The truth about Iraq

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-24-2004
The truth about Iraq
4
Fri, 09-10-2004 - 10:10am
from the soldiers who served there.



http://www.optruth.org/main.cfm

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Fri, 09-10-2004 - 12:08pm
A very interesting and informative site. Thanks, I will bookmark it for the future. Too many articles for one visit and they promise to keep adding.

Here's the final paragraph of an article: Notice the compassion.

I love the United States, the Army and my unit. Out of this deep love, I ask that we as Americans take a long look in the mirror. We must ask ourselves who we are and what we stand for. We as a nation must face the monster we have created in Iraq, sooner rather than later. We must find a way out of the mess in Iraq with minimal loss of American and Iraqi life. We owe it to the soldiers on the ground and the embattled Iraqi people.I love the United States, the Army and my unit. Out of this deep love, I ask that we as Americans take a long look in the mirror. We must ask ourselves who we are and what we stand for. We as a nation must face the monster we have created in Iraq, sooner rather than later. We must find a way out of the mess in Iraq with minimal loss of American and Iraqi life. We owe it to the soldiers on the ground and the embattled Iraqi people.

http://www.optruth.org/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=hear&htmlId=1125

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 09-10-2004 - 12:54pm

Interesting insights into what's going on in Iraq.


Going about our daily lives we have not been asked to sacrifice anything. In fact many have greatly profited during this period. Yet the military are risking their lives for a pittance.


I read about half the personal stories, will read the remainder later. Thanks for posting.

cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Mon, 09-13-2004 - 5:18pm
Will GWB keep this quiet until after the election?

Iraq Spins Out of Control

By David Sirota, Christy Harvey and Judd Legum, Center for American Progress. Posted September 13, 2004.

The mission in Iraq is far, far from accomplished.

A surge in deadly violence this weekend brought the bloodiest day in Iraq in recent months; suicide bombings, mortar fire and fierce battles between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi security forces, including a firefight between an Iraqi crowd and a U.S. helicopter crew, killed dozens, leaving even more injured. Attacks against U.S. forces now average 87 per day, the worst monthly average, reports Newsweek, "since Bush's flight-suited visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln in May 2003." Casualty figures keep escalating: the U.S. death toll passed 1,000 last week and over 7,000 have been wounded. Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted this weekend, "We did miscalculate the difficulty" of winning the peace in Iraq.

In a significant setback for U.S. efforts in Iraq, Fallujah, one of the nation's biggest cities, is now entirely under the control of rebel insurgents. This weekend, the Iraqi military force put in place in the explosive city by the Marines disbanded. There is strong evidence that many members have been working with insurgents against the U.S. forces that provided them with weapons and paychecks. Last April, the White House withdrew Marine troops from the city, hoping the newly created Brigade would work with the Iraqi government to fight the insurgency. The city quickly fell under the control of the insurgents, as many in the Brigade openly joined the rebel forces against the United States. Today, the city is a safe haven for insurgents, a place to "take refuge, plot attacks and run manufacturing centers for car bombs and other explosives."

Lt. Gen. James Conway, the outgoing U.S. Marine Corps general in charge of western Iraq, said yesterday that he had disagreed with the hasty order that sent his troops to invade Fallujah in April as well as the subsequent decision to withdraw from the city and turn over control to the disloyal Brigade. Conway said the disastrous assault increased tensions while making the region more hostile to U.S. forces: "We felt like we had a method that we wanted to apply to Fallujah, that we ought to probably let the situation settle before we appeared to be attacking out of revenge." Instead, higher ups insisted on the attack, and then demanded troops pull out when the fighting grew fierce: "I would simply say that when you order elements of a Marine division to attack a city, you really need to understand the consequences of that, and not, perhaps, vacillate in the middle of that. Once you commit to do that, you have to stay committed." Marine Col. Jerry Durrant agrees: "The whole Fallujah Brigade thing was a fiasco."

Nineteen months after the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has failed to achieve significant reconstruction, contributing to the ongoing frustrations of the Iraqi people. According to Bathsheba Crocker, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, when it comes to economic opportunity, services, and social well-being, "Iraq is actually moving backward." The Los Angeles Times reports the job of restoring electricity to war-torn Iraq is "steeped in errors and misjudgment." Electricity for Iraqis was central to White House reconstruction plans, but today, Iraq's largest source of electricity, the Baiji power plant, "produces less than half the electricity it generated" two years ago. Why is the country still in the dark? Lack of planning, inconsistent leadership and an over-reliance on private contractors. The Bush administration "vastly underestimated the time, money and effort needed to restore the country's power grid." It's indicative of the failures of the entire reconstruction process, still marked by "tainted water supplies, limited sewage treatment and curtailed construction of public buildings." The ongoing failure has dire ramifications for the unstable security situation, producing "a deep reservoir of confusion and anger that feeds the country's deadly insurgency."

The increased violence has serious ramifications for the scheduled elections. "We're dealing with a population that hovers between bare tolerance and outright hostility," says a senior U.S. diplomat in Baghdad. "This idea of a functioning democracy here is crazy. We thought that there would be a reprieve after sovereignty, but all hell is breaking loose." The Bush White House is blithely insisting elections will occur in January as planned. Security concerns, however, have left others less confident. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated this weekend on Meet the Press that "It would be lovely if they took place in January, but I sure don't see it." Iraqi officials are also increasingly skeptical. One senior Iraqi official told Newsweek, "I'm convinced that it's not going to happen. It's just not realistic. How is it going to happen?" Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari echoed that thought, saying, "The timetable really depends at the end of the day on the security situation."

Some worry that the Bush administration, desperate to avoid the appearance of yet another setback, will stick to the schedule despite ongoing problems. Ghassan Atiyya, director of the independent Iraq Foundation for Development and Democracy, warns, "Badly prepared elections, rather than healing wounds, will open them."

http://alternet.org/waroniraq/19865/


iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Mon, 09-13-2004 - 5:27pm
The conflict in Baghdad made the regular news, but what about the other cities?

Monday, September 13, 2004

Bloody Sunday:

110 Dead in Iraq, 200 Wounded

The Iraqi Guerrilla War erupted into a spectacular set of conflagrations on Sunday, according to Reuters' Ibon Villalabeitia, leaving at least 110 dead and, according to AP, some 200 wounded.

Baghdad

At least 7 car bombs shook the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, and guerrillas pounded the Green Zone and the area around it with at least 12 mortar strikes. Mortar shells were also launched at Abu Ghuraib prison and driver tried to get a truckbomb through its gates, but was killed by Marines. The US military and Iraqi National Guards fought a running battle in Haifa Street. The Baghdad fighting took some 37 lives.

A particularly disturbing scenario unfolded at Haifa Street, a hotbed of opposition to US presence in Iraq. The mortar attacks on the Green Zone, which houses the interim Iraqi government and the US embassy, began before dawn. When they continued into the morning, AP says, US troops went in search of the guerrillas, supported by armored vehicles. Then on Haifa Street, guerrillas took out a Bradley fighting vehicle with a car bomb, then sprayed it with machine gun fire and tossed grenades at it. This operation sounds like a well-planned piece of strategy, whereby the US forces were lured to Haifa Street by the mortar fire precisely so that they could be car-bombed and attacked. Two Bradley crewmen were injured by the car bomb, and four in the subsequent attack.

Now you have a burning Bradley fighting vehicle sitting there in the street, and a crowd gathers, many of them boys, to jeer and dance. Some of the young men haul out a banner of the Tawhid and Jihad terrorist group and hang it from a barrel sticking out of the vehicle.

Alarmed that the Bradley would now be looted for weapons and ammunition (and, some reports say, "sensitive equipment"), US troops now call in helicopter gunships. They arrive, but claim they took small arms fire from the area around the burning Bradley.

Now the tragedy unfolds. The helicopters fire repeatedly on the crowd gathered around the Bradley, killing 13 persons and wounding 61. Although some of the killed or wounded may have been guerrillas, it seems obvious that others were just curious little boys from the neighborhood. I am told some of the television footage, which I did not see, suggests that the helicopters fired into a civilian crowd.

In the street were television cameramen and Mazen Tomeizi, a Palestinian producer for the al Arabiya satellite network, He was among those hit by the helicopter fire. Reuters explains:

"The Palestinian died soon afterwards. Reuters cameraman Seif Fouad, recording the scene, was also wounded in the blast.

"I looked at the sky and saw a helicopter at very low altitude," Fouad said. "Just moments later I saw a flash of light from the Apache. Then a strong explosion," he said.

"Mazen's blood was on my camera and face," Fouad said from his hospital bed. He said his friend screamed at him for help: "Seif, Seif! I'm going to die. I'm going to die." '

I don't know if the helicopters actually took fire from the crowd or not. It is plausible, but given that mostly civilians appear to have been struck, it wouldn't be strange if the US side tried to put the best possible face on the matter.

It would also be interesting to know what exactly was in that burning Bradley that was so important it was worth 13 lives and scores of wounded.

On a highway west of Baghdad, guerrillas detonated a car bomb, killing two policemen and a 12 year old boy.

Hilla

Guerrillas in the southern Shiite city of Hilla killed 3 Polish troops and wounded another 3.

Ramadi

In the Sunni Arab heartland, US helicopter gunships and tanks directed their fire at a residential district, killing 10 Iraqis. Local Iraqi health authorities said that the dead and wounded included women and children (as you would expect in an attack on a residential area).


Tal Afar

The US launched a major campaign in Tal Afar against what it says are Sunni Arab fighters, killing 51 persons. In fact, some of those fighting against the US may just be local Shiite Turkmen boys upset about the foreigners coming in. (Some reports indicate that Kurds are fighting alongside the Americans).

Fallujah

Early on Monday, AP reports that US warplanes and artillery fired at Fallujah, killing 9 persons and wounding 12. AP says, "Witnesses said the bombing targeted the city's al-Shurta neighborhood, damaging buildings and raising clouds of black smoke. Ambulances and private cars rushed the injured to hospital. Dr. Adel Khamis of the Fallujah General Hospital said at least nine people were killed, including women and children, and 12 others wounded."

The warplane strike and the helicopter gunship have become prime weapons in the US war against the urban guerrillas. This tactic raises all sorts of moral questions, including whether it is legitimate to fire into a residential area. Saddam Hussein made himself odious by doing just that in Najaf in 1991. I wouldn't have said it was legitimate, but apparently I am one of the few in whom this tactic raises any qualms. I never see the issue reported as such, much less debated, in the US press.

http://www.juancole.com/