what kind of ballots and ink to use. "People will be afraid to work in the election," said Asos Hardi, editor of Hawlati, an independent Kurdish newspaper. "It could be more dangerous than working as an Iraqi policeman. At least the police have weapons to defend themselves." Governed by fear: The Iraqi election on 30 January, for which campaigning began last week, will be one of the most secretive in history. Iraqi television shows only the feet of election officials rather than their faces, because they are terrified of their identity being revealed. It will be a poll governed by fear. It is doubtful if the election, at least at first, will mark a real change in the balance of power between the three main communities in Iraq: the Shia, the Sunni and the Kurds. Nor is it likely to see a shift in authority from the US to Iraqis. The outcome could simply be a photocopy of the present government. The problems for the US and the interim government will be largely unchanged after the election. The Sunni will not stop their uprising while the occupation continues. The government will still depend on American guns to defend it. The differences between the three main Iraqi communities are increasing, and the war will go on. Rumsfeld Great confidence: The continuing debate among Republicans over whether Donald H. Rumsfeld should remain as defense secretary grew more fractious on Sunday, as two prominent senators argued that removing Mr. Rumsfeld would disrupt the coming Iraqi elections, while a third, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, said he had "no confidence in Rumsfeld's leadership." "Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a spectacular job and the president has great confidence in him," the White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., said on the ABC News program "This Week." Spectacular job, part 1: Since May 1, 2003, 909 U.S. soldiers have been killed and 9,302 wounded in combat. About half the casualties came from insurgent attacks on Humvees with improvised bombs or rocket- propelled grenades, says Representative Ellen Tauscher, 53, a California Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. Almost two years into the war in Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is facing questions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers about why soldiers continue to be killed in unarmored vehicles. About 20 percent of the 19,138 wide-bodied, four-wheel-drive Humvees used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan still had no armor as of Dec. 14, according to Brigadier General Jeffrey Sorenson, a Washington-based logistics officer. Including medium and heavy trucks, the total percentage of unarmored vehicles is 39 percent of 35,115 vehicles. The Army won't have the Humvees and heavy-truck fleet fully armored until March, Sorenson says. Spectacular job, part 2: Iraq’s fledgling security force is poorly led, plagued by desertions and “falling behind in its capability and commitment” to protect the country’s new democratic government, U.S. Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., warned Sunday. “They don’t have the leadership, the top military officers. They don’t have the non commissioned officers. And so many of them desert and go back home after they receive the training” provided by American soldiers and Marines, said Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Spectacular job, part 3: Twenty-one months after Washington launched its war with the promise of a brighter future, Iraq produces 4,100 megawatts of electricity, a little below prewar levels and about half the country's surging demand. Sabotage attacks on power plants, transmission lines, oil pipelines and fuel trucks are keeping the electricity out for more than 12 hours a day in Iraq, leaving many people to face a freezing winter by candlelight. Iraqi officials, wary of growing instability before the elections, say outages have reached crisis proportions, especially in the capital, with no end in sight. Spectacular job, part 4: Two dozen sergeants are sitting around a table — hard men who led troops into downtown Baghdad last year and helped end Saddam Hussein's regime. They shake their heads and chuckle softly: What kind of question is that — did they ever expect to be returning to Iraq? "Nobody expected this, a year later," says Staff Sgt. Ken Austin, a veteran of Desert Storm in 1991 as well as Operation Iraqi Freedom. "The first Gulf War was in and out. I thought this would be pretty much the same." But continuing insurgent attacks have forced the United States to boost its force in Iraq toward 150,000, its highest level yet. So the 3rd ID — as the division is commonly referred to throughout the Army — is loading up again, to try to finish up the mission. Spectacular job, part 5: Here in Kansas, the base and the small towns that sit beside it have begun to resemble an enormous machine in an endless cycle: bringing soldiers home with late-night celebrations in gymnasiums and screaming roadside banners, and then sending them off again, with fresh uniforms, new DVD players and photographs, and formal farewells. In January, 3,500 Fort Riley soldiers will return to Iraq for a second time. And just last week 3,500 others, many of whom had just returned to their quiet Midwestern post this fall, learned that they will go back to Iraq as early as the middle of next year. The frenzied pace is swiftly becoming the norm, not a rarity. More than 31 percent of the 950,000 service members sent to Iraq or Afghanistan since those conflicts began already have been sent a second time. And, of the 1,300 troops who have died in Iraq since the war began, more than 140 were serving on second tours. Some Results of the Spectacular Job Difficult to restrain: Western diplomats who have watched sectarian struggles elsewhere in the Arab world say they fear that the fight ultimately will be between a predominantly Sunni insurgency and Iraqi security forces made up mostly of Shiites and ethnic Kurds. The Shiites, after more than 30 years of repression by Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime, probably will find it difficult to restrain themselves. "The Sunnis will be under the boot of a Kurd and Shiite security force with a leavening of Sunnis," said a Western diplomat who has spent many years in the region. "In the end, the 20% of the population which is Sunni cannot fight off the other 80%, and the Shias will find it difficult to forget the history — how the Sunnis treated them when the Sunnis were in power." Wearing thin: Each week in Baghdad, sermons to the faithful offer a tale of two Fridays. Both sermons — one Sunni, the other Shiite — dwell on the issues that color Baghdad's weary life: the insurgency, elections planned for next month and the U.S. military presence. But the messages are so diametrically opposed as to speak to two realities and two futures for the country. In Um al-Qura, built by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein as the Mother of All Battles Mosque, the insurgency is celebrated as an act of resistance against a faithless and deceitful American occupier. In no less strident rhetoric, at the venerated Baratha mosque, that same insurgency is condemned as wicked and senseless violence waged by loyalists of Hussein and foreigners. Elections are subjugation at the Sunni sermon, liberation at the Shiite one. And at each, the community's patience, the preachers insist, is wearing dangerously thin after yet another provocation or slight. Busier and busier: If the number of war-wounded Marines leaving Iraq next year stays at its current rate, Camp Lejeune's Naval Hospital will get a lot busier. Lejeune's II Marine Expeditionary Force, which boasts about 14,000 local troops, will begin deploying in January. In Iraq, it will eventually assume command of operations from the West Coast's I MEF, which is based at Camp Pendleton. Presently, there are 21,000 I MEF Marines in Iraq. The Law of Unintended Consequences Note to Readers: Wars change things, often in ways the leaders who start them completely fail to anticipate. The following three articles are about some unanticipated changes brought about or hurried by the war in Iraq. We will all live with the consequences of this war of choice long after it's over. The big trend: Suspected militants with military experience gained in Iraq have been detected in several Middle Eastern countries, and some have been found as far afield as western Europe, according to intelligence officials. "The big trend for the coming 20 years will be the Iraqi jihad veterans. They are being seen as the extreme threat for the coming period. One key challenge is to establish who they are and where they are going, in order to make sure that the same mistake is not made as was made with the Arab Afghan veterans who fought against the Soviet Union," the senior European intelligence official said. "The Saudis are very worried indeed," said a senior western diplomat in Riyadh. "The numbers of active Saudis in touch with the jihad in Iraq and Syria are probably in the low hundreds, but it would not take very many to lead to an upsurge in violence in Saudi itself." Unprecedented: The most striking result of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's four-day visit to China this week was the agreement announced Monday to hold "substantial military exercises on Chinese territory in 2005" (quote from Russia's Interfax news agency). This was Ivanov's second trip to Beijing this year, and Chinese President Hu Jintao used the occasion to assert, "Sino-Russian strategic coordination has attained an unprecedentedly high level." The agreement to hold joint exercises is, in fact, unprecedented, and Hu went on to express satisfaction at the growth in relations between the two armies. Not that you would know any of this from our lethargic press. Nevertheless, it is a highly significant development, pointing out how major regional powers are reacting to the policy and actions of what they perceive to be the world's big bully. The lid is now off Pandora's preventive box. Just before leaving for Beijing, Defense Minister Ivanov made it clear that Russia "reserves the right to carry out preventive strikes with conventional weaponry on terror bases anywhere they are found in the world." Indeed, it may be a short step to applying the "terrorist" label to those wearing orange in Kiev. The war before the war: The U.S. military is working on a more sophisticated way to win. Instead of scoring an initial crushing military victory only to get mired in the aftermath, the U.S. European Command is pioneering a system to intervene in failing nations before war becomes an option. It’s a new way of fighting the war before the war. Last month, as a way of testing “effects-based warfare,” the center conducted a simulated rescue of an African nation that was about to implode. The weeklong exercise targeted a real country using real intelligence. Tallent declined to name the country, citing political sensitivities. He also declined to give details about the impending chaos, for fear of revealing the nation. But he said the top priority for the unnamed country was to save its assets. Feeling safer yet? The Human Cost Daddies die: Sad to the depths of his 4-year-old soul, Jack Shanaberger knew what he didn't want to be when he grows up: a father. "I don't want to be a daddy because daddies die," the child solemnly told his mother after his father, Staff Sgt. Wentz "Baron" Shanaberger, a military policeman from Fort Pierce, Fla., was killed March 23 in an ambush in Iraq. Scripps Howard News Service has identified nearly 900 U.S. children who have lost a parent in the war, from the start of the conflict in March 2003 through November, when a total of 1,256 troops had died. Although comparably specific historical data are not available for other U.S. wars, military experts said the proportionally higher number of American children left bereaved by the Iraq war is unprecedented. Casualty Reports Local story: Salem, Arkansas, Marine killed in Fallujah Local story: Pasadena, CA, Marine honored for wounds received Local story: Midstate, TN, Marine killed in Al Anbar province Local story: Families of three slain CA servicemen cope with their losses Local story: Winterville, NC, war widow copes with her loss Local story: Edgewater, FL, soldier killed in Ramadi .

War News for Sunday, December 19, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Iraqi policeman killed in fighting between insurgents and British troops near Basra. Bring ‘em on: Ten Iraqi contractor employees taken hostage near Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi election officials assassinated in central Baghdad, heavy fighting ensues. Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting, air strikes reported in Fallujah. Bring ‘em on: Northern pipeline attacked near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqis killed in fighting with US troops in Ramadi. Bring ‘em on: Five attacks on oil pipelines reported in past 24 hours. Bring ‘em on: Four wounded in mortar attack on Sunni mosque in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Ten Iraqis killed, 40 wounded by car bomb at Karbala bus station. Bring ‘em on: Car bomb detonates at Imam Ali shrine in Najaf. Merry Christmas in Iraq. “Fearing insurgent attacks, bishops across the predominantly Muslim country recently announced that they would call off the usual Christmas festivals and celebrations. Some churches will also forgo Christmas Eve Mass, a step unheard of even during Saddam Hussein's regime. Attendance has plummeted. During the holiday season, Haddad's church would have been packed with more than 700 people. Last Sunday, only 27 brave worshipers showed up.” Samarra. “But the attacks haven't stopped. Car bombs target U.S. soldiers at main intersections, mines are left on patrol routes, insurgents pop up and take potshots. On Friday, four mortar rounds landed about 200 yards east of the soldiers' base at an abandoned college building at the center of Samarra. On Saturday, in addition to the 11 a.m. attack that wounded three soldiers just off 40th Street, insurgents launched two other RPG attacks and planted an anti-tank mine nearby. The police force, which sputtered from the start, has completely disbanded, some of its weapons and body armor in the hands of insurgents. The City Council has not met in weeks. U.S. troops are hoping to use Iraqi National Guard and Interior Ministry forces to protect the elections scheduled to take place in less than 45 days.” Rummy. “A new wave of criticism was set to hit US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Sunday after he admitted that he had not personally signed Pentagon condolence letters to families of soldiers killed in Iraq. But he has vowed to do so in the future, according to a Washington Post report. ‘I wrote and approved the now more than 1,000 letters sent to family members and next of kin of each of the servicemen and women killed in military action,’ Rumsfeld said in a statement to the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. ‘While I have not individually signed each one, in the interest of ensuring expeditious contact with grieving family members, I have directed that in the future I sign each letter,’ the defense chief said, according to the Post.” British wounded. “The MoD has revealed that by last Wednesday, 2,862 personnel had been evacuated back to Britain - mostly because they were too ill or injured to be treated in Iraq. The evacuation rate is currently running at more than 25 soldiers a week, and includes 65 servicemen and women seriously injured in combat over the past four months.” Operation Warm and Fuzzy. “So many wounded troops arrive at Landstuhl these days that suppliers around the medical center have run out of clothing. Wounded soldiers usually show up in the uniforms they were wearing when injured. Temperatures in Germany can be 70 degrees lower than those in the Middle East. Lt. Col. Richard Sirianni, chaplain for the Oregon Air National Guard's 142nd Fighter Wing, learned of the need for clothing after receiving orders to serve at Landstuhl beginning last September. Sirianni, a Catholic priest who counsels soldiers and families there, also found that injured troops needed long-distance telephone cards to call home. So Operation Warm and Fuzzy was born.” Meanwhile, Lieutenant AWOL’s excellent adventure in Iraq should be renamed “Operation Warm and Soft and Brown and Smelly.” Commentary Editorial: “The cascading allegations of prisoner abuse, of which these are but a few examples, long ago demolished the president's claim that only a few bad apples were responsible. So did reports that soldiers and officers who complained to their superiors about this mistreatment were threatened with reprisals and even physical harm. Yet as reports of unexplained deaths, humiliations and depravity across the services multiply, President Bush has recently remained silent.” Editorial: “We all know that war claims lives. But it is so easy to forget that war forever changes the lives of those who survive at home. This is one more reason the words of Sen. John Kerry, spoken at the Democratic Convention in Boston, deserve to live long beyond his candidacy. He said that before you go to war, you must be able to look a parent in the eye and say you've done everything possible to avoid this, but it is necessary. We'd only add that you also need to make the same profession to the spouses and children who will be left behind.” Opinion: “But as this war grinds on, as these dead stack up, soldiers and their families are faced with the appalling suspicion that their troops are risking their lives in a cause that is uncertain at best and illegitimate at worst. While some voice private doubts, others insist -- often with increasing stridency -- that the war is justified, that the insurgency can be crushed and that naysaying undermines both national will and troop morale. I admire their steadfast faith, even as I recognize the dilemma. To disbelieve seems too much like betrayal. Skepticism and dissent appear inimical to service and sacrifice. Keeping the warriors and the war untangled is extraordinarily difficult, intellectually and emotionally. All that most of us can do is to mean precisely what we say: We back you.” Casualty Reports Local story: Texas Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: New York soldier wounded in Iraq. Off-Topic Rant of the Day Things that make you want to puke. “After winning re-election and ‘reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style,’ President George Bush for the second time was chosen as Time magazine's Person of the Year.” I wouldn’t have a problem with this if Time had justified their selection by citing Lieutenant AWOL’s staggering incompetence, ability to lie with a straight face on any topic, monumental arrogance, contempt for American democracy, smear-job campaign style, or any of the other characteristics that define this miserable specimen of ignorant and spoiled rich kid. Instead, TIME opts to suck up to the worst president in American history. I therefore award the TIME magazine editorial staff YD’s coveted Brown Nose of the Year Award. Wipe the jizz off your chins before you pose for pictures, hacks.

War News for Saturday, December 18, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Four American security contractors wounded by car bomb near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi killed, two wounded in shooting at US checkpoint near Kirkuk. Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqis killed in US air strikes near Fallujah. Bring ‘em on: Baghdad airport mortared. Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi police officer killed in bomb attack in Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: Oil pipeline ablaze near Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Two killed, eight wounded in mortar attacks on three election offices in Kirkuk and Dujail. Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi civilian killed, eight wounded in roadside bomb attack on US convoy in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: One ING soldier killed, three wounded in checkpoint attack near Dukkak. Bring ‘em on: US troops ambushed in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents execute two Iraqis near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: Pipeline sabotaged near Beiji. Freedom on the march. “The CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department warned President Bush this week that the United States and its Iraqi allies are not winning the battle against Iraqi insurgents who are trying to derail the country's Jan. 30 elections, according to administration officials.” Power shortages. “As if the daily struggle to dodge bullets and bombings is not enough, many Iraqis now face a freezing winter shivering by candlelight as persistent attacks keep the power out for more than 12 hours a day. ‘Saddam Hussein used to cut off the electricity for a couple of hours a day and we'd complain,’ said Fadia Karim, 33. ‘Now there's no power for hours and hours every day. There's no fuel for the generators, no kerosene for the heaters. People are beyond complaining. Things are just getting worse.’” US forgives 4.1 billion in Iraqi debt. Deserter. “The U.S. Navy decided that Pablo Paredes, the soldier of a Puerto Rican mother and an Ecuadorean father who refused to participate in the war in Iraq, is a deserter. It will seek his arrest, however he is expected to turn himself in to authorities on Friday. Lt. Jonathan Groveman, spokesman for the Southeastern Region of the Navy in San Diego, Calif., said Paredes, 23, was declared a deserter because he had announced his intentions to not fight in Iraq.” Commentary Opinion: “It's time that the men and women risking their lives in Iraq were given the respect they deserve. Not another dollar should be spent on antiquated Cold War weapons systems until every soldier has the very best in safety gear. And we should be looking at other innovative ways to armor our troops. Eliminating the tax loophole that allows Americans to write off the purchase of a Humvee would be a good start, with the money being diverted to our soldiers in the field. On American highways, Humvees are nothing but material trophies, despoiling the environment and providing their owners with a tax break. In Iraq where Humvees are critical, the government has yet to find a way to properly outfit the vehicles. Is there a better example of bad public policy?” Opinion: “The Bush administration has appropriated $34.3 billion on a theoretical missile defense system -- which proved again this week to be an expensive dud in its first test in two years, when the "kill vehicle" never got off the ground to intercept the target missile carrying a mock warhead -- but has been able up to now, according to congressional budget authorities, to spend just $2 billion to armor the vehicles of Americans under fire.” Casualty Reports Local story: New York soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Louisiana soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Georgia Marine wounded in Iraq. Local story: Michigan Marine wounded in Iraq. Local story: Illinois Marine wounded in Iraq.

War News for Friday, December 17, 2004 Bring ‘em on: One US Marine killed in action in al-Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: One US soldier wounded, tank destroyed by roadside bomb near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: Three ING soldiers killed in ambush near Abu Ghraib. Bring ‘em on: Three security contractors, one foreigner killed in Baghdad ambush. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents execute Italian hostage near Ramadi. Bring ‘em on: Three Kurds killed in mortar attack on refugee camp near Kirkuk. Bring ‘em on: Australian troops under RPG fire in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Three “foreigners” and Iraqi driver killed in Mosul ambush. Sadr City. “But nearly two years on, many Iraqis say, the occupation has become more than a simple ledger of tasks completed. The American experience has become like the three-inch bulletproof windshield of a Humvee -- the U.S. military can gaze through the glass while not always hearing what's being said in the streets. In Sadr City, even in neighborhoods clouded with the acrid haze of newly laid asphalt, words of appreciation are often clouded with lingering suspicions. The disenchantment is so deep in some places that it leaves a question most U.S. officials prefer not to address: Is the battle for hearts and minds already lost?” Ramadi. “Lacking partners of any sort, American soldiers try to learn about the influence of tribal and religious authorities in the city as they conduct hundreds of house searches. In this hostile environment, the battalion lives in a kind of fortified bubble, the daily target of somewhat inaccurate mortar fire and victim of random harassment as soon as they leave their compound. ‘Everything we use... is brought from the outside, and we burn all our trash,’ said Snook. Even shower water is brought in, and drinking water comes all the way from Saudi Arabia. Electricity comes from generators. As for using local manpower to look after the base, that seems to be out of the question.” Rummy’s Army. “In the latest signs of strains on the military from the war in Iraq, the Army National Guard announced on Thursday that it had fallen 30 percent below its recruiting goals in the last two months and would offer new incentives, including enlistment bonuses of up to $15,000. In addition, the head of the National Guard Bureau, Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, said on Thursday that he needed $20 billion to replace arms and equipment destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan or left there for other Army and Air Guard units to use, so that returning reservists will have enough equipment to deal with emergencies at home.” Mercenaries. Recruiters working for U.S. contractors are hiring former Colombian soldiers -- and luring away active-duty ones -- for security jobs in Iraq, according to a former army officer who met with the recruiters. Colombia is a member of President Bush's ‘coalition of the willing’ in Iraq, although it hasn't sent any troops. Its troops instead are battling a 40-year-old Marxist insurgency with U.S. aid on its own turf. But now, instead of Colombian troops on the ground in Iraq, former Colombian soldiers are going as contractors -- and earning up to $8,000 monthly.” Morale indicator. “A U.S. Army combat veteran on leave from a unit headed back to Iraq arranged for a friend to shoot him in the leg in an attempt to avoid returning to the war zone, Philadelphia police said yesterday.” Anticipating problems. “Two doctors who are back in the Black Hills after serving in Iraq are keeping an eye on their fellow returning soldiers' well-being. Ashok Kumar and Kenneth Peterson want to see if Army and South Dakota National Guard personnel are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with similar physical or mental issues.” Surgeon shortage. “The war in Iraq could have more doctors on call. U.S. Army medical teams are dealing with the largest number of casualties since the Vietnam War. Some people say more surgeons are needed. Dr. Tom Carmody is a heart surgeon at Luther Midelfort. He was in Iraq when the war first started and could be called up again. He says surgeons are needed now more than ever in Iraq.” Commentary Opinion: “By anyone's standards, terrible things are happening in Iraq, and no amount of self-congratulation in Washington can take the edge off the horror being endured by American troops or the unrelenting agony of the Iraqi people. The disconnect between the White House's fantasyland and the world of war in Iraq could hardly have been illustrated more starkly than by a pair of front-page articles in The New York Times on Dec. 10. The story at the top of the page carried the headline: ‘It's Inauguration Time Again, and Access Still Has Its Price - $250,000 Buys Lunch With President and More.’ The headline on the story beneath it said: ‘Armor Scarce for Heavy Trucks Transporting U.S. Cargo in Iraq.’” Letters to the Editor: “To the Editor: I have only one quibble with your fine article: as an Army psychiatrist working daily with soldiers recently returned from Iraq, I assure you that the flood is not ‘in the offing,’ as your headline says; the flood is here.” Opinion: “At Fantasy Island on the Potomac, nothing matters so much as the illusion of truth. In awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to his Three Stooges, Mr. Bush praised the men ‘whose efforts have made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty.’ Which is why the country is on heightened alert for terrorist threats at home, exacerbated by botched American imperialism in Iraq. The illusion continues.” Casualty Reports Local story: Colorado Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: Florida Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: California Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: Minnesota Marine wounded in Iraq. Local story: Alabama Marine wounded in Iraq. Local story: Pennsylvania contractor killed in Iraq. Local story: West Virginia contractor killed in Iraq. Awards and Decorations Local story: Tennessee soldier decorated for valor in Iraq.

War News for Thursday, December 16, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Nine Iraqis killed, 40 wounded by bomb at mosque in Karbala. Bring ‘em on: Senior communications ministry official assassinated in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents overrun Iraqi police station in Samarra. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents attack two Iraqi police stations in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents launch coordinated attacks across Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi policeman killed, two wounded in ambush near Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: One US soldier dies of wounds received in ambush near Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: One US Marine killed in action in al-Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: Two US Marines killed in action in al-Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents execute six Iraqis near Latifiyah. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqis killed by roadside bomb near Moqdadia. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi chief of police in Ramadi escapes assassination attempt. Bring ‘em on: Powerful explosion reported in central Baghdad. Poland announces troop cuts in Iraq. More catastrophic success. “An Army study shows that about one in six soldiers in Iraq report symptoms of major depression, serious anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder, a proportion that some experts believe could eventually climb to one in three, the rate ultimately found in Vietnam veterans. Because about one million American troops have served so far in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon figures, some experts predict that the number eventually requiring mental health treatment could exceed 100,000. ‘There's a train coming that's packed with people who are going to need help for the next 35 years,’ said Stephen L. Robinson, a 20-year Army veteran who is now the executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, an advocacy group. Mr. Robinson wrote a report in September on the psychological toll of the war for the Center for American Progress, a Washington research group. ‘I have a very strong sense that the mental health consequences are going to be the medical story of this war,’ said Dr. Stephen C. Joseph, who served as the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs from 1994 to 1997.” Supply interdiction. “Responding to the threat of roadside bombings and ambushes of American ground convoys in Iraq, the Air Force is sharply expanding its airlift of equipment and supplies to bases inside the country to reduce the amount of military cargo hauled over land routes, Air Force officials said Tuesday. Dozens of Air Force C-130 and C-17 transport planes, and contracted commercial aircraft, are ferrying about 450 tons of cargo a day, including spare parts, food, water, medical supplies and other matériel that normally moves by truck or trailer, a 29 percent increase in the past month. Even trucks are sometimes shipped in by air. In just the past month, the increased air operations have kept more than 400 trucks and about 1,050 drivers with military escorts off the most dangerous roads in Iraq, said an Air Force spokesman, Lt. Col. Mike Caldwell. American military convoys have been suffering about 100 deaths and injuries a month.” Yesterday, Matt posted the original AP article reporting this story. This NYT article provides a bit more detail, and I think it's important for readers to understand the significance of this development: US supply routwes are so dangerously interdicted that we're risking aircraft to deliver basic subsistance items, spare parts and fuel. Casualties. “In all, six mothers in uniform have died in Iraq between the start of the war in March 2003 and the end of November, leaving behind a total of 10 children. Overall, 27 women troops have died in the war.” Commentary Editorial: “When a group of soldiers, furious that their duty tours had been extended, sued to get out of the military on the same day last week that a dozen former soldiers who had been bounced just because they were gay sued to get back in, it didn't take a four-star general to see the irony — and the waste.” Editorial: “When you do your grocery shopping this weekend, don't be too surprised or too impressed to find a Presidential Medal of Freedom in specially marked boxes of your favorite breakfast cereal. The medal of Mother Theresa, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela and Pope John Paul II apparently isn't as hard to come by anymore.” Editorial: “Maybe the Oval Office should be renamed the Echo Chamber. As President Bush awards the Medal of Freedom to architects of the Iraq war and holds an economic summit to cheerlead for his tax cuts and Social Security privatization, it's increasingly clear that the president wants to hear only voices that echo his own.” Opinion: “The White House medal ceremony was really about George W. Bush. It had a slight touch of the absurd to it, as if facts do not matter and failure does not count. The War to Rid Iraq of WMD has now become The War to Bring Democracy to the Middle East. No one is ever held accountable, because the president will not do as much for himself. He admits no mistakes because he is convinced that he has made none. The terrorist attacks themselves, for which Tenet should have been sacked, are no one's fault because they cannot be the president's fault. He was warned. Condi Rice was put on notice. But, still, who could have known? To make these awards in the face of failure -- the mounting American death toll, the awful suffering of the Iraqis, the looming possibility of civil war, the nose-thumbing of the still-at-large Osama bin Laden and the madness of making war for a nonexistent reason -- has the creepy feel of the old communist states, where incompetents wore medals and harsh facts were denied. For this reason Bernie Kerik -- three months in Iraq building a police force as good as rhetoric can make it -- seemed as likely and appropriate a recipient of a presidential medal as any of the others. Maybe next year.” Analysis: “In part, the slash-and-smear campaign against Annan and ElBaradei is the Bush administration's effort to subjugate international civil servants and organisations to its central command. But this episode also reflects the rolling coup of the neocons as they struggle for power, position and policy in a second Bush term. In the wake of catastrophe in Iraq, they are trying to foster a new conflict with Iran. Even Karl Rove, Bush's political strategist, plays in this arena, with his very own Iran adviser - Michael Ledeen, a sleazy operator on the fringes who was involved in the Iran-contra scandal in which even Oliver North suspected him of skimming money.” Casualty Reports Local story: Arizona soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Wisconsin Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: Georgia Marine killed in Iraq.

War News for Wednesday, December 15, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqi policemen killed, twenty wounded, thirteen missing after their convoy was ambushed in Basmaya. US Marine killed in Al Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: Fourteen more bodies of men executed with a single gunshot to the head found in Mosul. Three Polish soldiers were killed and four others were injured on Wednesday in a helicopter accident near Baghdad. Foreign interference: Iraq's defense minister on Wednesday accused neighboring Iran and Syria of supporting terrorists in his country and charged that a senior Iraqi Shiite was leading a "pro-Iranian" coalition into next month's national elections. Hazem Shaalann, who has previously accused Tehran of interfering in Iraq's affairs, said that Iranian and Syrian intelligence agents, plus former operatives from Saddam Hussein's security forces, are cooperating with the al-Qaida in Iraq group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "to run criminal operations in Iraq." With his comments, Shaalan may have been looking toward next month's polls, the first to be held since Saddam's capture a year ago. A leading coalition of Shiite parties called the United Iraqi Alliance, some with close ties to Iran, is expected to do well in the vote and Shaalan may be trying to stir up sentiment against it. This program might need a little tweaking: American marines and military intelligence analysts are studying the tactics of insurgents in Iraq — staging mock hostage takings, roadside bombings and suicide missions, as well as studying the Koran, praying to Allah and learning to think like jihadists. The Pentagon is scrambling to make good its error and is putting troops through crash counter-terrorist courses. It wants combat-ready units to have more foreign language speakers and a greater understanding of local cultures. One marine had returned only six weeks ago from a seven-month posting in Iraq. He will be going back soon. “It’s what I do,” he said. Had the course taught him anything he had not learnt in the field? “It’s helped me to know how the enemy thinks and appreciate how sophisticated they are.” If he were in charge, how would he deal with the Iraqis? “I’d kill them all,” he replied. “They don’t know what democracy is.” Breaking the military: On Monday, USA TODAY reported that Guard soldiers in Iraq were more likely to be killed than active-duty Army soldiers. The story was based on faulty numbers provided by the Guard last week. The Guard initially blamed the wrong numbers on an internal error. Later, the Guard said it had misunderstood the question and provided a total only for troops who had gone to Iraq and come home, not for all those who had set foot in Iraq. Based on that misunderstanding, the Guard said, it gave USA TODAY a figure of 37,000 troops. Death rates notwithstanding, the numbers of deaths for Army Guard and the Army Reserve are significantly higher than for part-time troops in past conflicts. During the 12-year-long Vietnam War, for example, fewer than 100 Guard troops were killed. The deaths of 142 Guard soldiers and 59 reservists in Iraq reflect sharply higher deployments to Iraq -- relatively few Guard and reserve troops served in Vietnam -- and the fact that Guard and reserve troops are taking on some of the most dangerous missions in Iraq, including convoy duty and guarding facilities. Military and Fiscal Irresponsibility Everything we can: President Bush reassured Americans last week that "we're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones in a mission which is vital and important." But as the death toll climbs to nearly 1,300, some soldiers and defense-industry officials insist that much more could be done. Eighteen months after Bush declared that "major combat operations" in Iraq were over—and another war began—the most powerful military machine on the planet, replenished by America's unmatched industrial power, is still sending its soldiers, reservists and National Guardsmen down dangerous roads in soft-skinned trucks and Humvees. Luftwaffe over Stalingrad: The Air Force is making more cargo flights over Iraq to keep Army transport trucks off the country's dangerous roads, accepting the increased risk to planes and added cost to reduce the threat on the ground, officials said Tuesday. On a given day in Iraq, 3,000 vehicles in 215 convoys are moving around, according to Air Force figures. They face ambush by insurgents and attacks from roadside bombs. Scores of soldiers and drivers have been killed or wounded on convoy duty. Many of the heavy trucks in these convoys are without armor and are protected only by troops in escorting Humvees. Increased flights probably will mean greater fuel and maintenance costs and stress on air crews. Flying a C-130 costs $3,400 an hour, Air Force officials said. "I am totally disinterested in the cost," Jumper said. "It will be paid for. We will do what it takes." Some Air Force officials ultimately hope to haul as much as 1,600 tons a day around Iraq, officials said. Bad news for General Jumper: It is not as grim a milestone as the number dead and wounded, but Pentagon officials say the latest accounting of dollars spent on the war in Iraq now exceeds $100 billion, CBS News National Security correspondent David Martin reports.That's about double the cost the White House predicted before the first U.S. soldier entered Iraq. But no one expected the world's most powerful military to be run ragged by an insurgency of perhaps 12,000 fighters armed with nothing more sophisticated than rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Bad news for the rest of us: The Bush administration plans to ask for between $80 billion and $100 billion to fund military operations next year, rather than the $70 billion to $75 billion the White House privately told members of Congress before the election, according to Pentagon and White House officials. But some analysts and government officials said the request is expected to run as high as $100 billion, bringing the total cost of operations in Iraq alone to well over $200 billion since the March 2003 invasion. Few analysts expect the Iraq mission to be wrapped up in a year, and many question why the Bush Administration is continuing to budget its war costs through supplementals - usually reserved for one-time, emergency expenses - rather than include them in the annual budget request that is sent to Capitol Hill every February. Democrats and some fiscally conservative Republicans believe the administration is trying to hide the effects of rising war costs on the federal deficit, thereby justifying President Bush's calls for making some tax cuts permanent and spending more money on education and other domestic priorities. Crimes, Trials, Punishments Crimes: U.S. Marines fired a pistol in a mock execution involving four young Iraqi looters and shocked another Iraqi detainee with an electric transformer until he "danced," a document made public on Tuesday showed. The June 16 U.S. Navy document detailed 10 "substantiated" incidents of detainee abuse in Iraq involving 24 Marines dating back to May 2003. The Marine Corps said 13 Marines were convicted in courts-martial stemming from the incidents, getting prison sentences of up to 15 months. Trials: A Saddam henchman nicknamed "Chemical Ali" for his role in using chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds will be the first leader of the former regime to be tried for war crimes, it was confirmed today. The announcement was made on the morning that campaigning was scheduled to start for Iraq's first democratic elections in January, prompting accusations that it was timed for the electoral advantage of the interim government. Punishments: President Bush bestowed the nation's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Tuesday on three of the central architects and executors of the war in Iraq, one of the president's strongest efforts yet at putting a formal stamp of success on a war whose outcome is still a question. The recipients were Gen. Tommy Franks, the overall commander of the invasion of Iraq; Paul Bremer, the chief civilian administrator of the U.S. occupation of the country; and George Tenet, the longtime director of central intelligence, who built the case for going to war. "I don't think history will be as kind to these gentlemen as the president was today," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a former officer in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. Bush, he said, is "still trying to put a good face on serious mistakes. This is the continuing motif: Everything is working, and we should reward ourselves for that." Casualty Reports Local story: Georgia Marine killed in Al Anbar province. Local story: Baton Rouge, LA, Marine killed in Al Anbar province. Local story: Littleton, CO, Marine killed in Al Anbar province. Local story: Two Marines from Waukesha and Omro, WI, killed in Al Anbar province. Local story: Warrenton, OR, soldier killed in Mosul. Local story: Charlotte, SC, Army National Guardsman killed in Mosul. Local story: Three Camp Pendleton, NC, Marines killed in Al Anbar province. Local story: Lake Hughes, CA, Marine killed in Al Anbar province. Local story: Carlstadt, NJ, soldier killed in Baghdad. Local story: Mansfield, CT, Army National Guardsman killed near Baghdad. Local story: Listing of Ohio soldiers and Marines killed in Iraq. .

War News for Tuesday, December 14, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Two Marines killed in Al-Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: Seven people killed in second bombing in two days at entrance to Green Zone Bring ‘em on: US soldier killed by gunshot while on patrol in Iraq Bring ‘em on: US warplanes pound northeastern Fallujah. Fallujah redux: The man was shot by B company, Deuce-4 battalion, as they were ambushed uncovering explosives by the side of the road on the western fringe of Mosul. The soldiers think he was just a lorry driver but they are not sure. The US military now has a 5,000-strong force in Mosul, the largest since the war. The military says its aim is to prepare the city for elections next month by re-creating confidence in civic leadership but much of its time is spent countering the daily assaults of the insurgents. Internal security: In the three months since he joined the police force in the Iraqi capital, Khalid Qassim has seen five fellow officers killed by insurgents. If he were not the family's sole breadwinner, that alone would have made him reconsider his job. Last weekend, assailants gunned down a police colonel outside the northern city of Beiji, and killed a brigadier general and a police colonel in Baghdad's southwestern Saidiyah neighborhood. On Friday, an attack on a police patrol in Baghdad's northern Azamiyah suburb killed a captain and a constable. Mouthy puppet: Iraq's interim President Ghazi al-Yawer said in an interview broadcast Monday that the U.S.-led coalition was wrong to dismantle the Iraqi security forces. Critics of the U.S.-led invasion say the decision to disband the 400,000-strong Iraqi army and to purge the state of members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party has contributed to chaos and helped fuel insurgency in post-war Iraq. Building Democracy in the New Iraq An informed electorate: With seven weeks to go before landmark polls, Iraq’s electoral body is stepping up a campaign to inform voters of their rights, but widespread ignorance remains amongst the electorate, interviews show. “After decades of tyranny and authoritarian regimes, Iraq has lost its electoral knowledge,” Hussain Hendawi, the head of the electoral commission, told Reuters last week. "It will take many years to build the democratic process and that knowledge,” he said. That cursed foreign influence: Even as the White House decries the ominous prospect of Iranian influence on the upcoming Iraqi national elections, US-funded organizations with long records of manipulating foreign democracies in the direction of Washington’s interests are quietly but deeply involved in essentially every aspect of the process. Two such groups -- the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) -- are part of a consortium of non-governmental organizations to which the United States has provided over $80 million for political and electoral activities in post-Saddam Iraq. Both groups publicly assert they are nonpartisan, but each has extremely close ties to its namesake American political party, and both are deeply partial to the perceived national interests of their home country, despite substantial involvement in the politics of numerous sovereign nations worldwide. Iraq Reconstruction Even when they get it right they get it wrong: The rest of Baghdad, and large sections of the country, may remain vulnerable to daily insurgent violence. But in Sadr City, police patrol the streets, Al Mahdi volunteers direct traffic, and workers in orange jumpsuits fill in hundreds of craters left by roadside bombs. Still, the relationship between the Americans and Sadr's forces, who staged deadly uprisings across Iraq, is far from cooperative. The two sides remain deeply hostile toward each other, and coordination is nonexistent. Sadr representatives are still bitter over the continued detention of hundreds of Al Mahdi fighters — a violation, they say, of the cease-fire agreement reached after weeks of clashes in the capital. The U.S., meanwhile, appears determined to handle the reconstruction in a way that provides as little cash, power and prestige to Sadr as possible. Thieves fall out: A senior Defense official placed under investigation by the FBI on allegations that he tried to steer Iraqi reconstruction contracts toward friends has been removed from office, Pentagon officials confirmed Friday. John A. "Jack" Shaw, the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for international technology security, was ordered to leave after refusing to sign a letter of resignation, the officials said. His last day was Friday. Shaw did not respond to requests for comment on his ouster. However, in e-mails and letters exchanged with Pentagon officials over his departure, Shaw portrayed himself as a whistle-blower who was being unfairly asked to resign for having highlighted problems with the cellular phone licensing process. In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Shaw expanded on the accusations made in his previous report, charging that Defense Undersecretary Douglas J. Feith, his former law partner L. Marc Zell and Ahmad Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress party, were also involved in the conspiracy. Two years gone: A top U.S. aid official acknowledged Monday that Iraqis have reasons to be impatient with the pace of reconstruction since the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein, but said $4.3 billion had been earmarked for projects and promised improvement despite the insurgency. But Natsios, fielding pointed questions from Arabic-speaking journalists about reconstruction, defended more visible U.S. work, which some Iraqis say is taking far too long. He said it takes months to build power plants, whose generators need to be built from scratch. He spoke in the middle of a power outage that cut electricity to a large swath of the country. American Moral Leadership This should help: In order to fill such spiritual hunger, more than 2.2 million Bibles and other pieces of Christian literature were distributed throughout this region last year alone; another 4 million are slated to be distributed in the coming year! So many in this region are finally open to hearing more about Christ, but I must tell you—this surge in interest is also creating a real challenge. Due to the turmoil there, many are looking for real peace. As a result of Bible distributions and the release of the movie, The Passion of The Christ, the demand for Christian literature in Iraq and across the Middle East is skyrocketing. We just don't have enough money to meet this need. Would you be willing to help meet this challenge? This pledge drive brought to you by the Campus Crusade for Christ. I’ll bet their name all by itself opens Iraqi hearts to Jesus. Meanwhile, back in the real world: The 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment has a distinguished combat history, from the D-Day landing to the Iraq desert campaign of the Persian Gulf War. Its motto: "Straight and Stalwart." Last week, in a makeshift military courtroom, the unit's reputation came under assault. Soldiers from 1-41 described how a member of a rogue platoon hauled an unarmed Iraqi man away from his family one hot August morning and casually fired two shots into his head. Then he photographed the corpse. As disturbing as the testimony was for soldiers from a proud unit, it was just one episode in a shocking series of killings. Over a period of 26 days in August and September, seven 1-41 soldiers were charged with six murders on two continents. True moral leadership: AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the decision that you made, why you decided you did not want to go to Iraq? JEREMY HINZMAN: Well, I think it was -- if you are ever going to go destroy a country or wreak havoc on a country, it would need to be justified. Every justification or rationale that we have ever offered for going to Iraq has been bogus. There were no weapons of mass destruction there. There have been no links established between Saddam and international terrorists, and then the notion that we're going to bring democracy to Iraq is -- we'll see if that comes to fruition, but I don't think we'll see it, unless it's convenient to America's agenda. So anyway, I felt that we had attacked Iraq without any defensive basis, and I think it's been well established at Nuremburg that in those instances, you cannot simply just say that you're following orders, but you have a duty and obligation to disobey. The Human Cost Their kids: "I dream there's an explosion, a big one. Then I wake up and I'm scared," said eight-year-old Nour as she sat in a school classroom in southwest Baghdad. Like many of her classmates, the little girl is traumatised by the constant attacks and frequent kidnappings that take place in Baghdad and she trembles every time a US helicopter passes overhead. Iraq's children are paying a heavy price in the insurgency that has gripped the country since the ouster last year of Saddam Hussein. Thirty-seven children were among 42 people killed in this area in September by a car bomb. And ours: Sixteen months after Kyle's death, the Gilberts have not been able to bring themselves to go through the five containers of his personal items shipped from Fort Bragg. "You send off your son," Regina muses, "and everything comes back in a box." She's bitter about the war - on Nov. 2, she voted for the first time - but not about how the memorial turned out. "No matter how divided the community, we couldn't have done it without them," she says. "We can't hate the protesters. We need to keep that freedom of speech." Commentary Opinion: It is odd enough that so many working-class Americans have been seduced by Bush's claims that he's a regular guy looking out for their interests, when, in fact, his policies overwhelmingly benefit well-off families and wealthy corporations. It is downright weird that so many of them have been taken in by his story of a just war when their sons and daughters, husbands and wives -- not the scions of the wealthy -- are the ones paying the ultimate price for it. Editorial: After Donald Rumsfeld's arrogant comments last Thursday to troops awaiting deployment to Iraq, President Bush quickly attempted to squelch the rising dissension in the ranks. "We're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones in a mission which is vital and important," Bush said in a message to the families of service members. "The concerns expressed are being addressed, and that is, we expect our troops to have the best possible equipment." This wasn't the first time the Bush Administration has lied about its commitment to the safety of the troops. Twenty-one months into the war, the Administration has repeatedly changed its explanation of why the troops are there, how long they are expected to stay and when they will receive the equipment they need. Casualty Reports Local story: San Jose, CA, soldier killed near Habbaniyah. Local story: Soldier with Oregon ties killed in Habbaniyah. Note to Readers No, don’t panic, nothing’s wrong with YD. He’s going to be taking Tuesdays and Wednesdays off from blogging so he can, you know, have a life or something. No accounting for tastes. I’ll sit in those days and if you need to reach me, I’m at mmart@iname.com. Alert readers will have noticed a new entry in the blogroll on the right side of the screen, a link to the new Reader Contribution page under the Intelligence Reports heading. My understanding is that YD will be soliciting essays and commentary from regular posters in Comments and posting them there. Since he hasn’t seemed to have gotten around to that yet I took it on myself to set up a Discussion Thread, inspired by the final post from long-time contributor 2cents in yesterday’s Comments. Pop over and share your opinion. Thanks, matt .

War News for Monday, December 13, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Thirteen Iraqis killed in car bombing near Green Zone in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Seven US Marines killed in two incidents in al-Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi translator working for US forces assassinated in Kirkuk. Bring ‘em on: British consulate in Basra mortared. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqis wounded by car bomb in Erbil. Bring ‘em on: Oil company security executive kidnapped near Samarra. Bring ‘em on: Air strikes, heavy fighting continue in Fallujah. Another $100 billion for Rummy’s planning failure. “Twenty-one months after U.S. forces entered Iraq, the Defense Department is only now coming to terms with the equipment shortages caused by the prolonged fighting there. The Pentagon has prepared an unprecedented emergency spending plan totaling nearly $100 billion -- as much as $30 billion more than expected as recently as October -- say senior defense officials and congressional budget aides. About $14 billion of that would go to repairing, replacing and upgrading an increasingly frayed arsenal.” But wait! There’s more! “Instead, it will be a scramble just to keep the troops in the field equipped. Depots are confronting four to five times more equipment wear than the Army anticipated, McCoy said. Meanwhile, the Army is also pressing forward with a huge reorganization to break down vast Army divisions into smaller modular brigades of 3,000 to 5,000 soldiers each. The Army hopes to create as many as 15 of those brigades by 2007, and they will need to be equipped by the depots and defense contractors as well.” Oil interdiction. “Mr Ghadbane said the number of attacks on oil pipelines jumped to 27 last month from only one or two in the beginning of the year. Six wells sabotaged last month in the Khabbaza oil field, 35km west of Kirkuk, were still on fire. One well sabotaged in the same field at the end of last year burned for 45 days and cost $2 million to extinguish. The fuel shortage has been made worse by attacks on truck drivers carrying imported oil and other petroleum products from neighbouring countries, causing at least one firm to cancel its contract to provide petrol.” Blackout. “Baghdad went dark late Sunday afternoon after fire broke out in a power plant north of the capital city. The power was still out three hours later. Only the Green Zone, where U.S. officials have their headquarters, and other places with their own generators, had power late Sunday. Witnesses in several other parts of the country including Basra to the south and Najaf to the southwest were also reporting blackouts.” Saddam. “A year after he was captured by U.S. troops, some of Saddam Hussein's old lieutenants have stirred up new interest in his fate by going on hunger strike over access to lawyers and fears of being handed over to Iraqis.” Suck it up. “Dr. John Caulfield thought it had to be a mistake when the Army asked him to return to active duty. After all, he's 70 years old and had already retired - twice. He left the Army in 1980 and private practice two years ago.” Suck it up. “So the Pentagon leadership has finally recognized that they need to armor up their trucks. But they've settled on a damn peculiar way of paying for the work. They're dipping into soldiers' paychecks to do it. Let me explain. For this fiscal year, 2005, Rummy & Co. asked for $25.7 million to secure its fleet of trucks. And Congress granted the request, when it passed the Pentagon's budget in July.” Commentary Special Rummy Edition Editorial: “In addition to lying, Mr. Rumsfeld fell back on the kind of hollow pronouncements he favors. ‘You go to war with the army you have,’ he intoned, ‘not the army you might want or wish to have.’ But the United States didn't have to go to war when we did. The Bush administration went to war with Iraq because powerful voices, with Mr. Rumsfeld's one of the loudest, insisted on it. If President Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld had wanted to go to war with a properly equipped army, they could have taken the time to build one. But being prepared would have required Mr. Rumsfeld and his advisers to consider that post-invasion Iraq could be deadly. That conflicted with their ideology, so off the troops went without armor that could protect them from the attacks that have killed so many.” Editorial: “Also apparently not true are the assurances President Bush had given just the day before to families of Marine casualties during a visit to Camp Pendleton, Calif. ‘We're doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones...’ There is still a critical shortage of armored-up Humvees and only a tiny percentage of the nearly 9,000 military transport trucks used to supply troops in Iraq are armored. Even the Humvees with added armor remain unprotected on the top and bottom, and the added weight of the armor reportedly has increased the stress on, and failure rate of, the vehicles' transmissions. The families of those risking their lives in Iraq ought not be reassured but enraged. This was a war of opportunity, not necessity, so there is no excuse for, as Rumsfeld put it, ‘going to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have.’” Editorial: “Sadly, the funding for medium truck add-on armor kits was $0 in 2004 and 2005 funding. The same can be said of heavy truck add-on armor kits. How many times does Rumsfeld have to prove his incompetence before he is relieved of his duty? The armor scandal is another in a line of foul-ups, including the torture scandals of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the underestimation of troops and the ongoing complaints from the troops. Quick answers seem to be in line for the problems. Troops should be provided with the equipment they need to survive. President George W. Bush should reprimand Rumsfeld if he does not have the guts to fire him. How many soldiers have to die because of executive mistakes?” Editorial: “Rumsfeld's answer might have been more appropriate if the United States were fighting a war of necessity in Iraq. But it's a war of choice, making it inexcusable that the administration would send young Americans to fight without all of the equipment they need to protect them.” Editorial: “A perfect instance of Bush's failure to field an adequate military could be seen in the failure to provide armor for military vehicles, largely based on an ideological misreading of what our troops would face in Iraq. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have mouthed the usual excuses: that they're doing all they can do. But as news stories have pointed out, they are not telling the truth. The company that produces the armor has been awaiting orders from the Pentagon, but the orders haven't come. The Bush administration has exploited the issues of Iraq and terrorism dishonestly to its political benefit. The Democrats now have the obligation and the opportunity to exploit the issue honestly, which will go a long way to making the nation actually safer.” Opinion:

“This issue of insufficiently equipped soldiers being sent into battle - and in insufficient numbers - was an issue John Kerry raised pointedly during the campaign. A leaked memo written by Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez in December 2003 informed top Army officials about a shortage of spare parts, lack of protective gear and poor readiness rates for Army weapons operating in Iraq. ‘I cannot continue to support sustained combat operations with (maintenance) rates this low,’ he wrote. ”In response to Kerry's attack about ‘mismanagement’ of the war, Bush largely ignored the Iraq issue and instead reminded voters of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. This fear factor helped win Bush the election and the American voters have only themselves to blame for Bush's mismanagement of the Iraq occupation and for Rumsfeld's callous contempt for the soldiers he sends into battle, possibly to die. ”This willful ignominy of the electorate recalls H. L. Mencken's observations 84 years ago. ‘When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. ... The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through. ... But when the field's nationwide ... then all the odds are on the man who is intrinsically the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind's a virtual vacuum. "’The presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts' desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.’ ”Mencken appeared to have seen it coming.”

Opinion: “Right now, two groups of Americans are keeping the war in Iraq from collapsing under the weight of its own inherent contradictions: voters, mostly supporters of President Bush, who refuse to question what U.S. soldiers are doing in Iraq, and the soldiers themselves.” Casualty Reports Local story: Michigan Marine wounded in Iraq. Local story: Michigan Marine wounded in Iraq.

War News for Sunday, December 12, 2004 Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, three wounded by roadside bomb in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers and Iraqi interpreter wounded by car bomb near Kirkuk. Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers wounded by car bomb near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: Eight US soldiers wounded in ambush and car bombing in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers wounded by roadside bomb near Hawifa. Bring ‘em on: ING patrol in central Baghdad attacked with mortar and RPG fire. Bring ‘em on: Insurgents launch coordinated assault on Iraqi police academy in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: Car bomb attack on US convoy between Haditha and Rawah. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi police colonel assassinated near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting reported in Fallujah. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi “collaborator” assassinated in Mahmoudiyah. Bring ‘em on: One US Marine killed in fighting in al-Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed in fighting in Fallujah. Bring ‘em on: Four children killed, eight wounded in Mosul mortar attack. Lying Rummy.

"Back in May I visited the ArmorWorks factory in Tempe, which produces body armor for American soldiers and kits of the same material that can be attached in the field to Humvees. As I was leaving the plant, company President Bill Perciballi showed me an e-mail from a soldier in the war zone. It read in part: ‘It's me eddie from iraq thank you for saving my life. I'm doing good except I can't hear out of my left ear but at least I'm alive. And the only reason is because of your armor. It saved my life and the rest of the guys in the truck. We got hit by and I.E.D. on the road and the armor works so well the ceramic didn't even get (expletive) so I just want to say thank you once more and tell you that I will be in touch.’ "The message was sent in January, nearly a year ago. According to the Pentagon, nearly two-thirds of the Americans who have died in combat in Iraq were killed by IEDs: improvised explosive devices. "When a reservist asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld last week why some troops must scavenge through garbage dumps to cobble together a kind of makeshift armor for their vehicles, Rumsfeld said that everything possible was being done. He said, ‘It's essentially a matter of physics. It isn't a matter of money. It isn't a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It's a matter of production and capability of doing it.’ "But in Arizona, the folks at ArmorWorks knew that wasn't true. Matt Salmon, the former Republican congressman who is a consultant for the firm, told me, ‘This is horribly frustrating. This is supposed to be about saving lives. We're producing 300 Humvee kits a month and we could be producing 600. This technology has been in the field. It's battle-tested. And we're incredulous that we haven't been asked to step up production. If the government is doing everything humanly possible then this factory should at close to capacity.’”

More lying Rummy. “The explosion left him completely deaf in his left ear, and the shrapnel nearly severed his left arm. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Sandrell while he was recovering. That’s when Sandrell says they talked about the armor issue. ‘Basically he said, what do you guys need over there? What are you lacking? Then I got to talking about how our Humvees were just regular light humvees nothing major, and then I told him we needed armor.’ But according to Sandrell, the answer Rumsfeld gave earlier this week, ‘we are working on that,’ is similar to the one he gave him more than a year ago.” Press failure. “If you blinked, you would have missed news of a Pentagon ‘strategic’ report to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld revealing that U.S. actions ‘have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended.’ There was a bit in some newspapers about a damning classified cable from the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Baghdad that painted a dismal picture of Iraq's economic, political and security prospects. And, while it got notice when published in October, there's been no follow-up on a study in an esteemed British medical journal suggesting that up to 100,000 civilians had died since the invasion. No follow-up, that is, except to trash the research.” Baghdad ER. “Abdel-Hassan was the doctor's first case in a six-hour shift that began at 8 a.m., and there was nothing he could do. Blood from the dead man's scalp dripped from the black leather stretcher to the grimy tile floor. A green sheet was draped over the body, then pulled over the head. Abdel-Jabbar tried vainly to pull a ring off one finger. Another friend splashed a cup of water over the dead man's right hand, loosening the ring. A nurse then tucked the limp arm under the sheet, blood already seeping across it. ‘It was just banditry, right out in the open,’ Abdel-Jabbar said angrily, lighting a Viceroy cigarette in the emergency room.” Support the troops! “The Iraq war veteran, who has been unable to work since his return home, and his two young children have received gifts and cash donations after The Pantagraph highlighted his battle with the U.S. Army over whether his disability is war-related. But, Geason, 29, of Eureka, received a letter from the U.S. Army this week indicating a one-time payment of about $9,000 was the only money he can expect from the military, said his mother, Ruth Tabor of Congerville, who is supporting her son and grandchildren. All but about $2,000 of that was deducted for overpayments and equipment left behind in Iraq, and that was used up long ago, she said. Geason was advised to continue pressing his case with the Veterans Administration and the Social Security Administration.” Rummy’s Army. "’We are seeing some unprecedented things. The real fear is that these could be tips of a larger iceberg,’ said P.J. Crowley, a retired colonel who served as a Pentagon spokesman in both Republican and Democratic administrations and was a White House national security aide in the Clinton administration. ‘The real issue is not any one of these things individually. It's what the broader impact will be on our re-enlistment rates and our retention,’ Crowley said.” By the numbers. “The Pentagon confirmed to United Press International Wednesday that a cumulative total of 955,000 troops from all military services had been deployed for Operation Iraqi or Enduring Freedom by the end of September. More than 300,000 of those troops have been deployed more than once, the Pentagon said. One government source said the total number of troops deployed has likely hit 1 million since then.” Commentary Analysis: “As Americans found out this week, the more enterprising of these soldiers find ways to improvise armor, diving into Kuwaiti scrap heaps or cannibalizing damaged American vehicles. Some, like the soldiers of the 343rd Quartermaster Company, refuse their missions entirely, risking court-martial instead of facing combat with broken or unarmored trucks. Others simply drive on, with blind (and some would say foolish) faith in their equipment. None of these approaches are acceptable. The Army (and to a lesser extent the Marine Corps) must reshape its entire force, front to back, to fight the noncontiguous, nonlinear battles. Every vehicle must have sufficient armor to protect its crew; every convoy must have the right mix of light and heavy weapons to protect itself; every unit must be equipped with night-vision goggles and global positioning systems; every soldier must have the skills and training to fight as an infantryman. One of our military's great strengths is its ability to learn from its mistakes - when things go wrong for a platoon or company, its soldiers and officers put together reviews to make sure it won't happen again. On the larger scale, that system has broken down: the Pentagon has had more than a decade since the cold war ended - and 20 months since the fall of Baghdad - to identify and fix these problems to protect its support troops. There is no excuse for its failure to do so.” Casualty Reports Local story: California Marine wounded in Iraq. Local story: New York soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: New Hampshire Marine wounded in Iraq.

War News for Saturday, December 11, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi election workers assassinated in Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: US convoy ambushed by car bomb near Mosul. Bring ‘em on: Four senior Iraqi police officers assassinated in ambushes near Ash Sharqat and Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: US troops and ING soldiers ambushed in separate incidents near Baquba. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi policeman assassinated in Beiji. Bring ‘em on: ING patrol ambushed by roadside bomb near Tikrit. Bring ‘em on: Turkish truck delivering US supplies destroyed by RPG fire near Beiji. Bring ‘em on: Iraqi police captain killed in checkpoint attack near Samarra. Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi civilian killed, one wounded by mortar fire near Samarra. Bring ‘em on: Oil production near Beiji halted due to pipeline sabotage. Two US soldiers killed, four injured in helicopter crash near Mosul. BBC Iraq Log. BBC contributors look to the future with some hope and discuss the power shortages, corruption and the ever present danger of kidnapping. Shortages. “With Iraq in the grip of winter, when temperatures drop close to freezing during 12 hours of darkness, electricity seems in shorter supply even than a few months ago, despite constant U.S. efforts to repair war and sabotage damage. Typically many households have two hours of power before a four-hour blackout. .. The cost of paraffin for heating has risen fivefold in the capital and bottled cooking gas tenfold, causing serious hardship for the many Iraqis without jobs or regular income. Lines several km (miles) long snake from the city's petrol stations where drivers can fill up for a subsidised 3 U.S. cents a litre. The choice is to pay 20 times as much to profiteers. Anger has boiled over, fights and shooting have broken out.” Intelligence collection. “For information, McCaffrey and his men are relying on the mass arrests that frequently antagonize the population, hit-and-miss traffic stops and the few frightened Iraqis who help U.S. forces, often to avenge the murder of a family member by the insurgents.” Raid. “Household goods were sent clattering to the floor, mattresses and bedding upturned, the contents of cupboards and drawers spilt on to a growing pile of personal effects and domestic items. Across the wakening town dogs barked and engines rumbled as US units converged on similar targets. ‘Er . . . we’re in the wrong house,’ Sergeant Hendrix announced quietly as the troops began questioning the blindfolded Iraqis. ‘Our target is 100 metres south.’” Iraqi police training. “Even as the foreign advisers push ready-made solutions, Iraqi police admit they are overwhelmed. Iraq's interim government, when it assumed power from the coalition in June, inherited a force largely assembled by the multinational forces with little screening of recruits. Officials are now working through a vetting exercise aimed at purging criminals from police ranks. In recent months they have stepped up training courses like the one at Apache, and recruited aggressively from former members of Saddam's army to form new elite units.” Debt relief. “Loria, 27, found himself stuck in Fort Hood in Texas this week when Army officials said he owed money for travel expenses and for lost equipment. Rep. Maurice Hinchey and Sens. Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton interceded on behalf of Loria after his wife, Christine Loria, told the Times-Herald Record of Middletown about the problem.” Casualty Reports Local story: New Mexico Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: Two South Carolina Guardsmen killed in Iraq. Local story: Pennsylvania Marine dies from wounds received in Iraq. Local story: New York soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Arkansas soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Utah Marine wounded in Iraq.

War News for Friday, December 10, 2004 Bring ‘em on: One US Marine killed in fighting in al-Anbar province. Bring ‘em on: One US soldier wounded by roadside bomb in Baghdad. The Army we have. “The Army Reserve is facing an extreme shortage of company officers, a situation aggravated by a surge in resignation requests. The shortage — primarily of captains — has seriously reduced the capabilities of the Reserve, and continued losses will further reduce the readiness of "an already depleted military force," according to an Army briefing document submitted last month to Congress. Army Reserve resignation requests have jumped from just 15 in 2001 to more than 370 during a 12-month period ending in September. To preserve its leadership ranks, the Reserve increasingly has rejected resignation requests, forcing some officers to stay on even after they have fulfilled their initial eight-year service requirement.” Fallujah: “All men of military age will be processed using a central database; they will be photographed, fingerprinted and have iris scans taken before being issued ID cards. The entire process should take about 10 minutes per man, Sattler said. The system has been in use for several months in Iraq, but until now only to catalogue detainees. No civilian vehicles will be permitted within city limits as a precaution against car bombs, which, along with roadside bombs, are the deadliest weapons in the insurgent arsenal, Sattler said. All cars will be left on the outskirts of Fallujah, and residents will be bused to their homes, district by district.” Fallujah: “US troops fire off another volley of shots amid the trashed houses of Fallujah, hunting down new adversaries carrying a potentially deadly weapon that threatens to plague reconstruction efforts. But this time the marines are not chasing down the insurgents who they defeated in a devastating assault on the city last month. Their quarry is stray animals grown fat on the flesh from corpses and who could harbor rabies.” Mosul: “For the next 20 minutes, Smiley's platoon engaged an invisible enemy on Mosul's streets in the kind of clattering midafternoon gunfight that has become commonplace here in recent weeks. The ensuing chase led Smiley's men and a small Iraqi National Guard contingent into a sophisticated ambush -- and exposed the risks facing U.S. soldiers here and across Iraq as they struggle to face down a determined insurgency before the Jan. 30 elections.” Suck it up. “He lost his arm serving his country in Iraq. Now this wounded soldier is being discharged from his company in Fort Hood, Texas, without enough gas money to get home. In fact, the Army says 27-year-old Spc. Robert Loria owes it close to $2,000, and confiscated his last paycheck.” CBS News, where’s my paycheck? “CBS Recruiting Anti-War Bloggers to ‘Talk Up’ Army Deserter Story? The owner of Nonviolence.org, Martin Kelley, said he got an interesting phone call yesterday from a CBS News publicist for—you guessed it—Dan Rather’s 60 Minutes Wednesday, the same program that carried the infamous bogus memos. ‘Yesterday I got a call from a publicist for CBS News’s 60 Minutes. They’re running a story tonight on ‘Deserters,’ U.S. military personnel who have fled to Canada rather than serve in Iraq. She was requesting that I talk up the program on Nonviolence. In nine years of publishing the peace site, I can’t remember ever getting a call from a publicist before. I’ve talked to reporters from major news networks and papers, and I’ve talked a booking agent or two to arranging appearances on radio shows, but never a publicist.’…Other liberal/anti-war bloggers who have talked about the upcoming story in preparation for tonight’s broadcast include No Capital, Daily War News, Bankrupt Artist v.3” Commentary Editorial: “The toll of Americans who have given their lives in battle has surpassed 1,000. The official estimate of total casualties - soldiers killed and wounded - is about 10 times that. The departing CIA station chief in Baghdad has told the administration in a memo that the security situation is getting worse, and will deteriorate further. Soldiers from two National Guard units who are about to go into Iraq from Kuwait have asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to his face why they have to scrounge in landfills to salvage scrap metal and bullet-proof windshields to try to reinforce their underarmored Humvees. What are Americans to make of this picture? First, it confirms that President Bush and the Pentagon completely misread what would be necessary to pacify the country once Saddam Hussein had been removed from power. The nature and strength of the insurgency caught the Americans unprepared and undermanned.” Editorial: “Even more remarkably, he shifted all blame for what many believe to have been a woefully inadequate troop commitment. ‘The big debate about the number of troops is one of those things that's really out of my control,’ he said. Out of the defense secretary's control? ‘I mean, everyone likes to assign responsibility to the top person and I guess that's fine,’ Mr. Rumsfeld explained. ‘But the number of troops we had for the invasion was the number of troops that General Franks and General Abizaid wanted.’ But reporting by Bob Woodward and others shows Mr. Rumsfeld ordering Gen. Tommy R. Franks to rewrite plans for Iraq to reduce the number of troops; the one general who said he thought more would be needed for postwar control, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, found himself unwanted in Mr. Rumsfeld's Pentagon.” Opinion: “Say this for Rumsfeld: At least he publicly engaged challenges from the rank and file. How often has President Bush been held accountable? Certainly not by a supine Congress. And the president slipped through the election by scaring us to death about his opponent's national security skills. Maybe a few brave soldiers will shame the rest of us into confronting the powers that be with the questions our leaders should have faced all along.” Opinion: “Like Vietnam, Iraq has become a war in which sacrifice is asked of only a few -- the soldiers, Marines, guardsmen and reservists who already have suffered more than 1,000 deaths and more than 10,000 wounded. Actually, it's even worse than Vietnam. While the wealthy wallow in tax cuts for which there is little, if any, justification, Bush refuses to challenge even a dime of pork-barrel spending by a profligate Congress. He's the only president in memory who has refused to veto even a single spending bill, however outrageous.” Casualty Reports Local story: Florida soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Virginia soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: New York soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Vermont soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Iowa soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Texas soldier wounded in Iraq. Rant of the Day I'm always amazed how conservative nut jobs process information. (I can’t bring myself to apply the term “thinking” to this process.) A CBS publicist contacted an anti-war blogger about an upcoming 60 Minutes show featuring American soldiers who have deserted over Bush’s War. The blogger provided a link to the 60 Minutes story, broadcast times and some commentary about bloggers and CBS. A conservative website that exists to target CBS news in general and Dan Rather in particular breathlessly reported CBS news is “recruiting” “liberal/anti-war” bloggers to talk up the 60 Minutes show, and linked to three blogs, including this one, that also linked to the CBS story. The writer claimed these links were provided “in preparation” for the 60 Minutes story, implying the story links on these other blogs were also provided at the request of CBS News. In other words, the conservative nut job who wrote this piece made the mental leap from one blogger who provided a link at the request of a CBS publicist to a vast conspiracy of bloggers consisting of every anti-Bush War blogger who linked to the CBS story. This is a classic example of a thinking process impeded by a fixed delusional system. The story of this conspiracy is now rocketing through the conservative Monkey Network. I’ve found four conservative blogs carrying the story and linking to my blog. Martin Kelley, who posted the link at the request of CBS, has counted many more. Thus, a complete fabrication becomes established truth within the conservative mind. For more insight into conservative mental health issues, see some of the comments posted by the monkeys at Little Green Turdballs in reference to this story.

War News for December 9, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqis wounded by car bomb in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: Wave of insurgent attacks reported in Samarra. Bring ‘em on: Heavy fighting erupts in Ramadi. Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqis killed, five wounded in Baghdad mortar attack. Bring ‘em on: One US soldier wounded by roadside bomb near Samarra. Bring ‘em on: ING soldier executed near Hilla. Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqis killed in car bomb attack on US convoy near Samarra. Turkish food distributor stops commercial operations in Iraq. Fuel shortages. “Baghdad has been hit by what many residents of the capital say are the worst fuel shortages since the immediate aftermath of the invasion, the result of both insurgent attacks on pipelines and corruption in the distribution of fuel. For the past week, queues for petrol have stretched for kilometres along the capital's main streets, while black market fuel sells at 10 times its pre-crisis price - if it can be found at all.” Factoid. “US troops injured in Iraq have required limb amputations at twice the rate of past wars, and as many as 20 percent have suffered head and neck injuries that may require a lifetime of care, according to new data giving the clearest picture yet of the severity of battlefield wounds.” Commentary Editorial: “Mr. Rumsfeld talks a lot about supporting the troops. We wish that someone powerful would explain to him that doing so includes treating them with respect and telling them the truth.” Opinion: “These young men and women went to Iraq believing the pap they were told: they'd have a brief battle, chocolate, flowers, gratitude. Instead, they were thrust into a prolonged and savage insurgent war without the troop levels or armor they needed because the Pentagon's neocons had made plans based on their spin - that turning Iraq into a democracy would be a cakewalk. And because Rummy wanted to make his mark by experimenting with a lean, slimmed-down force. And because Rummy kept nattering on about a few ‘dead-enders,’ never acknowledging the true force, or true nationalist fervor, of the opposition. The dreams of Rummy and the neocons were bound to collide. But it's immoral to trap our troops in a guerrilla war without essential, lifesaving support and matériel just so a bunch of officials who have never been in a war can test their theories.” Analysis: “Today what is happening in Iraq is more than what is seen. It is not the war against Iraq but an effort to create new generations through election under the umbrella of superpower United States. US is loosing fast its time for diplomatic breakthrough as neither UN/European countries nor Arab world has been brought into confidence. At this stage it seems that the present US government feels that the problems in Iraq could be solved through military might single handedly. There is no sign of prevailing peace in Iraq. Today or tomorrow US troops will have to leave Iraq but it will leave behind the legacy of chaos among Shia, Sunni and Kurdish communities. Leadership to run the Iraqi government cannot easily be established because of heterogeneous groups, clans and religious and ethnic diversity. Instead of bringing peace in the region what America has sown in the Middle East is yet to be seen. One may predict that the anti American sentiments may be exploited by many extremist groups and elements to sabotage the American interest all over the world.” Casualty Reports Local story: Washington State soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: Michigan Marine dies in Iraq. Local story: North Carolina soldier wounded in Iraq. Local story: Arkansas Marine wounded in Iraq. Local story: Nebraska Marine wounded in Iraq.

War News for Wednesday, December 8, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Four Iraqi national guardsmen killed in two incidents in Baghdad and further south. US soldier killed by gunfire in Baghdad, the 1000th American combat death since start of war. Deaths from all causes are higher, of course. Bring ‘em on: Two Christian churches bombed in Mosul, three injured. US Marine dies in vehicle accident in Baghdad. Communication problems: In recent weeks, insurgents have taken their fight to this city of 1.7 million people in Iraq's mostly quiet north. Last month, insurgents launched coordinated attacks on the city's police stations and drove most officers away before U.S. forces could re-establish control. Since then, insurgents have waged a terror campaign, assassinating police or individuals suspected of working with the coalition. The message is clear: Stay away from Americans and the interim Iraqi government. The message has gotten through to interpreters. Translators are integral to battling an insurgency. Winning the support of the public requires rebuilding civil society. Kenna's unit once had as many as 70 translators, most hired locally. Now it has four. Who's next: A top Iraqi official accused the country's neighbors Tuesday of doing too little to stop foreigners from joining the brutal insurgency, while the U.S. combat death toll neared 1,000 with the killing of an American soldier in Baghdad. In a speech to the Iraqi National Council, the deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, said he was losing patience with Iraq's neighbors. He didn't single out any governments, but noted that Iraqi police had arrested a Syrian driving a car bomb packed with artillery shells and other explosives. ``There is evidence indicating that some groups in some neighboring countries are playing a direct role in the killing of the Iraqi people and such a thing is not acceptable to us,'' Saleh said. ``We have reached a stage in which if we do not see a real response from those countries, then we are obliged to take a decisive stance.'' Putin weighs in: President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday he could not imagine how Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30 could be held under current conditions. "Honestly speaking, I cannot imagine how it is possible to organize elections under the conditions of occupation by foreign forces," Putin said in televised comments during a Kremlin meeting with interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Iraq and the US Military Deserters: It's an offense punishable by death during wartime. It's been committed by 5500 soldiers since the war with Iraq began. The men, who have violated military orders and oaths, tell 60 Minutes Wednesday that it isn't cowardice, but rather the nature of the war in Iraq, that turned them into American deserters. One soldier, Pfc. Dan Felushko, 24, tells Pelley, "I didn't want...'Died deluded in Iraq' over my gravestone." The Andover cheerleader returns: President Bush sought on Tuesday to boost the morale of U.S. troops facing extended deployments in Iraq, but acknowledged mixed results so far in training Iraqi forces to replace them. Bush did not repeat his assertions from September about nearly 100,000 "fully trained and equipped" Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel being on the job. Words are cheap: Bush was by far the preferred presidential candidate of members of the military and their families; some polls showed him to be a 3-1 or 4-1 favorite over Democrat John F. Kerry. But his relationship with the armed forces hasn't been uniformly positive. The extended deployments in combat zones have been unpopular, and Bush drew fire during the presidential campaign for seeking to deny new health benefits to middle-income veterans. Moreover, soldiers who were told by the administration that they would be greeted as liberators in Iraq are still facing daily violence, Hughes said. ''If he really wants to buck up morale, let's put some honesty into his statements about the war," he said. ''A lot of us see a guy go up and pump out a lot of hot air when he's talking to the troops. Words are cheap. We want to see that people are really concerned for soldiers and their families.” American Moral Leadership Massey: A former US marine has said his unit killed more than 30 innocent Iraqi civilians in just two days. In graphic testimony presented to a Canadian asylum tribunal on Monday, Sergeant Jimmy Massey's evidence appeared to bolster war crime claims made by fugitive US paratrooper Jeremy Hinzman. The 26-year-old Hinzman said he would face persecution if sent home to the US, in a politically charged case which could set a precedent for at least two other American deserters seeking asylum in Canada. Williams and May: U.S. military prosecutors alleged Monday that American soldiers shot to death two unarmed Iraqi men in their homes, then tried to cover up their crimes by claiming that the Iraqis had reached for guns. Sgt. Michael P. Williams, 25, of Memphis, Tenn., and Spc. Brent W. May, 22, of Salem, Ohio, are the second pair of soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment of Ft. Riley, Kan., to face murder charges stemming from separate incidents in August. The allegations against them are among about a dozen murder cases that have been filed against U.S. troops in Iraq. Maynulet: A U.S. tank company commander accused of killing a critically injured Iraqi driver for radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr will be court-martialed, an Army spokesman said Tuesday. Capt. Rogelio Maynulet, 29, of Chicago, will be tried on charges of assault with intent to commit murder and dereliction of duty, which carry a maximum combined sentence of 20 1/2 years, said Maj. Michael Indovina. Omerta, part one: Two Defense Department intelligence officials reported observing brutal treatment of Iraqi insurgents captured in Baghdad last June, several weeks after disclosures of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison there created a worldwide uproar, according to a memorandum disclosed today. The memorandum, written by the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency to a senior Pentagon official, said that when the two members of his agency objected to the treatment, they were threatened and told to keep quiet by other military interrogators. Omerta, part two: U.S. special operations forces accused of abusing prisoners in Iraq threatened Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) personnel who saw the mistreatment, according to U.S. government memos released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The special operations forces also monitored e-mails sent by defense personnel and ordered them "not to talk to anyone" about what they saw, said one memo written by a DIA officer, who complained to his Pentagon bosses about the harassment. New standards: A court proceeding last week also demonstrated how the United States is turning its back on its own due process standards in its treatment of detainees. For decades, evidence obtained from defendants after torture has not been admissible in US courts. But on Thursday, a deputy associate attorney general told a federal judge that there was nothing to stop military officials at Guantanamo from using torture-induced statements in deciding whether a detainee should be held indefinitely as an enemy combatant. In another case last month, a federal judge found that the procedures at Guantanamo for determining enemy combatant status do not comply with the Geneva Conventions and US law, which state that any battlefield detainee is presumed to be a prisoner of war until a "competent tribunal" puts him in the less protected status of enemy combatant. Marching orders: Early in the Bush administration's detention of foreign terrorism suspects, FBI agents told Pentagon officials that the military's harsh interrogation tactics in Cuba would produce "unreliable results," according to documents released Tuesday. An unidentified FBI official recounted in a May 10 e-mail to Tom Harrington, a top FBI counterterrorism official, how he pressed generals in charge of Guantanamo "early on" about the military tactics. "Both agreed the bureau has their way of doing business and DOD has their marching orders from SecDef," the official said, referring to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Approved procedures: Preliminary findings of a military inquiry suggest that some of the recently published photographs of Navy special forces capturing detainees in Iraq were taken for legitimate intelligence-gathering purposes and showed commandos using approved procedures, a Navy spokesman said Monday. The photos, which have drawn a strong reaction in Arab media, also appear to show Navy SEALs sitting or lying on top of hooded and handcuffed detainees in the back of a pickup truck. The Human Cost Sorrowful anger: It is hardly surprising: His son's death in the war turned Fernando Suarez del Solar of Escondido into another person. A proud father and gentle man became, over time, an eloquent and deeply disturbing voice of sorrowful anger, not merely in North County or across the United States ---- although his message has cut through rhetorical tangles from shore to shore ---- but also around the world. There is no mystery to it, not even for Suarez.He says, "My son died, my government lied, my life changed," and that was that. "Last December, I saw a bad situation, children in middle school, and I saw them and I promised to help. That was south of Baghdad, where my son was killed, but now with Fallujah it's city people, innocent people, children and women. They have no help for water or medicines." Friends and I have gathered medicines, and donations come, and we collect the money, for we are going to buy the medicine in Jordan and perhaps at the border we can help the children." "Children are the real victims. Soldiers die, Americans die, they go to the war and die, maybe in a few weeks. But why the children? Why the innocent people?" Another far-reaching change: International aid workers, whose pacifist-tinged neutrality once protected them from harm while they worked in combat zones, now find themselves as hated by militants in Iraq as the American soldiers there. The militants target them as missionaries for a Western-style culture that they consider a threat to Islamic traditions, and ordinary Iraqis fear the presence of a foreign aid worker in their midst will attract the next suicide bomber. The kidnapping and believed slaying of Margaret Hassan, CARE International's director of operations in Iraq, and the decision of the aid organization to shut its offices in the country hastened the exodus of other relief groups from the region. Doctors Without Borders pulled out last month, and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has decided to phase out its humanitarian assistance programs in southern and northern Iraq before Jan. 1. Commentary Opinion: That so many soldiers accept longer service as their duty is a tribute to them. Their sacrifice doesn't obscure two of the Bush administration's costly mistakes. Not enough soldiers were sent to Iraq in the first place. Not enough thought and planning went into building an Iraqi army and police force capable of sustaining security. The elections, which will choose a national assembly to write the country's constitution, intensify a vicious circle that the apparent victory over insurgents in Fallujah — with minimal help from Iraqi troops — has not managed to break. U.S. troops must establish security before Iraq can become stable enough for homegrown troops to take the lead. But the presence and dominance of U.S. troops provoke attacks, which undermine security. The most effective insurgent attacks, moreover, are against Iraqis recruited for the police and army units. At least 80 Iraqis, most of them in the security forces or working for the U.S.-led coalition, have been killed in the past few days. The tactic has hurt recruitment and training, which keeps the country dependent on U.S. troops. Editorial: With the departures last week of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, it became clear that President Bush will enter his second term with a sharply different team. But what is different pales in comparison to what will remain the same: Donald Rumsfeld will continue as defense secretary, and as long as he stays the neoconservatives who dominated the first term will hold sway over foreign policy. There remains the matter of an FBI investigation into whether defense officials shared secrets with Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi or with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. But even if the Justice Department brings indictments, the neocons will almost certainly remain the dominant force in foreign policy. Last week, Bush took pains to emphasize the doctrine of preemption during a good-will tour of Canada. And a string of warnings about Iran's nuclear capabilities spurred calls for greater action. Iraq is looking less like the past and more like the prologue. Editorial: What Bush and some of his senior advisers have ostentatiously refused to do in the past but must do now is to encourage an unfettered influx of information and analysis. They have to foreswear the destructive habit of basing crucial policy decisions on an assumption that unpleasant realities can be disregarded or wished away. If Bush is to put an end to the skein of blunders that has led to the current mayhem in Iraq, he will have to begin by making it known throughout the government and the military that he wants honest, unpoliticized reporting of facts and that he is unafraid of analysis that implies his policies are not working. It will be hard enough to save Iraq from civil war with a realistic understanding of conditions there. It will be impossible if Bush does not demand to hear bad news immediately. Comment: Has President Bush lost his grip on reality? In his Dec. 1 speech in Halifax, Nova Scotia, President Bush again declared his intention to pre-emptively attack "enemies who plot in secret and set out to murder the innocent and the unsuspecting." Freedom from terrorism, Bush declared, will come only through pre-emptive war against enemies of democracy. How does Bush know who and where these secret enemies are? How many more times will his guesses be wrong, like he was about Iraq? Comment: A thousand Americans have died in combat in Iraq. As a journalist, I have been to three funerals for soldiers killed in action. I have watched children weep for a lost father, sisters bear their grief for a brother with crudely etched tattoos on their arms, teachers mourn the loss of a gifted student who will study war no more. Only three funerals, but that is three more than our president. He maintains that things are going wonderfully well despite intelligence reports that say he is wrong, despite increasing numbers of attacks on our troops, despite the cities we have destroyed in order to make them safe, despite the toll of November, the bloodiest month so far. Casualty Reports Local story: Funeral for NYC firefighter killed in Iraq. Local story: Brooklyn, NY Army national guardsman killed in vehicle accident in Baghdad. Local story: Soldier with Nebraska ties killed in Iraq. .

War News for Tuesday, December 7, 2004 Good news – no bring ‘em on entries today. I was unable to locate any reports of combat that I could be sure had not been covered in previous days’ posts. I wish this happened more often. On the other hand, last week was one of the worst the Iraqi people and the US forces had to deal with since the war began. Here’s a summary of the devastation. IEDs: The Improvised Explosive Device, or makeshift roadside bomb, is probably the biggest single killer of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Though far from new in concept nor even as a piece of military jargon, the IED has taken on new significance. If anything might sap the public's will to keep U.S. troops in Iraq, it could be these primitive contraptions, which kill or wound dozens each week -- relative pinpricks but which ramp up the cost of keeping a huge, high-tech army supplied and mobile. Roadside IEDs may account for a third of the U.S. casualties in Iraq, U.S. officers in Baghdad estimate. No official figures are available. There are other threats from car bombs -- VBIEDs, as in Vehicle-Borne -- and SVBIEDs, for suicide car bombers. Nearly 1,000 soldiers have been killed in action, and almost 10 times as many wounded, many maimed for life. Prediction: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday that he expected American troops to withdraw from Iraq within four years but cautioned that any final decision would hinge on the progress that Iraq's civilian government and security forces made by then. The Defense Department said last week that it would increase the number of American troops in Iraq to 150,000 from 138,000 by early next month to help provide security for the Iraqi elections on Jan. 30 and to keep pressure on the insurgency. Pentagon officials said the increase would be temporary: through next March. But many American military officers and senior Iraqi ministry officials have forecast that the United States would have to maintain a sizable troop presence in Iraq for years to battle a resilient and deadly insurgency and to help prevent the country from spiraling deeper into chaos. Reality: General John Abizaid, head of the American Central Command for the Middle East, said the U.S. is forced to increase troop strength in Iraq because that country's police and army won't be able to ensure security for the national election scheduled for Jan. 30. ``The Iraqi security forces aren't as mature as they need to be,'' Abizaid said in an interview yesterday at his office in Doha, Qatar. Abizaid's assessment of Iraqi troops' performance came after two days of meetings with U.S. commanders in Iraq. The Pentagon said last week it would increase U.S. forces in Iraq to 150,000 from the current level of 138,000 to prepare for the election to replace the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. The increase will take U.S. troop levels to the highest level since the invasion. ``A while back, somebody asked me, `Do you think you'll need more forces for the election,' and I said we probably would but they would be Iraqis and not necessarily Americans,'' Abizaid, 53, said in the interview. ``Well, obviously it is going to require more Americans.'' Fatwas: A few weeks ago a group of Saudi religious scholars issued a “fatwa” concerning the matter of armed resistance to the occupation of Iraq by US, excuse me, I mean coalition forces. A fatwa is quite simply a juridical opinion. This opinion naturally is of greater or lesser importance depending on who issues the fatwa. For example, a legal opinion issued by a group of US lawyers will have less weight and significance than an opinion given by the US Supreme Court. Similarly a fatwa’s weight and significance is according to who issues the fatwa. In this particular instance, the 26 scholars do not represent official fatwa-issuing organizations nor do they represent official Saudi policy. They do, however, represent a significant body of opinion in the Muslim world on the proper manner for dealing with the foreign occupiers of Iraq. To claim that the publication of this fatwa will encourage hundreds of young Saudi men to volunteer to fight US soldiers in Iraq is nonsense. To be perfectly frank, they don’t need this fatwa to encourage them to go; all they need is the US’ own behavior in Iraq and other Muslim countries. Mutineers: The U.S. military said Monday it will not court-martial any of the 23 Army reservists who refused a mission transporting fuel along a dangerous road in Iraq, instead planning less severe punishments such as extra duties or reduction in rank. The reservists from the 343rd Quartermaster Company are being disciplined for failing to follow orders under Article 15, which means no court proceedings will be held and the identities of the soldiers involved will not be released, Lt. Col. Steve Boylan said. The soldiers failed to report on Oct. 13 for a mission to transport supplies from Tallil air base near Nasiriyah to Taji north of Baghdad. They said they balked because the vehicles were in poor condition and did not have armor. They also said complaints to their commander went unheeded. "They felt they didn't have the proper equipment to do the mission they were ordered to do and are being disciplined for failing to follow orders," Boylan said. Deployment: In a secret deployment during the past few weeks, Fort Carson’s 10th Special Forces group has left the post for Iraq, the Army confirmed Monday. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., won’t say how many soldiers from the 10th Group deployed, but sources have told The Gazette that almost all 1,000 soldiers from the unit are gone. Other secrets include where in Iraq the unit landed and how long the soldiers will be gone. PsyOps Shortly before the launch of the "war on terror," an unnamed Pentagon war planner seemed to warn journalists everywhere when he told Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz: "This is the most information-intensive war you can imagine... We're going to lie about things." In February 2002, the New York Times reported that the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) was "developing plans to provide news items, possibly even false ones, to foreign media organizations" in an effort "to influence public sentiment and policy makers in both friendly and unfriendly countries." The story got widespread attention, and the Pentagon announced that the office would be eliminated. But considerably less media attention was paid when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld later said that, while the OSI had been closed, its mission would be taken up by other agencies. As Rumsfeld put it, "I went down that next day and said 'Fine, if you want to savage this thing, fine-- I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done and I have.'" Mini-Rant I’m normally fairly charitable toward the mainstream American media in the sense that I tend to blame their many deficiencies on laziness, cowardice, greed, and incompetence rather than outright evil (excepting Fox, Sinclair, and Clear Channel, who are outright evil). But occasionally something comes along that makes me question this assumption, like the following three stories found in the big three papers, the NY Times, the Washington Post, and the LA Times, all on the same day. Read these articles and keep the context in mind. Fallujah has just been flattened. Its 300,000 residents were slaughtered, maimed, psychologically devastated, and displaced with inadequate food, shelter, and clothing, in the name of eliminating a few thousand guerillas, many of whom escaped, as our own military admits. November was the worst month ever for American casualties. This past weekend saw eleven US soldiers and scores of Iraqis die, well over a hundred people wounded, attacks from Mosul to the Green Zone, Sunnis warning of imminent civil war, and no sign of any let up soon. And these articles are what our press gives us. Read ‘em and weep. Gaining ground: A series of large military offensives over the past few months culminating in the battle for Fallujah has given U.S. military commanders here a sense of having gained ground against Iraq's fierce insurgency, but they predict no easy victory in pressing the attack and remain particularly concerned about a rising campaign of intimidation. Polling data collected by the U.S. military show that public confidence remains fragile, and many Iraqis have yet to commit decisively to legitimate government, according to officers familiar with the surveys. Nonetheless, senior U.S. commanders here remain convinced that their military, political and economic strategies for Iraq are still sound, according to interviews with more than a dozen generals in recent days. The muscular approach: Just as the assault on Falluja last month signaled a turn to a more aggressive posture by the United States command, so too has the evolution of American tactics here. Under the 2/24 marines, the policy since September has been to go after the insurgents. New forward bases have been opened in Yusufiya and Latifiya. The marines have conducted regular foot patrols through the towns. Raids on insurgent hide-outs and weapons caches have become routine. The marines have fought pitched battles, including one on Nov. 12 at Mullah Fayyad, west of Yusufiya, that began with an insurgent ambush and developed into a fight that lasted more than four hours. Lt. Col. Mark A. Smith, the 2/24's commander, said the rebels were trying to open lines of retreat from Falluja. "This is where the leadership of the insurgency have always lived, and now that they can't be in Falluja, they've got to come home," he said. "But our rule is, 'You ain't comin' home.' " Colonel Smith, 40, an Indiana state trooper in civilian life, is the embodiment of the new, more aggressive approach - muscular, salty tongued and impatient. "We're going out where the bad guys live, and we're going to slay them in their ZIP code," he said. "People around here are beginning to believe that the Americans are going to stay and go after the bad guys, and they're not going to leave until the job's been done," he added. "As that sinks in, opinion is swinging to our side." Son of shock and awe: Soon, the Marines would be marching forward in Great War-style formations on a chilly, rainy evening imbued with a sense of the apocalyptic. But for now, the troops crouched in foxholes gouged from the desert north of Fallouja, scanning the fireworks. An immense barrage of air and artillery strikes rained down on the rebel-held city, and the Marines roared with every blast. Force Recon was at work. On the evening of Nov. 8, the massive, pre-invasion bombardment of Fallouja began."We used F/A-18s, we used Harriers," said a pilot who served as forward controller. "When we needed it, we'd call in a strafing run," added the lanky, 37-year-old Marine, an officer who asked to be identified only as Frisky. Special contest! Great prize! A romantic evening repairing .50 cal bullets with Frisky to the first reader to find a single clue in the above story that anyone lived in Fallujah who was not a gun-toting, America-hating terrorist. Commentary Editorial: For the Guard, service in Iraq has not improved since his July letter. The danger appears to be greater as insurgents continue roadside bombing and sniping. Tours of duty have been extended time and again; pressure tactics have been used to force re-enlistments; troops have not been allowed to leave when their enlistments were up. All the while, North Dakota's political and military leaders have been silent about these abuses. Maybe they think that it would be unpatriotic to call abuse for what it is. Maybe they don't want to add to the president's embarrassment by publicly protesting. Maybe they don't regard the situation as abuse. Maybe they believe national defense is not their business. Regardless of their reasons for silence, strong public protest by the governor and the adjutant general would lift the morale of those Guard men and women who feel that they are being unfairly treated. As for my July correspondent, he will not be taking advantage of that college education he was promised. Spc. Cody Wentz of Williston, N.D., was killed in Iraq a few weeks ago. This column is being written to honor his request that we not forget the Guard and to help people understand the reality of the situation. Casualty Reports Local story: New Hampshire Marine killed in Baghdad. Local story: Yakima, WA, soldier killed in Al Habbaniyah. Local story: Maple Shade, PA, soldier killed in Kirkuk. Local story: New Jersey soldier killed in Ramadi. Local story: Bronx-born soldier killed in Taji. .

< style="font-weight: bold;">War News for Monday, December 6, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Gunbattle between US troops and insurgents on Haifa Street, Baghdad, at least one death reported. Three insurgents killed and four wounded in Haditha. Three Marines killed in Al Anbar province. Oil pipeline blown up south of Samarra. One guy’s opinion: The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a mistake that has made the world a more dangerous place, but a swift withdrawal would make matters worse, Pakistan's president said this weekend. Asked whether he considered the invasion a mistake, the Pakistani leader said: "With hindsight, yes. We have landed ourselves in more trouble, yes." Building Democracy A point of view: Iraq's interim President Ghazi al-Yawar, ahead of a meeting with US President George W. Bush, rejected any delay to January 30 polls, saying postponement would hand victory to the "forces of darkness". Against a background of rising violence -- at least 24 people killed in attacks on Sunday alone and about 100 in a three-day period --, Yawar appealed for international help in holding the elections. Another: More than 90 deaths in three days have added weight to calls from Iraqi politicians to delay planned 30 January elections, arguing the climate of violence could lead to results being challenged. "Flawed Elections: Disputed Results" was the slogan at a gathering in Baghdad on Sunday of about 200 mainly Sunni Muslim politicians and party officials after a sharp upsurge in violence following a period of relative calm. Tariq al-Hashimi, secretary-general of the moderate Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party, insisted a delay "does not mean bowing to the threats" of those behind the attacks. But he said: "The deterioration in security conditions in numerous provinces means we should postpone them." Fallujah Connect the dots – A: The US military is drawing up plans to keep insurgents from regaining control of this battle-scarred city, but returning residents may find that the measures make Fallujah look more like a police state than the democracy they have been promised. Under the plans, troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times. Buses would ferry them into the city, where cars, the deadliest tool of suicide bombers, would be banned. Bellon asserted that previous attempts to win trust from Iraqis suspicious of US intentions had telegraphed weakness by asking, " 'What are your needs? What are your emotional needs?' All this Oprah [stuff]," he said. "They want to figure out who the dominant tribe is and say, 'I'm with you.' We need to be the benevolent, dominant tribe. Connect the dots – B: According to Iraq's government, people like Ismail Ibrahim should be glad Fallujah is all but rid of the insurgents accused of turning the city into a terrorist base and using its civilians as human shields. But in a Baghdad school where Ibrahim and about 200 displaced Fallujans have been living since the latest fighting drove them out, the talk is of vendetta -- not against the insurgents but against the Americans and the Iraqi government. ``I feel hatred. I hurt. This is my city and it has been destroyed,'' Ibrahim said, sitting on a thin mattress on the floor of a room he shares with his wife, seven children and another family. ``The people of Fallujah are people of revenge. If they don't get their revenge now, they will next year or even after 50 years. But they will get it.'' US Governmedia: Not a single major voice has been raised in the American media against the ongoing destruction of Fallujah. While much of the world recognizes something dreadful has occurred, the US press does not even bat an eyelash over the organized leveling of a city of 300,000 people. In none of the US media commentaries is there a single phrase of unease about the moral, or legal, questions involved in the attack on Fallujah. None have dared say it in as many words that the American military operation in the city is an unlawful act of aggression in an equally illegal, criminal, aggressive war. Truth will out: Two photo-rich summaries of the battle of Fallujah -- one produced by the U.S. military in Iraq, the other by an anonymous American blogger -- highlight how the terrain in such counterinsurgency fights can be as much psychological as physical. Both presentations have gained increasing Internet audiences recently and attempt to convey, among other things, the suffering imposed on Iraqi civilians in Fallujah. That is where similarities end, however. The military's presentation depicts the fight for Fallujah as a liberation of a city from the insurgents. The Web log posts far more graphic wire service and other photos, and tends to point the finger of blame for civilian suffering at the military. Judging by the reaction of several soldiers and military experts, a comparison of the two presentations shows, among other things, how the might of the U.S. military can be matched by a single blogger working part time. American Moral Leadership SEAL photos: Kimmitt's apprehension about the photos being "tools" for use in the battle for public opinion, however, could be well-founded. "The two scandals confirm the image about the Americans known in the Middle East: That the Americans are not a charity or a humanitarian organization that is leading an experiment of democracy," Sateh Noureddine, managing editor of the Lebanese leftist newspaper As-Safir, told The Associated Press. "Rather, (the U.S. government) is leading a retaliatory operation following the Sept. 11 attacks." Abu Ghraib: A military judge on Saturday ordered the former commander of U.S. prisons in Iraq to testify at the trial of a soldier who says he was ordered to abuse detainees at Abu Ghraib. The judge, Col. James Pohl, said Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski's testimony at the trial of Sgt. Javal Davis would be limited to conditions at the Iraqi prison and the interaction there among guards and military interrogators. Karpinski had denied knowing about mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib until photographs were made public at the end of April showing hooded, naked prisoners being tormented by their U.S. captors. She was relieved of her command after abuses at the prison came to light. In an interview with the AP, Karpinski said a "conspiracy" among top U.S. commanders left her to bear the blame for the abuses. An independent panel of non-government experts found leadership failures by her "helped set the conditions at the prison which led to the abuses." Long Term Effects: Some Stories Won’t End With the War The wounded: As the growing ranks of the wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan leave the military, they will be ready to apply for health care and disability benefits from the VA. The question is: Will the VA be ready for them? Not likely, said Rep. Lane Evans (D-Ill.), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. "We'd better be prepared for the people coming back home, and I don't think we are," Evans said. "The resources are simply inadequate." The volunteer Army: Last spring, the Army instituted the policy (stop loss) for all troops headed to Iraq and Afghanistan, called it a way to promote continuity within deployed units and to avoid bringing new soldiers in to fill gaps left in units by those who would otherwise have gone home when their enlistments ran out. If a soldier's unit is still in Iraq or Afghanistan, that soldier cannot leave even when his or her enlistment time runs out. Since then, a handful of National Guardsmen who received orders to report for duty in California and Oregon have taken the policy to court, but the newest lawsuit is the first such challenge by a group of soldiers. And these soldiers are already overseas - transporting supplies, working radio communications and handling military contracts, somewhere in the desert. You should know I'm not against the war," said David W. Qualls, one of the plaintiffs and a former full-time soldier who signed up in July 2003 for a one-year stint in the Arkansas National Guard but now expects to be in Iraq until next year. This just isn't about that. This is a matter of fairness. My job was to go over and perform my duties under the contract I signed. But my year is up and it's been up. Now I believe that they should honor their end of the contract." Free flow of information: Reuters received another blow in early November when the U.S military announced that a Marine sniper had killed an individual who was carrying a video camera during heavy fighting between Americans and insurgents in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. The victim turned out to be Dhia Najim, a Reuters cameraman. The news agency again expressed its outrage. "We reject the clear implication in the Marines statement that Dhia was part of an insurgent group," said Reuters Global Managing Editor David Schlesinger. "This claim was not supported by available evidence. I strongly urge the U.S. military to conduct a proper investigation into this tragic event." This becomes all the more just, with American reporters increasingly hunkered down in Baghdad while native Iraqis venture into danger. "We all need them, so we ought to take care of them," said Marshall, who noted that Reuters regularly gives credit to its Iraqi stringers and staff people. The military has also denied any wrongdoing in the killing of two journalists, including another Reuters cameraman, in Baghdad in April 2003. "Previously journalists were seen as non-combatants," Marshall said. "Now journalists are targets and always under suspicion. In Iraq, especially, the people are not used to being covered by mass media. They are used to being tightly controlled by Saddam. But those days are over. Journalists will never be safe again in most of the world." Commentary Opinion: Johnson and Nixon -- who did not want to go down in history as having lost a war -- stayed the course and kept us in the killing fields. In the end, more than 58,000 Americans gave their lives, as did hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. It was a painful, cruel lesson. The same rationale is being invoked by a U.S. officialdom that insists we have to stay in Iraq to fight the resistance there. Even those opposed to the war now say we can't leave because a catastrophe would ensue if we were to depart. Well, the slaughter in Iraq continues apace anyway. Our occupation only compounds the horror of it all. Comment: Some of us would feel more comfortable today if American and allied foreign policy could be discussed solely in temporal terms, without bringing God into the deal at all. One of the more grotesque landmarks of the Bush presidency was established this time last year, when the Los Angeles Times revealed that a top general was touring Christian fundamentalist churches assuring congregations that he knew "our side" would prevail in the struggle with Muslim extremism "because our God is a real God" and the other side's is a phoney. Now, every army has its share of lunatics. The litmus test is how their political masters treat them. The world waited in vain for Rumsfeld to sack this grotesque Strangelovian, whose words seemed to undermine every possibility of constructive engagement with Islam. It never happened, of course. I was in Washington while the little drama was being played out. A defence academic said to me sardonically: "This administration will never sack a general for saying things that every senior figure in the cabinet believes," and so it proved. Opinion: With the mainstream media co-opted, and four-year older but familiar national security faces in place for the president's second term, it is a safe bet we are in for the same inept, misguided policies - only more so. Sadly, Secretary of State Colin Powell's relatively moderate views had little visible impact on policy decisions. Still, when he is gone the president's circle of advisers will have an even shorter diameter. And it is highly unlikely that Powell's designated successor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, will be any more astute than in the past in seeking counsel from experienced statesmen like her former patron, Gen. Scowcroft. Foreign leaders are aghast...and have been for years. In August 2002, British senior Labor backbencher Gerald Kaufman, a former shadow foreign secretary, warned that the "hawks" in the U.S. administration were giving the president poor advice: "Bush, himself the most intellectually backward American president in my lifetime, is surrounded by advisers whose bellicosity is exceeded only by their political, military and diplomatic illiteracy. Pity the man who relies on Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice for counsel." A Ray of Sunshine CPR Iraq was organized about a month ago by Nichols' former colleagues at Kitsap Cardiology, and featured in The Sun and on KING TV. The publicity helped, but it's been mostly outreach by Dr. Chris King, his wife Rebecca and staffers at Kitsap Cardiology that has drawn an outpouring of generosity, mostly from local people, and from as far away as New York, California and Oregon. Children at East Port Orchard Elementary donated nine boxes of school supplies. Karen Kissel in Bend, Ore., is organizing donations of infant formula for nursing children like Mushtak who have lost their mothers. New York Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina, whose wife was Rebecca King's best friend in high school, sent $5,000, half the $10,000 donated so far to cover mailing. A Bothell woman who just lost a teenaged daughter is donating the girl's Beanie Baby collection. An Olympia man has pledged $100 a month for a year. Casualty Reports Local story: Cheektowaga, NY, soldier killed in Iraq. Local story: South Jersey soldier killed in Iraq. .

Discussion Thread - What Can I DO? First, thanks very much to all who participated in the last discussion. Excellent, perceptive comments, very well thought out and very thought provoking. Please keep adding to the thread if you have something to say. This new discussion thread is the first, I hope, of a regular feature, perhaps to be posted every other Sunday. Please use it to list resources for one another to find things to DO. Things that are constructive and useful, places to direct time, energy, money - whatever each of us has to give. Things that relate to the war. Some examples: Refugee relief. Helping returning soldiers re-assimilate. War protests. Promoting communication between Muslim and Western societies. Campaigns to force American media to serve the people. Campaigns to force American government to follow the Constitution. Hospital visits. Seminars on international law. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. You know better than me what's out there. Share it with everyone. Give as much information as you can so people can find activities that fit their budgets of time, energy, and money. Yankee and I tossed this idea around and he's looking into setting up a permanent page where we can maintain the information you bring so it is easily accessible to all. (Hey, there's a volunteer possibility right there...hint, hint) We're in it for the long haul, folks. We've got four more years of trouble and who knows what's coming after. Share your resources, share your energy, share your time. It won't be easy, but we will win. And hey, if you know of an existing website or organization that is a clearinghouse for this sort of information, let us know. We have plenty to do already, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. But otherwise, let's try to make this a resource that is genuinely useful to people who are ready to DO something. Thanks, matt .

War News for Sunday, December 5, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Seventeen Iraqis killed, thirteen wounded by gunmen in Tikrit while on the way to work for coalition forces. Three Iraqi national guardsmen killed and eighteen wounded in car bombing in Beiji. One Iraqi national guardsman killed and four wounded near Samarra. Bring ‘em on: Two US soldiers killed, four wounded by guerilla attack in Mosul. Bring 'em on: Seventeen Kurdish pershmerga militiamen killed, forty wounded in car bombing in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: Four slain men wearing Iraqi National Guards uniforms found in Tal Afar, raising to at least 70 the number of remains discovered in and around that town and Mosul since Nov. 18. Mortars were fired at a police station in Samarra, wounding two officers. Gunmen injured two policemen in another attack at about 10 a.m. Third country national truck driver killed by improvised explosive device near Beiji. One Iraqi National Guard officer killed and another wounded in Abayach. (Scroll to bottom)<> Good question: Common wisdom holds that if U.S. troops withdraw anytime soon, Iraq will descend into civil war, as Lebanon did in the late 1970s. But that ignores a question posed by events of recent weeks:<> Has a civil war already begun? Partial answer: More than 1 500 members of an Iraqi Christian group have gone to northern Iraq to try to protect Christians following attacks on churches in Baghdad and Mosul, the leader of the group said pm Saturday. In an interview, Yonadem Kana, the leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement in Iraq and a member of the Iraqi National Council, said the fighters have been deployed in Baghdida near the northern city of Mosul. "We do not want to transform our movement into a militia," he said. "But if needed, we can arm more than 10,000 people." Three Soldiers' Stories The bomb's impact was devastating. As West's body lurched forward, three vertebrae and five other spinal bones were fractured. On the left side of his pelvis, a horseshoe-shaped structure called the ischium cracked in two places. His left heel bone fractured. His right fibula, in the lower leg, was broken. His right lung ruptured. The blast ripped the skin and fat from his lower back, and tore his scrotum. Later, his pancreas and gallbladder became infected. "I think he was very lucky," said Dr. Timothy Kuklo, the orthopedic surgeon who operated on West at Walter Reed. The spinal injury nearly paralyzed him. Cornier last spoke to his worried family a week ago. "Richard called me on Thanksgiving to say, 'Guess what, Mom? I'm coming home for the holidays,'" his mother said. "That was the best Thanksgiving I've ever had." Four days later, the young man was on a ventilator, in a medically induced coma, his brain pierced by shrapnel, his prognosis unclear. Chuck Bartles took heart when President Bush pinned a Purple Heart to his chest this year, lauding him for courage and determination despite grievous wounds. Sgt. Bartles, then struggling to recover from having his right arm blown off in Iraq, felt even better when Bush made a stirring speech. Just because a soldier has lost a leg or an arm in combat, the president said, doesn't mean he's useless. "Today, if wounded service members want to remain in uniform and can do the job, the military tries to help them stay." Easy words. Inaccurate words. Bartles was wounded in October 2003 by a roadside bomb blast that killed a fellow soldier. A civil affairs specialist with a master's degree, fluency in Russian and a Bronze Star for heroism in battle, he's the kind of man the Army would want to keep. He sweated for months to qualify for duty. This summer, his Army doctors finally certified him fit. His commander wanted him back. Jubilant, Bartles re-enlisted. The next day he got a form letter from the Army. "Your medical condition prevents satisfactory performance of duty," it said. The verdict: "permanent disability." A Reporter's Story My 26th birthday party was perfect. Stars glittered over the Baghdad hotel where I blew out the candles on a cake decorated by my four closest Iraqi friends. We stayed up, telling stories and debating the future of a country I'd grown to cherish, until the dawn call to prayer rang from a nearby mosque. A year later, only one of those friends is alive. The poolside patio where they sang Happy Birthday in Arabic is empty most days, because foreign guests are afraid of snipers and mortars. The hotel has become a prison, and every foray outside its fortified gates is tinged with anxiety about returning in one piece. Baghdad has never been tougher for journalists. Treacherous roads and kidnapping squads restrict travel. "Embedding" with the military or going with Iraqi government officials is the safest way to leave the capital. Our ability to uncover and tell the truth about Iraq -- good and bad -- has suffered terribly. American Moral Leadership Torturers: Lawyers for Sgt. Javal Davis and Spec. Sabrina Harman said there was a breakdown of leadership and that their clients were scapegoats for the failures of a system that reached through the highest levels of the military bureaucracy and the Bush administration. That same system also allowed for the abuse of prisoners in order to extract intelligence information, they said. Supervisors: Senior defense officials exercised little oversight over interrogation practices at military detention centers in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a newspaper report, citing a classified Pentagon report. The New York Times Times said it had obtained a draft summary of a 400-page report by Vice Admiral Albert Church, the naval inspector general, on interrogation techniques at military detention centers in Cuba, Afghanistan and Iraq. By January 2003, military interrogators in Afghanistan were using techniques similar to those that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had approved for use only at Guantanamo Bay, including stress positions and sleep and light deprivation, the Times said. Commanders who submitted a list of interrogation techniques to the military's Joint Staff and Central Command "never heard any complaints," leaving them to interpret that the techniques were acceptable, the report said. The situation was similar in Iraq, according to the report, which blamed "a breakdown in good order and discipline." Punishments: Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander in Iraq during the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, returned to his base in Germany in October to a 15-gun salute. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz praised Sanchez on behalf of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his "courage, his perseverance, and his concern for his troops." Major General Geoffrey Miller, the head of Guantanamo Bay from October 2002 until April this year, who advised Abu Ghraib how to treat prisoners, has been shuffled to a new job in the Pentagon to help run housing at Army bases. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz remain in their jobs. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice has been nominated by Bush to be the next secretary of state. Last and not least, there is Alberto Gonzales, Bush's pick to replace John Ashcroft as attorney general. Gonzales is the White House counsel who advised Bush that alleged Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners can be held outside the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners on war. Gonzales said the war on terror is such a "new kind of war" that the need to quickly obtain information renders "obsolete" and "quaint" Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and providing them commissary privileges. Gonzales wrote to Bush that by declaring such prisoners to be outside the reach of the Geneva Conventions, it would eliminate "any argument regarding the need for case-by-case determinations of POW status." Such a declaration, Gonzales wrote, "substantially reduces the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act." Translated, Gonzales and Bush used the war on terror to justify the United States being a law unto itself. Lynndie England may get nearly four decades in jail. Alberto Gonzales is about to get four years to rewrite our laws. If England is the face of abuse, Gonzales is the hidden hand. If he becomes attorney general, you should not be shocked if new abuses of civil liberties occur in your school, your library, perhaps even in your home. Results: US military review panels can use evidence obtained through torture in deciding the fate of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the US Government has conceded. About 70 years ago, the United States Supreme Court ruled evidence gained through torture was inadmissible. Deputy associate Attorney-General, Brian Boyle, has told the District Court in Washington DC, that the Guantanamo review panels are allowing such evidence. Michael Ratner, a human right lawyer with the Centre for Constitutional Rights, says he was shocked by the Bush administration's admission. "Never in my 30 years of being a human rights lawyer would I ever expected to be in the state that we've arrived at," he said. Casualty Report Local story: Medart, FL, Marine killed in Iraq .

<>War News for Saturday, December 4, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Car bombing at entrance to Green Zone kills at least 15, wounds at least 30. Small arms attacks at two Green Zone checkpoints afterward kills four Iraqi police. Bring ‘em on: Six Iraqi police killed, ten wounded in car bomb attack on police station near Green Zone. Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed, three wounded in Baghdad roadside bombing. One US soldier killed, two wounded in roadside bombing near Kirkuk. (Scroll to second story) Bring ‘em on: Two multinational force soldiers killed and five wounded in car bombing on Iraq-Jordan border. Bring ‘em on: Four Mosul police stations brought under coordinated attack but repelled by Iraqi police. Six people killed in attacks on Mosul's provincial government headquarters and on a US patrol that also left an undetermined number of insurgents dead. Also on Friday, a patrol in the Yarmuk district of the city was attacked by an estimated 70 assailants. An estimated 22 insurgents were also killed in that attack. Seven days of hell: Getting a broad view of the war has become harder than ever before; even investigating major incidents can be nearly impossible. For instance, two weeks ago 60 Iraqi police recruits reportedly were kidnapped from their hotel in Rutbah, in Anbar province, and to date no one has been able to confirm what became of them, because Rutbah is too dangerous to reach, even for Iraqi journalists. Compounding the problem, both Iraqi and coalition authorities often simply don't report much of what happens, while private contractors almost never reveal attacks on their reconstruction efforts, even when their foreign personnel are killed (although 190 such deaths have surfaced so far this year, it's a fraction of the probable total). This article lists an admittedly incomplete account of the horrors occurring in Iraq over a seven day period. It is one of the best such efforts I’ve seen in the mainstream media. So why is it a web-only exclusive? Most Americans don’t get their news from the internet. Life in Iraq: There was a strange little incident on Thursday evening in Basra. A man on a bicycle threw a hand grenade at a building that's going to be used as a polling station. There was a little damage and no one was hurt as the building was empty. Obviously the idea is to try to scare people. There is a lot of feeling against the election. You don't feel it's going to be a major event and people are too concerned with day-to-day problems. If Ayatollah Ali Sistani hadn't come out in favour of the election, no one here would vote at all. People in Basra can't yet imagine a better or brighter future here, and it's better in the south that in other parts of Iraq. Lots of people, especially young men are trying to leave. They're heading mainly for the Emirates, Jordan and Syria. It looks bleak to me too, but I have work here. This is from a continuing series from the BBC, publishing accounts of daily life from ordinary Iraqis. Worth regular visits. Predictions: Myers said he does not now see signs of a civil war brewing, but he did predict that targeted killings of Iraqis who join the new government would continue "for years to come." At the beginning of this year, US military officials intended to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq to about 110,000 by mid year and also predicted the Iraqi forces would grow to nearly 300,000 by now. Asked why these plans had gone awry, Myers responded: "The enemy gets a vote." "I'm a realist," he said of the war. "Nobody predicted exactly where we'd be, and nobody can." Instead, he said the focus should be on how to respond to the shifting insurgency. "Where we need to be perfect is in our ability to adapt and our nimbleness in reacting." Actually a number of highly accurate predictions regarding the course of events in Iraq were made by many individuals in the military. Sadly, they were ignored by civilian decision makers. But I’ll bet that Gen. Myers’ prediction in the first paragraph above comes true. Job creation in Iraq: Britain’s elite special forces are facing an imminent crisis because record numbers of men are asking to leave their units early, lured by high wages on offer in a growing security industry in Iraq. Defence and special forces sources have told The Scotsman that such is the demand from private military companies in Britain and the United States who are operating in Iraq for former Special Air Service and Special Boat Service soldiers that, between May 2003 and December 2004, between 40 and 60 men are expected to have sought premature voluntary release, or PVR, from the army and Royal Marines. In operational terms, this could mean that this year, the equivalent of one entire special forces squadron out of a total of six in the SAS and SBS is on its way to seek its fortune in the new Iraq. Such is the demand for the security skills of former SAS NCOs and officers in Iraq that pre-tax pay can range from £200 to £700 per day. The war that would pay for itself: As the Army continues to shoulder the brunt of operations and expenses in Iraq, service officials are counting on Congress to approve at least $45 billion in fiscal 2005 supplemental funds early next year, part of an anticipated emergency spending package estimated to be as high as $75 billion, Pentagon officials told CongressDaily. Army officials do not expect to see any of that money until June, but in the interim, the service's "burn" rate in Iraq is rising -- from roughly $3.8 billion a month over the past year to as much as $4.7 billion a month today. And budget experts say that while Congress approved $25 billion in additional funds this summer to pay for war-related costs, the Army's share of that money will be gone by the end of January. Two Stories Made For Each Other More predictions: Yesterday, advance units from two 750-soldier battalions of the elite 82nd Airborne Division, flew to Iraq -- a day after Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded the Pentagon had failed to prepare for a sustained insurgency after Mr. Hussein was ousted in April of 2003. "Was there any kind of understanding or agreement that there would likely be a long insurgency afterwards?' " Mr. Rumsfeld asked. "I don't believe . . . if you dropped a thumb line through all that intelligence, that anyone would say that." Although convoluted, it was the clearest admission yet by a senior figure in the Bush administration that the expectation U.S. soldiers would be greeted as liberators last year was grossly incorrect. Mr. Rumsfeld now suggests Iraq should be stable in two years. He rejected claims that Iraqi police and security forces are now so cowed they are hunkering down in their stations. No metrics to gauge failure either, apparently: Donald Rumsfeld, America's combative and famously undiplomatic defence secretary, has survived the criticisms over his handling of the Iraq war and will remain in charge of the Pentagon, it emerged yesterday. To Mr Bush's critics at home and abroad Mr Rumsfeld personifies the mistakes of his first term. His outspoken dismissal of France and Germany as "Old Europe", the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by American troops, together with the US-led coalition's mounting difficulties in Iraq led to calls for his resignation earlier this year. But the White House was keen to keep the 72-year-old political veteran. He was reluctant to leave with his reputation tarnished, and also wanted to see through his overhaul of the Pentagon. Yeah, I’d hate to see him leave with a tarnished reputation too… Meanwhile, At Slightly Lower Levels in the DoD Chain of Command… Suck it up, part 3: Some plans were bigger than others. To live, for the first time, with the wife he married while home on leave. To shower with hot water. To be there as his wife's daughter, recently diagnosed with congenital heart disease, goes to doctor appointments. To eat good pizza. When the Pentagon announced Wednesday that some 10,000 troops serving in Iraq would have their tours of duty extended for several months, there was a lot of talk of security and force strength, of the upcoming Iraq election and the goal of democracy. But on an Army base here in this northern Iraq city, soldiers were focused on the smaller, more personal effects Washington's decision had for the boots on the ground. Their reaction was mostly one of resignation, not anger. "I had a son in October. I haven't met him yet," said Sgt. Eric Wing, 24. "I was mostly wanting to get home for him." Suck it up, part four: "You need a bigger Army if you're going to carry out the Bush national security strategy," said Lawrence Korb, who served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. "Right now, you're really using the reserves at an unsustainable pace, and you're violating the norms that you have for deploying people overseas that you've established not only for equity but for retention." About 40,000 servicemen and women have been held in the military beyond their retirement or separation dates under emergency "stop loss" orders, or kept overseas beyond their transfer dates under "stop move" orders. The Army National Guard achieved only 87 percent of its recruitment goal in the fiscal year that just ended. According to Lt. Gen. James Helmly, chief of the Army Reserve, the reserve is short about 5,000 captains--officers who fill vital roles as company commanders or perform other important duties in the field. Suck it up, part five: After serving more than a year in Kuwait and Iraq, a South Side woman said she came home in June to find a notice posted at her residence: The City of Chicago was planning to demolish her brick bungalow.<> Bettye Green, a 65-year-old major in the Army Reserve, thought she had resolved the problem -- until a frantic neighbor called Wednesday to say a demolition crew was tearing through her Avalon Park home. 65 year old major?!? Deployed to Iraq? WTF? Suck it up, grandma! Suck it up, part six: Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew Derrig was fixing a dented .50-caliber machine-gun round outside one of Saddam Hussein's palaces when the bullet exploded. The blast cut through his hand, blew out an eye and scattered shrapnel over the 18-year-old. Now, a year and a half later, the 2002 graduate of Luther North High School in Jefferson Park has another concern: How much money will the federal Veterans Affairs office in Chicago decide his injuries are worth? Derrig and other wounded soldiers returning from Iraq to Illinois have good cause to worry. The VA office here is one of the stingiest when it comes to deciding how much money a disabled vet's injuries are worth, a Chicago Sun-Times examination of federal records shows. That finding comes even as the number of disabled vets is rising to what's expected to be record levels, because of the war in Iraq and other factors. Apparently we have been unable to purchase enough bullets with our half a trillion dollar Defense budget so we have to have jarheads fix the broken ones. American Moral Leadership Rule of law: "If a little old lady in Switzerland writes checks to what she thinks is a charitable organization for Afghanistan orphans, but it's really supporting . . . al Qaeda, is she an enemy combatant?" the judge asked. Boyle said the woman could be, but it would depend on her intentions. "It would be up to the military to decide as to what to believe," he said. After hearing Green's hypothetical questions, the military agreed it could imprison a Muslim teacher whose class includes a family with Taliban connections. It also agreed that it could detain a man who does not report his suspicions that his cousin may be an al Qaeda member, or a reporter who knows where Osama bin Laden is located but does not divulge the information to protect an anonymous source. Patterns: The U.S. military has launched a criminal investigation into photographs that appear to show Navy SEALs in Iraq sitting on hooded and handcuffed detainees, and photos of what appear to be bloodied prisoners, one with a gun to his head. Some of the photos have date stamps suggesting they were taken in May 2003, which could make them the earliest evidence of possible abuse of prisoners in Iraq. The far more brutal practices photographed in Abu Ghraib prison occurred months later. The photos surfaced amid a case of prisoner abuse involving members of another SEAL team also stationed at Coronado, a city near San Diego. Navy prosecutors have charged several members of SEAL Team Seven with abusing a suspect in the bombing a Red Cross facility. According to charge sheets and testimony during a military hearing last month, SEALs posed in the back of a Humvee for photos that allegedly humiliated Manadel al-Jamadi, who died hours later at Abu Ghraib. Some of the pictures can be seen here. They aren't pretty. The multilateral framework: A blue ribbon panel released today a landmark report on global threats that insisted the UN Security Council approve any “preventive” war, which was not the case when the US invaded Iraq. The UN charter allows a nation to respond immediately in self-defence to an actual or imminent attack. But the report, spurred by the US-led invasion of Iraq last year that divided world leaders, said “preventive action” when a threat was not imminent needed Security Council consent. This was denied to the Bush administration before the war. "If there are good arguments for preventive military action, with good evidence to support them, they should be put to the Security Council, which can authorise such action,” the report said. “For those impatient with such a response the answer must be that in a world full of perceived potential threats, the risk to the global order... is simply too great for the legality of unilateral preventive action,” it added. An open letter: In April, US forces laid siege to Falluja in retaliation for the gruesome killings of four Blackwater employees. The operation was a failure, with US troops eventually handing the city back to resistance forces. The reason for the withdrawal was that the siege had sparked uprisings across the country, triggered by reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed. This information came from three main sources: 1) Doctors. USA Today reported on April 11 that "Statistics and names of the dead were gathered from four main clinics around the city and from Falluja general hospital". 2) Arab TV journalists. While doctors reported the numbers of dead, it was al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya that put a human face on those statistics. With unembedded camera crews in Falluja, both networks beamed footage of mutilated women and children throughout Iraq and the Arab-speaking world. 3) Clerics. The reports of high civilian casualties coming from journalists and doctors were seized upon by prominent clerics in Iraq. Many delivered fiery sermons condemning the attack, turning their congregants against US forces and igniting the uprising that forced US troops to withdraw. US authorities have denied that hundreds of civilians were killed during last April's siege, and have lashed out at the sources of these reports. For instance, an unnamed "senior American officer", speaking to the New York Times last month, labelled Falluja general hospital "a centre of propaganda". But the strongest words were reserved for Arab TV networks. When asked about al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's reports that hundreds of civilians had been killed in Falluja, Donald Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defence, replied that "what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable ... " Last month, US troops once again laid siege to Falluja - but this time the attack included a new tactic: eliminating the doctors, journalists and clerics who focused public attention on civilian casualties last time around. Commentary Opinion: Maybe this should be the rule: If you can't handle seeing what really goes on in a war, maybe you don't deserve to support it. If you can't stomach the truths of what our soldiers are doing and how brutally and bloodily they're dying and in just what manner they have to kill those innocent Iraqi civilians in the name of BushCo's desperate lurch toward greed and power and Iraqi oil fields and empire, maybe you don't have the right to stick that little flag on your oil-sucking SUV. Clear enough? The major media, by the way, is often hamstrung and torn. They can rarely run such photos. Newspapers and TV are hemmed in by "no-sensationalism" policies and are often paralyzed by the notion that if they ran such pictures, they would be called insensitive or inflammatory or anti-Bush and advertisers and readers alike would run away in droves. After all, most readers just aren't keen on seeing gross-out pics of 19-year-old kids from Kentucky with massive bleeding head traumas. It just totally ruins "Garfield." You have to seek the facts yourself. You have to dare yourself to click, to take it in, to see if you can, in fact, handle the truth. It is not easy. It is definitely not pleasant. But in this time of ever escalating numbers of war dead and flagrant BushCo lies and sanitized BS about the real effects of war, all coupled with a simmering plan to attack Iran and maybe North Korea someday real soon, seeking out such visceral truth is no longer just optional. It is, perhaps, the most patriotic thing you can do. Note: This column contains a link to fallujahinpictures.com which is not for the squeamish. Casualty Reports Local story: Beaver Dam, WI, Marine killed in Iraq. Local story: Philadelphia, Miss., soldier killed in Mosul. .

<>Discussion Thread – What Happens Next? Iraqi national elections are scheduled in less than two months.Given the Bush administration’s insistence on the subject it seems likely that some sort of elections will actually be held on schedule, but their contention that security can be established sufficient to ensure fully legitimate elections strikes me as laughable. What do you think the outcome will be? Will the administration use the elections as cover to install another secular strongman? What if the Shi’ites achieve a majority – will they insist on a theocratic state? Will the Sunnis participate enough to feel any ownership in an elected government? What about the Kurds? And finally, if you were an American leader in a position to implement a rational Iraqi policy, what would you do right now? What steps could be taken this late in the game to ensure a fairly representative government with national legitimacy that could undertake the process of building a constitutional order? Please confine your comments here to this topic. News and other discussion can still be posted in the comments to the very long post below. Thanks, matt

War News for Friday, December 03, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Thirty people, including at least sixteen police officers, killed in attacks against a Shiite mosque and a Baghdad police station. Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqis killed, 14 wounded in five separate mortar attacks in Baghdad. In addition, one US soldier killed in Mosul and an additional 14 bodies, including three Iraqi national guards, were found there as well, bringing the total found to at least 90. In Bayji, two US soldiers and two Iraqi national guardsmen were wounded in a car bombing and the director of the Bayji bank was kidnapped. Three Iraqi civilians were killed by gunfire in Balad Ruz. Bring ‘em on: Two Iraqi councillors ambushed and killed, one wounded in attack by gunmen outside of Khalis. Our media: American behavior and self-perceptions reveal the ease with which a civilized country can engage in large-scale killing of civilians without public discussion. In late October, the British medical journal Lancet published a study of civilian deaths in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion began. The sample survey documented an extra 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths compared to the death rate in the preceding year, when Saddam Hussein was still in power— and this estimate did not even count excess deaths in Fallujah, which was deemed too dangerous to include. America’s public reaction has been as remarkable as the Lancet study—for the reaction has been no reaction. The vaunted New York Times ran a single story of 770 words on page 8 of the paper (October 29). The Times reporter apparently did not interview a single Bush administration or U.S. military official. No follow-up stories or editorials appeared, and no New York Times reporters assessed the story on the ground. Coverage in other U.S. papers was similarly frivolous. The Washington Post (October 29) carried a single 758-word story on page 16. Recent reporting on the bombing of Falluja has also been an exercise in self-denial. The New York Times (November 6) wrote that “warplanes pounded rebel positions” in Fallujah, without noting that “rebel positions” are actually in civilian neighborhoods. Another New York Times story (November 12), citing “military officials,” dutifully reported that, “Since the assault began on Monday, about 600 rebels have been killed, along with 18 American and 5 Iraqi soldiers.” The issue of civilian deaths was not even raised. The Wall Street Journal actually wrote an editorial on November 18 that criticized the critics, noting as usual that whatever the United States does, its enemies in Iraq do worse—as if this excuses American abuses. It does not. Another missed story: More than 200,000 people who fled Falluja before the US offensive have been unable to return and many are in desperate need of aid, with temperatures in Iraq heading towards freezing, according to a UN emergency report. It described shortages of fresh food and cooking oil and said there was serious concern about the cold. The temperature has plunged by around 50F since the residents began fleeing. Many families left with the clothes they were wearing and a few personal items, unprepared for the falls in temperature. Hearts and minds: Today many Iraqis are afraid to work with Americans because of the campaign of intimidation. "We're having a hard time keeping interpreters because they are being threatened," said Army Capt. Matthew McGrew. "If they find out who they are, the AIF — the anti-Iraqi forces — threaten to kill them or kill their families. Iraqis in almost every walk of life are under attack. Hameed Al Sadoon is the head of European Studies at the University of Baghdad. He says he knows of 60 professors who have been killed, and says more than 75 from his own university have fled the country. Though Sadoon says he has not received any threats himself, he has changed the way he teaches. "I watch what I say in class," Sadoon said, "because I don't really know who the students are." With teachers afraid to teach, soldiers afraid to fight, and translators afraid to speak, progress is not easy in the shadow of fear. Feith based intelligence: Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has acknowledged intelligence had failed to predict the strength of the insurgency in Iraq, as the United States said it will boost its forces back to the highest levels since Iraq invasion before crucial January elections. "If you're asking, 'Was there any kind of understanding or agreement that there would likely be a long insurgency afterwards?', I don't believe ... if you dropped a thumbline through all that intelligence, that anyone would say that," Rumsfeld told Fox TV. (Oh, yes, and Bring ‘em on: Far down in the article we learn US-led forces continue to come under daily attack in Ramadi, while rebels still control districts in Mosul. Also, on Thursday, a criminal investigations chief and two other police officers were mown down in an ambush, a national guard captain died in a car bombing in the same area while another was murdered near the Shiite pilgrimage city of Karbala.) Here's a solution: The Pentagon announced Wednesday it would extend tours of duty by up to 60 days for some 10,400 troops in Iraq, some for the second time, and deploying another 1,500 US infantry troops for four months to provide security during the elections. Senior military officials left open the possibility of further increases in troop levels as the January 30 elections approach. Pentagon officials insist the increase is temporary, and will return to current levels of about 138,000 by the end of March. But US force levels in Iraq have climbed steadily since April, when unexpected uprisings in the Sunni triangle and important Shiite cities of southern Iraq forced commanders to shelve plans to scale back the size of the force. Bacevich said the US all-volunteer force has never been under such strain since it was created 30 years ago. "And I think none of us know how long it's sustainable," he said. "I'm not trying to suggest things are going to start to collapse in the next six months, but it's possible that it could start to have some serious deteriorating in some of the measures of the cohesion of the force," he said. "But it's also possible these young, brave, patriotic people will suck it up," he said. Suck it up, part one: They may be disappointed, but families of troops in Iraq should not be surprised that 3,500 soldiers who were expected home next month have been ordered to remain overseas for more hazardous duty, an Army official said Thursday. Suck it up, part two: In a shift in military culture, the U.S. armed forces have recently announced new efforts to keep seriously wounded or disabled soldiers on active duty. Although there is no clear written policy, the sentiment is being echoed down from the White House."When we're talking about forced discharge, we're talking about another age and another" military, President Bush told wounded soldiers at Walter Reed last year. "This is a new age, and this is a new [military]. Today, if wounded service members want to remain in uniform and can do the job, the military tries to help them stay." "Our view is that once a soldier, always a soldier, and the Army is looking for ways to keep a number of them on active duty rather than medically retiring them," said Lt. Gen. Franklin Hagenbeck, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel. He has pledged to review the case of any military amputee who feels unfairly treated. American priorities: Soldiers missing limbs. Young men with massive brain injuries and severed spinal cords. Neurosurgeon Dr. Gene Bolles saw the "horrific cost" of war as he tried to patch up American soldiers injured in Iraq. When he came back to the United States in February, he switched on the news and found that Americans were obsessed with a huge breaking story: Janet Jackson's exposed breast. "I saw things that made me sick to my stomach - kids with one arm and two legs missing," said Bolles, 68, a former flight surgeon in Vietnam. "I came back and all I heard about was Janet Jackson. I said to myself, 'Is this all the American public is interested in?' " A sign that US elections are over: More than a month after it stopped publicly reporting individual Marine deaths in Iraq, the Corps' main headquarters there intends to resume the announcements, a spokeswoman said Thursday.Col. Jenny Holbert, spokeswoman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said it was decided that during the Fallujah offensive the Marines would stay silent until the Defense Department's public affairs office in Washington released identities of Marines killed. The names are not released in Washington until 24 hours after the victim's relatives are notified, a procedure that usually takes a few days. Previously, the Marines would announce the fact of a death on the day it happened, without details. That practice ended sometime before the Fallujah offensive was launched Nov. 8. It's not all bad news: The outdoor markets are busy again and the gridlocked traffic is back. The bands of excited children who walked behind local militiamen heading to battle in the fall now clamor around machinery laying down new water pipes. After spending much of the year as a battlefield between militiamen and U.S. forces, Baghdad's Sadr City district is now embracing peace and reconstruction. Anticipation is high for what the residents of the mainly Shiite district say is their overdue empowerment through elections Jan. 30. Just 99% of it: The largest Sunni party in Iraq gave warning yesterday of civil war unless the January 30 elections are delayed to allow it to compete on equal terms. Yousef Ghadban, technical director of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which recently withdrew from the government in protest at the US-led assault on Fallujah, said that internecine violence was a very real prospect unless electoral commissioners delayed the poll for six months. He said: “Many experts have warned of a civil war after the elections, and certainly this could happen in Iraq.” Speaking inside the mosque of a building that once served as offices for Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, he added: “If you are about to ignore me and do not listen to my opinion, what do you expect?" American Moral Leadership CIA officers in Iraq were ordered to stay away from a U.S. military interrogation facility last year because agency officials questioned the way detainees were being interrogated, according to a December 2003 report on a secret special operations unit. Herrington's report went up the chain of command to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq at the time, who ordered that the possible abuses be investigated, Pentagon officials said. Pentagon officials could not say Wednesday what became of that investigation. Editorial: It is both peculiar and chilling to find oneself discussing the problem of American torture. I have considered support of basic human rights and dignity so much a part of our national identity that this feels as strange as though I'd suddenly become Chinese or found Fidel Castro in the refrigerator. The first requirement here is that we look at what we are doing -- and not blink, not use euphemisms. Despite the Red Cross' polite language, this is not "tantamount to torture." It's torture. It is not "detainee abuse." It's torture. If they were doing it to you, you would know it was torture. It must be hidden away, because it's happening in Cuba or elsewhere abroad. In the name of Jesus Christ Almighty, why are people representing our government, paid by us, writing filth on the Korans of helpless prisoners? Is this American? Is it Christian? What are our moral values? Where are the clergymen on this? Speak out, speak up. The Human Cost Don’t forget to read Riverbend’s latest… Heartbreaker: Little Aysha Saleem plays with her dead mother's jewellery in a Manchester hospital - a world away from the violence in Iraq which claimed the lives of most of her family.A necklace and ear-rings are her only reminder of her mum Atika, who was killed when their home was destroyed during an American bombing raid in Fallujah. Debasing our young: "No one wants to be here, and some take it out on the locals," he said. "In war, it can be hard to maintain your dignity and morality and not degenerate into an animal, especially when you are the law - judge, jury and executioner." Army rules of engagement specify that soldiers should only fire when fired upon, Harp said. "So, if you're an Iraqi, and you come up to me trying to kill me, then yeah, you should expect to die. How else could it be? It's easy to kill a person when the alternative is being killed," he said. "You don't need military training for that - it's pure animal instinct. Thinking about it comes much later." Commentary Comment: Who wrote this - a pop sociologist, obscure blogger or anti-war playwright? "Muslims see Americans as strangely narcissistic - namely, that the war is all about us. As the Muslims see it, everything about the war is - for Americans - really no more than an extension of American domestic politics and its great game. This perception is ... heightened by election-year atmospherics, but none the less sustains their impression that when Americans talk to Muslims, they are talking to themselves." Actually, this is the conclusion of the report of the defence science board taskforce on strategic communication - the product of a Pentagon advisory panel - delivered in September. Its 102 pages were not made public in the presidential campaign, but, barely noticed by the US press, silently slipped on to a Pentagon website on Thanksgiving eve. Editorial: As noted by the New York Times, extending the tours of duty "is risking problems with morale and retention," which is already a rising concern both in the ranks and on Capitol Hill. It didn't help that the much-read "Perspectives" page of Newsweek this week featured Marine Staff Sgt. Russell Slay's "instructions" to his 5-year-old son in a letter he sent to his family shortly before he was killed in Iraq. "Be studious, stay in school, and stay away from the military. I mean it." Last week, the Army National Guard announced it has fallen significantly behind its recruiting goals this fall, continuing a downward slide that began last year. The Guard missed its October target by 30 percent. At the same time, the Baltimore Sun reported the Army is planning to pull officers out of military professional schools or delay their entry into academic programs in order to meet "wartime needs." It is also considering curbing "family-oriented programs," such as one that permits soldiers to extend their tours of duty at particular U.S. bases so their children can finish high school. Opinion: Last summer I interviewed a Tallahasseean who'd served in the Baghdad area for nine months as a platoon sergeant with a National Guard unit. He was an admirable, gung-ho guy who said he'd go back in a flash if duty called. He also didn't hide his anger. He said troops who served under him were undertrained and ill-equipped. And he bristled about this administration's well-documented failure to adequately plan for the insurgency after Saddam's fall, postwar reconstruction or an exit strategy. I hope the families of all the young men and women who've died, and will die, in Iraq can find solace and meaning in their loss. But when you're the world's superpower and the war is on your timetable, failure to plan adequately isn't easily forgivable. How many more lives will it take? Casualty Reports Local story: Phoenix, AZ, Marine killed in Anbar Province Local story: Hawai’i Marine killed in Fallujah Local story: Brownsville, TX, soldier wounded in Fallujah Local story: Orlando, FL, national guardsman killed in vehicle accident outside of Camp Taji. Local story: Navy quarterback killed in Fallujah. Local story: University of Georgia fraternity remembers former student killed in Fallujah. Local story: Staten Island, NY, soldier wounded, two others killed in Iraq. Local story: New York City soldier, wounded in incident that killed two others, reunited with father. Local story: Maryland soldier killed in Muqdadiyah Local story: Dale City, VA, soldier killed in Muqdadiyah Local story: Corpus Christi, TX, Marine killed in Al Anbar province Local story: Fort Bend County, TX, soldier killed in Fallujah Local story: Upstate New York soldier dies in Baghdad Humvee rollover .

War News for December 2, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Mortar rounds explode in Green Zone. One US soldier killed, four injured in vehicle accident in western Baghdad. Bring ‘em on: Ten insurgents killed, two police officers wounded in fight in Mosul. Bring ‘em on: Detroit Free Press summary: One US soldier wounded in Mosul when US military group touring city to discuss election preparations came under RPG and small arms fire. Three people wounded in roadside bombing on Baghdad airport road in same place as Tuesday’s suicide bombing. Seven Iraqis wounded in suicide bombing near Latifiyah. Bring ‘em on: AP story covers some of the incidents listed above and additionally: Three Iraqi soldiers and two civilians wounded in gunfight in Samarra. Seven Iraqis wounded in suicide bombing in Iskandariyah, 30 miles south of Baghdad (same attack listed as Latifiyah above?). Two hundred ten suspected militants arrested in joint US/British sweep south of Baghdad. One man injured when gunmen open fire on technicians repairing oil pipeline in Safrah area. Three Iraqi National Guardsmen wounded by a roadside bomb Wednesday in Kirkuk. Breaking Their Backs: "Seventy-one U.S. troops died in the November battle to retake the city of Fallouja, according to the top Marine commander in Iraq, a toll significantly higher than the previous count of 51 deaths. An additional 623 American troops were wounded, said Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, up from an injury count of 425 issued more than two weeks ago." "Proclaiming the success of the operation, Sattler said that at least 1,200 insurgents had been killed. But among those neither captured nor killed were the city's best-known guerrilla leaders — Jordanian-born Abu Musab Zarqawi; Omar Hadid, Zarqawi's Iraqi lieutenant; and Abdullah Janabi, a Sunni Muslim cleric who headed the loosely governing Shura Council during the six months of insurgent control in Fallouja. "Would it have been nice to have killed or captured any of those three? Absolutely," Sattler said. "But we're still terrifically pleased…. Fallouja is no longer a terrorist sanctuary." Some Bad News for Gen. Sattler: "Iraqi rebels creeping back into Fallujah's secure zones: Marines at 1-3 Charlie Company's small toe-hold in the city, an abandoned school surrounded by sprawling homes in the largely affluent neighborhood, say they have been frustrated by rebels who appear beaten one day, only to turn up again another. But they also say with increasingly fewer marines -- several units have already left the city following the November attack -- there is virtually no way to keep rebels from taking up refuge in cleared buildings. "If you want to keep this place secured, you need a whole lot of bodies," said one marine corporal." A Metric of Success: "The U.S. military captured at least 15 portable surface-to-air missiles, capable of shooting down aircraft, dozens of mortar tubes and sophisticated anti-tank weapons among hundreds of weapons caches found in the Iraqi militant stronghold of Fallujah, according to a classified military report. The report said that one out of every two mosques in Fallujah were used to hide fighters or weapons caches during a recent offensive. Fallujah is called the city of mosques because it has at least 100 such religious facilities. “The amount of weapons was in no way just to protect a city,” said Maj. James West, a Marine intelligence officer. “There was enough to mount an insurgency across the country.” Some Bad News for Maj. West: "There are as many as 4,000 portable surface-to-air missiles missing — and possibly looted — in Iraq, U.S. military intelligence said. The missing missiles, which can be fired from the shoulder — one of which came close to downing an Israeli commercial airliner in 2002 — were part of Saddam Hussein's arsenal, according to an article in the Washington Post. The report has prompted U.S. military and intelligence analysts to sharply increase their estimate of the number of renegade missiles that have vanished to about 6,000 worldwide, the paper said quoting administration officials." (Story from earlier this month but I couldn’t resist.) Halfway to Shinseki: "With the insurgency still a threat to Iraq's planned elections, the U.S. force is about to expand to its highest level of the war even higher than the initial invading force in March 2003. The force will grow from 138,000 today to about 150,000 by mid-January, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The expansion of the U.S. force also recalls assertions made by some Bush administration officials when the invasion was launched that although stabilizing the country would not be easy or cheap, it certainly would not require more U.S. troops than it took to topple Baghdad." Well, maybe: Some Resist Call to Arms: "Parrish, a 31-year-old former Army officer, recently received a call-up letter ordering his return to active duty for deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan. Parrish attended college on an ROTC scholarship and served four years of his eight-year commitment leading a field-artillery unit. In December 2003, he resigned his commission. The Army, however, claims that it never accepted Parrish's resignation. When the Army ordered Parrish to report for active duty at Fort Sill, Okla., he filed a lawsuit in a North Carolina federal court. He believes that the Army call-up is not only unconscionable, but also politically motivated to avoid reinstituting a national draft. Presciently, Howell observed: ``They don't have any more reserves left, so we're it. All they want is some bodies to go to Iraq.'' "When the most patriotic among us turn apprehensive and voice skepticism about the fairness of selecting only certain Americans for body bags, we should all be given pause." Too little, too late?: "The U.S. State Department has described the airport road as one of the most dangerous routes in Iraq, and the British Embassy has banned its diplomats from using it because of the high risk of attack. The situation on the airport road has become a metaphor for the entire Iraq mission. More than 18 months after the fall of Saddam Hussein, the world's most powerful military cannot guarantee the safety of Iraqis, foreigners and its own troops who use one of the country's most important routes." Technology to the rescue: "Raytheon 'heat beam' weapon ready for Iraq: "It's there, it's ready,'' said Heal, who has felt the weapon's beam and compares it to having a hot iron placed on the skin. "It will likely be in Iraq in the next 12 months. They are very, very close.'' The weapon, mounted on a Humvee vehicle, projects a "focused, speed-of-light millimeter wave energy beam to induce an intolerable heating sensation,'' according to a U.S. Air Force fact sheet." Building Democracy Run-up to vote underlines difficulty facing process in war-torn Iraq "The bearded man in a white robe spoke politely but his parting words to Mohammed Abdullah, a grocer entrusted with distributing voter registration forms, carried a thinly veiled threat." “Let the fear of God reside in your heart,” the man, who never identified himself, repeated twice to Abdullah before leaving. He had earlier tried to convince Abdullah that participating in Iraq’s January election violates Islamic law." “I am not taking it and they can do whatever they please,” one customer, Mohammed Abdul-Rahman, shouted when Abdullah tried to hand him a form. “These elections will be held over the blood of the innocent people of Fallujah.” Psychological Warfare Pentagon Propaganda Shop Lives On, 'L.A. Times' Reports "The Pentagon in 2002 was forced to shutter its controversial Office of Strategic Influence (OSI) when it became known that the office planned to plant false news stories in the media. But now officials say that much of its mission, including using misinformation in the Iraq war and the war on terrorism, has been taken over by other offices within the government, the Los Angeles Times reported today." "A senior defense official told the newspaper: “The movement of information has gone from the public affairs world to the psychological operations world," one senior defense official said. "What's at stake is the credibility of people in uniform."" "A key recent development, according to the Times, was the decision by commanders in Iraq in mid-September to combine public affairs, psychological operations, and information operations into a "strategic communications" office. The paper obtained an organizational chart of the newly created office, which it said is run by Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, who answers directly to Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq." A disturbing take on the above story: Did Bush lie about the Fallujah attack to influence the US election? "In an LA Times story that notes that Bush lied when he said down two years ago that he'd closed down the Pentagon disinformation office, there's a very troubling paragraph:" "It cited an incident on Oct. 14 when a Marine spokesman announced, via CNN, the start of the Fallujah offensive, which did not actually happen for another three weeks. The idea was to see in advance how the insurgents would respond. The Times referred to this as just one of the “psy-op” episodes so far." "Putting aside the fact that the executive branch is now giving misinformation to the American media, there's a bigger problem here. Bush intentionally used the spooks to convince the American people that he was taking decisive action against the increasing turmoil in Fallujah less than 3 weeks before the US presidential election. Turns out Bush lied. He wasn't taking decisive action in Iraq. But we all thought he was. Was this done to trick the American people right before the election? To make them think Bush was taking care of the Iraq mess? Intent or not, that's clearly the effect the message would have - and even better, Bush's little attack had no casualties, because THERE WAS NO ATTACK. But we didn't know that, so Bush got kudos for no American troops getting killed, again helping him in the polls.That is incredibly disturbing news." Here’s the actual LA Times story: PR Meets Psy-Ops in War on Terror "Although most of the work remains classified, officials say that some of the ongoing efforts include having U.S. military spokesmen play a greater role in psychological operations in Iraq, as well as planting information with sources used by Arabic TV channels such as Al Jazeera to help influence the portrayal of the United States." "Pentagon officials say Myers is worried that U.S. efforts in Iraq and in the broader campaign against terrorism could suffer if world audiences begin to question the honesty of statements from U.S. commanders and spokespeople." "Yet some in the military argue that the efforts at better "strategic communication" sometimes cross the line into propaganda, citing some recent media briefings held in Iraq. During a Nov. 10 briefing by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, reporters were shown a video of Iraqi troops saluting their flag and singing the Iraqi national anthem. "Pretty soon, we're going to have the 5 o'clock follies all over again, and it will take us another 30 years to restore our credibility," said a second senior Defense official, referring to the much-ridiculed daily media briefings in Saigon during the Vietnam War. According to several Pentagon officials, the strategic communications programs at the Defense Department are being coordinated by the office of the undersecretary of Defense for policy, Douglas J. Feith." American Moral Authority Editorial: “The administration's response to the Red Cross report was unsurprising. The military brushed off the Red Cross's complaints when they were made, just as it did at Abu Ghraib. Yesterday, Lawrence Di Rita, a spokesman for Mr. Rumsfeld, said the Red Cross had "their point of view," which was not shared by the Bush administration. The Red Cross's point of view, however, is reflected in the Geneva Conventions and in American law. The recent debate over prisoner abuse has not been brought to the courts, but the Supreme Court has ruled that Mr. Bush cannot suspend due process for prisoners of his choosing. The White House, the Pentagon and the Justice Department clearly have no intention of addressing the abuse. Indeed, Mr. Bush has nominated one of the architects of the administration's prisoner policy, the White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, to be attorney general. The general who set up the system at Guantánamo is now in charge of prisons in Iraq.” The Human Cost As two fall, soldiers see the cost of war "Sitting a couple of men over on the bench of the Bradley was Bowden, whose father was in the 82nd Airborne Division and who grew up knowing he would join the Army as soon as he turned 18. His father later became a sheriff's deputy in Pike County, Pa., and his mother got a job at a factory." "When people say that war is the most terrible thing, they ain't wrong," Bowden said. "The things it does to people. You think that killing people for your country is cool, but when you do, it just numbs you." Perspective Unembedded: An Interview With Dahr Jamail “Most Iraqis refer to the Iraqi resistance as "patriots." Which, of course, most of them are – they are, especially in Fallujah, primarily composed of people who simply are resisting the occupation of their country by a foreign power. They are people who have had family members killed, detained, tortured, and humiliated by the illegal occupiers of their shattered country.” “Calling them "foreign terrorists" and "Ba'athist insurgents" is simply a lie. While there are small elements of these, they are distinctly different from the Iraqi resistance, who are now supported by, very conservatively at least 80% of the population here.” Commentary Comment: "Immune to evidence, the Bush administration is delusional and capable of horrendous miscalculation. The flowers with which the U.S. Department of Defense said our troops would be greeted in Iraq turned out to be bullets, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs. On Nov. 22, the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, reported that its doctors have treated 20,802 U.S. troops from Iraq. Few of the injured have been able to return to their units. That is twice the casualty figure reported by the Pentagon and comprises 15 percent of the U.S. army in Iraq. In exchange, since the invasion, the United States has killed some 100,000 Iraqi civilians and perhaps 2,000 insurgents. The ultimate test of competence is the ability to admit mistakes. This the Bush administration cannot do. Steadfastly denying any mistake, Bush is promoting those responsible for the Iraq carnage to higher office. Will four more years of Bush terminate America's superpower status?" Editorial: "There were claims after the battle for Fallujah that American marines, supported by Iraqi troops, had broken the back of the determined resistance. Certainly a large contingent of rebel fighters was erased. But away from Fallujah, the number of terror attacks has continued to grow, from 15-20 a day a year ago to 150 or more now. Parts of Iraq are far from sufficiently under control for the public to risk forming lines to vote. That would be an invitation to terrorists, who kill far more Iraqis than Americans on any given day." Editorial: “Turkey is in a rather paradoxical situation as regards what to do and how to provide for the security of its truckers, contractors and workers -- at least for those who are left -- in Iraq. It can't send its troops to provide security for its people doing business there, nor can it take a firm and clear-cut position against the Iraqi resistance -- other than issuing messages of condemnation every time the remains of Turks murdered there are handed over to their families -- nor can it actively support the American troops trying to battle the insurgency.” “The Turkish public and government are as well in a state of confusion. Are Iraqi insurgents -- bloodthirsty terrorists -- mercilessly beheading and shooting our truckers and torching our trucks, or are they freedom fighters trying to liberate their country from foreign occupation? Even Mehmet Elkatmis, the head of the Turkish Parliament's Human Rights Commission, was able to come up with a charge that "The U.S. administration is committing genocide ... in Iraq. Never in human history have such genocide and cruelty been witnessed. Such a genocide was never seen in the time of the pharaohs [of ancient Egypt], nor of Hitler nor of [Italy's fascist leader Benito] Mussolini."” Comment: "Understanding of the war in Iraq, like understanding of other wars, has changed over time - and the images we see of it play a vital role in that necessary process of re-evaluation. Very many who watched the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad's Firdaus square in April 2003 were hostile at the time - warning that while it was easy enough for the world's only superpower to overthrow a tinpot Arab dictator, it was wrong, illegal and dangerous to try to impose democracy on any other country." Opinion: "When you are at war with someone else you are never suppose to sympathize with the “enemy.” You can’t think about how they too have a family, a job, hopes, aspirations, how they are just a simple human. Because of that, we only hear about our own men and woman maimed in war and never about innocent civilians, who happen to be Iraqi, who are killed daily. Since our government was aching to go to war, they might as well show us all sides of it, don’t you think?" Casualty Reports Local Story: Lufkin, LA, wounded Marine comes home. Local Story: Watervliet, NY, soldier killed, another wounded in Iraq. Local Story: Spencer, IA, soldier killed in Humvee crash in Iraq. Local Story: Warren, MI, Marine killed in Anbar Province honored (scroll down). Local Story: Three Iowa soldiers killed in helicopter crash in Iraq memorialized. Local Story: Winston-Salem, NC, father dies in Anbar Province. Local Story: Fairview Heights, MO, soldier killed in Mosul. Local Story: Manchester, NH, Marine killed in Baghdad.

War News for December 1, 2004 Bring ‘em on: Three Iraqi children, aged three, four, and five, killed by mortar fire in Baqouba Bring ‘em on: From one little article in the Detroit Free Press: A resurgence in armed action broke out Tuesday in areas west of Fallujah along a key highway leading to Jordan weeks after a massive U.S.-led military offensive in the city. Heavily armed anti-American insurgents on Tuesday took over and briefly held nine police stations and highway checkpoints, blowing up two buildings, police said. Drivers reported that insurgents took control of large sections of the highway leading west out of Iraq, stopping traffic and shaking down passengers. The takeover of police installations came on a day of bombings against U.S. military convoys elsewhere. The worst was in Beiji, an oil-refining town 110 miles north of Baghdad, as a U.S. military convoy went through a bustling area of shops. A car bomb killed seven civilians and wounded at least 15 people. Two of the wounded were U.S. soldiers. In a simultaneous attack elsewhere in Beiji, insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a U.S. tank, wounding a soldier. Five U.S. soldiers were wounded when a suicide bomber blew up his car along the perilous road from Baghdad to its international airport, destroying an armored military truck. U.S. forces also said a U.S. soldier died late Monday after an explosion hit his patrol north of Baghdad. Insurgents blew up two badly damaged buildings Tuesday in Khaledia, between Fallujah and Ramadi, a small city on the highway leading to Jordan, police said. Insurgents also took over six checkpoints west of Ramadi, al Delemi said. It’s a good thing the offensive in Fallujah broke the back of the insurgency. Otherwise there could be real problems. Horror: Fuad Kubaysi, one of those staying at the Red Crescent compound, said, "What has happened to Falluja is a horror beyond anything imaginable. We don't want it anymore. Let them have it. Let whomever wants it have it. We cannot ever call this city home again." Red Crescent volunteer Sabri Abd Almalek said the restrictions imposed by the Marines are hindering their humanitarian efforts to bring relief to families throughout the city. "We are stuck here," he said. "We came here to help the people, treat the sick, and they won't let us leave -- only when we have permission." US Media: A review of international media coverage reveals that, in general, the US press, as in this instance, focuses on battle tactics and keeps score of US casualties, while elsewhere in the world the press is emphasizing the human costs of the war. Since the initial attack on Fallujah, the mainstream US press has failed to mention the civilian casualties—though they number, according to international reports, in the thousands.The US press has focused instead on ‘team sports’ reporting, assuring the US public that their ‘team’ is winning, limiting statistics only to those of the ‘team,’and reporting the US military officers’ next plans. The tone of these stories is clinical, cold and distant. From such lopsided media coverage of the Fallujah story, an observer can only conclude that the so-called “free press” no longer exists in the US. Either that, or the US press is choosing to mirror the worst in US society: indifference, cruelty, greed and selfishness. Which of these conditions, one wonders, is more difficult to cure? U.S. Troop Deaths: The Department of Defense has identified 127 U.S. service members who died supporting U.S.-led operations in Iraq in November. At least eight more have died but remain unidentified, according to the military. The total of 135, which includes non-combat related deaths, matches April of this year for the deadliest month since fighting began in March 2003. US Troops Hospitalized: About 21,000 American soldiers, most of them from units sent to Iraq, have been treated at the biggest U.S. military hospital outside the United States since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, the hospital said Monday. Landstuhl doctors treated 17,878 U.S. soldiers from Iraq and 3,085 from Afghanistan through Sunday, hospital spokeswoman Marie Shaw told The Associated Press. A Slight Difference of Opinion: Disintegrating security in Baghdad was underlined in a sombre warning yesterday from the British embassy against using the airport road or taking a plane out of Iraq. The embassy says a bomb was discovered on a flight inside Iraq on 22 November. It shows that insurgents have been able to penetrate the stringent security at Baghdad airport. The embassy says its own staff have been advised against taking commercial planes. The warning is in sharp contrast to more optimistic statements from US military commanders after the capture of Fallujah in which they have spoken of "breaking the back of the insurgency". I recommend reading the whole article. The British embassy no longer allows any travel on the Baghdad airport road. The reference to the use of shaped charges should give US commanders a cold chill. Still No Roses: Faced with the real threat of terrorist attacks during Iraqi elections next month, U.S. military officials tell NBC News the Pentagon is now planning to raise the number of American troops in Iraq by 10,000-11,000 to provide additional security. That's twice the number of needed reinforcements first anticipated and will temporarily raise the number of U.S. troops in Iraq to about 150,000. That means soldiers from the Army's 1st Infantry and 1st Cavalry and some U.S. Marines who were scheduled to leave Iraq this month may be ordered to stay longer, while soldiers from the 3rd Infantry and 82nd Airborne could be ordered into Iraq earlier than scheduled. Even then, it would seem impossible to protect all 9,000 polling places in Iraq from terrorist attack. Building Democracy: Block by block, and neighborhood by neighborhood, Iraq's election process is unfolding in starkly different ways. In areas populated by Shiites, who are the majority in Iraq, the process is going relatively smoothly. In contrast, intimidation and fear are rampant in some areas where Sunnis reside. The success of the registration drive - and the success of the parliamentary election itself - matters greatly. If enough Sunnis don't register, the Shiite population is certain to dominate the election, leaving the minority Sunnis without a voice or incentive to support the government. After such an election, Iraq might be rocked by charges of minority disenfranchisement, weakening hopes for quelling violence and reducing sectarian strife. American World Leadership Rumsfeld Sued for Alleged War Crimes: Alleging responsibility for war crimes and torture at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, a human rights group has filed a criminal complaint in Germany against US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top US officials. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Berlin's Republican Lawyers' Association said they and five Iraqi citizens mistreated by US soldiers were seeking a probe by German federal prosecutors of leading US policymakers. U.N. panel disputes U.S. invasion of Iraq: An influential United Nations-appointed panel on Tuesday challenged the Bush administration's right to use military force against an enemy that does not pose an imminent military threat. The 16-member panel, appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, said in a long-awaited report that only the U.N. Security Council has the legal standing to authorize such a "preventive war." U.S. generals told of detainee abuse early: A confidential report to Army generals in Iraq in December 2003 warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees, a finding delivered more than a month before Army investigators received the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison that touched off investigations into prisoner mistreatment. The report, which was not released publicly and was recently obtained by The Washington Post, concluded that some U.S. arrest and detention practices at the time could "technically" be illegal. It also said coalition fighters could be feeding the Iraqi insurgency by "making gratuitous enemies" as they conducted sweeps netting hundreds of detainees who probably did not belong in prison and holding them for months at a time. The Human Cost Deaths in combat ricochet here at home: The love affair of Deborah and Donald May began in September 1999 as a happy collision of two hearts. It ended March 25, 2003, during the first days of the Iraq war, when the tank commanded by Staff Sgt. May, 31, plunged into the Euphrates River and sank to the bottom. He and his three tankmates drowned, trapped inside. Iraq Fighters: Then, with humility and pride, 39-year-old Abu Mohammed began his story _ a tale of death, life and prospective martyrdom. Unlike so many accounts of a conflict that has reshaped Iraq, it came not from the U.S. forces prosecuting the war, but from among the ranks of the men they fought. A blacksmith turned insurgent, Abu Mohammed undertook an odyssey this month that took him from the battlefields of Fallujah, roiled with religion, to a harrowing escape across the Euphrates River, to a lonely exile in Baghdad, where he waits to fight another day. It began with the death of his son, Ahmed, whose short life was ended by an American bullet. "He was only 13, but he was the equal of a thousand men," Abu Mohammed said, in words that served as an epitaph. GI threatens suicide over return to Iraq: A serviceman, apparently distraught over the prospect of being sent back to the war in Iraq, threatened to kill himself as he stood naked and screaming outside his house. Police took the man into custody at his Fernwood Drive house. He was taken for treatment to Bridgeport Hospital. Great response from Chris in yesterday’s Comments: "'He was taken for treatment to Bridgeport Hospital. ' Treatment for what? Sanity?" Requiem Mass for Iraq hostage as husband clings to faint hope: A mutilated body discovered in Fallujah a fortnight ago was not Margaret Hassan, the missing British aid worker believed murdered earlier this month, British sources in Baghdad said yesterday. Although DNA testing has yet to be completed, dental records prove that the body was not Mrs Hassan’s, leaving her exact fate still uncertain. …video received by al-Jazeera television channel in mid-November shows a blindfolded woman in an orange boilersuit being shot. The British Ambassador in Qatar and one family member concluded that it most probably did show Mrs Hassan’s killing. But others in Iraq, including her husband, cling to the slim hope that she may still be alive. Casualty Reports Local story: 100 Texas service members dead in Iraq since beginning of war. Local story: One NYC firefighter killed in Baghdad, another wounded in same incident.