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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Aug 14, 2007 - 05:54pm PT
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I never seem get a "clear" answer to why we play into OBL's hands....
drip, drip
Mayday style edit: Ike warned us about the MIC.
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Matt
Trad climber
always on the lookout for ed's 5.10 OW van
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Aug 14, 2007 - 06:02pm PT
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I'd say it's getting better when tribal leaders are cooperating with U.S./Iraqi patrols to point out 'foreigners' in their towns who are stirring up $hit
you don't get it
then when you are not there anymore, players whose long term interests are there will have all the opportunity for influence they could want, so you have all the power in the world, for as long as you are willing to keep your whole army over there...
nobody said that having an army in iraq won't accomplish anything day to day, but there have always been ares where we have had successes there, and they always revert back to troublesome spots as soon as our forces are focused elsewhere.
people can decide to cooperate while you have more guns in their town then this militia or that, but if you think it's going to actually change anything, go take a peek at what's going on in afganistan.
oh, and 'foreginers', or AQ, that is a spectacular myth, and apparently it's mostly saudis, not iranians or syrians or palestinians, funny, that's who was on the planes too (so they tell us anyway), and we haven't even mentioned how their interests come into play, especially w/ the rumored depletion of their oil reserves.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 14, 2007 - 06:27pm PT
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Matt, alot of your post is based on the assumption that Iraqi Army/Police won't be able to control things. I guess that remains to be seen.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 14, 2007 - 06:39pm PT
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It's been YEARS Bluering. What's going to make the Iraqi police/army effective all of a sudden? We've made training them a high priority from Day One.
They're loyalty will be to clan, sect and tribe. Once we're gone, they join their respective sides. That's it!
Peace
Karl
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Matt
Trad climber
always on the lookout for ed's 5.10 OW van
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Aug 14, 2007 - 08:00pm PT
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jesus blueguy, what planet have you been living on?
i stipulate that i am assuming certain things about the iraqi security forces, and will you do the same?
for example:
i assume they are easily infiltrated by sectarian militias
i assume that most iraqis will choose sides upon sectarian lines in areas where there is much violence or other forces of intimidation or threats to security exist
i assume many iraqis have an axe to grind in the post sadam era
i assume many iraqis will eventually align themselves with whomever offers them the best prospects for security and prosperity in the mid and long terms
i assume most iraqis have more hatred for their enemies than they do love for americans (and that even goes for those iraqis who have little hatred for their enemies).
and you blue-
what do you assume?
do you assume that most iraqis want a united and peaceful iraq, were US corporations are free to explore and extract oil resources?
do you assume that most suni/shia would rather get along than get even?
do ou assume that iran/saudi/turkey/syria are collectively and individually more, or less influential than the american army?
do you assume that there is any way to prevent free movement of foreign supported troops or militias across iraqs borders (especially considering that we have no resources to engage any of iraq's neighbors and are left w/ only air strikes or empty threats as deterrents)
EDIT-
does this report support your side of the gument, or mine? or neither?
as i read it, the british felt they could 'stand down' as they had 'pacified' the southern areas where bush and blair agreed to let them serve (largely, if you recall, because that was expected to be an easier area to deal with, and bush gave blair that area in return for blair givin bush 30K troops to make it seem like an international effort), and now as they try to pass it off, they find they have not really changed a thing. what's your take? that we should "stay the course"?
Wrong Way Out of Iraq
The New York Times | Editorial
Monday 13 August 2007
As Americans argue about how to bring the troops home from Iraq, British forces are already partway out the door. Four years ago, there were some 30,000 British ground troops in southern Iraq. By the end of this summer, there will be 5,000. None will be based in urban areas. Those who remain will instead be quartered at an airbase outside Basra. Rather than trying to calm Iraq's civil war, their main mission will be training Iraqis to take over security responsibilities, while doing limited counterinsurgency operations.
That closely follows the script some Americans now advocate for American forces in Iraq: reduce the numbers - and urban exposure - but still maintain a significant presence for the next several years. It's a tempting formula, reaping domestic political credit for withdrawal without acknowledging that the mission has failed.
If anyone outside the White House truly believes this can work - that the United States can simply stay in Iraq in reduced numbers, while ignoring the civil war and expecting Iraqi forces to impose order- the British experience demonstrates otherwise. There simply aren't reliable, effective and impartial Iraqi forces ready to keep the cities safe, nor are they likely to exist any time soon. And insurgents are not going to stop attacking Americans just because the Americans announce that they're out of the fight.
In Basra - after four years of British tutelage - police forces are infiltrated by sectarian militias. The British departure will cede huge areas to criminal gangs and rival Shiite militias. Without Iraqis capable of taking over, the phased drawdown of British troops has turned ugly. The remaining British troops hunkered down in the city at Basra Palace are under fire from all directions. Those at the airbase are regularly bombarded.
And Basra should be easier than Baghdad. Most of the population is Shiite, and neither Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia nor other Sunni insurgent groups have a significant presence. Elsewhere in Iraq, where internal rivalries are overshadowed by the Sunni insurgency, sectarian civil war and rampant ethnic cleansing, a reduced American force might find itself in an even worse predicament. The clear lesson of the British experience is that going partway is not a realistic option.
The United States cannot walk away from the new international terrorist front it created in Iraq. It will need to keep sufficient forces and staging points in the region to strike effectively against terrorist sanctuaries there or a Qaeda bid to hijack control of a strife-torn Iraq.
But there should be no illusions about trying to continue the war on a reduced scale. It is folly to expect a smaller American force to do in a short time what a much larger force could not do over a very long time. That's exactly what the British are now trying to do. And the results are painfully plain to see.
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Matt
Trad climber
always on the lookout for ed's 5.10 OW van
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Aug 14, 2007 - 08:37pm PT
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news of pacification:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20250066
be sure to scroll down and see it all!
lots of neighborly love goin on!
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 14, 2007 - 10:42pm PT
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Don't be such a pessimist Mattly! After all, the increased violence just shows the surge is working.
After all, those 175 killed in Suicide bombings were up in the North which used to be peaceful. That proves we've smoked Al Queda out of their usual spots. Hundreds of injured too and that's just in the one spot.
And we did drop 40,000 pound of bombs from the sky against an Al Queda training camp. I hear we even got 3 or 4 guys who we're told weren't civilians! I don't know if we can count destroying the 3 or 4 boobytrapped houses.
Yeah, 9 of our guys got killed today but who knows 5 were in a chopper and maybe it just failed on it's own.
Yes, I guess we could admit that an important government official was kidnapped by guys dressed as security guards but who cares? Those Iraqi politicians aren't getting anything done anyway.
"David" has to be seeing this hornet's nest and thinking "wow, the surge is working. People are getting killed in new areas in great numbers. THat means we have em on the run!"
;-)
It's easy to rah rah the war, but think about it. Would you go if you were the age and free from obligations at home? Really?
Peace
Karl
Edit:
note that these MSM articles focus almost entirely on Al Queda as the enemy whereas folks calling themselves Al Queda comprise 10-15% of the insurgency. Again, we are being mislead to think that we are fighting the guys who attacked us on 9-11 when there is zero truth to that. Even the Al Queda in Iraq are mostly guys who joined an offshoot of Al Queda when inspired to do so by the American Invasion of Iraq.
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Matt
Trad climber
always on the lookout for ed's 5.10 OW van
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Aug 15, 2007 - 04:29pm PT
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the real questions we all have to face up to are these:
can we change iraq?
can we make a difference now, and if so how long will it take?
and unfortunately-
can we believe anything that the bush administration tells us about iraq (or anything else)?
i think even republicans and conservatives have got to agree that the bush people have taken "spin" to a whole new level, sometimes based upon "nationsl security interests", other times based on their vastly extended version of "executive privilege", but there are few reasons to expect them to be frank with the american people.
we would all love to be successful in iraq, we would all like to leave a happy and safe country, but history (recent and more distant alike) is not on our side, and never was.
the ugly and unfortunate truth is that america is responsible for much of the hatred for america in that region (google shaw of iran, iran/iraq war, or saddam and rumsfeld, just for starters). it may have been possible to to a better job in iraq, and perhaps w/ better planning and a more international and cooperative approach, a more peaceful iraq might have been a possibility, but we cannot go back now and redo what we failed to do or what we did so very very poorly, and we are where we are.
for bush to now say that the costs of failure in iraqare 'unacceptable' (and therefore we need to "stay the course"), does not in any way create the opportunity for 'success' (or the current version of whatever they are now telling us that word means), and really only highlights the question of why We did not make a greater effort to maximize our chances of success and include the rest of the world in our planning (we are clearly all the victims of a few well known bushco neocon idealogues in this case, who can deny that? do you still want to blame it on france?).
as far as the successes reported from our recent escalation of targeted offensive military action, i and others would argue that whatever we gain over here we loose over there, and whatever we do manage to build will in no way be permanent. many posts in this thread mention the progress in getting some sunis to become at least temporarily cooperative with the US army, but as the article below points out, that only serves to upset and piss of the shia, who by the way have made great strides in killing or evicting most of the suni who once were the majority of the population in bagdad.
sometimes a train wreck is just a train wreck.
so yes, we f*#ked this all up, and yes, it's on us to do what we can to make it better, but that does not mean that we can do anything to make it better, or that having our army there makes it any better.
here are some more "reports from iraq"
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/18927.html
BAGHDAD — Despite U.S. claims that violence is down in the Iraqi capital, U.S. military officers are offering a bleak picture of Iraq’s future, saying they’ve yet to see any signs of reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite Muslims despite the drop in violence.
Without reconciliation, the military officers say, any decline in violence will be temporary and bloodshed could return to previous levels as soon as the U.S. military cuts back its campaign against insurgent attacks.
That downbeat assessment comes despite a buildup of U.S. troops that began five months ago Wednesday and has seen U.S. casualties reach the highest sustained levels since the United States invaded Iraq nearly four and a half years ago.
Violence remains endemic, with truck bombs on Tuesday claiming as many as 175 lives in northern Iraq and destroying a key bridge near Baghdad, the first successful bridge attack since June.
And while top U.S. officials insist that 50 percent of the capital is now under effective U.S. or government control, compared with 8 percent in February, statistics indicate that the improvement in violence is at best mixed.
U.S. officials say the number of civilian casualties in the Iraqi capital is down 50 percent. But U.S. officials declined to provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don't support the claim.
The number of car bombings in July actually was 5 percent higher than the number recorded last December, according to the McClatchy statistics, and the number of civilians killed in explosions is about the same.
How long the U.S. will be willing to maintain its military commitment without any sign of progress on the political front will be a key question for Congress and the administration in September, when the U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David Petraeus, is required to provide his assessment of the situation.
“If we can’t have political reform that can precede more rapidly than has been the case already,” said Col. Toby Green, the operation officer for the U.S. command in Baghdad, “then there is always the possibility that we won’t realize what can be.”
When President Bush announced plans to increase U.S. troop strength in Iraq to help calm Baghdad, U.S. officials had hoped that any decrease in violence would lead to greater willingness from Shiite and Sunni political leaders to reach an accommodation.
But that hasn’t happened. Sunnis have accused the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki of making no effort to stop Shiite militias from forcing Sunnis from their homes. Sunni ministers have withdrawn from the government in protest.
In the meantime, the most touted success of the campaign — an alliance between U.S. forces and some Sunni insurgent groups against al Qaida in Iraq — has angered many in the Maliki government, who accuse the United States of supporting groups that could ultimately turn against the government.
Former Sunni insurgents and tribal leaders will expect some kind of payoff for having turned on al Qaida, said Lt. Col. Richard Welch, who works primarily with Sunni tribal leaders and has negotiated with insurgents. Maliki’s government, however, has been hesitant to grant concessions, he said.
“Reconciliation is a goal, it’s a process, it’s the end result of what we’d like to see, but it could take generations — and that is if people were serious about it,” Welch said. Welch said it took him two weeks to persuade the government to agree to incorporate more than 1,700 Sunni fighters into Interior Ministry forces in the western Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib after they’d turned against al Qaida.
He also said the Shiite government’s inability to deliver services to Sunni neighborhoods is a problem.
“Politically there is still corruption and sectarianism in some of the police security forces,” Welch said. “Politically, the government doesn’t seem to be able effectively to deliver services in a way that dramatically improves their situation.”
Welch said he remains concerned about whether the government will be willing to take steps to resolve a number of political issues when parliament returns from its August recess.
“Are they going to be ready to tackle the hard issues?” he said.
Military officers serving in Iraq say much of the difficulties they're encountering are owed to mistakes that U.S. officials made in the early years of the war when the Coalition Provisional Authority dissolved the Iraqi army and banned many members of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist party from serving in government.
The actions drove many of those affected into resistance groups against the new government and U.S. forces.
“I think we tried to build the house before we built the foundation,” Welch said, adding that the current U.S. strategy is “four years overdue.”
U.S. officials have said that the new security plan needs time to work. But many have expressed disappointment at the continued sectarian violence.
The military has been trying to stanch that violence by building walls between neighborhoods and around potential bombing targets. But bombings and sectarian violence still take place.
The number of Iraqis killed in attacks changed only marginally in July when compared with December — down seven, from 361 to 354, according to McClatchy statistics.
No pattern of improvement is discernible for violence during the five months of the surge. In January, the last full month before the surge began, 438 people were killed in the capital in bombings. In February, that number jumped to 520. It declined in March to 323, but jumped again in April, to 414.
Violence remained virtually unchanged in May, when 404 were killed. The lowest total came in June, the first month U.S. officials said all the new American troops were in place, with just 190 dead, but then swung back up in July, with 354 dead.
One bright spot has been the reduction in the number of bodies found on the streets, considered a sign of sectarian violence. That number was 44 percent lower in July, compared to December. In July, the average body count per day was 18.6, compared with 33.2 in December, two months before the surge.
But the reason for that decline isn't clear. Some military officers believe that it may be an indication that ethnic cleansing has been completed in many neighborhoods and that there aren’t as many people to kill.
One officer noted that U.S. officials believe Baghdad once had a population that was 65 percent Sunni. The current U.S. estimate is that Shiites now make up 75 percent to 80 percent of the city.
Whatever the rate of violence, however, military officers believe that military progress will last only if there’s political reconciliation.
Lt. Col. Douglas Ollivant, a planner for the U.S. military command in Baghdad, described the current strategy as “emergency medicine.”
The military is “putting on tourniquets, things that are going to leave scars and are messy and we know that,” he said. But ultimately the healing has to come from the Iraqi government.
“Baghdad is to Iraq what Paris is to France,” he said. “You change Baghdad, you change Iraq.”
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 15, 2007 - 07:57pm PT
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Matt, you, as I am, will be happy to learn that Petraeus says he'll prolly draw down troop levels in the Sept report.
Nasty suicide bombing in the news today though...savages.
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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Aug 15, 2007 - 08:10pm PT
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And here I heard we were "in Iraq for decades" on the news today...
Jerking off to Shock and Awe.....savages.
Imagine 24 hours of "precision" bombing of say, Chicago... that's about the same size as Baghdad...meanwhile OBL is laughing his azz off in a cave 6000 miles away.
JDAM style edit: How many "nasty suicides" will it take (to declare it a civil war)?
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Matt
Trad climber
always on the lookout for ed's 5.10 OW van
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Aug 15, 2007 - 08:32pm PT
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blue-
many reports are now closer to 500 dead and 300 injured, let's wait and see what happens to that # as the spin/ damage control falters:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20070815/wl_time/thesurgesshortshelflife
regarding the draw down of troops, i read an AP article earlier (since updated w/ a shorter version) which stated that a troop reduction is not exactly what will come, it's just how it's being spun. 1st off, what they are going to be talking about is redeploying the additional "surge" troops, but the article said they are unlikely to send those troops home, they will just use them differently, possibly as a strike force of some kind. the same article, near the end, actually said that patraeus won't be writing "his report", but instead the white house will write it.
regarding all the "news" you get from the site posted to start this thread, here is a source that gives real information, rather than biased (and i suspect US gov facilitated) propoganda. this is a link to juan cole's archive of august posts, click the 2nd from the top heading to get todays.
http://www.juancole.com/2007_08_01_juanricole_archive.html
(not that you "stay the course"/ sean hannity types are interested in understanding what is happening in the bigger picture, but it does give our various views of the "surge" some perspective if we try to understand regional politics just a bit).
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TGT
Social climber
So Cal
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Aug 15, 2007 - 11:31pm PT
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These bombings had nothing to do with "civil war"
They were the work of non Iraqi nut cases, aimed at a tiny sect with no political, social or miltary influence, with the sole goal to slaughter as many of them as possible because in their koranicly blessed oppinion they were heretics.
They have long professed a heartfelt desire to do the same to you.
Infaedel!
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Matt
Trad climber
always on the lookout for ed's 5.10 OW van
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Aug 16, 2007 - 12:12am PT
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uhhh, yes of course, and you are the expert based on what exactly?
from one of the links i posted (which i seriously doubt TGT even opened):
Bombing of Yazidis;
Summit Fizzles
Local officials in the two villages of of Al-Khataniyah and Al-Adnaniyah in northern Iraq (not far from Mosul) maintained Wednesday morning that 4 car bombs had killed over 200 persons and wounded a similar number. Police were expecting the death toll to rise, since many bodies are in buildings collapsed by the conflagrations. The US military said there were 5 car bombs, and gave a much lower estimate of 60 killed. On this sort of thing, I'd trust the Iraqi figures; they know when their own friends and relatives are missing.
The operation resembled the horrific bombing of the Shiite Turkmen of Armili on July 2. Note that first Shiite Turkmen were targeted and now Kurdish Yazidis. They have in common not being Sunni Arabs. My suspicion is that these bombings are not just an attempt to spread fear and intimidation, but are actually part of a struggle for control of territory. The Sunni Arab guerrillas face powerful challenges from Kurds and Shiites with regard to the future of provinces such as Ninevah, Diyala and Kirkuk. A lot of Kurdish police and troops have been deployed in Mosul not far from Tuesday's bombings, and they are seen as among the deadliest enemies by the Sunni Arab guerrillas. Sooner or later, my guess is that the Sunni Arabs will wage a major war with the Kurds over the oil fields of Kirkuk.
The situation in Iraq is so horrific that merely bad news is drowned out by the truly awful. Thus, on Tuesday, guerrillas bombed a major bridge connecting Taji and Baghdad with the north, throwing several cars into the river and killing some 10 persons. I.e., this is a Minneapolis-scale event. But it will barely get mentioned given the massive bombings of the Yazidis.
10 US troops have been killed in the past two days, including 5 who died in a helicopter crash Tuesday. Ten. That's worth a headline all by itself.
Likewise this story about "US raid on Shi'ite slum sparks anger on streets". It is suspicious that the US military claims never to kill civilians in Sadr City, while the Shiites are always having funeral processions for children.
The Deputy Oil Minister and several of his aides were kidnapped at gun point by 50 men in the uniform of the Iraqi security forces on Tuesday. This incident speaks volumes about the lack of security in Baghdad still, since the deputy oil minister should have had the resources to protect himself. Iraqi sources are claiming that it was an act of criminality (i.e. they are holding him for ransom), but I am skeptical of that claim. I have no counter-evidence, it just does not sound right to me. It is more likely that this operation was a matter of sectarian rivalry or revenge, possibly between Iraqi government ministries.
The reconciliation summit called by President Jalal Talabani appears to have fizzled. According to al-Zaman, the meeting just turned into luncheon with cold cuts, and no serious work was accomplished. The leaders had decided to keep the Sadrists and the Islamic Virtue (Fadhila) Party away, since they are usually unyielding. Sunni VP Tariq al-Hashimi, declined to attend the break-out session. The Sunni Arab figures attending declined to talk politics.
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Aug 16, 2007 - 01:01am PT
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That David P link from Matt was a good catch. They've been telling us that "it's finally working" for years now.
Just the first couple paragraphs
"Battling for Iraq
By David H. Petraeus
Sunday, September 26, 2004; Page B07
BAGHDAD -- Helping organize, train and equip nearly a quarter-million of Iraq's security forces is a daunting task. Doing so in the middle of a tough insurgency increases the challenge enormously, making the mission akin to repairing an aircraft while in flight -- and while being shot at. Now, however, 18 months after entering Iraq, I see tangible progress. Iraqi security elements are being rebuilt from the ground up.
The institutions that oversee them are being reestablished from the top down. And Iraqi leaders are stepping forward, leading their country and their security forces courageously in the face of an enemy that has shown a willingness to do anything to disrupt the establishment of the new Iraq.
In recent months, I have observed thousands of Iraqis in training and then watched as they have conducted numerous operations. Although there have been reverses -- not to mention horrific terrorist attacks -- there has been progress in the effort to enable Iraqis to shoulder more of the load for their own security, something they are keen to do. "
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 16, 2007 - 01:05am PT
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it'll never work...we should just pull out and let them cut each others throats.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Aug 16, 2007 - 01:44am PT
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It effectively "working", and by that I mean keeping ground clear you've gained and not simply abandoning it for the next flashpoint, would require another 300k troops at this point. We still have nowhere remotely near the force levels necessary to retake and secure all the hotspots in just part of Baghdad let alone nationwide. And even if the "surge" were successful in simply clearing and securing a 10 mile perimeter around the GZ (which it has yet to manage) you'd still be ruling like in Afganistan - from a small island within a wilderness of uncotrolled violence. Petraeus will be making a report and recommendations only to the Whitehouse in September, it in turn is writing the official report so you know in advance it will be delusionally self-serving and devoid of objective reality.
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Matt
Trad climber
always on the lookout for ed's 5.10 OW van
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Aug 16, 2007 - 02:29am PT
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we'd just better hope that we don't see an iran vs saudi arabia conflict playing out in iraq (a so-called proxy war fought in he interest of regional superiority).
the likelyhood is that it will get much much worse in iraq before it gets better.
all ya'll (TGT in particular) who still squack about how AQ is the enemy in iraq seem to me to be blind to how bad it could possibly get.
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