"Iraq, an experiment in an American laboratory." surging. purging, and regurgitating

[deep]

"Iraq, an experiment in an American laboratory." surging. purging, and regurgitating

Aide to Iraq PM: U.S. army embarrasses government
07-14-2007 , 18:17 GMT

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that the Iraqi army and police are capable of keeping security in the country when American forces leave "any time they want."

Al-Maliki told a Baghdad press conference that his government needs "time and effort" to enact the political reforms that Washington seeks - "particularly since the political process is facing security, economic and services pressures, as well as regional and international interference."

"These difficulties can be read as a big success, not negative points, when they are viewed under the shadow of the big challenges," he said.

But one of Al-Maliki top aides, Hassan al-Suneid, was quoted as saying the U.S. was treating Iraq like "an experiment in an American laboratory." He sharply criticised the U.S. military, saying it was committing human rights violations, embarassing the Iraqi government with its tactics and cooperating with "gangs of killers" in its campaign against al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Al-Suneid, a Shiite lawmaker close to al-Maliki, told The Associated Press that al-Maliki has problems with the top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus, who works along a "purely American vision." He criticized U.S. overtures to Sunni groups in Anbar and Diyala, encouraging former "insurgents" to join the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. "These are gangs of killers," he said.

"There are disagreements that the strategy that Petraeus is following might succeed in confronting al-Qaida in the early period but it will leave Iraq an armed nation, an armed society and militias," said al-Suneid.

He said that the U.S. authorities have embarrassed al-Maliki's government through acts such as constructing a wall around Baghdad's Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah and repeated raids on suspected Shiite militiamen in the capital's eastern slum of Sadr City. He said the U.S. use of airstrikes to hit suspected insurgent positions also kills civilians.

"This embarrasses the government in front of its people," he said, calling the civilian deaths a "human rights violation."

 

[Varitek]

pretty much...

 

[Irvine511]

i think al-Maliki retracted that statement.

 

[ntalwar]

They get to test their cool new weapons/toys on Iraqi civilians - just like a video game:

Deadly drone readied for Iraq

Reaper controlled from Nevada base

By Charles J. Hanley THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq— The airplane is the size of a jet fighter, powered by a turboprop engine, able to fly at 300 mph and reach 50,000 feet. It’s outfitted with infrared, laser and radar targeting, and with a ton and a half of guided bombs and missiles.

The Reaper is loaded, but there’s no one on board. Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada.

The arrival of these outsized U.S. “hunter-killer” drones, in aviation history’s first robot attack squadron, will be a watershed moment even in an Iraq that has seen too many innovative ways to hunt and kill.

 

[Varitek]

Oooh you mean like the one on the army website that's used as a recruitment tool?

 

[Bluer White]

They get to test their cool new weapons/toys on Iraqi civilians - just like a video game:

Not only that....but this new plane takes more American pilots out of harm's way, provides a steady eye in the sky for American convoys, and can send a real-time video stream of the bad guys shooting at Americans.

First and foremost though, I'm sure it'll be used to target civilians

 

[deep]

a real-time video stream of the bad guys shooting at Americans.

I'm sure it'll be used to target civilians

Dropping bombs on people in their homes

is this what good guys do?

I guess you are in league with BinLaden
He would not consider the people that died on 9/11 civilians either.

 

[AEON]

First and foremost though, I'm sure it'll be used to target civilians

C'mon - do you really believe that?

 

[deep]

I think he doesn't.

I think I kind of do.

The lines are so blurred.



If you are a Sunni Iraqi
and there are foreign, highly armed soldiers, working in coalition with Iranian-sympathizing Shites that are hunting you down in your home and killing you, what would you do?

Who is the civilian?
Who is the patriot defending his homeland?

Who is the invader?
Who belongs there?
Who does not?

Is it wrong to fight to defend your home and family?

 

[ntalwar]

First and foremost though, I'm sure it'll be used to target civilians

Maybe they're not "targeting" them, but they're certainly not avoiding them. The high five figure to low six figure civilian body count confirms it.

 

[AEON]

Maybe they're not "targeting" them, but they're certainly not avoiding them.

This is simply untrue. If the US wanted to carpet bomb the whole country they certainly could. The fact is, we put US soldiers at great risk trying to protect civilians.

 

[Varitek]

This is simply untrue. If the US wanted to carpet bomb the whole country they certainly could. The fact is, we put US soldiers at great risk trying to protect civilians.

Wait a minute. Just because the US isn't carpet bombing, or bombing everyone, doesn't mean they are avoiding civilians as much as they could be. Those things are not mutually exclusive, your statement has no bearing on what ntalwar said.

 

[deep]

If the US wanted to carpet bomb

that is so 70s

we got
shock and awe(some)
now

I won't post pictures of mangled children

 

[AEON]

Wait a minute. Just because the US isn't carpet bombing, or bombing everyone, doesn't mean they are avoiding civilians as much as they could be. Those things are not mutually exclusive, your statement has no bearing on what ntalwar said.

The US military goes to near extreme measures to safeguard civilians, which is tremdously difficult in asymmetric warfare, and something almost unprcedented in modern battles.

Although I must concede, because I am currently an Infantry officer in a company that suffered quite a few casualties protecting a neighborhood of civilians - I may be a bit biased.

 

[deep]

Although I must concede, because I am currently an Infantry officer in a company that suffered quite a few casualties protecting a neighborhood of civilians - I may be a bit biased.

I can understand your "bias", and I am not sure I would even label it that.

I believe you and your friends have been given an impossible task.


What are "you" protecting Iraqis from?

Is any one that is not an Iraqi male "civilian"
or should I ask are unknown Iraqi males deemed to a great risk to you and your men?

I believe Iraqis are capable of rooting out terrorists and bombers themselves.

That is what turned the tide in Al Anbar province.

The information in the article below causes me to believe that a large, long term American presence in Iraq contributes to the problem.

Saudis' role in Iraq insurgency outlined

Sunni extremists from Saudi Arabia make up half the foreign fighters in Iraq, many suicide bombers, a U.S. official says.

By Ned Parker
Times Staff Writer

July 15, 2007

BAGHDAD — Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.

About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.

Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.

He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.

The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally that at best has not been able to prevent its citizens from undertaking bloody attacks in Iraq, and at worst shares complicity in sending extremists to commit attacks against U.S. forces, Iraqi civilians and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.

The problem casts a spotlight on the tangled web of alliances and enmities that underlie the political relations between Muslim nations and the U.S.

Complicated past

In the 1980s, the Saudi intelligence service sponsored Sunni Muslim fighters for the U.S.-backed Afghan mujahedin battling Soviet troops in Afghanistan. At the time, Saudi intelligence cultivated another man helping the Afghan fighters, Osama bin Laden, the future leader of Al Qaeda who would one day turn against the Saudi royal family and mastermind the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Indeed, Saudi Arabia has long been a source of a good portion of the money and manpower for Al Qaeda: 15 of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks were Saudi.

Now, a group that calls itself Al Qaeda in Iraq is the greatest short-term threat to Iraq's security, U.S. military spokesman Brig. Gen. Kevin Bergner said Wednesday.

The group, one of several Sunni Muslim insurgent groups operating in Baghdad and beyond, relies on foreigners to carry out suicide attacks because Iraqis are less likely to undertake such strikes, which the movement hopes will provoke sectarian violence, Bergner said. Despite its name, the extent of the group's links to Bin Laden's network, based along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier, is unclear.

The Saudi government does not dispute that some of its youths are ending up as suicide bombers in Iraq, but says it has done everything it can to stop the bloodshed.

"Saudis are actually being misused. Someone is helping them come to Iraq. Someone is helping them inside Iraq. Someone is recruiting them to be suicide bombers. We have no idea who these people are. We aren't getting any formal information from the Iraqi government," said Gen. Mansour Turki, spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry.

"If we get good feedback from the Iraqi government about Saudis being arrested in Iraq, probably we can help," he said.

Defenders of Saudi Arabia pointed out that it has sought to control its lengthy border with Iraq and has fought a bruising domestic war against Al Qaeda since Sept. 11.

"To suggest they've done nothing to stem the flow of people into Iraq is wrong," said a U.S. intelligence official in Washington, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "People do get across that border. You can always ask, 'Could more be done?' But what are they supposed to do, post a guard every 15 or 20 paces?"

Deep suspicions

Others contend that Saudi Arabia is allowing fighters sympathetic to Al Qaeda to go to Iraq so they won't create havoc at home.

Iraqi Shiite lawmaker Sami Askari, an advisor to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, accused Saudi officials of a deliberate policy to sow chaos in Baghdad.

"The fact of the matter is that Saudi Arabia has strong intelligence resources, and it would be hard to think that they are not aware of what is going on," he said.

Askari also alleged that imams at Saudi mosques call for jihad, or holy war, against Iraq's Shiites and that the government had funded groups causing unrest in Iraq's largely Shiite south. Sunni extremists regard Shiites as unbelievers.

Other Iraqi officials said that though they believed Saudi Arabia, a Sunni fundamentalist regime, had no interest in helping Shiite-ruled Iraq, it was not helping militants either. But some Iraqi Shiite leaders say the Saudi royal family sees the Baghdad government as a proxy for its regional rival, Shiite-ruled Iran, and wants to unseat it.

there is an endless supply of these people

They were not in Iraq until we created targets for them

The Iraqis, just like the Saudis are able to squash these people when they pop up, all that has to happen is we need to let them take care of it for themselves.

 

[AEON]

I can understand your "bias", and I am not sure I would even label it that.

I believe you and your friends have been given an impossible task.


What are "you" protecting Iraqis from?

Is any one that is not an Iraqi male "civilian"
or should I ask are unknown Iraqi males deemed to a great risk to you and your men?

I believe Iraqis are capable of rooting out terrorists and bombers themselves.

That is what turned the tide in Al Anbar province.

The information in the article below causes me to believe that a large, long term American presence in Iraq contributes to the problem.



there is an endless supply of these people

They were not in Iraq until we created targets for them

The Iraqis, just like the Saudis are able to squash these people when they pop up, all that has to happen is we need to let them take care of it for themselves.

I agree that the Saudi problem presents a difficult challenge.

 

[Irvine511]

The US military goes to near extreme measures to safeguard civilians, which is tremdously difficult in asymmetric warfare, and something almost unprcedented in modern battles.

Although I must concede, because I am currently an Infantry officer in a company that suffered quite a few casualties protecting a neighborhood of civilians - I may be a bit biased.

i think this is true. i really do, and have defended the individual operations of US soldiers in the past (things like Abu Ghraib aside).

however, the overall mission has unleashed centuries old ethnic hatreds that has killed more Iraqis than any carpet bombing campaign could ever hope to.

it's an awful, awful situation.

 

[ntalwar]

I don't consider using white phosphorus in Fallujah to be civilian-friendly. That stuff is a chemical weapon that melts flesh.

 

[Irvine511]

I don't consider using white phosphorus in Fallujah to be civilian-friendly. That stuff is a chemical weapon that melts flesh.

if you search, there was a lengthy thread on this a few years ago, i think i started it because i was quite distressed at the reports coming out of Fallujah that were being made by an Italian news documentary. i believe it was inconclusive as to the army's use of it, and it does seem to have a legitimate battlefield purpose -- illumination.

regardless, things like this do little to convince those that need to be convinced that the US isn't a neo-colonial occupying power.

unless we are. i don't want us to be, but those who elected the present administration certainly have a lot to answer for.

 

[deep]

The President does look pretty cool

Man in Black

and he really showed courage going into Iraq

how can we not support the troops now

 

[Irvine511]

i'm almost ashamed of the hot flash of anger that shot through my body when i saw that picture.

i wish i could be more clearheaded when it comes to that man, but it's hard.

 

[joyfulgirl]

I just saw "No End in Sight."

Not impressed by the photo op.

 

[Irvine511]

^ looking forward to it, will probably try to see it this week

 

[joyfulgirl]

The total lack of competence that is exposed is absolutely staggering.

Everyone should see it. Probably the most important film on Iraq to date. Unlike, say, a Michael Moore documentary, you really walk away feeling like everything you just saw and heard was the truth because of the credibility of the people telling their stories. It's not really a political film either--it's not about Republicans vs. Democrats. It's just simply high level people's accounts of what actually happened when the US invaded Iraq.

 

[kellyahern]

i'm almost ashamed of the hot flash of anger that shot through my body when i saw that picture.

i wish i could be more clearheaded when it comes to that man, but it's hard.

Did you see Keith Oberman tonight? I find he does a good job of channeling my flashes of anger.

http://thenewshole.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/09/04/344229.aspx

 

[anitram]

The total lack of competence that is exposed is absolutely staggering.

Everyone should see it. Probably the most important film on Iraq to date.

Have you seen Iraq For Sale?

 

[joyfulgirl]

Have you seen Iraq For Sale?

Not yet. It's in my Netflix queue. I think it's also airing on one of the cable stations but I keep missing it. I will definitely see it.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

Experts Doubt Drop In Violence in Iraq
Military Statistics Called Into Question

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 6, 2007; A16

The U.S. military's claim that violence has decreased sharply in Iraq in recent months has come under scrutiny from many experts within and outside the government, who contend that some of the underlying statistics are questionable and selectively ignore negative trends.

Reductions in violence form the centerpiece of the Bush administration's claim that its war strategy is working. In congressional testimony Monday, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to cite a 75 percent decrease in sectarian attacks. According to senior U.S. military officials in Baghdad, overall attacks in Iraq were down to 960 a week in August, compared with 1,700 a week in June, and civilian casualties had fallen 17 percent between December 2006 and last month. Unofficial Iraqi figures show a similar decrease.

Others who have looked at the full range of U.S. government statistics on violence, however, accuse the military of cherry-picking positive indicators and caution that the numbers -- most of which are classified -- are often confusing and contradictory. "Let's just say that there are several different sources within the administration on violence, and those sources do not agree," Comptroller General David Walker told Congress on Tuesday in releasing a new Government Accountability Office report on Iraq.

Senior U.S. officers in Baghdad disputed the accuracy and conclusions of the largely negative GAO report, which they said had adopted a flawed counting methodology used by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Many of those conclusions were also reflected in last month's pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

The intelligence community has its own problems with military calculations. Intelligence analysts computing aggregate levels of violence against civilians for the NIE puzzled over how the military designated attacks as combat, sectarian or criminal, according to one senior intelligence official in Washington. "If a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian," the official said. "If it went through the front, it's criminal."

"Depending on which numbers you pick," he said, "you get a different outcome." Analysts found "trend lines . . . going in different directions" compared with previous years, when numbers in different categories varied widely but trended in the same direction. "It began to look like spaghetti."

Among the most worrisome trends cited by the NIE was escalating warfare between rival Shiite militias in southern Iraq that has consumed the port city of Basra and resulted last month in the assassination of two southern provincial governors. According to a spokesman for the Baghdad headquarters of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), those attacks are not included in the military's statistics. "Given a lack of capability to accurately track Shiite-on-Shiite and Sunni-on-Sunni violence, except in certain instances," the spokesman said, "we do not track this data to any significant degree."

Attacks by U.S.-allied Sunni tribesmen -- recruited to battle Iraqis allied with al-Qaeda -- are also excluded from the U.S. military's calculation of violence levels.

The administration has not given up trying to demonstrate that Iraq is moving toward political reconciliation. Testifying with Petraeus next week, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker is expected to report that top Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders agreed last month to work together on key legislation demanded by Congress. If all goes as U.S. officials hope, Crocker will also be able to point to a visit today to the Sunni stronghold of Anbar province by ministers in the Shiite-dominated government -- perhaps including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq policy. The ministers plan to hand Anbar's governor $70 million in new development funds, the official said.

But most of the administration's case will rest on security data, according to military, intelligence and diplomatic officials who would not speak on the record before the Petraeus-Crocker testimony. Several Republican and Democratic lawmakers who were offered military statistics during Baghdad visits in August said they had been convinced that Bush's new strategy, and the 162,000 troops carrying it out, has produced enough results to merit more time.

Challenges to how military and intelligence statistics are tallied and used have been a staple of the Iraq war. In its December 2006 report, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group identified "significant underreporting of violence," noting that "a murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the sources of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the data base." The report concluded that "good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals."

Recent estimates by the media, outside groups and some government agencies have called the military's findings into question. The Associated Press last week counted 1,809 civilian deaths in August, making it the highest monthly total this year, with 27,564 civilians killed overall since the AP began collecting data in April 2005.

The GAO report found that "average number of daily attacks against civilians have remained unchanged from February to July 2007," a conclusion that the military said was skewed because it did not include dramatic, up-to-date information from August.

Juan R.I. Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan who is critical of U.S. policy, said that most independent counts "do not agree with Pentagon estimates about drops in civilian deaths."

In a letter last week to the leadership of both parties, a group of influential academics and former Clinton administration officials called on Congress to examine "the exact nature and methodology that is being used to track the security situation in Iraq and specifically the assertions that sectarian violence is down."

The controversy centers as much on what is counted -- attacks on civilians vs. attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops, numbers of attacks vs. numbers of casualties, sectarian vs. intra-sect battles, daily numbers vs. monthly averages -- as on the numbers themselves.

The military stopped releasing statistics on civilian deaths in late 2005, saying the news media were taking them out of context. In an e-mailed response to questions last weekend, an MNF-I spokesman said that while trends were favorable, "exact monthly figures cannot be provided" for attacks against civilians or other categories of violence in 2006 or 2007, either in Baghdad or for the country overall. "MNF-I makes every attempt to ensure it captures the most comprehensive, accurate, and valid data on civilian and sectarian deaths," the spokesman wrote. "However, there is not one central place for data or information. . . . This means there can be variations when different organizations examine this information."

In a follow-up message yesterday, the spokesman said that the non-release policy had been changed this week but that the numbers were still being put "in the right context."

Attacks labeled "sectarian" are among the few statistics the military has consistently published in recent years, although the totals are regularly recalculated. The number of monthly "sectarian murders and incidents" in the last six months of 2006, listed in the Pentagon's quarterly Iraq report published in June, was substantially higher each month than in the Pentagon's March report. MNF-I said that "reports from un-reported/not-yet-reported past incidences as well as clarification/corrections on reports already received" are "likely to contribute to changes."

When Petraeus told an Australian newspaper last week that sectarian attacks had decreased 75 percent "since last year," the statistic was quickly e-mailed to U.S. journalists in a White House fact sheet. Asked for detail, MNF-I said that "last year" referred to December 2006, when attacks spiked to more than 1,600.

By March, however -- before U.S. troop strength was increased under Bush's strategy -- the number had dropped to 600, only slightly less than in the same month last year. That is about where it has remained in 2007, with what MNF-I said was a slight increase in April and May "but trending back down in June-July."

Petraeus's spokesman, Col. Steven A. Boylan, said he was certain that Petraeus had made a comparison with December in the interview with the Australian paper, which did not publish a direct Petraeus quote. No qualifier appeared in the White House fact sheet.

When a member of the National Intelligence Council visited Baghdad this summer to review a draft of the intelligence estimate on Iraq, Petraeus argued that its negative judgments did not reflect recent improvements. At least one new sentence was added to the final version, noting that "overall attack levels across Iraq have fallen during seven of the last nine weeks."

A senior military intelligence official in Baghdad deemed it "odd" that "marginal" security improvements were reflected in an estimate assessing the previous seven months and projecting the next six to 12 months. He attributed the change to a desire to provide Petraeus with ammunition for his congressional testimony.

The intelligence official in Washington, however, described the Baghdad consultation as standard in the NIE drafting process and said that the "new information" did not change the estimate's conclusions. The overall assessment was that the security situation in Iraq since January "was still getting worse," he said, "but not as fast.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

So glad to know we're "kicking ass", and that our President is so willing to verbalize it in such a manner.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — When President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq last weekend, he made clear he was pleased with what he saw.

"The security situation is changing," Bush told reporters during the visit. "There's more work to be done. But reconciliation is taking place."

But according to the Sydney Morning Herald of Australia, the president gave a more-to-the-point assessment to Australia Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile.

"We're kicking ass," Bush said to Vaile Tuesday, according the Herald, after the deputy prime minister inquired about his trip to Iraq.

On Thursday, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino would not confirm or deny the reported comment.

 

[trevster2k]

^ this government would never handpick information to suit their views and conclusions. Never, ever, they are honourable people. [end of sarcasm]


http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/09/07/bush-slips.html

More on the walking doofus in Australia who sadly wears the badge of leader of the free world, not my leader though.