Inside Iraq

[Joemailman]

Yep, you're right. We wage aggressive war against a country, fail to provide the troop levels necessary to control the country, and then blame the people who are forced to flee. God Bless America.

[the_idle_threat]

The writer of the column, Robert Novak, is a conservative who was the one who originally reported that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative. I wonder who his source was this time.

Goes to show you that media folks of all stripes are sleazebags. Doesn't matter if they're conservative or liberal---their need for the scoop is placed before anything else, including the lives of our troops or the livelihood of a CIA agent.

[SkinBasket]

Yep, you're right. We wage aggressive war against a country, fail to provide the troop levels necessary to control the country, and then blame the people who are forced to flee. God Bless America.

05 JOEIQ=100
10 ILM=((RND*100) + BLAH00 + BLAH01 + BLAH02)
20 JOEIQ = JOEIQ-ILM
30 GOTO 10
40 END

[Freak Out]

Nice...beat by the Chinese again.

Iraqis to Pay China $100 Million for Weapons for Police
Experts Fear More Will Go to Insurgents

By Robin Wright and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 4, 2007; A12

Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday.

The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military analysts who note that Iraq's security forces already are unable to account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States, many of which are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and target U.S. troops.

"The problem is that the Iraqi government doesn't have -- as yet -- a clear plan for making sure that weapons are distributed, that they are properly monitored and repeatedly checked," said Rachel Stohl of the Center for Defense Information, an independent think tank. "The end-use monitoring will be left in the hands of a government and military in Iraq that is not yet ready for it. And there's not a way for the U.S. to mandate them to do it if they're not U.S. weapons."

News of Iraq's arms deal came as Army Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top U.S. commander for day-to-day operations in Iraq, told editors and reporters at The Washington Post yesterday that he expects a U.S. troop presence will be required in the country for a minimum of "at least three to five more years" and will involve 25,000 to 50,000 troops, depending on security conditions.

Detailed planning is underway for the U.S. military to begin scaling back its primary mission from one of fighting a counterinsurgency to an advisory and training role, which will involve pulling U.S. troops out of Iraqi cities and closing some U.S. bases, Odierno said. Odierno and Talabani, who met separately with Post editors and reporters, said they expect their governments to finalize a long-term bilateral security pact in 2008.

The capabilities of Iraqi security forces are pivotal to the U.S. exit strategy in Iraq, with the creation of a viable police force critical to reconciliation. Talabani said only one in five Iraqi police officers is armed and called for faster weapons delivery from the United States to beef up Iraq's fledgling army.

Iraq's police force is noted for infiltration by militias and insurgents out to use national resources for their own ends, said William D. Hartung, director of the New America Foundation Arms and Security Initiative. "Besides, aside from possibly wanting newer models, there are piles of arms and weapons floating around in Iraq," he said.

The Chinese arms deal sheds light on the larger dispute between the United States and Iraq over rebuilding Iraq's armed forces and police. Iraqi officials have long complained about the supply of weapons and equipment for their personnel, noting that Iraqi security forces often patrol in pickup trucks without body armor along the same routes as U.S. troops wearing flak jackets and riding in armored vehicles.

"There is general frustration in the Iraqi government at the rate in which Iraqi armed forces are being equipped and armed," Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaidaie told reporters this summer. "This is a collaborative effort between the Iraqi government and the government of the United States, and the process is not moving quickly enough to improve the fighting capacity of Iraqi armed forces. A way must be found to improve this process."

Talabani yesterday expressed frustration with the delays. "The capacity of the factories here are not enough to provide us quickly with all that we need, even for the army. One of our demands is to accelerate the delivery of the arms to the Iraqi army."

Iraq has become one of the largest buyers of U.S.-made weapons. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that Baghdad has signed deals to buy $1.6 billion in U.S. arms, with another $1.8 billion in possible weapons purchases.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the United States is "working closely" to help Iraq obtain "appropriate and necessary" military equipment. But U.S. officials concede delivery problems.

"We haven't converted toaster factories to produce carbines and we're working hard just to supply our own troops," said an administration official involved with Iraq policy. "Our factories are working for our own troops. So it's true we don't have the ability to provide these rifles and other equipment they're looking for."

In 2004 and 2005, the United States bought 185,000 AK-47s from an Eastern European country -- after Iraqis rejected U.S.-made M-16 assault rifles -- as part of a $2.8 billion program to deliver military equipment to Iraq. But a recent Government Accountability Office report said that 110,000 of them were unaccounted for, with about 30 percent of all arms distributed to Iraqi forces by the United States since 2004 missing.

Nevertheless, Odierno said, recent improvements in Iraq's security since the U.S. troop buildup have exceeded his expectations, with attacks down in September to the lowest level since January 2006 and U.S. troop casualties declining since June. A major factor has been U.S. operations against al-Qaeda in Iraq, whose sanctuaries have been reduced by 60 to 70 percent since January, he said. He warned, however, that the group can regenerate.

Another factor has been the unexpected willingness of Sunni tribes to cooperate with U.S. and Iraqi forces, he said. But Odierno said he remains concerned over recent statements from Iraq's Shiite ruling faction demanding that the U.S. military stop recruiting Sunni tribesmen f0r Iraq's police force.

"That's uncomfortable to them, and I think that's part of why it's so important. This is about reconciliation," Odierno said. "We have to continue to move forward."

He said the U.S. military is shifting more of its resources to targeting Shiite militias, including what Odierno called "surrogates" who are trained, armed and funded by Iran, as well as "special groups" affiliated with the Mahdi Army of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"We are starting to see at low levels a split between those [Shiite militias] who have some relationship with Iran . . . and those who do not," Odierno said. He said the significance of the "fissures" is not yet clear.

Staff writer Dafna Linzer contributed to this report.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday.

You can't blame the Iraqis. In the big picture, this is good for the U.S., too. We don't want the police fighting with muskets.

China is just kicking our butts up and down. China is the emerging giant oil pig that REALLY needs mideast oil, and we're there fighting and dying to preserve their future.

Oh my God. While we're mortgaging the future on this endless war, the Chinese can focus on investment. They're pulling ahead in Latin America, for instance.

I'm not saying we can just pull out of Iraq, but boy are we taking it up the ass.

[Partial]

One of my childhood best friends recently lost a leg, a few fingers, and a portion of his skull in Iraq

[Kiwon]

It's been reported that although Christians make up only about 2% of Iraq's population, they are 25-40% of the refugees. What a sad irony that these Christians are now forced to flee their country after our invasion, but did not need to do that when Saddam was in power. How grateful they must be that we have brought democracy to their country.

I'm convinced now....liberalism is a disease.

Joe, you don't really believe what you're alluding to, do you? Is tyranny really superior to freedom and individual liberty in your mind?

Purple fingers, my friend.

[Deputy Nutz]

Another Pieced together war.

Worthless, absolutely worthless to put forth any effort if you don't give 100%. And this isn't a slant one way or another I am condemning both Doves and Hawks.

[Harlan Huckleby]

early in the war, you might say problem was a lack of effort/commitment. 250,000 ground troops could have kept things from spinning so far out of control.

I think the difficulties we see now are purely political, and will only be solved by the Iraqis over a 10 to 20 year period.

[Deputy Nutz]

Poor overall planning, in the beginning there was no long term goals that were presented to the American people and the World. The United States destroyed the Iraqi Army, that was a given, then toppled the Government, again that was a given. But no long term planing or contemplation about future hostile engagements. No long term training for urban commando warfare. The military has been put in a position to manage the situation instead of total destruction of the enemy at the minimum cost to American life.

[Freak Out]

The United States destroyed the Iraqi Army

Wrong, they went home.....with their weapons. Then the dipshit Bremmer disbanded it instead of paying them. The Viceroy really fucked the goat on that one.

Good article on IEDs and how difficult it is to combat them. It's a long one but worth it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/02/AR2007100202366.html

[Harlan Huckleby]

Freak Out, do you think I am insufficiently depressed?

[Freak Out]

Freak Out, do you think I am insufficiently depressed?

Sorry Dog.

I did get a kick out of the "Mother of all spreadsheets" though!

[Tyrone Bigguns]

The United States destroyed the Iraqi Army

Wrong, they went home.....with their weapons. Then the dipshit Bremmer disbanded it instead of paying them. The Viceroy really fucked the goat on that one.

Good article on IEDs and how difficult it is to combat them. It's a long one but worth it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...100202366.html

I think when he said destroyed he was alluding to what bremmer did.

If you guys get a chance read the interview with Colin Powell in this month's GQ. Pretty much confirms the lack of contigency planning by Rummy.

As I've said for a while, we are going to lose a leg in Iraq. The only question is whether you wanna amputate above or below the knee.

[Freak Out]

This is as good as place as any to post this.

October 7, 2007
Editorial
On Torture and American Values

Once upon a time, it was the United States that urged all nations to obey the letter and the spirit of international treaties and protect human rights and liberties. American leaders denounced secret prisons where people were held without charges, tortured and killed. And the people in much of the world, if not their governments, respected the United States for its values.

The Bush administration has dishonored that history and squandered that respect. As an article on this newspaper’s front page last week laid out in disturbing detail, President Bush and his aides have not only condoned torture and abuse at secret prisons, but they have conducted a systematic campaign to mislead Congress, the American people and the world about those policies.

After the attacks of 9/11, Mr. Bush authorized the creation of extralegal detention camps where Central Intelligence Agency operatives were told to extract information from prisoners who were captured and held in secret. Some of their methods — simulated drownings, extreme ranges of heat and cold, prolonged stress positions and isolation — had been classified as torture for decades by civilized nations. The administration clearly knew this; the C.I.A. modeled its techniques on the dungeons of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union.

The White House could never acknowledge that. So its lawyers concocted documents that redefined “torture” to neatly exclude the things American jailers were doing and hid the papers from Congress and the American people. Under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Mr. Bush’s loyal enabler, the Justice Department even declared that those acts did not violate the lower standard of “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”

That allowed the White House to claim that it did not condone torture, and to stampede Congress into passing laws that shielded the interrogators who abused prisoners, and the men who ordered them to do it, from any kind of legal accountability.

Mr. Bush and his aides were still clinging to their rationalizations at the end of last week. The president declared that Americans do not torture prisoners and that Congress had been fully briefed on his detention policies.

Neither statement was true — at least in what the White House once scorned as the “reality-based community” — and Senator John Rockefeller, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, was right to be furious. He demanded all of the “opinions of the Justice Department analyzing the legality” of detention and interrogation policies. Lawmakers, who for too long have been bullied and intimidated by the White House, should rewrite the Detainee Treatment Act and the Military Commissions Act to conform with actual American laws and values.

For the rest of the nation, there is an immediate question: Is this really who we are?

Is this the country whose president declared, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” and then managed the collapse of Communism with minimum bloodshed and maximum dignity in the twilight of the 20th century? Or is this a nation that tortures human beings and then concocts legal sophistries to confuse the world and avoid accountability before American voters?

Truly banning the use of torture would not jeopardize American lives; experts in these matters generally agree that torture produces false confessions. Restoring the rule of law to Guantánamo Bay would not set terrorists free; the truly guilty could be tried for their crimes in a way that does not mock American values.

Clinging to the administration’s policies will only cause further harm to America’s global image and to our legal system. It also will add immeasurably to the risk facing any man or woman captured while wearing America’s uniform or serving in its intelligence forces.

This is an easy choice.